Star Trek: Prodigy
Given I have Paramount+ for the second season of SNW anyway, I watched the first of Star Trek: Prodigy, aka the 24 minutes an episode series primarily aimed at children. Now, I bounced back hard from the pilot of the other ST cartoon series, Lower Decks, which I really disliked intensely. (For similar reasons why I didn't like Thor: Ragnarök or Thor: Love and Thunder - this Joke Joke Joke Joke Joke nonstop slapstickery is just not for me.) Prodigy was a very different experience - I really liked the series from the get go.
The setting helped right away, of course. It takes place five years or so after Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant, so it's not yet another go at the TOS nostalgia well. Also, most (though not all) of the characters are brand new, and the ones who do come from earlier Trek shows (more about this later) support the main characters' stories as opposed to taking them over. Which isn't to say there aren't a lot of nods to established Trek lore, but these are done in a way that while adding a dimension for Trekkers doesn't confuse newbies.
Given that a lot of Farscape marketing in ye olde 1990s called the series the anti-Star Trek, I am also very amused Star Trek: Prodigy has more than one thing in common with the Australian show, mainly but not exclusively the character of Aeryn Gwyn, aka the female warrior character who starts in the villain's camp as part of the forces of oppression, ends up with the heroes against her will before the pilot is over, and changes loyalties as her attachments to her new comrades and her moral awakening grow, without completely losing her emotional attachment to her original background. And then there's the fact everyone of our regulars is an escaped prisoner to who steals the ship from the bad guys in the pilot, that they have to learn to be friends and work together instead of being so from the get go, and that there's an insane military commander ruthless villain with a vendetta after them. Oh, and during the course of the season, we find out that pre-show, something was done to the ship they're all in by the bad guys that has a tremendous effect on the plot.
On the very unlike Farscape side, though, is not just the fact that with one exception, all our fugitive regulars really are kids (well, teenagers and a child), but that the one exception is a hologram version of Janeway who comes with the ship, quickly becomes a mentor figure to our heroes and urges them towards Federation space and Starfleet. The show sets up several main mysteries (how did the "Protostar", i.e. the Starfleet ship with a holo!Janeway end up buried on the asteroid where the villains keep a mining/slave colony, what is Gwyn's father "the Diviner" (voiced by John Noble, between Denethor and various versions of Walter Bishop specialist in shady Dads at this point) really after, and why) which are solved along with some minor ones in the course of the season.
Now, as I said, I thought the show keeps a good balance between making the story easy to follow for children unfamiliar with much if any Trek and settling it firmly in the ST universe. An example of this is when in episode 3 our newly escaped bunch runs into the person who raised Dal (Dal, a 17 years old uncertain himself of which species he is, is the first character we meet in the pilot), and it turns out she's a Ferengi named Nandi. I loved this. Not only does it completely fit with Dal being fast-talking, none too truthful, prone to look out for No.1 (before learning in the course of the show to put others first), it also shows the Ishka inspired Zek and Rom reforms re: female Ferengi at the end of DS9 have stuck. (BTW, this does not mean Nandi is a nice person. But she quotes Rules of Aquisition with the best of them and is a far more convincing Ferengi character than the two attempts on Voyager.) While Nandi being a Ferengi pleases yours truly for all the continuity reasons, the episode still works if you've never seen a Ferengi before, because it contains all the information necessary to understand it. The emotional gutpunch in it doesn't come from any DS9 knowledge, it comes from Dal eventually realising that Nandi was the one who sold him out so he ended up in the prison camp to begin with. (Between Nandi and the Diviner, parent figures really aren't great in this show.)
Then there's the way the series uses a tried and true Trek trope (appearances can be deceiving, don't judge someone by their looks) in a non-lecturing way by making it part of a great twist concerning one character right in the pilot. As mentioned, Dal starts out as the pov character whom we're following. The villains have disabled the universal translator so none of the prisoners can talk with each other. Dal encounters someone who appears to be a huge, growly monster type of alien consisting of many rocks. Later, once the Starfleet ship provides the UT and thus enables our future heroes to talk to each other via, Dal and the audience hears the "monster"-like alien's voice change into that of a little girl. Turns out this is Brok, the youngest of our crew, very sweet natured, and later on much put off everyone wants her to be security officer just because she's physically the strongest - she finds out she's far more into science. Brok is not drawn in a shape that resembles humanoid female forms. She looks just the same after the reveal. It's such a neat show, not tell way of making the point. (Also, Brok is a good example in general of "sweet-natured, kind" not equaling "boring", contrary to cliché.)
And of course, we have Kate Mulgrew. Who ends up voice-acting not one but four characters in the course of the show. Holo!Janeway, who is clearly based on Captain Janeway as she was on Voyager but not identical. Vice Admiral Janeway, the real deal, so to speak, who shows up in the later half of the season, and who is older, crankier but also wiser. Holo!Janeway when reprogrammed by other folk (come on, it happened to the Doctor on Voyager, you bet they were going to go there with Holo Janeway as well). And finally, near the end the show does a body switch episode, which means Kate Mulgrew has a blast voicing Dal. The whole season is just a wonderful opportunity for her to flex some actorly muscle, and she does so superbly - without, as I said, overwhelming the story, which is focused on the kids' journeys.
