Brief Update and Mini-Review of Star Trek: Prodigy Episode 1

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I just wanted to let you all know that I am planning something big for Josh's Nostalgia Corner. Three big things actually. The first is a 5 part series on my history with Star Wars novels, according to publication order rather than the order in which I experienced them in. So stay tuned for that. I'm also going to be doing a multi-part series on Star Trek. Which means rewatching select episodes from each series as well as all of the movies. The third, and final big, time consuming thing I'll be doing at some point is my history with Animorphs, which will include the books, the TV show, and the graphic novels. I have other similar projects in my head for this blog, but those won't be happening for a really long time, so don't expect too much from me in this short amount of time. These won't be reviews, they'll be a look into my history with particular franchises, it's just I want to take my time with them and give them their due especially because these are the franchises that kept me busy when I couldn't do anything else due to illness or having surgery or dealing with some medical stuff when I was a kid. So those are the three MAJOR things I have planned for the blog. So stay tuned for that. Right now, in keeping with talking about the shows, movies, comics, novels, and video games that I love, I just want to talk about my thoughts on the premiere of Star Trek: Prodigy. So, let's get into it.

The premiere was actually really REALLY good!!!! One thing about modern TV shows aimed specifically at children is that there are many of them that aren't watchable by an adult audience. Not that there weren't when I was a kid in the '90s, but when I think back on alot of the cartoons that I watched growing up, like Batman: The Animated Series, Sailor Moon, Justice League, and Digimon, there were more that could be considered to be for all ages rather than just specifically for kids. So when they announced that Nickelodeon had greenlit an animated Star Trek series, specifically for kids, I was concerned that it would only appeal to kids with adults being unable to watch it. I'm glad I was wrong.

The entire time I was watching the episode, I found myself thinking of Nickelodeon's 2012 animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well as Cartoon Network's 2011 short-lived animated series, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, which both used a similar tone and animation style as the one that Star Trek: Prodigy uses. Which is pretty cool because I liked both the Green Lantern series, and the Ninja Turtles series. I also like that this is the first TV movie style premiere episode for Star Trek since Enterprise's premiere, "Broken Bow" aired 20 years ago. Technically Discovery had a two episode premiere back in 2017, but each episode had it's own title sequence, credits and episode title, whereas this episode is like the premieres of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, where the episodes had a single title sequence, credits, and episode title, but, will probably be split into two half-hour episodes for reruns later on (the previous four shows were two hour premieres with the episodes being split into two one hour episodes for reruns). 

One thing that got me excited for this show, despite my concerns about it's presentation, was the fact that Kate Mulgrew was returning to the franchise to reprise her role from Star Trek: Voyager, Captain Kathryn Janeway. Voyager is my favourite Star Trek series, besides The Next Generation, so to have Captain Janeway returning, with her original actor voicing her, made me extremely excited.

I don't want to say much more than that, because this show is awesome and I don't want to spoil anything about it for you, in case you haven't watched the first episode yet. The characters are great, the animation is spectacular, and the best part about it is that the ENTIRE cast and crew of the show is excited to be working on it. I watched the episode's after show, The Ready Room hosted by Wil Wheaton, last night, and during the episode, he interviewed Kate Mulgrew. I felt her excitement and enthusiasm as I watched her talk about her return to Star Trek after a 19 year absence (she appeared as Janeway in a cameo in the tenth Star Trek movie, Star Trek Nemesis), and it was infectious. So I am very excited to see where this show goes over the course of the season. 

Alrighty that's it for me for today, but next week I'll be back with part 1 of my personal Star Wars novels history, which will cover the original run of books that were published by Del-Rey from 1976 to 1983 and what my original thoughts on the books were when I read them in the late '90s and the 2000s. Until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.