The Star Trek: Prodigy crew takes on their first away mission in “Dreamcatcher,” an episode which takes full advantage of its animated medium — in a story that could just as easily work for a live-action Trek series. It’s a thrilling — and slightly scary — introduction into what it means to be explorers, giving us a really good taste for what this show can be as the early days of the series continue.

The episode opens with Dal’s (Brett Gray) first Captain’s Log, which really made me feel at home in the show. As always, it’s a great device to explain where our story begins — and in this case, we learn that Hologram Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) has been teaching our heroes all about the basics of running a starship.

They learn how to plot a course and about “the wonders of autopilot,” which treats us to the animation for warp travel here for the first time and it does not disappoint — its look fits perfectly in this universe of dreamy colors and ethereal beauty.

When a proximity alert goes off, our crew are wondering what this new alarm means, allowing Janeway to gleefully present an opportunity for exploration: an uncharted M-class planet! Once Janeway explained what the “M-class” designator meant, the “A-class” planet joke landed with my kids and they laughed. What a great Star Trek joke!

As they prepare for their first away mission, they get each get their own shiny new tricorders and phasers (set on stun, of course!); the designs are new to Trek but work great in this animation style.

When Zero’s (Angus Imrie) tricorder detects an unknown gas sample, Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas) quickly takes that credit — I think it’s a rule somewhere that every kids’ show must have a certain number of fart jokes per season. (For the record, my kids thought it was hilarious!)

Another piece that got a huge laugh from my kids was Zero’s rough landing on the planet’s surface, and the splendidly-named vehicle which carries the crew out on their mission: the Runaway, a new Starfleet all-terrain vehicle.

The Runaway is a great new addition, with accelerated ion propulsion, a tritanium chassis, holo-steering — and “hold-on-to-your-butts” safety handles. It is also cartoonishly fast with flawless handling. I can hardly blame Dal for wanting to just drive off!

Sticking together and “looking out for each other” appears to be another lesson Dal is choosing to learn the hard way. Seeing Dal continue to make these kinds of rash decisions will make it all the more satisfying when he settles into his role as captain of the Protostar, even if it’s still a while off.

Brett Gray has said about his character that “I promise Dal learns and grows – A LOT!” and I am more than happy to give them the time to tell that story. One of the best things about Prodigy is that our heroes aren’t already perfect Red Squad-type cadets, which makes them relatable to my kids — and makes them easy to pull for.

As our crew go off on their own to retrieve their samples, Gwyn (Ella Purnell) and Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) remain behind, which gives us a chance to see more of Gwyn’s telepathic abilities here — using her talent to call her programmable matter weapon to bust her out of confinement.

She is strong and determined and knows quite a lot about how to run a starship, it seems, as the Diviner (John Noble) has apparently been training her to run the Protostar from a very young age — an interesting piece of the larger puzzle of the show. Gwyn easily gets control of the ship, reprogramming Janeway, and then wastes no time contacting her father.

Gwyn continues to be a very complex and compelling character… but at the moment, it’s hard to sympathize with her desire to return to Tars Lamora.

While the other crew members explore the wonders of the planet, we start to see what is lurking beneath the surface of this impossibly sublime landscape. The planet gives them what they desire. For Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alarzaqui), that just means interactions with adorable little pet-like creatures.

Zero and Jankom’s wishes give us some more details into the wider mysteries of the show — while Protostar pilot Zero sees the tantalizing mystery engine introduced last week, it’s Pog who reminisces about food from “the Tellar sleeper ship,” our first hint as to how he ended up in the Delta Quadrant.

Meanwhile, poor Dal just wishes he could see his parents again — even though he’s no longer able to remember their faces.

Here is where the story takes a turn into the creepy. Dal sees the plant-form Janeway and immediately knows it’s not our hologram, since it’s explained earlier in the episode that she’s not able to leave the Protostar.

Plant-Janeway explains that the planet can read their thoughts and wants them to stay. The tone shift is exhilarating, and all of the horror elements here are very effective. Even I found Plant-Janeway’s slithering towards Dal through the vine-like cilia incredibly unsettling — and boy, that moment where Rok-Tahk is laughing while being slowing engulfed by that same cilia? Genuinely terrifying.

Plant-Diviner was also creepy, probably due to his niceties being completely out of character, giving away the game by telling Gwyn that he’s proud of his progeny. Gwyn is another character that has a lot of learning and growing to do, and the fact that what she sees on the planet is her father giving her approval?

Well, that means that she can’t really be a part of the crew until her motivations change (which is, I’m sure, what the writers have planned for her).

My kids enjoyed the scariness of it all. I did however, have to explain to my youngest what was happening, especially when Plant-Janeway starting getting aggressive: “Wait, I thought that lady was nice?”

I think, especially for younger children, this show will benefit from repeat viewing — which is how my kids like to watch their favorite shows anyway. But I think they did a nice job of explaining what was happening later with Zero and Dal. The older kids can follow Zero’s technobabble explanation of what the planet is doing, allowing Dal’s “You mean, it wants to eat us?” to help the younger viewers get up to speed.

But before the crew can make their escape, we end on a cliffhanger! Caught in the planet’s vines, the Protostar gets flung across the planet while our crew can do nothing but watch — as Gwyn and a sobbing Murf bail at the last minute in a half-broken shuttlecraft.

I was glad they went the cliffhanger route, instead of trying to wrap things up too fast. My kids legitimately think the ship might be destroyed, which is adorable.

My son asked me if destroying the ship was something that happens a lot in Star Trek, and all I could do was laugh — and think of the bloody A, B, C, D, and E….

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• “Dreamcatcher” bares some similarity to Voyager’s “Bliss,” where in that episode, the crew fell prey to a telepathic pitcher plant which showed them their deepest desires (while trying to also eat the ship).
   
• The plant planet is based in the Hirogen system; while the star system may be named for the Delta Quadrant’s hunter species, “Prey” established that the Hirogen had no known homeworld and “The Killing Game” stated their nomadic way of life had existed for thousands of years.
   
• As Gwyn’s weapon travels to her location in the brig, we see it pass through a Protostar Jefferies tube.
   
• The new tricorders are an evolution of the “Palm Pilot”-style design seen in Star Trek: Nemesis — but clearly reminiscent of today’s smart phones (which kids know from their everyday lives).
   
• It wouldn’t be a Star Trek planet if there weren’t some spores to worry about.

This episode was a really fun first away mission for the Protostar crew — and for my kids. They loved the idea of getting to be the first people to explore a planet, and when it turned scary, they appreciated that unexpected twist.

The whole family is looking forward to the resolution of this one, but I won’t be surprised if they send us into the upcoming two-month hiatus with another cliffhanger…