Nothing signals a network’s confidence in a show than a renewal before the show’s action has even hit its stride.
The newest member of Paramount+’s Star Trek family, the animated, family-friendly Star Trek: Prodigy, has earned a second season only three weeks into its first season.
Furthermore, they’ve shaken up the airing schedule so that fans will have new episodes to look forward to in January as well as later on in 2022. The big reveal no one was expecting: Season 1 will run an incredible TWENTY episodes in length.
The length (and airing schedule) of Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 breaks the pattern set by all the previous Trek series, including the preceding animated offering, Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Before this announcement, Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 was the longest season aired so far at fifteen episodes.
And while that inaugural season did have a midseason hiatus, subsequent seasons have not. In fact, Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 stuck so doggedly to their Thursday drop that they released episodes on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
There were rumors that Lower Decks’s initial order was for twenty episodes, but if so, they were split into the first two seasons.
So far, Prodigy has impressed audiences with the cinematic quality of its animation and score, as well as a cast of interesting, diverse, and young protagonists.
The return of Kate Mulgrew as the voice of Hologram Janeway, the Protostar’s training program, anchors the series in Trek lore and nostalgia and provides a clever (and personable) device by which the motley crew can learn about Starfleet and the Federation.
The series launched on October 28 with a super-sized one-hour episode. Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2, titled “Lost and Found, Parts 1 & 2.”
The premiere introduced Dal (Brett Gray), Gwyn (Ella Purnell), Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), Zero (Angus Imrie), Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), and Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) as our heroes who discover the USS Protostar and use it to escape the prison mining planet, Tars Lamora.
Hot on their trail is The Diviner (John Noble), who intends to claim the Protostar for his own. At his back is his menacing henchbot, Drednok (Jimmi Simpson).
Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 Episode 3 landed on November 4, and Episodes 4 and 5 will drop on November 11 and 18, respectively.
After that, audiences will have to wait until January 6, 2022, when Episode 6 will stream on Paramount+.
The schedule currently has Episodes 6 – 10 airing on a weekly schedule, but then, a SECOND hiatus of indeterminate length happens before we get the final ten episodes of the season.
The November 18th midseason finale makes some sense as that is the premiere date for Star Trek: Discovery Season 4.
This probably means that Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will premiere on February 3 or 10, which is in keeping with Paramount+’s Star Trek Day announcement.
Does this news fire up your warp core? Or did you have your phasers set to BINGE?
How is this Paramount+/Nickelodeon co-production sitting with you? Are you loving it or leaving it?
And what are you sighting on the horizon? Are you eager for the return of Michael Burnham? Android Picard?
Or are you dreaming of boarding the Enterprise with Pike and Spock and Number One when the next new series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, hits our screens in 2022?
Beam on down to our comments to let us know!
Diana Keng is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.