In season one, episode four of Star Trek Prodigy entitled, “Dreamcatcher,” the cadet crew of The USS Protostar are tested when they take on their first away mission on an undiscovered planet that manifests their deepest desires, only to realize the planet has desires of its own. This episode was written by Lisa Schultz Boyd and directed by Steve Ahn and Sung Shin. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.
Star Trek Prodigy Episode 4 Review
“…To Explore Strange New Worlds.”
Self-proclaimed captain of the USS Protostar, Dal voices the beginning of the episode with a nod to the beginning of almost every Star Trek episode with an entry to the Captain’s Log. However, instead of the formality and mention of an actual stardate at the beginning of the log entry, Dal passively overlooks the protocol of recording a date and simply says, “I don’t know.” This is a very tongue-in-cheek, yet expected response from a very young crew. The way it plays out, however, is still a nod to previous Captain Log entries in other Star Trek television series or films. Dal’s somewhat confidence and excitement does carry over the montage and beautifully edited scenes showing the crew’s enthusiasm in learning how to control the USS Protostar and navigate through space all under the guidance of the holographic representation of Captain Kathryn Janeway played by Kate Mulgrew of Star Trek Voyager fame. As the ship continues to traverse through space, an alert goes off on the ship alerting the crew and Janeway, who informs them that they have just discovered an M-class planet — Starfleet’s way of classifying a planet as hospitable and able to sustain life. It is here that Janeway advises Dal and the crew that it is Starfleet Protocol to explore the planet and try to learn as much from undiscovered territory much to the reluctant Dal while the rest of the crew celebrates the potential to go out and do some exploring. The learning curve of being in Starfleet was shown in the previous episode when Janeway introduced The Federation to the crew. Now, the crew takes what they have just learned and applies it to their first live mission. Zero, being the designated pilot in this situation, tries to land the ship on the planet albeit not a very graceful landing.
This is the first time in a while that we have been able to see the landing of a Starfleet starship in any series. It was also good to see how this scene was edited to also show viewers the landing struts of the USS Protostar. Unfortunately for Janeway being a hologram, she is unable to join the crew in their exploration due to only being able to wear a mobile emitter that restricts her presence only to the ship. On the other hand, it may be a fortunate thing for her because she has a very enthusiastic response knowing that the cute, gelly, alien Murf will keep her company. So begins the crew’s first away mission, and if there is anything to learn about Star Trek and its away missions, they can lead to some adventurous and fruitful discoveries. In some other cases, away missions may become disastrous situations for the crew and people involved, but the latter becomes the more tasteful as these events stew up more drama. As the crew set foot on this new adventure, Zero uses the newly given tricorder and comes up with a surprising find that the tricorder is unable to sense any nutrients in the soil, yet there is an abundance of plant life growing on the planet. Meanwhile, the crew, without any sense of communication or relaying any specific instructions to each other, immediately disband and go in separate directions for them to explore the planet leaving only Rok-Tahk behind without any notice. This scene sets up a very interesting perspective on their relationship. Although it is only the fourth episode, one might think that they would have to communicate especially when facing some dire and in this case, unknown situations. This begs to question Dal’s leadership abilities and how he will move forward with a very motley Starfleet Crew
Feeding Into Those Desires
After finding out that the crew of the Protostar leave the ship, Gwyn takes advantage of this opportune moment to use what appears like her telepathic ability to use the solid-turn liquid-turn back to solid-then carry it as a tattoo device to separate her weapon from a storage unit and destroy a console that is controlling and keeping her inside the ship’s Brig and escapes successfully. It’s not long thereafter that she begins to enter in various commands into the Protostar. She easily succeeds in taking control of the ship. As a result, Janeway becomes surprised and has her system reset to respond to Gwyn as the new captain. She appeared heavily motivated to return the USS Protostar back to her father, The Diviner. Even upon mentioning that name, the hologram Janeway responds not knowing who or what The Diviner is. Gwyn’s motivation might be driven by the need to gain her father’s acceptance, only to be disillusioned by his own agenda that would serve only himself. Hopefully, fans will get to know the answer in a future episode. It was humorous to see how this scene played out as prior to Gwyn taking the ship, The holographic portrayal of Janeway tells Gwyn to stop. While this is happening, Jankom Pog, Zero, Rok-Tahk, and Dal encounter strange situations where they actually get to live and carry out their innermost desires. Unbeknownst to them, these planet mirages are the work of the planet being sentient and feeding off of the crew’s desires. Jankom Pog sees a home in which he lives and is provided with a very nice meal.
Zero spots what may have been the engine to the USS Protostar. Rok-Tahk became surrounded by cute little alien beings. Dal, on the other hand, sees what appear to be his parents. Dal looks upon them and quickly realizes that it’s all fake. The planet then begins to extend branches as appendages in order to prevent the crew’s escape and ties up Zero, Rok-Tahk, and Jankom Pog. Dal, upon realizing its hostile intent, was able to get away and dash towards The Runaway land vehicle to quickly retrieve the rest of the Away team. Gwyn even succumbs to her own desire and sees the figure of her father, The Diviner, giving her huge praise for being able to recapture the ship. She then realizes by some instinct and even in his way of addressing her that something is wrong. He later reveals himself as another image of the planet. The planet then wraps itself around the Protostar preventing escape while Gwyn tries to escape herself in order to avoid being killed on the ship by using a shuttlecraft. However, it fails as both the Protostar and the shuttlecraft are thrown off their course and crash land elsewhere on the planet. The Protostar crew then races to meet up where the shuttlecraft had crashed and we see a very disturbed and almost regretful Gwen cuddled next to a traumatized-looking Murf before the end credits begin to scrawl on the screen. This may have just brought up the idea that Dal displays some concern over the crew. If he does not care that much about Gwyn after what she has done, then Dal would have simply looked the other way, not considered her, and gone to the crash site of the Protostar instead. Instead, he rather checks in on her, which would be very becoming of what a Starfleet officer would do.
