Star Trek: Prodigy caps its 2021 run with the gloriously-named “Terror Firma,” an exciting adventure that solidifies our group of characters into a cohesive unit — and sets the stage for the show proper in a very satisfying way.

The strength of dialogue and big character moments push ahead the coming together of our crew very naturally, and give us a taste into how the group dynamics will play out in future episodes. The big reveal at the end was worth the wait, and was explained in a way that even kids unfamiliar with more traditional forms of space travel in Trek can understand that the Protostar’s protostar is special.

And as my nine-year-old said, it’s “really cool.”

We pick up right where we left our crew in “Dreamcatcher,” as Dal (Brett Gray) berates Gwyn (Ella Purnell) for leaving them stranded. Gwyn is injured, and we are treated to another use for her arm band: she transforms it into a makeshift cast for her broken leg.

Poor Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) is terrified, and it’s lovely to see Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alarzaqui) cuddle and comfort the being. Murf continues to be a hit in my household and I am very invested in learning more about where he came from. Is Murf a Denebian slime devil? A sentient bio-neural gel pack? Who knows — but the greater mystery of Murf must be left for another time.

In the meantime, Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) is manning the Protostar after it’s safe-but-scary crash-landing — which my kids were relieved to hear! — from a distance 10 kilometers away from Dal and company’s position. It’s a small thing, but it was great for my American kids to hear this unit of measurement normalized, as they are still most comfortable in miles.

One of my kids asked how far away that was, so we did a quick conversion. That’s the power of math, people!

The scenes with Janeway in control of the Protostar are a real gift. It’s just a thrill to see her in command again — leading from the big chair, assessing the situation, gears turning. She has a puzzle to solve, as the ship is being engulfed by the planet’s cilia and she only has access to low-level ship functions. When she finds a solution by asking what the real Janeway would do, it’s a wonderful moment as her own individual character.

I have to admit, up until this point I’ve been thinking of the hologram as “our” Captain Janeway — but this thoughtful line reminded me that the Emergency Training Hologram is an entity unto herself, with her own journey ahead.

Holo-Janeway determines that the real Janeway would “clean house” — hell, yes, she would! — and she activates the photonic ship scrubbers, a new ship system designed to decontaminate the exterior hull. She also teases the big reveal at the end, as the mysterious system that is draining all of the Protostar’s power is ominously called the gravimetric protostar containment,” which requires command-level access to shut down.

After the Runaway was devoured by the planet, our crew has to cover the 10 kilometers to the Protostar on foot — but boy did a sigh of relief go through my house once the kids remembered the ship has a vehicle replicator to make another one!

The dialogue here flows through the group very naturally, really showing off the potential in the chemistry of this set of characters. They blend so well as a team, and the writers really seem to already have a firm grasp on the voices of these well-thought out personalities.

Dal using Zero (Angus Imrie) as a flashlight was a great visual, and I’m going to be very disappointed now if I don’t have Zero-shaped book lights to stick into my kids’ stockings on Christmas. The discussion on what to name the planet  — Jankom’s “Murder Planet” vs. Rok’s “Larry” — definitely added some levity to the situation, and my kids have decided that M-Class stands for “Murder Class” now.

(I told them about Planet Hell, the old nickname for Paramount’s Stage 16, and while they thought that was good name — they unanimously decided Murder Planet was better!)

After this break in the action, Murder Planet earns its moniker by sending a monster straight out of their nightmares. I’m always a sucker for off-label phaser use, and Gwyn’s thinking to use one to light a torch and scare off the monster had me cheering.

A lot happens in this sequence: they defeat the monster, the surroundings catch on fire, they jump off a cliff. My kids could feel the adrenaline, and by the time they landed at the bottom and the precipitation started, my son shouted “Acid rain!?” as if he couldn’t believe another dangerous thing was happening. The action sequences throughout these first few episodes have been exceptionally well choreographed and animated — but more importantly, they’ve been absolutely thrilling to my kids.

We get a needed break from all that excitement as the Protostar’s crew takes shelter in an abandoned Klingon ship. They eat Klingon rations, sit around the campfire, and have another wonderfully written conversation. They go deeper, this time, as we hear them all talk about what they saw in their planet fantasies.

