We’ve now had ten episodes to get to know our new Star Trek: Prodigy crew, and as the series enters its midseason hiatus, they’re finally able to stand on their own as a true Starfleet team. “A Moral Star, Part 2” is a satisfying place to stop and regroup, with many of the loose ends getting tied up before more unravel.

Where the story will take us from here is exciting, expansive, and places Prodigy squarely in the thick of things — in a way that makes it uniquely relevant to the very survival of our beloved prime timeline. I couldn’t have asked for anything better from this fledgling series or our fledgling crew themselves.

But first, we have some prisoners to rescue! We open back aboard the just-captured Protostar as The Diviner is on his way back to Tars Lamora, realizing the ruse our young heroes pulled off last week. (“We have a star to catch”, he quips from the engine room, which I have to admit is a pretty great line.)

These scenes with the Diviner and Gwyn are hard to watch, as there is just so much under the surface of their fractured relationship. It’s striking when she uses her heirloom, “the only thing my father ever gave me,” as a weapon against him — and even more so when he uses them as handcuffs to restrain her. My kids got the importance of this, as they seemed particularly insulted that the heirloom was used against Gwyn in that way. (“He can’t do that!”, my oldest shouted.)

Back at Tars Lamora, the rest of the crew is scrambling to rescue all the miners after The Diviner’s attack on the Rev-12 ship — complicated by the lack of gravity, the power to the ship being damaged, and the fact that the miners still can’t understand each other without the help of our crew’s universal translators.

There’s a great bittersweet moment here, with two miners finally getting to talk to each other after laboring side by side for so long, and they seem close to declaring their feelings for each other. I ship it!

Rok and Jankom make their way to the engine room, and while Rok barricades herself in front of the door to try to keep the insectoid Watchers out, Jankom tries to fix the engine — but the Tellarite is out of his element as he doesn’t know what to do. Luckily, Rok studied up during her extended period alone, allowing the Brikar to confidently deliver a load of technobabble worthy of LaForge, Torres, or Tucker.

Kudos to Rylee Alazraqui for delivering this with authority and gusto! I really loved this role reversal — Rok’s transition from just the “muscle” to engineering wiz has been unexpected, and developed in such a unique way as to make her effortlessness with the subject seem completely believable.

This is honestly a great turn for Jankom, as well; Rok-Tahk is not the only one subverting expectations, as Jankom is nimble and agile when protecting Rok from the watchers. His multi-tool gadget hand is cleverly used here. I love the idea of the security officer wielding such a unique choice of weapon, especially for a “kid’s show” where I don’t really expect to see a lot of phaser fire.

His gadget hand reminds me of Captain America’s shield, in the respect that while it’s able to be used as an offensive weapon, that’s not really its primary or intended function. Jankom has the instincts and quick thinking to be great in this position, and I very much appreciate that each character has talents and abilities that don’t pigeon-hole them into one role — a trap a lot of children’s shows fall into.

We even get to see Dal show some abilities beyond his command potential, as he manages to jury-rig all the prisoners’ control anklets into universal translators — so they can spread the word quicker to get everyone onto the Rev-12. It’s very satisfying to witness the uprising, when they can finally communicate, as they mob Drednok.

My kids were very happy our young Caitian friend got to have the spotlight in such a kickass way as she decapitated the robot — but before he becomes the Caitian’s scratching post though, he manages to transport the missing protostar from Murf’s belly back aboard the NX-76884. Drednok has become a very interesting character to me, as he is definitely loyal to the Diviner — but not blindly, as he also has his own opinions on his plans.

It’s also fun that he can just die without repercussion, giving off some strong Weyoun vibes. The guy has to have a backup or three stashed someplace!

When we check back in with the Protostar, Gwyn is doing her best to try to get the shields down while The Diviner tries to intervene. We get the welcome reveal that the glorious goth-Janeway look was just an act, thanks to Gwyn’s quick thinking — she upgraded the hologram’s programming to not only prevent his override attempt, but also gave Janeway the ability to become ‘solid’ and physically interact with object.

