Star Trek: Prodigy 1x7 "First Con-tact" Review

rating: **

the story: Dal reunites with the Ferengi who raised him.

review: The thing that's gonna be a problem for a viewer like me is that I'm not the target audience, and so will be asking questions the show is either going to address later or possibly not at all, and that's hard to swallow.  The Ferengi character introduces the biggest stumbling block yet, and the episode makes no effort to explain the apparent difficulties.

This is a series that begins in the Delta Quadrant.  The Delta Quadrant, as very emphatically stated in Voyager, is too far from the Alpha and Beta Quadrants (where the majority of the franchise takes place) to make casual journeys practical.  There's always the chance of random transplanting (as Voyager itself represented), and of course a few Ferengi in The Next Generation did exactly that (which, too, was featured in Voyager).  But the chances of a Ferengi raising Dal, who we find in the Delta Quadrant, ending up in the Gamma Quadrant (no hint of close association with which was ever uttered in Voyager or Deep Space Nine), it just complicates things too much, with again, no attempt at all to throw existing fans a bone in untangling it.  

Conceivably, Dal's Ferengi pal traveled to the Gamma Quadrant from the Bajoran wormhole, although at what point even that is difficult to determine.  Women in Ferengi society didn't receive mainstream rights until the end of Deep Space Nine, which introduces a very short window for this one to have begun operating as a typical Ferengi (which itself is also anachronistic, because soon after Deep Space Nine give Ferengi women rights, it also reformed Ferengi society itself to be less driven by profit)...Anyway, I don't think Prodigy expects its viewers to be worrying too much about any of this, much less why the Dominion and the Borg Collective apparently never bothered each other, so...let's just move on.

The story itself is another episodic one, involving the Starfleet standard of first contact protocols (the name of the episode, as spelled in the episode itself, is exactly the same as the Next Generation episode, and the second Next Generation movie, but in all other references emphasizes the Ferengi's true motives with a single hyphen).  Dal surprisingly isn't the villainish character this time, and comes up with a quick heroic solution in the end, but the Ferengi is not only villainous but even willing to immediately transmit her knowledge of Dal's whereabouts (and that of the Protostar) to the Diviner.

The use of familiar interference protocols is about as subtle as it was when Discovery attempted it in its first season.  Again, younger viewers aren't going to be quibbling with any of this, and most of the time there's little reason to believe Prodigy has much interest in anyone else's opinion.  This is disappointing for fans who might think otherwise, and who've made it this far watching the whole franchise without blinking when so many have cherrypicked their way through.

And very little effort is even made to advance the Chakotay subplot!  Why must they these things out???

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The crew again attempting to familiarize itself with Starfleet standards at least gives casual viewers something to latch onto.  That and the Ferengi.
• series - A moment that ought to have deepened show mythology feels like it leaves too many unanswered questions. 
• character - Points for adding some depth to Dal.
• essential - And taken, for thinking new and old fans will be happy with how little is actually done with it.
• notable guest-stars:
• Robert Beltran (Chakotay)