Star Trek: Prodigy follows the high of last week’s epic holodeck adventure with a smaller-scale episode which reminds us just how far Dal has travelled along his path of self-discovery… and how much further he still has to go.

The mood on the Protostar is a pensive one, as Dal records his latest log entry over scenes of the ship in disarray (looking about as neat and tidy as you’d expect for a starship manned by kids), while the resident hologram is spending her time meticulously analyzing the data fragment which revealed Chakotay as the Protostar’s former captain… with holo-Janeway at his side.

All of a sudden: pie! In the classic style of a Star Trek “slice of life” cold open, our crew finally discovers the ship’s transporter room, and their experimentation with this new toy follows a logical path — first, seeing how far they can send inanimate material, then moving on to a living test subject.

Prodigy hit this out of the park with my kids. They laughed at the choice of using dessert as a test medium, and the “indestructible” Murf also got a huge chuckle after he ended up on the wrong side of the hull! The animation for Murf sliding down the viewscreen was an especially good moment of physical comedy, with the speed at which he “falls” optimized for maximum comedic timing and the visual of his combadge being in the “correct” location as the cherry on top.

It was smart to introduce this element of the show and then use it later, at the climax of the same episode, while it was still fresh in their minds.

The biggest moments of levity were relegated to before the credits, however, as the rest of the episode is a rather grim exploration of Dal’s past — paired with a disastrous away mission with real consequences. Holo-Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) summons the crew to the bridge, as she has received a distress signal, and in true Trek tradition, the Protostar is the only ship nearby. On the screen, is a woman who claims to have sick orphans on board, and a warp core breech eminent — while the rest of the crew are eager to help, Dal (Brett Gray) recognizes the con — and the con-artist.

It’s DaiMon Nandi (Grey Griffin), the Ferengi who raised him! “Out of all the sectors…” Dal says, acknowledging the somewhat extreme case of “small universe syndrome” inherent in this meetup — especially after the Protostar’s recent 4000 light-year jump.

I know this really irks some fans, but this is not something that ever really bothers me, as it’s just sometimes a necessary plot device to tell the story they want to tell. I have to think that this is something we just have to get over — particularly for a children’s television show — especially one where we are hoping for legacy characters to appear.

I’ve been very curious about Dal’s background, so I was happy for the “coincidence” — and am hoping the other characters get a chance to experience the same small universe, so we can learn more about them as well.

We are treated to a beautifully-rendered version of a Ferengi starship with a wonderfully whimsical name: The Damsel. Dal breathes in the familiar smells of home when he and the crew transport over to visit his old guardian. It’s a fitting backstory to the character, seeing where he got his instincts, his moxie, and his distrust of authority: drifting from grift to grift on The Damsel as he slept under the engine and dreamt of the stars he could see out of his tiny porthole.

It makes sense that he would feel a sense of conflicted loyalty to the woman who raised him, even though his instincts are telling him otherwise. What a hard position for someone, especially someone who is still a child, to be in. It’s easy to see how he could be guilt tripped into going along with Nandi’s plan, made even easier by the rest of the crew, enamored with the idea of a “First Contact”.

Holo-Janeway has to throw cold water on their excitement, with a stern warning, introducing them to the Prime Directive, Starfleet’s General Order #1, which restricts anyone from interfering with less-advanced cultures.

I really enjoyed the way they made the concepts of First Contact and the Prime Directive accessible to young kids; writer Diandra Pendleton-Thompson made it really easy to understand what a true responsibility a First Contact situation really is — and why the Prime Directive exists to safeguard the development of other societies. I like this format of “tell, then show” with Holo-Janeway giving them a lesson… and then allowing them to learn that lesson the hard way, if necessary.

(By the end of the show my kids really understood the gravity of the situation and why it was so big of a mistake.)

The site of this disastrous first contact is a beautifully-designed desert planet, where the animation really brings to life the interesting idea of beings who use harmonics and “acoustic terraforming” (a lovely turn of phrase) to shape the landscape. Everything looks delightfully alien, from the palace doors that form on the surface to the underground chamber where the coveted remalite crystals reside.

The aliens themselves are elegant and ethereal; their design really takes advantage of the animation medium to do things that might be out of reach of live action — hopefully the first of many in Prodigy’s future.

The music and animation achieve a harmonic resonance of their own, as they work together to make the crystal symphony a truly special moment for us and for the crew (basically everyone except Nandi). They did such a great job in such a short amount of time making me believe in this alien culture, that it felt visceral — and especially violent — when Nandi ripped the crystals from their connections. It was a real desecration and my kids and I were all really relieved when the crystals were returned to their rightful places.

