Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Gets Back Into The Fight In “Ascension, Part I & II” [Ep. 215/216]

 “Ascension” Parts I & II

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episodes 15 & 16 – Debuted Monday, July 1, 2024
Written by Erin McNamara, Jennifer Muro, Diandra Pendleton-Thompson, Keith Sweet II & Aaron J. Waltke (Part I); Alex Hanson (Part II)
Directed by Sung Shin (Part I); Sean Bishop (Part II)

A heart-pounding two-parter puts all the characters through a crucible.

Size matters not.

WARNING: Spoilers below!

RECAP

“Maybe it’s time our journey finally ends.”

With the Protostar and Voyager crews reunited, there’s a moment for everyone to pause and reflect as they move forward with new purpose. Maj’el invites Dal to join the Novas, Zero looks to Pog to help them make a fresh body, and Janeway and Chakotay take stock of how their future has caught up to them. They plan to finish the mission to put the Protostar where it belongs, but Admiral Jellico can’t help but be a buzzkill: Starfleet is taking over the Protostar mission and Voyager has been ordered back home. Janeway is to be returned to a desk, her crew reassigned, the would-be cadets “reevaluated.” Janeway isn’t ready to put the fate of the timeline into the hands of bureaucrats but she isn’t getting any takers on going rogue. The kids aren’t happy either, but surprisingly Dal argues it’s time for the grownups to take over from their “special rogue misfit division.” Wait, did Mirror Dal replace him? The debate is cut short with Gwyn urgently summoned to the bridge to pick up a very long-distance call from her dad. Asencia is up to no good. She is the big bad after all.

You spent 10 years in that tiny ship… with a hologram of me?

“A war is coming to you.”

Asencia has taken over Solum and she’s building a huge attack fleet using time manipulation technology that even future Solum didn’t have access to. Iltheron’s warning is cut short by the baddie herself, twirling her virtual mustache. Now that she has their coordinates, she sends her special greetings in the form of a giant ship complete with a Drednok captain who proceeds to attack with a new weapon bleeding the Voyager-A of all power. With Janeway’s ship immobilized, Chakotay rallies the Protostar “crew”… and the kids are back in action. However, Dal gets diverted to join the Novas, assigned to fighter duty, and a weakened Zero stays behind to help the Doctor. Janeway has quantum torpedoes but can’t get a lock, so the fighters will go in to get the coordinates, backed up by Chakotay and the gang. After fighting off waves of lethal Vau N’Akat drones. they make it through and Voyager-A launches a salvo… but those drones form an energy grid to block the shot. They are at Asencia’s mercy. How did that little s#!t get this kind of power? Back on Solum, we see she has been tapping into the mind of a captive Time Lord Traveler, Wesley Crusher. Not cool, man.

Uh, can I go back to making wisecracks from the sidelines?

“She’s toying with us.”

Clicking ‘next episode’ takes us to cliffhanger Voyager dead in the water and getting hammered by those pesky drones, taking down what’s left of the shields. Risking the Protostar (which again, needs to remain intact to save the universe), Chakotay again teams up with the Delta Flyers to defend Janeway’s ship—and for once, she is glad he defied orders. Asencia tortures Wes some more to get a glimpse of the future before launching her new “Incursor” weapon, a giant spike that pierces through Voyager’s hull, embedding in the shuttle bay. Tysess leads a team to investigate and gets caught in an energy blast that ages him a few decades before they put up a containment field, but it won’t hold back the “chronometric deterioration” for long. Jellico rings with more good news: No one is coming to help. You’ve been a big help, Ed. Zero volunteers to go into Shuttle Bay 3 to disable the device as even in their weakened state, as a Medusan, they are the only being that could survive the “geriatric oblivion” the device is radiating. They give Pog a call on the Protostar: going to need that new body a little sooner than expected. Gulp.

This thing is stretching out the neck of my favorite sweater.

“Our mission isn’t over yet.”

Jankom gets to work using the vehicle replicator as Zero enters the bay, going from teen to past retirement age in moments. The Medusan struggles their way to the device and Rok helps them sort out the controls, but it’s no good. This thing can’t be turned off, but it can be diverted to another Starfleet ship. Maj’el steps up, volunteering to lure it away with the help of Dal and the Novas who have been clearing away the enemy drones by abandoning their training to become “wack-a-doo” unpredictable. In what may be their last act, Zero heroically reprograms the Incursor and it slowly dislodges, heading to Maj’el’s little fighter. Together, the Novas perform the never-seen-before Boothby Starburst maneuver, luring the weapon right back to the big Vau N’Akat ship. Boom! Everyone reunites in the hangar for a joyous moment, including Zero—who arrives in a brand-new version of their old containment suit, now enhanced with sensory inputs. They can feel! Janeway rouses the crew with a moving speech about how they worked together to triumphantly survive a “trial by fire.” They are eager to get underway with new Starfleet orders to go to Solum, but she confides in Chakotay her worries of what future awaits them. Back with Asencia, Wesley taunts her as he only showed her what he wanted, but she cares not for the loss of that one ship as she now knows that poor little Voyager is on its own, with no Starfleet armada coming to save it from what lies in wait. She didn’t do the maniacal laugh, but you could sense it.

Okay, having a body isn’t fun anymore.

