Star Trek: Prodigy 1x3 "Starstruck" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The erstwhile crew meets Hologram Janeway.

review: The first regular episode of the series is also the first to explore how exactly Janeway, or Hologram Janeway, factors into Prodigy.  For long-term fans, Voyager's captain was itself the key selling point of the series.  The original series and Next Generation had their own follow-up films to ensure revisiting for at least a while, but that was the first two in what became an expanding franchise of characters, many of whom would never appear in another incarnation of Star Trek.  From Deep Space Nine onward, many characters would end up appearing only in their originating shows, or so it seemed.  Voyager has now gotten to luckiest, in the new era, with Seven in Picard, Paris showing up in Lower Decks, and now Janeway as a main character in Prodigy.

Hologram Janeway, and the ship she projects from, is the only standard Star Trek element of Prodigy.  She herself assumes the characters around her are cadets, and none of them are in a rush to correct her, so that's the premise, as far as she knows.

Amazingly, Kate Mulgrew sounds exactly as she always did.  Some actors, regardless of aging issues, end up sounding different when doing voice work, unless they're seasoned veterans of the form.  The depiction of Hologram Janeway is exactly as fans saw her in Voyager, so there's little confusion possible.  Anyone watching without that context knows this character as a reference tool who also volunteers Starfleet protocol when necessary but who is nonetheless very much beholden to a given set of parameters.  She doesn't adopt the role of captain, she can't control the newbies.  In some ways she's an interactive version of the computer voice Majel Roddenberry provided across much of the franchise.  (There's a whole generation of fans who shudder at the very thought.  I prefer not to seek out their opinions.)

Other than that, the episode is the cast just trying to figure out how little they know about a Starfleet ship, and not much beyond that.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The next gig for a well-known Star Trek character is pretty notable.
• series - The integration of that character into Prodigy is kind of the whole point of the episode.
• character - And that character is, of course, Janeway, recognizable in all aspects except...being in command.
• essential - Is it ironic that Janeway, famously having a holographic doctor, herself became a hologram?  This series lacks such self-awareness, alas.