Readers of our blog would probably be aware that of the current era Star Trek's, Prodigy is the only one we reckon is proper Star Trek.

In February we credited it with not retconning the Prime Directive, but on watching the first episode after its mid-season break, sadly discovered that honour was premature.

Like Discovery and also Strange New Worlds, Prodigy eventually got around to retconning a strict law of absolute non-interference into a rule simply prohibiting getting caught interfering.

We gotta stick to the Prime Directive. The poachers can't know we're here saving this thing.

Facepalm.

Paramount are apparently addicted to promoting meddling.

We may never know why and are not going to waste any effort speculating.

Though we can no longer credit Prodigy as being proper Star Trek, their attempt to sell the retcon was the most artful.

The children who crew the Prodigy, under the tutelage and guidance of a Starfleet holographic training program modeled on Kathryn Janeway, rescue a whale analogue from poachers.

Ask most people to name their favourite Star Trek film and you'll hear a lot of IV's.

That film is a super close second for us, just behind VI.

Rescuing whales. That's right, right?

Broadly speaking.

Any chance the kids misunderstood the Prime Directive?

Unfortunately not. Holographic Janeway is aware of what they're doing and one character even says:

They almost broke the Prime Directive.

Being not just a Starfleet program but specifically a training program, if she felt they had misunderstood the Prime Directive, she'd correct that.

No such luck.

The only circumstances under which they could legitimately intervene would be if like the Prodigy crew, the poachers were offworlders.

But then the Prime Directive wouldn't require them to hide their actions from the poachers. Only natives.

So that can't be what this is.

We could detail at length why the true Prime Directive is important and should apply, even in instances where adorable Earth-like animals are at risk.

But Paramount clearly don't care and The Orville gets it.

Even if not renewed, their season 3 finale Future Unknown again touched on the importance of non-interference and stands as a condemnation of whatever is going on over at Paramount.

We can no longer personally recommend it, but Prodigy is streaming now on Paramount+ and courtesy of its Nickelodeon connection, the first 10 episodes are also available on Binge.

[ Main Image: Star Trek Prodigy - Lost and Found (Pt 1) - Dal. Credit: Paramount via IMDb.com. ]

References

TV Show Transcripts. Star Trek: Prodigy S01E11 - Asylum. (viewed November 2, 2022)