Janeway versus The Diviner was a fun fight, with Janeway using her ability to appear and disappear to full advantage and then ripping apart the tube on his life support system. But Gwyn then pauses the Janeway hologram, so that the Diviner can tell her what he’s been keeping from her all this time — and we finally get to learn his true motivation.

The Diviner is a time traveler, sent back to some point in the past in an effort to prevent Solum’s first contact with the Federation. Originally, that event — which is due to occur in Gwyn’s future — caused a civil war amongst the Vau N’Akat, leading to the destruction of their civilization.

He blames the Federation, instead of the choices the Vau N’Akat made themselves, for this. Part of the reason is his insistence that the Vau N’Akat are superior to all other beings, which explains how callous he has been with the lives of others. The Diviner’s master plan is to use the Protostar as a weapon: when it comes into contact with other Starfleet vessels, it will send a “hacking” signal to those other ships, causing them to turn against the rest of the fleet to destroy Starfleet before they can ever get to Solum.

What happened — or will happen — to his people is a tragedy, but even Gwyn is wise enough to realize that you can’t simply “trade one tragedy for another.” The Federation isn’t perfect, of course, which is a theme worthy of exploring; I like that the focus here is on a man who believes his cause is righteous, allowing that belief to cloud and distort his every move, fueled by his hatred.

His faction of the Vau N’Akat fought to “preserve their way of life,” which here as in real life translates into xenophobia and racism. In this respect, he is a villain both classic and modern — and way more complex than I gave him credit for when we first met him in “Lost and Found.” A true Trek villain!

In this episode, everyone gets their moment. We’ve already seen Rok and Jankom rock their new roles, and we get Gwyn fighting for time, and then trying to explain to her father why he’s so wrong. We have Dal, acting like a true captain, making the difficult decision to fire on the Protostar and then beaming over himself to try to rescue Gwyn — I’m not sure where it will go, but there is LOVE there! — and then: we have Zero.

I was glad that Zero had a chance to confront The Diviner, as he as well as Gwyn deserved that chance. Having Zero’s power turned on the bad guy after he forced it on others was fitting, and it’s hard to feel sorry for him. My feelings are reserved for Zero and for Gwyn only in this situation — and I would bet all my quatloos that we will see The Diviner and Drednok again.

We get a nice voiceover from Holo-Janeway, detailing Gwyn’s recovery from seeing Zero’s reflection and complementing our crew on how far they’ve come. It’s a fitting epilogue to these first ten episodes. We enter the midseason break with a crew who is a true family unit, with kids who have already come so far. I truly can not wait to see what they do next.

But that’s not the end of things…

After the picture fades on the Protostar, the lights come back up above a Starfleet bridge console in an ending surprise that sets in motion the next phase of the Star Trek: Prodigy story, and a moment of pure joy for this hardcore Kathryn Janeway fan.

Back in the Alpha Quadrant, Vice Admiral Janeway’s starship Dauntless picks up a faint signal from the Protostar‘s engines, the third in recent days — each time the ship has gone into proto-warp this season — and it’s clear that she’s been waiting for a sign of life from her former first officer for a long time.

“I’m coming, Chakotay!” she proclaims in the last moment of the episode, which gave me chills! I had to explain to my youngest what was happening here, as she asked why Janeway was on another ship — but once I explained that this was the real person the Protostar’s hologram was based upon, she understood. (“Cool!”)

After this scene, they were all very interested for me to tell them more about Chakotay and the two characters’ history; I think Janeway wanting to find him gave him some street cred with them, as they all love their version of Janeway already.

Whenever Star Trek: Prodigy returns in the latter part of 2022, seeing this story continue from two sides of the galaxy — with a version of Janeway in both places — will be a real treat.