Rok-Tahk talks about her little animal friends and how happy she felt because they weren’t afraid of how she looked. I feel like her dialogue was scripted very carefully as to not venture into her saying she feels “ugly,” or anything like that. I really appreciate how delicately they are handling Rok-Tahk’s journey of self esteem, especially as a parent to three kids who are getting to the ages of maybe having self-conscious feelings themselves.

After the group chat, we get a really nice one-on-one with Gwyn and Dal, which we haven’t seen since the first episode. This time, however, they share a conversation as equals

The pair has a good chemistry, and it was nice to see them connect on a deeper level… though my youngest rolled her eyes and said, “Yuck, they’re going to date!” My oldest was much more amenable to the idea — but while the possibly of a deeper connection did seem possible, it was the fact that they could work together to come up with a solution in the stars that made that scene click.

As they make their way to the ship, this time in the correct direction, our old pal Drednok (Jimmi Simpson) shows up. He is imposing, and Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas) assumes he came out of one of their nightmares, but it soon becomes obvious he is real.

Dreadnok is an ominous figure in general, but his best design is when he “bugs out,” which we also saw in “Lost and Found.” Gwyn steps up to protect the others, and is rewarded with him shooting her malleable metal tool — which we learn is an heirloom, the only thing her father ever gave her — shattering it as Gwyn falls.

The rest of the crew run away and continue making their way to the ship as Drednok contends with the cilia.

Gwyn crawls her way to the ship and finds her father, the Diviner (John Noble), who sees the Protostar, and screams “Salvation!”. The odd choice of word is powerful, adding a sense of urgency to his desire to claim the ship — he wants it so badly that he chooses the ship over his own daughter, even as he sees Gwyn being engulfed by the planet’s cilia.

It’s sad for Gwyn that it took this extreme of an event to have an epiphany about her father, but its almost a relief as a viewer, as I was anxious for Gwyn to move past that undeserved loyalty so our crew could come together.

And come together they do, as, of course, our heroes come back for Gwyn. They are in the real Protostar, as the planet managed to fool even the Diviner into thinking the ship he found was his prize. This reveal is staged well, as we see Janeway opening the shuttlebay doors for Dal and crew.

(My kids figured it out, of course, and they were so proud of themselves. It didn’t diminish the impact of the moment at all.)

As our finally-united crew makes their escape at warp speed — with Dreadnok and the Diviner hot on their heels — Dal nearly disables the “protostar containment” system before Zero stops him, realizing what they’ve got aboard their ship: a baby star.

I love this idea so much! The idea of harnessing the energy of a baby star is something that kids can wrap their minds around, and yet is still really interesting to old Trekkies like me who enjoy pouring over technical manuals. (Plus, if the Romulans can use an artificial quantum singularity in their engines, who’s to say Starfleet can’t experiment with something similar?)

I really want to know more about this experimental technology and how they harness and moderate it — but those are questions for later. Right now I’m just basking in the glow of the beautiful parallel of a celestial young star fueling the journey of our own young Starfleet stars on the crew that our taking MY young stars along for the ride.

It was just as emotional a moment to see Gwyn come into her own as she puts her father onscreen to tell him off for leaving her to die. “Do the right thing”, he says — and she does, leaving the villains in the cosmic dust as the Protostar blasts into “proto-warp,” blasting out of range and off the map.

The episode ends with Gwyn in the command chair, but I’m pretty sure she and Dal will be having some spirited discussions about who exactly should be sitting there in the future.

After these first four weeks, all three of my kids are completely invested in the Star Trek: Prodigy adventure. While I think the show is most perfectly suited for the middle-to-higher end of the target age range the creators are aiming for, there is absolutely nothing in this show that is “too much” for younger kids.

Prodigy is also a show that can benefit from repeat viewings: for younger kids to catch things they may have missed, and for the older ones to enjoy the beautifully epic animation and music we have been treated to every week.

This episode was the perfect way to leave things as we enter this first mid-season break; the series will return in seven weeks with a (mostly) united crew and a starship with a bold new technology to explore.

I can’t wait to find out how far the Protostar’s jump in to “proto-warp” has taken our crew, and what this show’s talented writers room has in store for this fascinating crew as they begin to explore the galaxy together.

Prodigy returns on January 6 after a break for the holiday season, when the animated series will be back for another five episodes before its long 2022 hiatus.

Star Trek: Prodigy streams on Paramount+ in the United States, Australia, Latin America, and the Nordics, as well as on CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada.