Star Trek: Prodigy 1x4 "Dream Catcher" Review

 rating: **

the story: The characters end up on a planet that seems to provide them with their heart's desires.

rating: The crucial question all incarnations of Star Trek must answer is how closely do they follow the traditional storytelling model?  Most of them have a Starfleet crew exploring space in a starship encountering weird mysteries.  As of "Dream Catcher," Prodigy fits that model.

Interestingly, it even has a version of Janeway in the Delta Quadrant, once again doggedly insisting they follow Starfleet protocol.

A lot of fans grumbled at how Voyager did that for seven seasons despite a premise that seemed to contradict such things.  Prodigy is in some ways Voyager revisited, and it wastes little time doing exactly the same thing.  By the end of the episode (which ends in a cliffhanger, so the implication plays out in the next one), even the Maquis parallel of the character who seems diametrically opposed to the interests of everyone else, Gwyn, has reached an impasse.

The particular franchise trope "Dream Catcher" follows traces all the way back to "Shore Leave" in the original series and can be found in later shows like Enterprise's "Dead Stop."  Again, the character who stands out in all this is Rok-Tahk, the scary monster with a child's voice who finds illusory acceptance from cuddly creatures projected by a predatory planet in the episode.

For younger viewers who have no real Star Trek background to draw from, it's probably easier to view any of this as fresh ground.  For seasoned viewers, it's either comforting or vaguely alarming that something so familiar is already being presented.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Prodigy announces itself as familiar territory.
• series - I think this is potentially a huge misstep so early in the run.
• character - On the other hand, it is a useful way to explore these characters.
• essential - Even if the limited details of the animation make the results, especially for Janeway, as difficult to enjoy as the ring of familiarity.