In conclusion, after finishing the season, I was one happy Star Trek fan.
The setting helped right away, of course. It takes place five years or so after Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant, so it's not yet another go at the TOS nostalgia well. Also, most (though not all) of the characters are brand new, and the ones who do come from earlier Trek shows (more about this later) support the main characters' stories as opposed to taking them over. Which isn't to say there aren't a lot of nods to established Trek lore, but these are done in a way that while adding a dimension for Trekkers doesn't confuse newbies.
Given that a lot of Farscape marketing in ye olde 1990s called the series the anti-Star Trek, I am also very amused Star Trek: Prodigy has more than one thing in common with the Australian show, mainly but not exclusively the character of Aeryn Gwyn, aka the female warrior character who starts in the villain's camp as part of the forces of oppression, ends up with the heroes against her will before the pilot is over, and changes loyalties as her attachments to her new comrades and her moral awakening grow, without completely losing her emotional attachment to her original background. And then there's the fact everyone of our regulars is an escaped prisoner to who steals the ship from the bad guys in the pilot, that they have to learn to be friends and work together instead of being so from the get go, and that there's an insane military commander ruthless villain with a vendetta after them. Oh, and during the course of the season, we find out that pre-show, something was done to the ship they're all in by the bad guys that has a tremendous effect on the plot.
On the very unlike Farscape side, though, is not just the fact that with one exception, all our fugitive regulars really are kids (well, teenagers and a child), but that the one exception is a hologram version of Janeway who comes with the ship, quickly becomes a mentor figure to our heroes and urges them towards Federation space and Starfleet. The show sets up several main mysteries (how did the "Protostar", i.e. the Starfleet ship with a holo!Janeway end up buried on the asteroid where the villains keep a mining/slave colony, what is Gwyn's father "the Diviner" (voiced by John Noble, between Denethor and various versions of Walter Bishop specialist in shady Dads at this point) really after, and why) which are solved along with some minor ones in the course of the season.
Now, as I said, I thought the show keeps a good balance between making the story easy to follow for children unfamiliar with much if any Trek and settling it firmly in the ST universe. An example of this is when in episode 3 our newly escaped bunch runs into the person who raised Dal (Dal, a 17 years old uncertain himself of which species he is, is the first character we meet in the pilot), and it turns out she's a Ferengi named Nandi. I loved this. Not only does it completely fit with Dal being fast-talking, none too truthful, prone to look out for No.1 (before learning in the course of the show to put others first), it also shows the Ishka inspired Zek and Rom reforms re: female Ferengi at the end of DS9 have stuck. (BTW, this does not mean Nandi is a nice person. But she quotes Rules of Aquisition with the best of them and is a far more convincing Ferengi character than the two attempts on Voyager.) While Nandi being a Ferengi pleases yours truly for all the continuity reasons, the episode still works if you've never seen a Ferengi before, because it contains all the information necessary to understand it. The emotional gutpunch in it doesn't come from any DS9 knowledge, it comes from Dal eventually realising that Nandi was the one who sold him out so he ended up in the prison camp to begin with. (Between Nandi and the Diviner, parent figures really aren't great in this show.)
Then there's the way the series uses a tried and true Trek trope (appearances can be deceiving, don't judge someone by their looks) in a non-lecturing way by making it part of a great twist concerning one character right in the pilot. As mentioned, Dal starts out as the pov character whom we're following. The villains have disabled the universal translator so none of the prisoners can talk with each other. Dal encounters someone who appears to be a huge, growly monster type of alien consisting of many rocks. Later, once the Starfleet ship provides the UT and thus enables our future heroes to talk to each other via, Dal and the audience hears the "monster"-like alien's voice change into that of a little girl. Turns out this is Brok, the youngest of our crew, very sweet natured, and later on much put off everyone wants her to be security officer just because she's physically the strongest - she finds out she's far more into science. Brok is not drawn in a shape that resembles humanoid female forms. She looks just the same after the reveal. It's such a neat show, not tell way of making the point. (Also, Brok is a good example in general of "sweet-natured, kind" not equaling "boring", contrary to cliché.)
And of course, we have Kate Mulgrew. Who ends up voice-acting not one but four characters in the course of the show. Holo!Janeway, who is clearly based on Captain Janeway as she was on Voyager but not identical. Vice Admiral Janeway, the real deal, so to speak, who shows up in the later half of the season, and who is older, crankier but also wiser. Holo!Janeway when reprogrammed by other folk (come on, it happened to the Doctor on Voyager, you bet they were going to go there with Holo Janeway as well). And finally, near the end the show does a body switch episode, which means Kate Mulgrew has a blast voicing Dal. The whole season is just a wonderful opportunity for her to flex some actorly muscle, and she does so superbly - without, as I said, overwhelming the story, which is focused on the kids' journeys.
In conclusion, after finishing the season, I was one happy Star Trek fan.