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• This episode concludes on Stardate 61103.1, the first “real” 60000’s Stardate in the Star Trek adventure.
   
• When she works to stop The Diviner from escaping with the Protostar, Gwyn disables “Security Protocol S29” — a possible sly Chakotay reference, as Voyager Season 2, Episode 9 was the Chakotay-themed “Tattoo.”
   
• After leaving sickbay after recovering from her Zero exposure, Gwyn wears an enormous cortical monitor on the side of her head — a longstanding Star Trek medical tradition.

• What happened to the Vau N’Akat is similar to what happened to the ill-fated planet seen in “Friendship One,” where contact with a Federation probe taught the species about antimatter. They experimented with the technology after the probe arrived, caused an explosion, and polluting their atmosphere — placing blame for the disaster squarely on the Federation.
   
• Based on what we learned from The Diviner, I’m picturing his branch of the Vau N’Akat as similar to the Malcorians from “First Contact,” whose leader did not think they were ready to handle knowledge of alien life — but also similar to the Earth-based, anti-alien Terra Prime movement seen in Star Trek: Enterprise.

• Janeway commands the USS Dauntless (NCC-80816), which has a bridge nearly identical to the false slipstream starship of the same name created by Arturis in “Hope and Fear” — and the ship’s outer hull configuration is a mix of that faux-Starfleet vessel and the rear hull and underslung nacelles of Rick Sternbach’s original USS Voyager concept design. A lovely mix of old and “new” Starfleet engineering!
   
• The Dauntless crew wears a version of the “All Good Things…” era Starfleet uniform, with black shoulders indicating a recent evolution from the 2370s-era designs, along with the bar-backed combadge seen in the “All Good Things,” “The Visitor,” and “Endgame” alternate futures — perhaps a sign that the timey-wimey story Star Trek: Prodigy has already introduced may still have time temporal twists and turns yet to come?

• The use of the “All Good Things” combadge aboard the Dauntless explains how that badge design could be seen in the Starfleet “crew chooser” hologram which opened Dal’s holodeck adventure in “Kobayashi Maru.”
   
• The Starfleet LCARS console coloring aboard the Dauntless is a step towards the LCARS coloring seen in the “Endgame” future, with lots of teals, purples, and oranges.
   
• The navigation console aboard the Dauntless includes a speedometer that tops out a little bit beyond Warp 10 — with the crew’s uniform and combadge design an evolutionary step to the “All Good Things” aesthetic, perhaps that alternate future’s Warp 13 speed isn’t so outlandish!

• Announced as a cast member in October, actress Jameela Jamil makes her first vocal appearance as Ensign Ascencia, the navigator aboard Janeway’s Dauntless — though you may not have recognized her as the Brit uses an American accent for the Trill character.
   
  Her “Federation Standard” accent made me laugh, though, because it reminded me of the flawless American accent used on The Good Place when she pretended to be Rhonda Mumps of the Bad Place Hot Dog Department. (“Pass the NASCAR ketchup!”)
   
• Though they didn’t have any lines this week, additional new characters Commander Tysess (the Andorian voiced by Daveed Diggs) and Doctor Noum (the Tellarite voiced by Jason Alexander) can be spotted behind Janeway on the Dauntless bridge.

The first ten episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy have exceeded my expectations in really interesting ways, as everything from the animation and music to the character development and plotlines have been exquisite. I really didn’t expect that we’d have so many wonderful canon connections and a time-bending story that can hold its own against any of the live-action Trek episodes at this early point in the series.

I am already completely and utterly invested in this crew and their mission. But most importantly, my kids are all in with the Protostar and her crew. It’s a joy to watch them. Prodigy has really landed in a sweet spot where we can all feel like it’s “for us,” everyone — and there’s nothing more Star Trek than that.

Star Trek: Prodigy will return for ten more Season 1 episodes later in 2022; the series has already been renewed for Season 2, expected in 2023.