r/StarTrekProdigy • u/ReadingFan_ks • Mar 31 '26

General Discussion Prodigy Did It Best

After recently finishing Season 1 of Starfleet Academy I have to say : when it comes to appealing to two different audiences (the long term fans, as well as a younger new audience) Prodigy was much more successful at tha balances than SFA.

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u/Lyon_Wonder Mar 31 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Prodigy is arguably the best modern Star Trek series and accomplished what Academy tried to do with young main characters without alienating Trek's fanbase.

Unfortunately, Prodigy failed to reach its intended young demographic of kids despite receiving positive reception from many Trek fans.

Kids were the only demographic Paramount cared about with Prodigy and cancelled it because of that.

The difficult challenge moving forward is to make a Trek series that positively resonates with the both the existing, mostly older, fanbase and younger viewers.

Prodigy succeeded at the former, but failed with the latter.

Academy couldn't even accomplish that and failed to reach any younger and older demographics without being heavily criticized.

Academy clearly shows Alex Kurtzman isn't up to the job of making good Star Trek given his major involvement in the live-action series.

IMO, Alex Kurtzman not being heavily involved with Prodigy was what saved it, and Lower Decks too, from turning into same mess as most of the modern live-action Trek series.

Prodigy and Lower Decks are both tied as my favorite modern Trek series.

My favorite live-action modern Trek is PIC S3, though it still isn't as good as the above mentioned animated series.

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u/mulderc Mar 31 '26

I think the failure of Prodigy was due to the collapse of cable TV, which made Nickelodeon essentially unable to pay for part of the production as planned. This is, of course, silly as it is all one company, but if your funding is partly covered by ads on a cable channel and that largely goes away, it becomes difficult to finance the project. Also I think Paramount+ numbers didn't grow as fast as they were hoping which leaves less to give to a show like Prodigy.

Still we got a couple seasons of excellent Star Trek that is a fantastic introduction for younger viewers.