Our crew actually does a nice job as a unit during the away mission. Gwyn (Ella Purnell) excels as she cracks the code to communicate at least intent to the alien hosts, and Dal has a nice moment as captain when he points his crew towards safety as he himself goes toward the danger, and toward confrontation with Nandi, to rescue the crystal. His solution was quick thinking, and a really great way to tie in the transporter from the beginning of the episode.

I can’t help but wonder if we will see this planet again, as the comm badge left behind has shades of the cultural contamination seen in “A Piece of the Action” and “The Communicator.”

We will definitely see DaiMon Nandi again, as she tells Dal as much after she steals the cache of chimerium from the Protostar and runs back to her now cloak-able ship. She also has time to deliver a devastating revelation to Dal: he wasn’t kidnapped by the Diviner, but she actually sold him into slavery on Tars Lemora.

I hope that this can eventually lead to some closure on his troubled past but as Gwyn tells him; she doesn’t know yet if it will, as she is still grieving her relationship with her father. It is an unfortunate, but really supportive bond that they now share and I’m interested to see how that manifests in the future.

The episode ends in a dark place as Holo-Janeway is furious at the crew about the mangled first contact, blinking away from the bridge before sharing her findings: that the invasion Chakotay mentions on the hologram is lead by Drednok (Jimmi Simpson), the Diviner’s robotic henchman.

Meanwhile on The Damsel, Nandi’s cool little floating cube friend — the delightfully named Pik-Pox — tips her off that the Diviner has a reward for information leading to the Protostar. Which, of course, she plans on collecting. Ugh — Nandi is the worst, which makes her a great villain. I’m glad to see that Prodigy is building a roster of what could be reoccurring baddies, in another great Star Trek tradition.

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• After Nandi’s distress call brings the Protostar to her location, she claims to have a ship full of orphans with a bad case of the Vidiian phage.
   
• Several Alpha Quadrant artifacts can be see among the crates aboard The Damsel, including a Risian horga’hn, a Vulcan lirpa blade, a Klingon mek’leth, and several hexagonal Starfleet cargo containers, similar to the octagonal and pentagonal containers seen aboard the Enterprise-D. (Nandi also wields a Klingon disruptor on the surface of the desert planet.)
   
• Familiar Ferengi elements include Nandi’s D’Kora-class starship, angular Ferengi typography, tube grubs, dabo, and three quoted Rules of Acquisition which, it seems, Dal has memorized!
   
  • Rule #1: “Once you have their money, never give it back.”
  • Rule #21: “Never place friendship above profit.”
  • Rule #208: “Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer.”

• Nandi’s Klingon cloaking device is the same model seen in “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” and this episode confirms that chimerium — the rare mineral mined on the Tars Lemora asteroid — is the special substance that makes cloaking devices functional, an idea brought in from Star Trek novels by series consultant David Mack.
   
• When Dal and Nandi are trying to sell the crew on their “first contact” mission, Zero senses and comments on Dal’s hesitation, but the Medusan can’t tell that Nandi is deceiving them — because telepaths cannot read Ferengi minds due to their four-lobed brains, as established in “The Forsaken.”
   
• This episode takes place less than 10 years after Grand Nagus Rom took power with a goal to modernize the Ferengi Alliance, and already we have a female Ferengi DaiMon!

• Jankom Pog’s off-handed “Mmmm, floor pie!” comment must be a hilarious reference to “Boy Scoutz ‘n the Hood,” a classic 1993 episode of The Simpsons.
   
• The accomplished voice actor Grey Griffin, who expertly voices Nandi, has been bringing joy to my children their whole lives. Their favorite performances of hers include her work on DC Super Hero Girls, Loud House, Handy Manny, and Curious George. (I enjoy her work in Invincible, but my kids have definitely not seen that yet!)
   
• While rendered without a hyphen in today’s release, the correct format for this episode’s title is “First Con-tact,” as it’s listed on Paramount+ and as referenced by the showrunners. (This will likely be corrected in the coming days.)

While it doesn’t hit quite the same heights as “Kobayashi,” this week’s “First Con-tact” lays some important groundwork to establish more of Dal’s backstory, while at the same time teaching our young crew new lessons and teasing more about the Protostar and its missing former captain.

Our Proto crew is on towards becoming true members of Starfleet. No one said it was going to be easy!

Star Trek: Prodigy returns for its next episode Thursday, January 20 on Paramount+ in the United States, Australia, Latin America, and the Nordics, as well as on CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada.