Star Trek: Prodigy’s “Mindwalk” was an uneven episode but gave us a few great moments

Star Trek: Prodigy’s latest episode “Mindwalk” was a rare miss but had its highlights.

I’m very high on Star Trek: Prodigy as a show and a brand. It’s a great way to bring kids into the franchise and has done a great job of respecting past lore, integrating it into the show’s ethos, but not allowing it to be solely defined as a nostalgia trip. Shows like Picard and Lower Decks thrive off the nostalgia factor to a near detrimental degree, making past lore their identity.

It may be cheeky fun to always reference a past moment in Star Trek as Lower Decks does, but eventually, that’s all the show is known for. Prodigy has stayed away from that. It’s creating its own identity. It’s an identity that has thrived so far, with not one bad episode to its name.

And while “Mindwalk” wasn’t a great episode, it’s still enjoyable, but it did make me pause a few times. Giving Dal the ability to project his mind on his first try was a bit much. Then there was the whole Dal in Janeway/Janeway in Dal’s body shenanigans that I could’ve done without. Then of course there was the phaser transfer, and if you’ve seen the episode you know what I’m talking about.

That said, this show did deliver where it mattered most.

Star Trek: Prodigy’s “Mindwalk” delivered when it mattered

While the bulk of the episode was over-the-top nonsense, there were a few really amazing scenes that I’m glad we got. Seeing the two Janeways, Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway in Dal’s body meeting the Emergency Command Hologram was a treat, and having the Vice Admiral helping fix the ECM was a moment perfectly done.

But also having Janeway finally meet the kids, and dote over them just like we hoped she would, was a treat. The idea of Janeway providing security and comfort for these kids is exactly what she would’ve done all along, and it was agonizing to see her chase down the heroes of the show.

And while the body-swapping was what it was, they figured out a great way to extend the chase between the two federation ships by having Janeway locked up in the brig at the end of the episode. It left a nice cliffhanger for fans to come back to this week.