It is the PENULTIMATE episode of Prodigy for now, and we LOVED it! Anika and Liz plan a reverse heist and discuss:
- Drednok: the Swiss army knife of henchmen (henchdroids)
- We love our fictional children
- We also love terrible dads in fiction and we don’t apologise
- (HOWEVER, Anika has been accused of being a Gul Dukat apologist, and she wants us to know SHE WOULD NEVER)
- Maybe the Diviner has really good reasons for hating the Federation, but the CHILD SLAVERY makes it a bit difficult to sympathise…
- New uniforms means we have OPINIONS!
- Does Anika have to explain how animation works?
Transcript
Liz: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext, and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. This week, we’re discussing Star Trek: Prodigy season one, episode nine, A Moral Star, part one. And congratulations to the writers for coming up with an anagram for their title
Anika: I’m proud of them that they get to do a big mid-season finale. Very exciting.
Liz: I enjoy how carefully the two-parters have been sprinkled through this season. Both hiatuses began with the end of a two-parter. Everything about this series feels really planned and careful and coherent in a way that I really admire. And I have every confidence that they’re going to stick the landing.
Anika: I agree that it is very well thought out. More so than any of the other Star Treks going on right now, this one seems to be following through with its own narrative. It has courage in itself. Lower Decks sort of has that, too, where it trusts itself and its audience to just do what it wants.
Liz: But also, it’s telling very different stories.
Anika: Oh yeah, absolutely. Very different … Purposes is not quite the right word, but this series is teaching something, and Lower Decks is celebrating.
Liz: Yes,
Anika: And they’re both also doing the other, but it’s like a primary, secondary kind of thing.
Liz: no, I think that puts it really well. And, you know, to an extent, Discovery and Picard are also celebrations of Star Trek, but they’re the shows that are really pushing the story forward first and foremost. Then Prodigy comes along, where it’s sort of telling its own story, completely separate from that, so far. And then Lower Decks is deliberately just doodling in the margins.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: That is not to disparage a single one of them. I’m really glad that we have all of these completely different Star Treks that are not even a little interchangeable.
Anika: I love it. That’s a celebration, too. And just having all of the different points of view and perspectives and ways to engage with Star Trek.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: That even when we had two or three shows on in the nineties, they all had the same flavor.
Liz: Yeah, even Deep Space Nine was just the same flavor, but tipped a little more savory than the others, say. And obviously Voyager was under a lot of pressure to reproduce The Next Generation. Vanilla is a great flavor, and I love it, but not everything has to be vanilla.
Anika: So I think this was a really good setup.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: It was a good first part. I ended it ready for the second one, wanting to — you know nothing was resolved. And I had a lot of questions.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Which I think is what you want out of a part and one of two type story.
Liz: Absolutely. I was afraid that they’ll go to leave it in a really dark space and traumatize some children in real life, as well as fiction. But no, we had the last minute twist that actually Dal and the others have a plan. And I think that’s great.
And I’m going to take a moment to talk about the Save the Cat storytelling structure device, which is very much on the mind of the writers. They tweeted a Save the Catian joke the other day. So I think this is intentional, but this two-parter is perfectly following the Save the Cat story beats.
They had the debate beat, where they take three minutes out of a 24 minute episode to argue about whether or not they should accept the challenge in the first place. And it didn’t drag. It lasted exactly as long as it needed to, and it wasn’t boring.
And then we end at the perfect midpoint, which is traditionally, if you’re following the Save the Cat guidelines without any variation, it’s either a false win, where everything is going really well, and then the ground is pulled out from under the characters and they realize actually their situation is much worse than they realize, or what they’ve done here is a false loss, but either way, it’s a dramatic change in mood and priorities and circumstances, which throws the characters and the audience into the second half of the story.
Anika: Very exciting.
Liz: As a structure nerd, I just admire this so much. I think Save the Cat can be, overused, obviously it’s not applicable to every story or every genre, but for television, and particularly short format television, like this, where structure is really, really important. I think they’re using it incredibly well.
Anika: You have have said in a few of our recaps of Prodigy that you knew what was going to happen. And this episode, I think because they did the whole montage of planning before they entered the bridge and did the uniform reveal, and so literally everything that happened after that moment, I was thinking, which part of this is the plan and which part of this is, you know, thinking on your feet. Cause I got to the end and we had that false loss, and it really felt like everything that happened was part of the plan in some way. And that was fun.
Liz: Yeah, it was a reverse heist.
Anika: Right. Yes. Leverage likes to do this, right, where you think that they’re failing, but in fact, all of that was what was supposed to happen in the first place
Liz: And that is a key part of the structure of any heist.
