The worlds of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek; Prodigy collide.
Star Trek: Prodigy, despite technically being canceled at the moment, released its first look at its second season, and in this first look, the show really dove into celebrating Star Trek: Voyager. The two shows are so tied together that Prodigy is a spiritual sequel of sorts to Voyager. So when we got the first look at the former crew of the Protostar in their new Starfleet uniforms, it was a treat to behold.
Especially with the similarities between the show.
Considering Voyager dealt with bringing a new crew into Starfleet and Prodigy dealing with a group of kids in Starfleet, the two shows have a lot in common. This is why it feels right that they’re going as hard into the Voyageer- appreciation as it is.
That connection is what we’re looking for, as it manifested itself in several Voyager callbacks during this brief, sub-five-minute clip. That’s not to say that it wasn’t great seeing a newly polite Jankom Pog, or Zero’s new and improved suit. Because those changes were impressive.
But that Voyager/Prodigy hook-up matters most. So while the show’s second season will pick up following the events of the first season, we’re pretty sure there was a Doctor Who references thrown in there, we’re most excited about the Voyager cameos and tie-ins we got.
We know where Kathryne Janeway was during the preceding events of Star Trek: Picard.
Taking a detour, Star Trek: Prodigy decided to highlight what was going on with one Admiral Kathryne Janeway during the precursor events of Star Trek: Picard. Not only do we now have a better understanding of when Prodigy took place, but where some of the bigger names of Starfleet were when the evacuation of Romulus was happening.
The Doctor made it clear that Starfleet responded in mass to the issues on Romulus, and with next to no one available, Admiral Janeway filled in as captain of the Voyager II (Voyager-A?). So not only is she set to be the captain of the new Voyager, but she’ll continue overseeing the former crew of the Protostar.
It’s great that she’s back in the captain’s chair, and it’s even greater to hear callbacks and references to the Emergency Training Hologram from season one, a new and beloved fan-favorite character that fans loved to see. Since it was also voiced by Janeway’s actress, Kate Mulgrew, it was hard not to love the ETH.
Janeway also now gets to share the honor of being the captain of a starship while an admiral, something William Shatner’s James T. Kirk got to do in the first part of the Trek film franchise. Thus putting her in pristine company.
The U.S.S Voyager’s commander; Chakotay
While we don’t get to see Robert Beltran’s Chakotay in the sub-five-minute clip, we do get to hear a reference to him. Chakotay, the former first officer of the first Voyager in any capacity, elements of his season one plot picked up in the first look.
Last we saw of Chakotay and the Protostar, the crew landed 52 years into the future on the planet Solum, the same planet that would produce the Diviner. The Diviner was the season one big bad and was also the father of the Protostar’s young Gwendala, who has since returned to Solum 52 years prior to her birth (time travel nonsense).
Before we find out more about Gwen and what’s going on with the younger version of Solum, one where the Diviner had yet to turn into a villain, we find out that Chakotay is on the planet 52 years into the future, and has sent out an SOS transmission that Starfleet received.
A message they received via the wormhole that the Protostar’s destruction in season one created. So while we don’t know the state of Chakotay in the second season of Prodigy, we do know he was alive very recently in the storyline and that the mission on hand may, in fact, be to rescue him from his current situation.
The Doctor
Another reference to Star Trek: Voyager was of course the big debut on the show; the return of the Voyager Doctor, once again played (voiced) by Robert Picardo. The Doctor became many people’s favorite character on Voyager, and his evolution was one of the better long-term arcs the franchise ever did.
Once, just a computer program brought to life by bending light. The Doctors developed things like hobbies, passions, and even romantic feelings.
He debuts on Star Trek: Prodigy by not only revealing that he’s a hologram, something the kids find very fascinating but also introducing himself as Kathryne Janeway’s “dear friend”. And if that wasn’t funny enough, he dubs himself further a “hero of the Delta Quadrant”. While it’s not untrue, you know it’s a bit over-embellished.
The Doctor will once again take over the guiding of young and impressionable minds, as the Doctor served as a sort of father figure for Kes and later Seven of Nine while serving aboard The Voyager, so it’s only fitting that he’ll once again serve as an escort of such to the children, as he takes them to the Voyager II.
While all that is great, the best bit of it wasn’t just the callback to the Doctor but to the series’ first doctor, Leonard McCoy, when he side-steps a bag thrown at him and he calls back that he’s a “doctor, not a butler”.
A similar set of lines made McCoy from the original series a house-hold name.
The Voyager II
Arguably the biggest cameo and/or debut in the clip was that of the Voyager II, a sequel ship to the original USS Voyager, which was featured in the series. That ship was designed to be a fast science vessel, perhaps faster than anything Starfleet had at the time.
Its predecessor may not be the fastest ship in the fleet anymore, the Protostar from season one was likely the fastest, but this new ship looks incredible. It’s designed to look like the Voyager but it has its own unique curves and design. Enough to pay homage but not enough to be a one-for-one remake.
The ship is considerably bigger than its progenitor, with the first ship holding just 200 crew members, across 15 decks, this new model has 29 decks and can hold four times the crew; at over 800 people able to be fit into the ship. Not only that, but the ship will have not just one but two schools aboard.
It’s also revealed that the first ship may no longer be in service, as the Doctor referred to it as a “floating museum”, so whether that means it’s at a museum or if it’s just wildly out of date and still in active service is anyone’s guess.
The music from Voyager
While not pulled directly note for note from Star Trek: Voyager, if you listen closely, notes from the show’s opening theme can be heard when the Voyager II is first introduced. As the ship comes into view, the familiar music from the show can be heard starting to rise up. It doesn’t descend outright into the show’s theme, but the use of similar notes from the show’s theme is clearly heard.
The two songs are clearly different though, so it’s important to make that known but there are too many similarities to both themes to avoid mentioning.
The Voyager’s theme is among the best that Star Trek ever produced as a piece of music. We’re not just talking about show themes either, we’re talking about any original score that was created. The Voyager theme holds its own against any of them, from any era.
While things like this are subjective, the fandom loves this theme, and it captures the essence of the series it was on perfectly. Explorative and optimistic were the two tenants that drove the series for seven seasons.
So to bringing it back was a genius move as Prodigy is fully embracing its identity as a spiritual successor. It’s unlikely that the show will get a new theme, but if it does, we hope that it’s this arrangement heard in the big reveal.