After the setup in “Into the Breach,” Star Trek: Prodigy begins the overall arc of the season with two episodes of temporal shenanigans worthy of Star Trek‘s proud and varied history of mucking up the timeline.
 
The time travel conceits in “Who Saves the Saviors” and “Temporal Mechanics 101” are pulled off with an expert flare that gives the impression that not only was the internal logic of the time travel poured over for consistency, but also that it was done so with love for this kind of stuff: by time travel buffs, for time travel buffs.
 

“Who Saves the Saviors” is one of the best episodes of the season, reveling in the playfulness of a good causal time loop while maintaining the seriousness of the high stakes. It picks up with Dal (Brett Grey), Zero (Angus Imrie), Jankom (Jason Mantzoukas) and Nova Squadron member Maj’el (Michaela Dietz) as they ride the Infinity through the wormhole. They land on Solum — 52 years in the future, yet still too early. As they recall, Janeway said they had to save Chakotay after he launches the Protostar, but the ship (and Chakotay himself) is still there.

They have four hours. The set up is clearly laid out, even for younger viewers, and the just-right timing they need adds to the adrenaline rush of it all. Maj’el is already proving to be a valuable addition to the group as she reminds them and the viewers of Starfleet’s temporal rules, while donning a classic Vulcan disguise — her headband made me grin.

Based on her name and character design alone, I was already predispositioned to love Maj’el, but getting to know her a little here cemented her standing as another Prodigy youth that I love and want to protect. By the end of the season, she was my son’s favorite character — sorry Rok-Tahk, he still loves you, too! Also, having someone in the gang that knows all the Starfleet “rules” makes things a lot easier in-universe… and for the younger viewers who this is all new to.

Knowing the rules, it’s almost a relief when they get captured — as Zero reminds them that if they are in a prison cell, then they can’t interfere with previous events. But the relief only lasts for a second as they are led to a cell containing Chakotay himself. I have to admit it was a bit of a thrill to see Chakotay (Robert Beltran) finally, after trying to find him for so long. Dal greeting him with “Nice tattoo!” was a hilarious icebreaker that brought me back to the present.

Robert Beltran’s performance as Chakotay this season is really wonderfully nuanced. He’s the Chakotay we all know, but a little bit looser and with more presence. His performance reminds me of Jeri Ryan’s performance in Star Trek: Picard — taking the character we all know and extrapolating that to the character’s growth through the years we didn’t see. Prodigy Chakotay feels more lived in, and like Seven of Nine, I would be interested to learn more about what his life was like after Voyager returned home.

It’s also great to finally meet Adreek the beak, voiced with gravitas by Tommie Earl Jenkins. This beautifully animated birdman (an Aurelian of TAS invent) and original first officer of the Protostar is a character my kids and I have been curious about since we first saw a glimpse of him last season. He’s fascinating. Adreek is no-nonsense, and I love his straight man reaction to Jankom and his bird puns. My kids are very pun-y kids so they got a big kick out of those.

The idea that our Protostar crew was always meant to help Chakotay and Adreek escape is philosophically poignant in a master-your-own-destiny sort of way. It’s also just a great time travel trope — who (besides Julian Bashir and his grandfather) doesn’t love a good predestination paradox?

Maj’el name drops two of Star Trek’s best examples: the Bell Riots and the Cochrane warp test from Star Trek: First Contact — which I found bold, lest this episode be compared to those masterpieces. Turns out their hubris is warranted, however, as this episode might not be as deep as “Past Tense” or as epic as First Contact — but it is a worthy addition to the canon and you can easily imagine “the Protostar incident” being used as an example in the future.

I share Zero’s sentiment of excitement (“Aha!”, they quiver) when they feel the rush of knowing that things will play out how they did originally. I love that Prodigy celebrates just how much fun this type of thing can be… though the title itself — a clever play on the Next Generation title “Who Watches the Watchers” — give away the game that all will not go as it should.

Prodigy once again makes great use of the tools at their disposal, literally in this case, as Jankom remotely controls his multi-mitt using Adreek’s tricorder. With it as their man on the outside they manage to take down the forcefield. This sequence had some great Evil Dead vibes and the prospective and multi-mitt vs. watcher droid confrontation were nicely choreographed.

The over the top distraction is also super fun and Zero’s adorable “ya-pow” is the new “pew-pew”. Angus Imrie’s choices are always as wonderfully unique as Zero themselves — besides “ya-pow” and the aforementioned excited, quivering Aha!, their absolutely inimitable delivery of the line “Star…fleet, what’s that?” had my kids absolutely rolling.

That made it even funnier that Zero called the EMH a bad liar last episode!

All seems to be going according to plan until Chakotay spots a weapon that wasn’t there in the original timeline — thanks to Dal’s inadvertent actions — and manages to escape with Adreek and the Protostar. My youngest daughter gasped and said “That changes history!”, even before Maj’el helpfully tells us about spiking chroniton emissions and tachyon irregularities… both classic signs of a timeline being disrupted. So there wasn’t any confusion with my kids about just how bad this mistake was, even though they don’t know a chroniton from a tachyon.

