A starship soaring past, through, and around the vibrant colors of the Delta quadrant, complete with vivid nebula clouds? Yeah, we’re getting Voyager vibes from this. Honestly, it’s nice to see a Trek sequence so intentionally playing up the potential wonder and beauty in space exploration. While Voyager didn’t actually lean into those themes, they are aspects of the Trek verse that has been downplayed in recent incarnations. Hopefully, Prodigy, with its stories of Delta quadrant kids finding a spaceship with a Janeway hologram and using it to make their way towards the Alpha quadrant—will lean into that space. While the ties between Voyager and Prodigy are obvious, when asked about the connections during today’s TCA Paramount+ panel, series creators Dan and Kevin Hageman downplayed the connections between Voyager and Prodigy specifically, rather contextualizing the new series within the larger Star Trek world. “There may be some characters that these characters come across from Voyager,” said Dan Hageman, “but there are also other characters from the wide world of Gene Roddenberry.” It sounds like Prodigy is looking to tie into other Star Trek series, not just Voyager. Given that the show is set in 2383, which means characters from Voyager, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, The Original Series, or even Lower Decks could all feasibly pop up. The Delta quadrant setting of the series may make rendezvouses tricky, but I have faith in the creativity of the Hagemans. As for how different the Hologram Janeway will be from the live-action Janeway we knew and loved, Mulgrew doesn’t see any difference, saying the holographic version will be “full of her humanity and full of her levity,” and that she has endowed the character with the “same deep sense of self-command, but great fun.” She teased that Janeway is delighted to be helping these kids trying to make their way across the universe, adding: “She’s going to love them, whether they like it or not.” Star Trek: Prodigy is slated to premiere on Paramount+ sometime this fall.