Anika: Right. So it was a lot of fun. It kept me on my toes, even though, like you, I felt like, oh, I’m an adult, and I’ve watched enough of these stories, and I know the Save the Cat structure, and I like a heist and I know what’s going on. But it was still very engaging.
I’ve said before that I am the person who doesn’t mind spoilers, and who likes something better the second time anyway, because I don’t like anticipation.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah.
Anika: That makes me anxious.
Liz: I completely understand.
Anika: It’s not that I don’t like surprises, it’s that I feel better when I know what the surprise is going to be.
Liz: No.
Anika: I know that makes it not as surprise, but it does, in a way.
Liz: It’s like when you’re listening to a song that you really, really love, and you’re holding your breath, waiting for that moment where you know, the music is going to swell, and the bass will kick in, and that’s your favorite bit.
Anika: Yes. Which is all to say that I really think that this episode did a good job of being surprising and safe at the same time.
Liz: I saw a tweet from one of the writers, saying that they wanted to reproduce, no, educate kids on how fandom felt at the end of The Best of Both Worlds, Part One. And obviously, I respect that, but this is not Riker giving the order to fire on Picard. And that’s good. That’s great. I’m not saying that they’ve done the wrong thing.
For me, even though I knew how the shape of the story would play out, I was still really engaged in seeing how they would get there. Whereas with previous episodes where I’ve gone, yeah, but I’ve seen this, I was not that engaged in seeing how the story would play out.
It was just a great episode all around. Drednok is both downloadable and a communications device. He’s like the Swiss army knife of henchmen.
Anika: Every episode we get more that Drednok can do, and I just find that really funny, because he was introduced just as that, like, creepy robot General Grievous type.
Liz: Yeah. He’s become so much more.
Anika: Yeah. Yeah. Have thought about what a droid henchman actually could be? It’s like, wow, I hadn’t.
Liz: It’s almost as if, with the addition of replicator technology to the mix, Star Trek has taken Star Wars‘s droid concept and turned it all the way up to eleven.
Anika: Yes, it’s super fun. I really enjoy it. Like, nothing about Drednok was ever going to surprise me, and yet now everything about Drednok is a surprise to me. That’s the amazing thing. So, well done on the Drednok.
And I also really liked that Jankom got a big play.
Liz: I was going to say, speaking of characters, who surprised me, I’ve gone from not really caring about Jankom a couple of weeks ago to being one hundred percent team Jankom Pog. His sadness and hope last week, and then his heroic, this is stupid and I want to do it, stance, I just … Like, Team Jankom.
Anika: It was so well done. When he jumped up on the table, it was like Les Mis, you know, it’s like, this is exactly what I want Jankom Pog to be, someone who is ridiculously idealistic, but hides it. And it was great. Good job, Jankom
Liz: And good job trip to the writers for adding to his character and giving him a lot more depth that he definitely didn’t have in the first half of this season. You know, our problems with Jankom – I’m not saying that our opinions are necessarily correct, but our opinions didn’t come from nowhere.
Anika: Hmm. And then we get Captain Dal being like … It was so good. It was so well done. Because you thought that he was being the same kid that was avoiding reality by playing his video game last week. And he wasn’t at all. He was really taking it very seriously, that his decision was going to put Rok-Tahk in danger.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And that is like, boom, an amazing, wonderful arc from Dal in the first episode to Dal now. And, looking back, you can see all the little steps that it took. I’m amazed at how beautiful that moment was, because, you know, he said, if it was just me, you know, sure, fine, of course I’m going to do it.
It reminds you that he is still that reckless teen boy who thinks he’s invincible, but he’s gained some maturity, and he’s gained that responsibility. Being captain doesn’t mean I just get to be in charge and, you know, give orders and sit in the big chair, being captain means I actually have to be responsible for other people’s lives.
Liz: And also, I think, after last week, he has a better appreciation for how young Rok-Tahk is. I think I complained in the murder planet episodes that the vibe was very much of teenagers and a younger kid tagging along and the teenagers not really understanding her needs. And I think now he does have a better understanding that Rok-Tahk is super smart and incredibly strong and immensely brave, but also she is a little girl and she is vulnerable in ways that the older kids aren’t.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: And I’m so glad that they’ve realized that. I will allow these kids to babysit my fictional children.
Anika: And then Gwyn was really great too, in that she did that following the captain and being the sounding board and not making the decision for him, but laying it out, this is what the decision is, and we will support you, but you have to make it. She was a Riker in that moment, she was accepting being that second in command. She didn’t try to convince them to let her be in charge in any way. There was no competition. She was really like, I’m supporting you, but I’m also supporting the crew. I’m the person who has to do both of those things at once.
