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I won’t lie, when I first learned that a new animated Star Trek series would be coming to Nickelodeon amidst all of the other decent to terrible Trek shows that are out there, I wasn’t sure how it would pan out. Turns out it was pretty good and we have the first half of it with the Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1: Episodes 1-10 Blu-ray. It’s a fun and perfect series for fans and those new to Star Trek, young and old.
The story starts off with a young alien boy named Dal (Brett Gray), who is trapped on an asteroid along with other aliens and made to dig and drill his life away for an evil being known as the Diviner (John Noble who is always great). After having enough of slaving away on this rock, and longing to find out who or what he is, he plans to escape.
Things seem to be going well despite him planning it as he goes, and he comes across others trying to escape as well, such as the giant, rock-like alien named Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui, daughter of Carlos Alazraqui from Rocko’s Modern Life fame), and Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), and a pure energy alien named Zero (Angus Imrie).
When it seems like they’re about to get caught, they literally stumble across a forgotten Starfleet ship called the Protostar that seems to have state-of-the-art everything, including a hologram teacher/helper of the legendary Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew who reprises her famed role) to slowly groom them into becoming the best team they can be. That is if they can stop bickering among themselves first, get used to having a pet-like alien blob they name Murf, as well as deal with the Diviner’s daughter who sabotages things at first but eventually joins them.
I have to admit that I’m liking what I’m seeing so far as it’s definitely the most fast-paced, action-packed Trek series yet. I couldn’t help but feel as though the writers were taking notes from some of the animated Star Wars series such as Clone Wars and Rebels as this show feels more like those. But it’s a nice and welcomed change as far as I’m concerned, and I also love how Kate Mulgrew gets to play a more sassy yet motherly version of her famous character this time around.
Thanks to a Blu-ray release, the show looks just as good, if not better than it did when aired on TV. The visuals are clean, crisp, and colorful while the Dolby HD audio will send your senses and your sound system to strange new worlds of delight. The coolest thing about this set besides the episodes are the ton of special features to check out that clock in at nearly 80 minutes worth which I’m surprised but glad to see.
Most of the extras are behind the scenes featurettes of making the series and how they made it accessible to both fans and newcomers. Some of the other extras go into how the Protostar ship came to be, as well as some of the weapons and gadgets featured in the series, and a few more features that will keep you busy long after the credits.
Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1: Episodes 1-10 on Blu-ray is a very promising start to one of the best Trek series I’ve seen in awhile. It has everything fans and newcomers could want such as fun, loveable characters, plenty of action and adventure, as well as some light, touching drama as the characters develop and bond. Here’s hoping the other ten episodes get here at warp speed and that a second season is just around the galaxy.