Dal, the Protostar crew, Admiral Janeway, and the Dauntless team all move with determination in “Crossroads,” an episode that propels the story forward with a long-awaited meeting and an unexpected chase. This week’s away mission was full of surprises and high on action, setting up the next phase of the story as the two crews’ journeys finally intersect — and reveals the next phase for Murf as well!

The Dauntless is following Barniss Frex’s com signal, after the wayward officer’s escape from the destroyed comm station in “Asylum.” Meanwhile, the Protostar crew make the very brave decision to stash the ship — and find Starfleet on their own, so there’s no chance of the weapon impacting more of the Federation. Both parties intersect at the only major transportation hub in the sector, Denaxi Depo, where you’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy— or at least, the Star Trek version of that.

It’s a really fun non-Federation locale full of interesting ships and characters. Gwyn has a run in with a shady Klingon, the security guards are Xindi-Reptilians, and Frex tells his tale to a Kazon traveler. They make really good use out of the setting being an “ice planet,” adding to the dangerous feel of the place as ships are grounded from the storm. Dal and company bury the Protostar in the ice and snow, which makes for a really cool escape later on — and both the Protostar and the Dauntless crews look the part in very stylish, and surely very functional, cold-weather outfits that are just yearning to be cosplayed.

Outrageously, the first person our crew meets is one Thadiun Okona — a character who was introduced 34 years ago in The Next Generation’s “The Outrageous Okona.” Billy Campbell reprises his role here, delightfully updating the character from merry, misunderstood chaos-agent to hardened smuggler who has seen things.

His slightly more gravelly voice meshes well with the updated character design, and this almost-Riker — Campbell famously came close to being cast as Picard’s Number One — is still dreamy, though obviously weathered by the passage of time: with a similar outfit (with the addition of a slight paunch), stylishly grey hair, a mysterious eye patch. It’s a great look.

What an excellent idea to include Okona here. He could have just been an original character, but when you are playing with a bench as deep as Star Trek’s, why not use it? Including Okona is pure inside-baseball fun and is a statement that literally anyone in the Trek universe is on the table for a return. Truly outrageous!

They don’t get too far hitching a ride with Okona, though, as he is immediately busted for smuggling. The gang tries their luck elsewhere, and we are treated to some face-to-face meetings between the crews. These are well choreographed encounters, as they manage to make it believable that our Protostar kids don’t tell the Starfleet officers about the weapon.

Gwyn gets spooked that Ensign Asencia knows her name — and her father — so she bolts. In true Tellarite form, Jankom gets distracted trading insults with Dr. Noum. Dal is star struck by Admiral Janeway, and before he can even get the words out Barniss Frex is found and Dal hides from him, knowing Frex can identify him. A great moment, interrupted: Dal’s meeting with the “real” Janeway is lovely as he is nervous for the chance, and we get to hear Admiral Janeway give him some great advice before her crew brings her Frex.

Frix gives Janeway his description of the assailants on CR-721 and she recognizes Dal. As the Protostar crew try to leave undetected, Janeway spots them and admonishes Frex for not mentioning they were children.

Admiral Janeway gets security to secure the facility, but the Protostar crew escapes on a speeder right as the doors close. The chase has everything: crashing ships, a stowaway, a speed boost by a illegal substance, and even a jump over a crevasse! They make their way back to the Protostar (with Okona aboard for the ride), and take off just in time for Admiral Janeway to watch… and then the chase takes to the stars.

The Dauntless chases after the Protostar, matching their high speed, and Admiral Janeway is determined to disable the ship. Hologram Janeway, getting up to speed after being offline, says “The real me is hunting us with a quantum slipstream Dauntless-class starship? Good luck with that!,” which broke the tension and got a huge laugh at my house.

It seems like the Dauntless has the upper hand until Okona mentions that they are close to the Neutral Zone. Holo Janeway says no way, but they really have no choice if they want to save the Federation from the living construct. Holo Janeway gives a good little explanation about what the Neutral Zone is, and it’s a simple concept for the kids at home to understand, even if they aren’t well versed on Federation-Romulan politics: a forbidden zone.

That’s made even more explicit on the Dauntless, as a Romulan shows up to warn Janeway about it. The addition of Romulans to this show was unexpected, yet very welcome. Janeway wants to go ahead, but her first officer, Commander Tysess, disagrees. I’m already a huge Tysess fan, based on what little we’ve seen of this character so far. Daveed Diggs gives an almost regal performance, and it’s so telling of his character that he’s willing to call out Admiral Janeway for thinking with her heart — instead of her head.

He has an air of Tuvok about him — practical and thoughtful — and we know how special Janeway’s bond with Tuvok is. Janeway has always shown that she can appreciate candor like this and I hope we get to explore this character and his relationship with Admiral Janeway more.

Even with the excitement of the chase, however, the main event — at least as far as my kids were concerned — was finally unfolding on the Protostar bridge: Murf hatching out of his cocoon. He emerges as a blob that is more humanoid in form, complete with appendages and a head with an adorable little blob antenna/pigtail on top. He’s still cute, but gives off a little bit of uncanny valley (compared to his distinctly non-humanoid previous slug form).

My kids took this development very seriously. When Murf emerged, my son requested we pause the show so that we could talk about it. Reviews were mixed: my go-with-the-flow 9-year old declared that she liked new Murf better and was happy for him. My two older kids, who are generally more adverse to change, were a little more hesitant about it. One of them was, honestly, actually pretty upset by it: she misses the old Murf, and has mentioned it several times since we watched.

