ValueSubtracted

That's actually from season one...I don't remember them getting into it too much, but

To be honest, I have no idea how they even calculate what "makes money" in the streaming era. With ad-supported TV, I can see how you could calculate the relative value of each viewer, but for a streamer? I'm baffled as to how you would even do that math.

If Paramount had better infrastructure for a tween audience, and/or if the original plan to air it on Nickelodeon had come to fruition, maybe things would be different.

Ben Sisko, eat your heart out!

Firstly, I should point out that it's completely possible to sing the praises of one show without crapping on another.

With that out of the way, I agree it's a damn shame Paramount+ cancelled Prodigy. I think it was probably the "right" decision on paper - the Hagemans themselves have said they were shown the numbers, and they weren't great - but that probably speaks to the inadequacies of their platform. It doesn't seem to be a good place for children's programming.

Regardless of whether we get more Prodigy, I hope it was well-loved by its target audience, and I hope that it helped to create a new generation of Trek who can carry on with "Starfleet Academy" and the other series as they grow up.

In fact, if anyone has kids who have been watching it, I'd love to hear what they thought of it.

Good theory - it's been a long time since I studied brain anatomy, but hyper-specific brain damage might be the only way to truly address Pike's situation as depicted in "The Menagerie".

I had the same reaction, and decided it was an unacknowledged site-to-site transport.

Agreed on all points.

Jellico's line about not being able to supply new combadges across the fleet was a pretty funny way to acknowledge the badge inconsistency with the "Picard" flashbacks - I'm going to try not to think about that too hard.

I'm disappointed that we'll never get a chance to see Elnor in one of the sailor suits the cadets wore on this show.

One thing that's going to bug me for a while is how Solum can progress peacefully without contradicting season one - Ilthuran isn't exactly on track to become the Diviner at this point.

With a title like that, I was half-expecting a clip show...

I was also thinking that Hologram Janeway might borrow the mobile emitter and pull a switcheroo with the Admiral, but it turns out the Doctor can just do it himself.

Pretty good for a table-setting episode. The most significant development was taking Wesley's omniscience off the board, which probably had to happen for the rest of the season to have any stakes.

Ever since "Picard" season one, I've been itching to see Starfleet during the time of the Romulan evacuation, when the vast majority of their resources have been redeployed to support that mission. I never expected it to be this show that did it. It's interesting to hear that there are A500 synth units supporting the Federation member worlds - it's probably a good thing that only the units on Mars were hacked, as far as we know.

Thematically, things are really starting to come together, with Dal and the crew learning to contribute to the mission rather than take control of it.

I think I'm pretty happy with this resolution to Zero's arc - their new body seems fitting.

Those were the Enderprizians from "All the World's a Stage", right?

They certainly appeared to be - how that's possible is an exercise left to the viewer, which is part of the fun of alternate universe stories.

That said, this is the first episode of the season that fell a little flat for me. I know part of the show's mission is to give a bit of a "grand tour" of Star Trek, but this is the first one that seemed a little contrived to me.

Part of it is probably that I prefer the Mirror Universe to be more scary than silly, and the episode understandably leaned into the silly.

So...did Rok-Tahk just come up with a "cure" for tribble breeding? That would seem to be a significant development...