Star Trek: Prodigy's existence is tied to the future success of the franchise

The Star Trek franchise is pushing 60 years old. It was a show that came out in 1966, and most of the kids of that era are now all in their 70s and 80s. They sustained the franchise for decades and were among the key demographics for the revival franchise in the 1980s; Star Trek: The Next Generation. They hung through 20-plus years of uncertainty, only to be rewarded.

The youth of the franchise kept it going, even if they were never the targeted audience. Sure, Star Trek: The Animated Series helped, but that was among the worst television of its era and as far as kid's shows go, hardly qualifies as such anymore.

Now, we have shows like Star Trek: Prodigy, a show directly made for and targeting the younger fans among us. A show whose future is in limbo. A show that the fandom can't afford to lose at this point in time.

it's become pretty obvious that the new era of Star Trek has gone for a quantity-over-quality approach, leaving fans with only two or three sincerely "good" shows worth their time. Prodigy, chief among them, is the key to developing and prolonging the franchise for future generations. While other shows like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds offer up exciting affairs, it's still not a show *for* kids.

In fact, most kids have a hard time getting into Star Trek due to the dialogue and mature themes. So a show that simplifies the Star Trek idea into a more digestable idea for kids is immensely important. As we've seen over the last 40 or so years, fandoms don't die with age. They get stronger and thrive. Heck, when you look at "kid franchises" like Power Rangers and the X-Men, most of the fans of those two properties are well over the target audience.

Why? Because fans don't just stop liking something as they get older. Just the opposite, it becomes something they can always lean back onto as they get older. Heck, for me personally, I got into Star Trek at eight years old, when UPN began airing Star Trek: Voyager in 1995. Voyager became an entry point for me into the series and I became a major fan from then on.

Prodigy can serve that same purpose but on a far grander scale. Instead of finding a handful of kids by happenstance who have grander imaginations than the norm, they can make a show that can influence hundreds of thousands of future Trekkies.

They can hook them young and keep them around for decades, ensuring the future health of the franchise. After all, we have to imagine that Star Trek will only exist for as long as there are fans to enjoy it. The minute there are not enough fans, the franchise will be mothballed forever. It will happen eventually, as all things end, but as long as the franchise can cultivate the next generation of fans through Prodigy, then the franchise coming to a close will be a long, long way off.