Star Trek: Prodigy have in fact saved their show thanks to Netflix, a hopeful sign of things to come.
Star Trek: Prodigy has been saved. Netflix has seemingly come in at the 10th hour and picked up the second season for broadcast, while also acquiring the rights for the entire series as well. The news comes as the show’s creators were forced to start shopping it around after being canceled by Paraomunt+. A cancellation that was just the first of many popular shows getting the axe by the struggling streaming giant.
The first season of Prodigy will air on Netflix this year, while the second season will likely premiere sometime in the first or second quarter of 2024. This was one of the few logical places for the show to move to, as no terrestrial channel could or would pick up a show that a competitor owned the rights to.
So outlets like Cartoon Network/MAX or the Disney Channel/Disney+ were never really options. Netflix made the most sense, and with the move comes hope for all Star Trek brands as a whole.
Paramount+ should move all Star Trek properties to Netflix
Paramount+ is a great service for live television, it really is. It’s terrible, however, for a niche franchise like Star Trek. The revival of episodic Trek shows started in part because of the popularity the older shows had found on Netflix. When the shows were moved over to CBS All-Access and later Paramount+, a service with considerably fewer subscribers, all they did was limit the potential audience for the show.
Paramount+ tried to use the popularity of Trek to bolster their streaming service, and when it became obvious that Trek wasn’t popular enough to warrant the huge budgets it had, Paramount+ started canceling shows and moving around properties.
Letting Trek properties go to Netflix will help the franchise find more people to watch their shows, and allow places like Paramount to charge a rights fee for allowing Netflix to host the show. It won’t make them as much money as a purely successful, Game of Thrones-level show, but it’ll also allow them to eat less costs and therefore maximize the profits on the show.
Allowing Trek to not be in danger of getting canceled after a down year on a service like Paramount+. Trek isn’t big enough to be a tentpole property to prop up a struggling platform like Paramount+ all on its own, especially at the price it’s at.
Moving things to Netflix will force Trek to work far more within a tighter budget, where it traditionally succeeds, as well as give them a lower clearance to hit to keep making seasons while maximizing the number of viewers on the service.
It’s a smart move for Trek as a brand, even if it makes Paramount+ look bad in the process.