It’s for kids like my older two in particular why I really like the choice to evolve Murf. Adapting to a change like this will be good for them. It’s a bold move; Murf is one of the most universally-loved aspects of this new era of Trek, and change is hard — but also inevitable. What better way to teach that than through the evolution of a character they love?

At the end of “Let Sleeping Borg Lie,” Holo Janeway tells Dal that he is growing, and he gives her a “resistance is futile” back. That’s true for the fact that my kids are growing up, too. Murf can grow up with them, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Murf’s next stage — and beyond.

All three kids did laugh at Murf, unsteady on his new legs, accidentally launching a torpedo at the Dauntless. They will adapt to the change, and “new” Murf’s mistake was a fun contrast to original-Murf accidentally firing the phasers in “Lost and Found.” Murf’s “toddler” stage is going to be a handful!

CREATOR INSIGHTS

We had the opportunity to ask series creators Kevin and Dan Hageman, along with director Ben Hibon, about some of the developments in this episode back at New York Comic Con in early October.

Jankom Pog meets his first “other” Tellarite this week, Dr. Noum of the Dauntless, and we wanted to know about the differences in character design.

BEN HIBON: “Well I mean we wanted him to have a bit of a revelation, right?”

 

KEVIN HAGEMAN: “He doesn’t quite remember other Tellarites; he thought they were all small and short like him.”

 

DAN HAGEMAN: “And he finds out he’s the runt of the litter, which kind of chips away at his ego!”

 

BEN HIBON: “I think it’s interesting to have such variations and differences within species as well, to expand on that. And I think it’s, it’s, it is like that. So why not doing it rather than just being totally stylized.”

 

DAN HAGEMAN: “It’s like diversity within diversity.”

Regarding Murf’s new look:

KEVIN HAGEMAN: “We thought it would be interesting so see a creature who is constantly evolving.”

 

DAN HAGEMAN: “I would love to someday for Murf to be like a six-foot-tall humanoid character. You know what I mean? I would love to see Murf continue to grow.”

Prodigy co-executive producer and Season 2 co-head writer Aaron Waltke also shared some thoughts on “new” Murf with us, and where things may go from here:

“We don’t know much about Mellanoid slime worms. The reason we thought to have Murf go through his own ‘meta-Murf-osis’ was that he, like the rest of them, is going through changes and growing up. I suppose it was a kid-friendly way to deal with puberty, among other things.

 

We want the characters to grow and change with our audiences. They’re growing up. You’ll see how Murf continues to evolve, not just physically, but as a member of the crew.”

Waltke also discussed the return of the Xindi-Reptilians, a fun surprise for Star Trek: Enterprise fans.

“I think there’s a lot of Enterprise fans out there that were like, ‘Well, what happened to the Xindi?’

 

Everybody on the Xindi council but the Reptilians are basically like, ‘Yeah, we’ll probably join the Federation at some point.” But the Reptilians, they just leave it on this sort of question mark note of, ‘Well, I hope they come around.”

 

I think here, we kind of imply that even if the Reptilians themselves decided to never join the Federation, they’re a bit like the Klingons, I suppose, where you could see that there’s is a little bit of a cooperation there when Vice Admiral Janeway says she wants to speak to head of security.”

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• Parked in the ice and snow, the Protostar resembles Voyager in “Timeless,” after its crash-landing in the icy tundra.
• Rok-Tahk tries her hand at meteorology and tries to predict the arrival of the storm — but it appears that even in the 24th century, weather prediction remains “not an exact science”.
• Beyond his debut in “The Outrageous Okona,” the character of Thadiun Okona also appeared in Lower Decks’ “An Embarrassment of Dooplers,” manning the DJ booth at Starfleet’s annual command party.”
• Okona’s character design, which now includes an eye patch, originated for Star Trek: Prodigy — the Lower Decks animation team changed their character design to align to Prodigy’s portrayal, which was designed first.

• Okona’s ship, the freighter Erstwhile, was faithfully recreated from the original studio model built for The Next Generation.
• My kids and I audibly squealed at Rok-Tahk carrying the Murf cocoon in a futuristic BabyBjörn. Just adorable!
• Janeway borrows another captain’s famous line — as she tells Dal that in Starfleet, they “make it so.”
• The music when Janeway and Dal meet face to face is heavily inspired by the Voyager theme. From composer Nami Melumad, Prodigy’s epic score continues to be a big part of the cinematic quality of the show, and it’s especially strong during the exciting action in “Crossroads”.
• The Xindi-Reptilian species returns for the first time since Star Trek: Enterprise Season 4, when Captain Archer hallucinated the threating alien race while camping in “Home.” They were, of course, the leaders of the anti-Earth crusade in Enterprise Season 3, and in Prodigy we get to hear their language spoken aloud for the first time.

“Crossroads” is an episode of high intensity, both in action and emotion. It gives a very satisfying push towards the next phase in the main story by bringing both crews together, and introduces a very intriguing wrinkle with the Romulans and the Neutral Zone. The Murf storyline might end up being divisive, but change is part of life — and I love that theme being introduced here for the kids.

We’re all looking forward to seeing what other changes await as the rest of the season unfurls!

Star Trek: Prodigy will return with “Masquerade” on Thursday, November 24 on Paramount+ in the United States, and on November 25 in Latin America, Australia, Italy and the U.K. The series will arrive in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria in December.