Jumping back the present, we catch up with Gwyn (Ella Purnell) on Solum, as she challenges Asencia (Jameela Jamil) to the ancient Va’Lu’Rah ritual… as she learns what that actually means the same time we do. This ritual combat has as much grandeur as a kal-if-fee as they all gather on what is obviously a sacred spot. We hear echoes of the proud refrain spoken last season: “There is no barrier we cannot overcome, for we are Vau N’Akat”.

Solum is again shown to be strikingly beautiful. The delicate scrolling of the heirlooms are also in the clothing, the architecture, even mimicked in the landscape. We soon learn why that aesthetic is so ingrained in their culture as the scrolled dais lowers, and Gwyn is bathed in golden droplets that seem to defy gravity with a will all their own. Gwyn calls it “the source of our heirlooms,” and sure enough the droplets come together at the will of the combatants the same way the heirlooms morph.

It seems like the psychic connection between the Vau N’Akat extends to — and derives from — their planet. That connection they all share makes the isolationist tendencies of some of the residents, while not sympathetic, at least understandable.

Gwyn vs. Asencia was a highlight in last season’s “Supernova, Part 1” and round two proves to be just as thrilling. Both are evenly matched, and they use the heirloom material to full benefit with just their minds. Swords and shields and projectiles: so cool. This should be a stage in a fighting video game!

Gwyn, being wiser than Asencia, realizes she doesn’t have to defeat her, just beat her back to the surface and she mind-morphs footholds to climb up. Unfortunately, this is when we catch up to the A-story: as the timeline is disrupted, we see Gwyn fade in and out and she can’t grab hold of her makeshift ladder. She falls to the bottom. The heirloom material lovingly breaks her fall.

In “Temporal Mechanics 101,” we get the full scope of the season’s big problem. The crew on the Infinity receive a mysterious message which leads them to Gwyn, and when they find her we learn that Gwyn is fading because she is out of phase with our reality. Her very existence is uncertain, as Maj’el explains, she is “proverbially trapped in Schrodinger’s box”, which was a reference my two older kids understood. (They explained what that meant to my youngest, but I think she got the gist of what was happening even without the primer.)

After some more glorious back and forth about the situation from our resident nerds Zero and Maj’el, we get the words that every lover of temporal mechanics wants to hear: “We have to build a time machine!”.

(Side note: We also learn that even though the timeline has been altered, the Infinity’s temporal shielding is preserving our reality for the meantime. Sure, why not!)

Dal humbles himself and asks Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to send over the much referenced “Temporal Mechanics 101”. Prodigy makes a really whimsical choice here by showing us some excerpts of the lessons. Starfleet’s Dr. Erin, who first appeared last season — and is played by real life Star Trek science advisor, Dr. Erin Macdonald — is our guide through some really fun, intentionally corny, graphics and lectures about time travel.

Dal scrolls past what I assume to be the more “science-y” portions of the lesson for us as we get the bits most relevant to the situation. My kids were absolutely RIVETED by this as they intently listened to every word. What a fun insight for them about what a lesson at Starfleet Academy might actually be like. It’s the closest we will ever get and we all enjoyed every second of it — a definite highlight of the episode, with some great Star Trek jokes mixed in.

While Dal’s gang work to rescue Gwyn, her father Ilthuran (John Noble) — the present-day form of the Diviner — stays with Gwyn while she is phasing in and out. In a direct contrast to the events of “Terror Firma” last season, he promises to be there for her. While I get the premise here, I find the whole thing very confusing and I spend every second he’s on screen expecting him to flip. This isn’t Ebenezer Scrooge, who the ghost of Christmas past can show us wasn’t always a selfish jerk. The Diviner was a true villain: an enslaver of children, who left his own child to die on murder planet. I have a hard time squaring that circle.

Jankom — with a return to form of his true engineering style — and the rest of the crew pull off building the time machine and they make it back to present day. The animation of the equipment and H.G. Wells-style time bubble really pull off moving nowhere in space (while going backward in time) in a way that is still visually interesting and dynamic.

But Jankom is all out of miracles as he won’t be able to make the ship fly so they can get Gwyn back to the EMH on Voyager. Luckily, the magic mystery friend comes to the rescue and starts the ship. “Coulda done that earlier!”, quips Jankom in a meta line that made me laugh. Once everyone is safely home on Voyager, the EMH (Robert Picardo) is a doctor, not an exorcist, and he manages to devise a temporal stabilizer for Gwyn that keeps her rooted in our quantum reality. Cool!

The episode ends with Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) meeting with a mysterious figure who is very reminiscent of Enterprise‘s “Future Guy.” However, so far, this mysterious figure has done nothing but try to help our crew so I remain optimistic that they are friend not foe.

Time will tell!

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Stay tuned for our next Star Trek: Prodigy review, covering Season 2’s “Observer’s Paradox” and “Imposter Syndrome,” in a few days!

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 is available to stream now on Netflix globally (excluding-Canada, Nordics, CEE, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Belarus, and Mainland China). The show can also be viewed on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Central and Eastern Europe.