ANALYSIS

We could be heroes…

Once again, the show takes a big pivot with a cinematic two-part episode filled with thrilling action and heartbreaking character moments. Janeway’s rousing speech summed up the episode itself with “no single hero” as everyone was working together at a higher level with serious stakes. The training wheels were off, the kids and Starfleet crew were now working in tandem. In big and little ways, each of our main characters showed how much they have grown, like Dal starting to see the bigger picture, learning some big lessons from his trip through the consequences of choices he had in the previous episode. It’s these thoughtful moments, like Zero reaching out to Pog, that help this episode ascend. However, unlike the previous episode, there were some attempted moments of levity that didn’t land. Did we really need to hear about Bribble’s “oopsie”? Okay, okay. Kids’ show. But as this episode shows how everyone is now playing for real, the whole Murf-can-understand-us-but-we-can’t-understand-him thing is wearing a bit thin, if we are to believe that he can do the job of a Starfleet security chief, “pew pew pew” not counting.

You are… shinier.

Seeing Janeway and Chakotay rekindling their chemistry is quite satisfying, and their conversation calling back to episodes like “Endgame” is perfectly tied into that bigger theme of time that hangs over the whole season. The show continues to nicely lean into how their relationship is echoed with Dal and Gwyn. The classic Trek themes of family and sacrifice were well on display without getting too maudlin. Zero’s rapid aging was brutal, but it only raised the stakes of this new war where their opponent is using time as a weapon. Ascencia’s overly extended attack and toying with the Voyager did feel a bit Batman villain-like but itmade sense as she was testing her new weapons, and more importantly, the resolve of Starfleet itself. Still, the character has lost all the nuance she had in season 1, becoming distractingly one-dimensional, leaving it to Ilthuran (and John Noble’s sensitive performance) to do most of the Solum worldbuilding.

Does this thing get any other channels?

If references are your thing, this episode had plenty, from the “Boothby Supernova” to the Bynars on Voyager’s technical team and many more (see “BITS” below); thankfully the show never over-indulges, leaving these bits to be an extra layer for longtime fans that otherwise weave seamlessly into the story. What makes this episode “ascend” is how it incorporates lore elements of the 2380s into the story, especially Star Trek: Picard. It’s always a Trek trope that there are no other ships around, but now they tie that into the topical Romulan refugee crisis. There is hope for Zero because Daystrom has been making some big advances in artificial physiology. These connections and many other elements of this episode perfectly demonstrate how the Hageman brothers have achieved their stated goal of bringing this show to the “adult table” of Star Trek in season 2.

Sorry didn’t call earlier, Starfleet regulations require me to frame the shot just right so you can see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Final thoughts

Forgive the reference but the show has now pivoted in a big way to the endgame of this season, and is doing so with style. Adding to this action movie vibe were the outstanding visuals and stirring music by composer Nami Melumad, who has been nailing it all season. There are just four more episodes left. Savor them.

Remember when you built me a bathtub? Good times.

BITS

• Stardate 61945.4
• Before the attack, Jellico said Starfleet was handing the Protostar over to the Department of Temporal Investigations introduced in DS9.
• Jellico mentions how the Federation has become dependent on the A500 androids, as seen in Picard.
• The Boothby Supernova is named for famed Starfleet Academy groundskeeper Boothby, who appeared in TNG and Voyager.
• The maneuver is similar to the banned Kolvoord Starburst, which got almost Wesley kicked out of the Academy in TNG and resulted in the expulsion of cadet Nick Locarno, who got his revenge on Starfleet in the most recent season of Lower Decks.
• Speaking of characters played by Robert Duncan McNeill, the Mark 2 Nova Flyers were designed by Tom Paris.
• The Nova Squad trainees also performed a “Phoenix Triad” and a “Yeager Loop.” The latter was performed by Nova Squad in the TNG episode “The First Duty,” named for famed test pilot Chuck Yeager.
• Ilthuran was able to make contact from Solum via the Starfleet Shuttle that crashed at the start of the season and using the Watson Subspace Relays, established in the later seasons of Voyager.
• Pog said the Vau N’Akat ship was draining Voyager like a Dikironium cloud creature, from the TOS episode “Obsession.”
• The Doctor said he could de-age Tysess using Cerberusian gene therapy, presumably sourced from the scientists on Cerberus II in the TNG episode “Too Short A Season.”
• The Bynars (introduced in TNG) could be seen both securing the Living Construct in episode 215 and assessing the Incursor weapon in episode 216.

It appears most of the computer core is dedicated to something called “coffee”?

TrekMovie’s Prodigy July binge-watch

Since all 20 episodes were released on Netflix at once, we’re binging it in five-episode arcs; we can’t stick to watching just one a week! Each All Access Star Trek podcast (every Friday morning) will cover five episodes, while written reviews for all five will be published throughout the week, with two-parters paired up. This will all wrap up just as San Diego Comic-Con kicks off at the end of the month. We also hope to have more Prodigy interviews and analysis in July and beyond.

NEW: Full spoiler open thread!

We welcome fans joining us through our July coverage of 5 episodes each week, and we ask our readers to keep comments related to the season up to the episode being reviewed.

For those choosing to binge the show even faster, we have created an open thread where you can post all the spoiler comments you want for the entire season. 

Season 2 of Prodigy is available to stream on Netflix globally (excluding Canada, Nordics, CEE, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Mainland China) and season one is currently available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe with season two coming soon. Season two has launched in France on France Televisions channels and Okoo.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.