A Touch of The Past
Exploring various areas of space, especially in previously uncharted territory brings up very arousing questions. With that said, the mention that the crew of the Protostar about to explore a planet in the Hirogen star system would certainly raised raise some eyebrows and even alert Trek fans who are familiar to the Hirogen race of aliens. For those new to this series or Star Trek in general, the Hirogen first debuted in the Star Trek Voyager TV series and are a hunter species whose own motivation is to scout various areas of space for living beings solely as prey without showing any remorse or consideration whatsoever about their own livelihoods. The mere mention of the species may possibly lead to more story development down and even give fans a glimpse of the past and raise some questions as to what other encounters Janeway and her crew might have had in the Hirogen system and even lead into why Starfleet considered inserting her knowledge and experience into the USS Protostar in this area of space.
New Gadgets and a New Vehicle!
A Star Trek away mission would not be a proper mission without the right tools to get the team to explore new territory. So we will get to discuss the introduction of said devices shown in this episode along with two new vehicles! Dal, Jankom Pog, Rok-Tahk, and Zero were all given a tricorder. In this episode, it looked like a classic handheld datapad (also known as PADD – Personal Access Display Device) that spawned all the way from the Star Trek: The Next Generation but with very much what today’s cell phones look like with its touch display interface. It’s interesting to see the tricorder take on a whole new look for this series, but it seems simplified to serve the purpose of a very novice crew. The second gadget introduced in the episode is what Janeway referred to as a Type I phaser. While not quite different from what has become familiar for fans, the ones seen in this episode of Prodigy have more of a flashy and bright graphical interface and control rather than buttons on phasers or phaser rifles commonly seen in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager TV series. It’s interesting that it also boasts the Starfleet Delta Logo on the side of the phaser. The possible reasoning behind this is to make it that obvious that it’s an item that is Starfleet property. One of the biggest reveals in this episode was a new land vehicle that enabled the crew to explore the planet. Viewers can tell there was much detail and care spent on designing the vehicle that the episode spent a good enough time to make sure we can see almost every part of the vehicle. Janeway called it “The Runaway,” which happens to be a very ironic name since the crew of the Protostar ran away from Tars Lamora, the planet from where they escaped. At first glimpse of The Runaway, it seems to be a vastly major upgrade from The Argo buggy, a land vehicle that debuted in the film Star Trek: Nemesis in terms of its design and functionality. The Runaway’s abilities would definitely befit any of today’s NASA engineers, and its features are mentioned on the official Star Trek website. The final vehicle to make its debut in this episode is the appearance of a new shuttlecraft. It appears when Gwyn attempts to escape from the Protostar after the planet’s somewhat sentient web of entanglements envelops the ship to prevent it from escaping. It boasts a dramatically different, streamlined, and futuristic style that fits the design of the Protostar in this animated series. We could only hope to see more use of the features and abilities from these new vehicles.
Those Stunning Environments!
The entire art and visual teams who helped to contribute and produce on this episode deserve much praise for allowing viewers to really delve into Star Trek and immerse themselves into huge and expansive environments. There is an entire sequence beautifully put together when the USS Protostar is first seen in a wide-angle shot to show the dramatic scale of the ship’s presence while in Hirogen space. It then transitions to an overhead view of the ship flying directly over the planet, to see the effect of the atmosphere burn on the shields, and ends with another wide-angle shot of the lush greenery and imagery of a very fertile environment full of plant life and waterfalls. These shots take into account the amount of detail, love, and care and weave such details into the story.
One Star Trek fan, Jorg Hillebrand (@gaghyogi49 on Twitter) was able to capture some of those scenes with some pictures in the tweet below:
The #StarTrekProdigy episode "Dreamcatcher" features some beautiful planetary shots with a lone USS Protostar in the far distance. These images are simply stunning, I could look at footage of the ship flying in the distance with scenery like this for a whole episode! 😅 pic.twitter.com/rKYEnpQABT
— Jörg Hillebrand (@gaghyogi49) November 11, 2021
Overall, the episode became overwhelming not in the sense of plot and storyline, but more in regards to what it has shown as first reveals, beautiful visual storytelling and world-building, and character development. There is still not a lot about each of the characters’ backstories, but the series is still in its early stages. It is even more intriguing to learn more about Dal’s past and his parents in contrast to how Gwyn is only talking about her father, unless her species only has fathers. Also, there is a dire need to also learn about Murf’s origins. A second season was recently announced so there is definitely room for more character building and magnificent storytelling.
Star Trek Prodigy stars Kate Mulgrew (Hologram Kathryn Janeway), Brett Gray (Dal), Ella Purnell (Gwyn), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Angus Imrie (Zero), Jason Mantzoukas (Jankom Pog), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), John Noble (The Diviner), and Jimmi Simpson (Drednok). Showrunners: Kevin and Dan Hageman
Star Trek Prodigy is available to watch on the Paramount Plus app.
