WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1, Episode 2, "Starstruck," streaming now on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Prodigy quite literally hit the ground running as a group of young misfits, led by the teenage scrapper Dal, fled from the clutches of the tyrannical Diviner and left the harsh mining planet of Tars Lamora by commandeering a discarded Starfleet vessel, the USS Protostar. And while the unexplored expanse of the Delta Quadrant leaves the Protostar's de facto crew both awestruck and overwhelmed at its immensity, a familiar face from Star Trek's past surfaces in the form of a hologram Kathryn Janeway to help guide them. And Janeway's return comes not a moment too soon as the Protostar's escape from Tars Lamora nearly comes to an abrupt end before it can even truly begin.
Hologram Janeway introduces herself as a training program designed after one of the most decorated officers in Starfleet history, programmed to assist the Protostar's crew to venture back to Federation space, echoing the Voyager's own odyssey in the Delta Quadrant. Gwyn attempts to command Janeway to send the Protostar back to Tars Lamora before Dal cuts her off and insists he is actually in charge of the starship. Janeway points out that she is only programmed to verbally offer the crew guidance, mistaking the motley ensemble as Starfleet cadets due to their lack of uniforms and operational knowledge.
Rather than move to the safety of Federation space, Dal remains distrustful of the interplanetary organization, especially as he and his friends have technically stolen a Starfleet vessel. Instead, Dal decides to plot a course for an ominous-looking point on the ship's star map while he remands Gwyn to the brig as Zero observes that their telepathic powers cannot read Gwyn's mind due to an inherited trait on her part. As Dal taunts the imprisoned Gwyn, she assures him that her father, the Diviner, will rescue her and make Dal and his friends pay for this slight.
As the crew explores the Protostar, the ship reaches Dal's ordered destination, revealed to be a dwarf star with an intensely strong gravitational pull. Dal begins to panic as the Protostar is drawn towards the singularity, firing all the escape pods and diverting power from the deflector shields and security systems to the impulse engines in order to pilot away from its grasp. This has the unintended consequence of powering down the cells in the brig, resulting in Gwyn quickly making her escape before she is intercepted in the shuttle bay by Rok, who is angry that Gwyn followed her father's orders on Tars Lamora and treated the slaves so harshly.
With the ship's systems failing, including the artificial gravity, and the Protostar rapidly approaching the singularity, Dal finally lets go of his trust issues and reactivates Janeway. Immediately taking charge of the situation, Janeway instructs the crew to activate the inertia dampeners to restore the artificial gravity before having the crew divert power back to the shields and weaponry to defend themselves from errant debris. Janeway and Zero plot a course using the star's gravitational well to slingshot out of its pull, with the crew celebrating while Gwyn overhears them back in her cell in the brig.
However, the cause of celebration comes with the revelation that the Protostar is far from safe from its old enemies. Back on Tars Lamora, the Diviner has Drednok quell an uprising that began in the wake of the Protostar's flight, punishing the insurgents by having them toil away in the mines even harder after he regains control of the planet. And after Drednok traces the Protostar's warp engine signature, the Diviner reveals he has a massive starship of his own, leaving in pursuit while activating his ship's advanced cloaking systems as the hunt truly begins.
To see Kathryn Janeway's return, Star Trek: Prodigy streams on Paramount+, with new episodes released on Thursdays.
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