The Big Picture

Fans rallied around Star Trek: Prodigy after it was pulled off Paramount+, and now it’s dropping on Netflix on December 25, 2023. The showrunners are excited about the possibility of more seasons and hope to continue the series beyond Season 2. Season 2 will explore new challenges for the crew as they navigate the adult world of Starfleet.

In just a few days, a much larger audience is about to experience one of Paramount+’s most exciting Star Trek series when Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 flies onto Netflix on Christmas Day. The series first debuted at New York Comic Con back in 2021, where it captured the hearts of audiences who were delighted to discover an animated series that was aimed towards a younger audience, while still appealing to the demographic who grew up with Star Trek: Voyager.

Star Trek: Prodigy centers around the rag-tag crew of kids—Dal (Brett Gray) and his crew, Gwyn (Ella Purnell), Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), Jankom Pog (Jason Mantazoukas), Zero (Angus Imrie), and Murf (Dee Bradley Baker)—who came into the possession of the U.S.S. Protostar, which was previously captained by a now-missing Chakotay (Robert Beltran). Throughout Season 1, they receive a crash-course lesson on what it means to be a crew, under the wise guidance of a Janeway hologram (Kate Mulgrew), and become all the better for it. The finale sets the stage for a very exciting Season 2, which Star Trek: Prodigy absolutely deserves.

Collider caught up with Star Trek: Prodigy’s showrunners, Kevin and Dan Hageman to celebrate the debut of Season 1 on Netflix and look forward to Season 2—and beyond. In addition to discussing the past and present, Hageman also spoke enthusiastically about the Star Trek: Fans that helped to save the series after it was pulled off Paramount+, what it was like to bring a little romance to the series with Dal and Gwyn, and they also cryptically teased the future of another project of theirs: the sequel to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. You can read the full interview below, and be sure to catch Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 when it arrives on Netflix in the U.S. on December 25, 2023.

How ‘Star Trek’ Fans Carried on the Tradition of Saving Series With ‘Prodigy’

COLLIDER: What was it like for both of you to see the way that Star Trek fans rallied around a Prodigy?

KEVIN HAGEMAN: I would say when the news came, it was devastating. We had so much faith and hope in our show, but we and our crew felt so small in knowing this, and just trying to keep this engine going. But then you got the love from the fans.

DAN HAGEMAN: I remember thinking, “Oh, the fans are not gonna like this.”

KEVIN: Yeah, I expected some support, but holy cow, it was amazing. Literally, it was just bringing back the memories of The Original Series with them.

DAN: Like the selling out of the toys and the books and then the banner. It just built and built and built.

That entire movement felt like a perfect example of Star Trek: Prodigy, like all of the ideas and themes that you have packaged into the show.

KEVIN: Yes! 100%.

DAN: Yeah, I reflect on that a lot. We were just talking about even from the conception of the show to how it started on Nickelodeon and then Paramount+ bought it, and there’s all this tumultuousness around the show, and making it with COVID. We really feel like The Little Spaceship That Could just trying to get into Starfleet, so we’re so happy to be able to reveal that the adventure doesn’t end them getting to Starfleet. There’s more.

Definitely. One of the things that I really liked about the back half of Season 1 was that I was right about Gwyn and Dal and their little connection, so I want to know, how fun was it to bring a little bit of romance to the Star Trek Universe?

KEVIN: Oh, I love that. Yeah, it’s teenagers. Come on. There’s gotta be a little bit of teenage [romance]. What Dan and I do is, we write wish fulfillment. If you look at anything we’ve ever done, there’s huge wish fulfillment. And you put yourselves in the shoes of these characters, they’re alien teenagers venturing into the unknown.

DAN: We also saw them as two sides of a coin, as always. Characters who need each other, a lot like how Kirk and Spock need each other, their skill sets…

KEVIN: They’re teenagers and they have a libido.

I remember when I came away from seeing the premiere at New York Comic-Con, I was like, “Those two have to kiss at some point in this season,” because you had it so perfectly laid out from the very beginning. So, it was definitely wish fulfillment in a lot of ways.

KEVIN: They complete each other really nicely.

DAN: Now you have Janeway and Chakotay. What’s gonna happen with them? Are they gonna smooch?

Yes! The eternal question. I am curious, how far along are you into Season 2? Is that completely done and ready to go? Where are you at in that phase?

DAN: We just wrapped Episode 218, so we’re on like our last two episodes, so we should be done by the end of the year.

KEVIN: Season 1 kept getting bigger and the finale of Season 1 was huge, and then now we gotta go bigger. So now we’re at the end of Season 2 and you’re on a little TV show budget, and we’re just trying to make it as big and as amazing as possible.

Talking about Season 1 going big, what were some of the most complex scenes that you still can’t believe you managed to pull off in Season 1?

KEVIN: The Kobayashi Maru episode was such a challenge and Aaron Waltke, he was a superstar on that and we pulled it off. There’s so many complications about trying to get the rights of actors’ voices, and even the song. We had an AC/DC Thunderstruck song that we didn’t have the money for the rights, but then our composer created a “Lightningboom” instead of “Thunderstruck.” [Laughs] There’s so many difficulties that we went through to do that. What about you, Dan? Was there one that stood out?

DAN: I think you brought up a great episode. I can’t top that.

KEVIN: That was a hard one just to produce.

DAN: The pilot! The pilot was hard.

KEVIN: The pilot was so hard.