Liz: It didn’t feel like a gendered situation of the girl being subordinate. It actually felt like they were close to equals, having a conversation as such. And also, that’s where the, I think, first intentional thread of romance between them flickers into light.
I don’t want to make too much of it, but having gone from barely friends to people who trust each other, I think they’re ready to start moving further.
Anika: It was just that one moment where he said you and I don’t mean you. I was like, oh, you, do. Yes, you do.
Liz: You mean both, Dal. And that’s okay. Also, these kids have been so traumatized that it really makes sense to me that it would take time, like, they need time away from that traumatic situation to begin to learn to be people before they can begin to learn to have romantic feelings.
Anika: Oh, absolutely. I think that it’s at most, it’s almost rushing it. But, for me, the person that I am, and since I’ve been literally shipping them since the first episode,
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I gasped out loud. I was like, yes, that was for me.
Liz: I definitely don’t want it to turn into a full-blown romance [yet], but I do think that they have planted a seed, and we’ll see if it grows, and we’ll see if we like the plant that comes out of it.
And meanwhile, Gwyn’s father is the worst.
Anika: He’s really the worst. That message in the Drednok – the communication device was so passive-aggressive. I could not.
Liz: Oh my God.
Anika: It was just dripping.
Liz: I have watched the first two seasons of Farscape and in the first season, Captain Crais, who was Aeryn Sun’s commanding officer, is pursuing her and her friends. And he leaves these messages around the Uncharted Territories, and they’re like wanted posters, and then she hacks them and there’s a passive aggressive message to her. And so that’s what it reminded me of. But Crais is … Crais thinks he’s her love interest. And so obviously the vibe is much different to the passive aggressive father daughter, dad knows best vibe.
You are the one who put the Good Sam reference into our notes this week, so that’s not on me, but my first thought on watching the episode was, thank God that the worst father in my personal TV lineup is not played by Jason Isaacs.
Anika: I wrote out Gwyn and the Diviner, and I was thinking about what my bullet points were going to be I was like, you know what? My bullet point was going to have been, it’s so interesting to me how the Diviner is so happy when he sees himself in Gwyn. Like, he’s really thrilled when she’s a good negotiator, cause he’s like, yeah, I taught you to be ruthless like me, good job.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: That is very Sam and Griff. It’s the same, I am horrible to you in order to turn you into the type of person that I want you to be, which is me.
Liz: But with, Griff, that’s the extra layer of, he doesn’t actually want her to be like him. And so he undermines her because he knows on some level that she is better than that, that he could have been better than that. I am really into that.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: As long as we’re comparing apples and oranges and making a mixed TV fruit salad, uh, ever since I was a kid, I have always been drawn to the oldest characters in a cast. Picard and Crusher, Janeway, and Chakotay. In Legend of Korra it was Lin Beifong, and Tenzin. Even in Avatar, it was the oldest teenagers. So, you know, the 17 and 18 year olds.
And it’s a problem for Good Sam that their most interesting and dynamic characters are the people in their fifties and sixties. Very much not a problem for me. I like it a lot.
I don’t have this problem with Prodigy. I am completely on board with the kids. And maybe it’s just that they saw me coming and deliberately didn’t give Gwyn a mother? But so far, as much as I’m curious to know what Chakotay is up to and what his relationship with holo Janeway was like, it’s really the kids, and Janeway, whose age is ambiguous, that concern me.
Anika: Yeah, and you know, me who loves a villain, although not Gul Dukat, I just want to put that in the record.
Liz: You have been slandered on Tumblr!
Anika: I don’t care about the Diviner at all. And I also love terrible fathers. Terrible. It’s a dynamic…
Liz: In fiction, we love terrible fathers.
Anika: Yes. I hugely I love Gwyn. Gwyn is so important to me as a character. And so I care about her response to the Diviner, and her relationship to the Diviner, and what it does to her, and what she thinks about it. But I don’t care about him at all. He is very much an obstacle in Gwyn’s story,
Liz: Yeah,
Anika: I think that’s not a problem. I think that the kids should be the most dynamic characters in this show, and it’s okay in, again, media that is, at most, for 12 year olds, that the villain has less nuance.
Liz: One hundred percent. But you know, even in Avatar, Fire Lord Ozai was a terrible, terrible person with very little nuance aside from being intensely handsome, but I could still write fic from his perspective. And it was an interesting challenge to sort of see the world from the point of view of the terrible dad character.
Whereas, beyond being curious about the Diviner’s motives and background, I don’t really care about his perspective.
