Ever since Star Trek began in 1966, the adventures of each starship and space station have been spooled out over time. Shows like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise all debuted new episodes weekly, and so, like most TV shows, waiting for future installments was part of the format.
Until now. Unlike any Star Trek series before it, the entirety of Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 will hit Netflix at once on July 1, 2024. Will this help the fledging spin-off series, or will the binge model hurt Prodigy’s ability to make a comeback?
After being removed from Paramount+ and then rescued by Netflix, the tween-centric Prodigy Season 2 will depict the further adventures of the late USS Protostar’s rag-tag crew. Yes, that experimental Starfleet ship was destroyed in the Season 1 finale of Prodigy, “Supernova Part 2.” Alluding to the plot point on Twitter, creators Dan and Kevin Hageman recently said, “In the first season, they stole a ship. Now, watch them earn one!”
This implies Prodigy Season 2 will focus on Dal, Zero, Jankom, Gwyn, Murf, and Rok-Tahk making their way in Starfleet under the guidance of the real Admiral Janeway, rather than her hologram counterpart from Season 1. But what will this season actually be about? As the Hagemans have hinted — and as the Season 1 finale suggested — the kids have to get a new ship.
Unlike other modern Star Trek series, like the recently completed Discovery and Picard, Prodigy has 20 episode seasons, not 10, albeit while only running for about 24 minutes each. Prodigy’s first season was gradually released on Paramount+ in 2021 and 2022, which in some ways made Season 1 feel like two distinct seasons. Now, TrekMovie and other outlets have confirmed that Netflix won’t treat Prodigy the same way, and will instead release it all at once like a traditional Netflix show.
Is this good for Prodigy? Possibly. Despite being aimed at a younger audience, Prodigy is heavily serialized. When Season 1 aired, it may have been hurt by the lack of episodes that could be watched back-to-back. Maybe the binge model will be good for families hoping to absorb more of the story quickly.
But Prodigy Season 1 also had a lot of spoilers tucked into its 20-episode run. From cameo appearances by classic Trek characters to famous alien villains and the aforementioned starship destruction, there’s a ton of cool stuff you can accidentally spoil yourself on if you don’t power through all the episodes at once.
Netflix’s big genre shows have been dealing with this for years; a new season of Stranger Things drops at midnight, and suddenly you have to be on guard for spoilers for not just the first episode, but also the finale. But Star Trek has never done this before. The franchise has always rolled out episodes in a way that makes spoilers much easier to avoid.
This gives Prodigy Season 2 even more of a challenge than Season 1. While the first season struggled to find its audience, the second season seems poised to alienate — or at least annoy — its core audience by giving away all the Trekkie goods way too quickly. As Captain Kirk once said, “Too much of anything, even love, isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
