Just a week after its 2022 run brought Star Trek: Prodigy’s extended opening season to a close, the first round of episodes which began the animated adventure are now dropping out of proto-warp on Blu-ray and DVD.
 
The two-disc set from CBS DVD and Paramount Home Entertainment is in stores today, where Star Trek: Prodigy — Season 1 (Episodes 1-10) includes the two-part series premiere, “Lost and Found,” along with the subsequent eight episodes of the 2021-2022 airing: “Starstruck,” “Dream Catcher,” “Terror Firma,” “Kobayashi,” “First Con-tact,” “Time Amok,” “A Moral Star, Part 1,” and “A Moral Star, Part 2.”
 

The Nickelodeon and CBS Studios animated series features a group of wayward young aliens who find themselves flying around the galaxy in a stolen Federation starship, the experimental USS Protostar, guided only by a hologram programmed with the personality and insight of Star Trek: Voyager captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew).

Through the first ten episodes, Dal (Brett Gray), Gwyn (Ella Purnell), Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), Zero (Angus Imrie), Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), and Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) slowly become a new type of Star Trek crew, united by their desire to find the Federation and escape The Diviner (John Noble) and his robot henchman Drednok (Jimmi Simpson).

Along with the first ten episodes, the initial Prodigy Blu-ray features a handful of interview-based, behind-the-scenes special features, each detailing some element of the show’s design. Here’s what’s included:

• Trek Tradition (11:06) — The segment you’d expect on the first Blu-ray release for the series, this focuses on the origins of Star Trek: Prodigy and how the Hageman brothers were essentially recruited to pitch a kids’ Trek show to Secret Hideout.
   
  The interview segments generally contain information shared in other forums over the last two years, but for those who don’t follow Trek news the way the rest of us do, it’s a nice recap of the desire to build an “on ramp” for younger viewers to find their way into Star Trek fandom.
• Kobayashi Maru (4:04) — This short piece features a few soundbites from Prodigy creators Kevin and Dan Hageman about the legendary Kobayashi Maru Starfleet test.
   
  Beyond a brief mention of the work writer Aaron Waltke did to find the best bits of archival audio used in the episode, there’s virtually nothing shared about how Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, Rene Auberjonois, or James Doohan’s voices came to be part of the story — or the return of Gates McFadden to voice new dialogue for Beverly Crusher. In fact, most of the legacy actors aren’t even mentioned by name — a disappointing segment given we know how much work it really took to pull “Kobayashi” off.

• Creating Character (28:33) — This eight-part feature focuses on the seven main Prodigy cast (Dal, Gwyn, Jankom Pog, Rok-Tahk, Zero, Murf, and Hologram Janeway), along with some interviews with a few of the cast who voice each character, and comments from the showrunners on the assembled cast.
   
  Senior director Ben Hibon and the Prodigy animation team also share their insights on the design of each character, though much of the animatic and concept artwork featured is relegated to a small section of the screen alongside video interviews or episodic footage.
• The Prime Directive (3:15) — The shortest of the set’s features, Prodigy prop designer Jack Rossi shares his delight in creating the first full-text portrayal of Starfleet’s Prime Directive for “First Con-tact.”

• Trek Gadgets and Gear (17:22) — The third and final eight-part feature, spending time with Prodigy prop designer Jack Rossi and concept artist Gus Mendonça as they run through some of the primary props and devices found around the USS Protostar.
   
  One of the more engaging pieces on the Blu-ray set, the discussions range from adding necessary detailing to the mess hall replicators, bridging the look of Starfleet technology to its most recent in-universe designs (in Star Trek: Voyager), how the ship’s Vehicle Replicator serves as a lesson learned from the USS Voyager’s seemingly-endless collection of shuttlecraft, and that the inspiration for the Runaway off-road-vehicle design came from Mendonça’s dog.
   
  While the concept art and related animatic sequences are intriguing, once again they are primarily presented in small portions of the full-screen picture, making it difficult to make out details.

• The USS Protostar (13:37) — Another eight-part feature focuses on the hero starship of Star Trek: Prodigy, with Hibon and several other members of the art and animation teams commenting on their design process for both the exterior and interior sections of the ship “sets.” Along with the starship itself, other short spotlight time is spent discussing the bridge, the transporter room, crew quarters, engineering, the holodeck, the ship’s three warp nacelles, and the hangar bay.

Unfortunately, there’s no audio commentary offered in the first Prodigy release, and even some of the cast aren’t part of the interview segments (Ella Purnell, Dee Bradley Baker, John Noble, and Jimmi Simpson do not appear) — nor is there any focus on the lovely musical score from composer Nami Melumad, or the theme song by Michael Giacchino.

In addition, while many members of the Prodigy writing staff have been quite active on social media and in interviews with various outlets (including several here at TrekCore), the only representatives of the show’s writers’ room in these features are Prodigy creators Kevin and Dan Hageman.

Finally, we have to again lament the lack of language translation options on this release; while the Prodigy Blu-ray set does include English, Germany, Latin American Spanish, and French dialogue tracks (and associated closed captions), there are no other language choices available for viewers of other backgrounds.

While a future release geared towards the larger international community may be released at some later point, it’s disappointingly limited set of selections.

Beyond the video content, the new Prodigy Blu-ray set also includes both a gloss-print slipcover (for those who were disappointed by the lack of one on the Discovery Season 4 release in November), as well as a four-pack of character art cards, each of which includes information about the Protostar crew crosses paths with the Starfleet way of life.

If you live in a region where Star Trek: Prodigy isn’t yet available on either Nickelodeon or Paramount+, this new Blu-ray set may be the easiest way to catch up on the show — the discs are region-free and can be viewed on Blu-ray players around the world without issue, so any version of the retail release will work if you choose to import to your country.

As physical media fans, we’re always happy to see the Star Trek universe continue to expand on Blu-ray — and while the gorgeous visuals and wonderful Prodigy score are served in a lovely presentation, the bonus content on this first two-disc release has left us a bit underwhelmed.

When the second half of Season 1 eventually makes it to disc (sometime in 2023, we hope!), here’s hoping that the included arrives with some more substantial extra content — but as it retails for less than $20 USD as of this writing, you can’t go wrong adding this first Star Trek: Prodigy Blu-ray set to your home collection.