Anika: So I think that when we find out what his motives and his background is, maybe then we’ll care more. Like, he’s really a question mark. I have no idea why he’s doing anything he does.
Liz: No, no. And I guess Gwyn was about to learn and then he discovered her secrets instead. So, whoops!
Anika: The one most interesting thing about the Diviner is this vendetta against Starfleet. Like, he is not just, I don’t like the Federation.
Liz: It goes beyond political differences.
Anika: Yeah. It goes beyond political differences. Exactly. This is, something bad happened that he takes personally, and that he blames on the Federation slash Starfleet.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Which is interesting.
Liz: It is. And I’ve seen speculation that Voyager, or Chakotay with the Protostar, accidentally did something that destroyed the Diviner’s people, and this is why he is so determined to get the Protostar and also hates the Federation. But I don’t know, it could be something completely unrelated. Maybe he just really hates delta shaped badges.
Anika: I think, because we’ve discussed how there seems to be some kind of time travel aspects to this story, you know, we’ve seen time travel as a plot piece in things like the 2009 movie and in Year of Hell, which the 2009 movie super reminds me of, because they both have that antagonist who just wants his family back, who is trying to recover from the trauma of losing the people he loved.
And I could be one hundred percent wrong, but it feels like the Diviner is half Nero, I’m going to destroy everything because my planet blew up, and half Annorax, that guy who literally just wants to use time-travel technology to revive his wife and children. And the Diviner, because we know that he is the last of his race and he made a test tube baby.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: So something happened to his planet. You’re not born the last of your race. I mean, you start out with other people,
Liz: Presumably he had parents.
Anika: Unless you’re Gwyn. Even she at least has the Diviner. So there is definitely something there about, like, I can imagine, I’m the last of my race, and from my perspective, Starfleet destroyed it. Maybe Voyager, maybe something to do with the Protostar. And then being feeling very justified in doing whatever you have to. But it’s like, he chose child slavery.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: I have no sympathy. You chose child slavery!
Liz: There is legitimate political action. And then there’s, I’m going to enslave some children.
Anika: Nero and Annorax do horrible, terrible things like genocide, yet Diviner still seems worse, because that baby cat…
Liz: Annorax’s genocides were pretty abstract. Like, even to him, they were just lines on a display screen. Whereas the child slaves are right there in front of the Diviner. He is sending his child to go and talk to them.
Anika: There’s just nothing good about that. There’s nothing redeemable about, yeah, I am going to create a daughter and then enlist her to enslave other children.
Liz: Yeah. It’s like, dude, you cannot even pretend to have a moral high ground. Having said that I love Gwyn. I love that the plan required her to hand herself over to her father. I think that’s brave and horrible. And she probably suggested it.
Anika: She does have that side to her. She does have that manipulative, able to see and do the worst things for whatever your goal is. But she is choosing to free slaves with it. So good job, Gwyn!
Liz: Gwyn has never been presented as a purely good character, or a purely bad one. And she’s using that ambiguity a strength.
Anika: Right. So this is why Gul Dukat is not one of my favorite characters, and Gul Dukat is the worst and I don’t, I do not support him in any way.
Liz: You’re really mad about this Tumblr anon, aren’t you?
Anika: I’m mad about this Tumblr thing. Someone on Tumblr, an anonymous person on Tumblr, thinks that I would get a tattoo that says ‘Gul Dukat did nothing wrong.’ And I would just like to unequivocally say no. Because the thing about Gul Dukat is that he is given the opportunity to change, and he chooses not to.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Gwyn was given the opportunity to change, she is doing it. So does Ben Solo. So does Loki. So does Draco Malfoy. These are characters who do terrible things, and choose to continue to do terrible things over and over again, but then choose not to.
And here’s the thing. Another character in Star Trek, another Gul Dukat, is Gabriel Lorca, mirror universe version. I loved Lorca until his last episode. And then I was like, yeah, I don’t care about you at all. Because he was given the opportunity to change. He was literally put in a different universe where he could start over and no one knew anything about him. And instead of becoming a good person…
Liz: He attempted to corrupt that universe.
Anika: He chose to corrupt that universe. I’m not interested in that character anymore. That is not one of my wonderful villains that I love.
Liz: I think he is an amazing and outstanding villain, and I love him the why I love Gul Dukat. But there are villains that I love because they’re terrible, and then there are characters I love who can be redeemed.
And I actually think Gwyn’s redemption arc is really good, because she has not done terrible things in her own right, and when she has had the opportunity to make choices, she generally made good ones. But she still understands that she is complicit in her father’s crimes. On various levels, she has to work to gain people’s trust and to compensate for the crimes that she has committed. And I think that’s good.
