Last fall at NYCC it was announced that Kate Mulgrew would return to the role of Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Prodigy, an animated show about a group of teens on an abandoned spaceship. What wasn’t exactly clear was how Janeway would fit into this premise. Earlier this year a few more details came out: the teens are “lawless” and all different alien species, and the show will have 10 episodes in its first season.
As part of today’s First Contact Day virtual celebrations, Paramount+ released a first look at Prodigy‘s Janeway, and explained her relationship to these mysterious teens—the show is set in the year 2383, in the Delta Quadrant, and Janeway is the ship’s built-in emergency training hologram.
So that means it’s not exactly Janeway, but a programmed version of her—which raises a lot of questions about how and why that program was created. Who asked the formidable Janeway to act as a training instructor? When did she have time for this? Can holograms still enjoy coffee?
Prodigy is the first Star Trek show developed for a young audience, but a new target audience doesn’t mean they’re breaking the Trek mold; the official description says the show will “follow a motley crew of young aliens who must figure out how to work together while navigating a greater galaxy, in search for a better future.” These kids don’t know anything about their ship or about Starfleet, but doubtless holo-Janeway has a lot to teach them.
Here is the full preview of the character art:
Star Trek: Prodigy will premiere on Paramount+ later this year. If you would like to watch the Prodigy First Contact Day panel, it will eventually be uploaded on the Paramount+ YouTube channel.
