Paramount divines a new future without Star Trek: Prodigy
The frontier is looking a little more final on Paramount+ after the streaming service decided cutting its own original content was too much fun to do just once this year.
The Emmy-winning Star Trek: Prodigy was in post-production on season two and still awaiting the home media release of the second half of its first season when it got unexpectedly and unceremoniously canceled from both Paramount+ AND Nickelodeon. Season 1 has been scrubbed from streaming as of today, a mere 4 days after the announcement.
Incidentally, the home release of the first half of the first season sold out everywhere shortly after the announcement.
For those of you keeping score, that’s three of Paramount+’s five flagship Star Trek series that ended this year. I’m not giving them a “this year” pass on bumping Discovery‘s 5th season to 2024. That was cheating.
With the Writers Guild of America strike holding up production on season three of Strange New Worlds, the new Academy-set series and the Michelle Yeoh-led movie, it seems odd indeed that Paramount+ would scrub a whole season of content that could help them bridge a longer-than-anticipated drought of new Trek content.
Other P+ shows that will meet the same fate include Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, Queen of the Universe and the revival of The Game. It’s unlikely these are the only shows facing the second ax, and it’s equally unlikely that the value of the tax-write off P+ should expect will match the $1.5 billion Disney got for its recent culling spree at Disney+ and Hulu.
Unlike Batgirl, CBS will be shopping around Prodigy — including the second season once its finishing touches are done — to other networks and services. It will eventually be shown, and I imagine its merchandise will live on at least in the short term. But who knows what hope it would make for the show continuing past that.
While Paramount+ has mostly failed to live up to its boast as the home for all Star Trek as previously signed licenses for the movies had them jumping off and back on the service monthly. But with Prodigy banished and allegedly never to return, P+ will forever be incomplete.
Of all the new shows launched in the Alex Kurtzman era of Star Trek, Prodigy has been the one that captured the spark of it the best. Its role of being a vehicle to introduce a young generation of viewers to the franchise is perhaps what imbued it with more of Trek’s soul while the other new shows were a bit too high on their own supply to do the same. It exceeded my expectations and does the thing that all enduring classic children’s programming does: Trust their viewers to handle more serious material than the glorified toy commercial filler content that has always dominated the airwaves. This was Star Trek’s version of Batman: The Animated Series, and it is a damn shame that future visitors to the franchise’s home will not see it.
About The Author
Drew
Features Editor | Drew started behind the 8(bit)-ball in the video game world. He first became interested in anime by chance exposure on the Sci-Fi channel. Drew's the creative force behind blog-wide features, works the movie and food beats, and pioneered Damage Control’s entry into video, podcasts and streaming.