DAN: It’s so hard starting a show because you have input coming in from a lot of different directions and you have a vision that you’re trying to get to. Like, I remember with Drednok, when they first showed us what Drednok sounded like they made him very, very crazy, like, “I’m an evil guy!” And we’re like, “No, it’s scarier if he’s silent and he has a very soft voice.” So you have to have these discussions about every little detail in order to have it work.

KEVIN: And everyone’s questioning it. “Is it too much romance? Is there not enough? Is it funny? Do we need more jokes?”

DAN: “Why is Drednok scary with a soft voice?” Yeah.

KEVIN: And now it’s like we’re doing episodes Nickelodeon trusts us now. They love what we’re doing and they trust us.

Where Could ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Go After Season 2?

Excellent. Well, that’s good to hear. As you’re nearing the end of Season 2, do you think there are more stories to tell in this universe? Are we coming to an end or maybe a hopeful beginning if things continue to go well?

KEVIN: I really hope.

DAN: I’d say there’s both, Kevin. At the end of Episode 40, there’s a nice wrap-up. We never want to leave people hanging.

KEVIN: Like Season 1. I think Season 1 felt like a nice wrap-up, but, “Oh my gosh, Gwyn is going back…” There’s exciting teases.

DAN: There’s threads of what’s next. If we’re lucky enough to go to Season 3, I’m really excited about where the show can go. We wrote this thing to go seven seasons at least.

KEVIN: I don’t want to be the most short-lived Star Trek show in existence. It’s not why we created this show.

DAN: Yeah, Mike McMahan. Just joking. [Laughs]

Especially with the fans and how passionate they’ve proven themselves to be. I hope there are definitely more seasons than just the two.

KEVIN: I hope people will look back at our show and be like, “Oh my god, they followed the footsteps of The Original Series. It got canceled, they got brought back to life. Oh, here comes Star Trek the motion picture.” Why not?

I’ve asked this question before but do we think that there is any opportunity to see this show crossover with any of the other shows? After the Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds crossover, I was like, “Are we getting any closer to seeing these characters pop up in other mediums?”

DAN: I think they have to to a level of degree because I feel like Star Trek is always good for deep cuts of like, “Look at that alien species from The Original Series, or yada, yada.” So I feel like we are now a deep cut where someone’s gonna want to show a Brikar in their show, or a Mellanoid Slime Worm with Murf. It’s only gonna make Star Trek fans appreciate it even more. But I’d love to see Gwyndala and I’d love to see Dal. I’d love to see what they look like in a show.

KEVIN: Yeah, Ella Purnell and Brett Gray just actually look like their characters.

They do!

KEVIN: And our show is very grounded, even more than like Lower Decks, which is a comedy. Ours is very grounded and real-feeling, I think, so to see them crossover… I saw some fan did a makeup as Gwyn once and it was stunning, and I’m like, “I would love to see Gwyn.”

Especially with how incredible the prosthetics teams are on all of these shows. They can pull off so much.

KEVIN: Yeah. Someday, hopefully.

Fingers crossed. What are some of the themes of Season 2 that you can tease where things are going?

DAN: I think we’ve said this before, but we said in Season 1 the kids steal a ship, in Season 2 they earn a ship. They’re in a much bigger world now that they’re in Starfleet.

KEVIN: And that’s one of the biggest challenges. In Season 1, they’re like in a “stolen car.” It’s a bunch of teenagers in a stolen car and then they’re in their own little world trying to survive. Now, you’re on the New Voyager. You’re in the adult world now. You’re trying to become Starfleet, and so that’s a challenge. There’s a blessing and a curse with that.

DAN: It’s what they want. When you’ve had as many adventures as them, is following orders something that they’d want to do?

KEVIN: So I think as writers, Season 2, we really wanted to ride that balance where, “Well, I don’t want to see them in classes and in the adult world now. That’s not fun.” This is the wish fulfillment of no parents around, having your own ship, and so you’ll see, I think, in Season 2 there’s a nice balance of keeping that spirit.

DAN: There’s something, there’s something that Kate said that’s nice, too, that kind of reflects… There’s so much that these kids can learn from their elders at Star Trek, but there’s also an equal amount of stuff their elders can learn from the kids – the joy they have, the sense of adventures they have. Sometimes some of that is missed by Admiral Janeway.

KEVIN: Yeah, I love seeing what Admiral Janeway learns from these kids in Season 2. It’s pretty touching.

The first interview that I had with both of you, I asked about another property, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the sequel. I love the first one so much. Is there any further update on where things are with the sequel? I know after the writers’ strike, the actors’ strike, all of that…

KEVIN: All that did not help.

DAN: I don’t think we can speak definitively on it. We’ll see.

It’s still in the works, at least?

KEVIN: Yeah, there’s been some hiccups I would say.

DAN: There’s also been conversations.

KEVIN: Dan and I are in active conversations about…

DAN: Kevin! You can’t say anything about that. What are you talking about?

KEVIN: All I’m saying is we’re in conversations talking about how to keep this franchise alive. We’re fighting a good fight for it so that hopefully someday we’ll see it.

Star Trek: Prodigy A group of enslaved teenagers steal a derelict Starfleet vessel to escape and explore the galaxy. Release Date October 28, 2021 Creator Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman Rating TV-Y7 Seasons 2 Franchise Star Trek Streaming Service(s) Netflix Showrunner Dan Hageman , Kevin Hageman

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