You cannot just decide, oh, I’m going to be a good person, and then walk away from the consequences of your bad decisions.
Anika: Right. Exactly. Which is why atonement arcs are so much better than redemption arcs. And certainly a hundred thousand times better than death by redemption.
Liz: Oh, we’ve ranted about, you know, I think this is one of those things that I should just make into a sticker. Just say no to death by redemption.
Now, how do you feel about the Protostar uniforms?
Anika: It’s fun because it’s animation. I’ve been looking at them and I’m like, I don’t know exactly how you would do that in reality. It’s different from ‘my sewing abilities aren’t strong enough to recreate this Discovery uniform.’ It’s, ‘I’m not quite sure how those angles would actually fall in actual fabric.’ But that’s fun, I don’t mind it.
Liz: No, it’s one of the fun things about animation.
Anika: I started straight up crying, like, real big tears when that uniform scene happened. When Dal came out in his uniform, I was like, oh no. And then everybody came out one by one, and they all got their moments. It was just so powerful to me. And I just cried and cried, and then Janeway transformed into hers, and I had to pause the show and get my emotions under control before I could continue watching.
Liz: No, it was great. Because she didn’t do that for Chakotay and his crew. So she feels like part of this crew in a way that maybe she didn’t with her previous…
Anika: Yes. And maybe it’s because real Janeway knew real Chakotay. And so it was like this weird, I’m Janeway, but not Janeway, and so I can’t really be a part of this crew. Whereas now, like these are her children, and they’re also her siblings. And it’s like, it’s beautiful. They’re a collective, they’re a crew. They’re just everything.
I loved how everybody was wearing the uniform differently. I have my little note here, you know, cause Murf, obviously, doesn’t get to be in the uniform and I was like, can Murf wear a communicator? Can he wear clothes? Can Murf wear anything? That I had this crazy thought that, what if Murf is clothes, then there’s another Murf inside Murf…
Liz: It’s Murfs all the day down.
Anika: Making Murf happen. There’s a little tiny, like, Ant Man Murf inside of blob Murf…
Liz: What I want now is like Russian dolls, but Murf. And then the smallest one inside is made of gel or slime, or whatever.
Anika: Aww!
Liz: Aesthetically, I find the uniforms a little bit colorless, and they’re a stark contrast against the very, very bright colors of the series. But I think I’ll get used to that contrast. And it certainly makes the character stand out.
I definitely miss the individualism of all their different outfits, but you know, it’s animation. They have unlimited wardrobe budget. So they can wear whatever they want in some scenes.
Let’s talk about Goth Janeway!
Anika: Talk about cosplay goals! That happened, and I was like, oh, the black lips?
Liz: I KNOW!
Anika: I cannot handle it.
Liz: I’m like, okay, white face paint and red blush and some red eye shadow, like, under the eyes, black lipstick, if I can get a black wig and style it … I have quite short hair right now, and I have contact lenses. So I really, the hard bit will be the uniform, and also waiting for the pandemic to end so that I can go to a convention.
Anika: I know. I really want to go to the convention in April, but April seems really soon.
Liz: I know
Anika: Based on what is happening right now.
Liz: Yeah. Yes. Now, there is a new, bad theory going around the internet.
Anika: An amazing one.
Liz: Yes. Last week, fans were theorizing that Chakotay was Drednok. This week, they’re theorizing that Chakotay is the Diviner!
Anika: Amazing. Now, okay. So the tweet that I linked you to, it has a screen cap of Chakotay and a screen cap of the Diviner side by side. And I guess they look alike? I would like to explain animation to these people. They look alike because they were literally drawn by the same team of people.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: That is why they look alike.
Liz: Also, I am looking at this screen cap and it’s like the tilt of the eyebrows, and I guess they both have eyes and a mouth and chin, but this is not even like–
Anika: You chose a screen grab of them both frowning! You made that decision. That was not a choice by the animators. That was a choice by you.
Liz: This is not a case of late Disney era sameface.
Anika: As an animation connoisseur, I can tell they were drawn by the same team of people. You can tell they’re in the same series. They look alike because they are animated, and they’re animated by the same people.
And this is just crazy to me. It’s just hanging your hat — and I know I just was floating the idea of crazy time-travel, you know, Diviner villainy, who is trying to get back his family slash planet that the Federation destroyed. But no way, no way is Chakotay part of that. First of all, they would never do that to Chakotay. Chakotay is a character that people like. Some people love him.
Liz: Also, let’s talk about how absolutely tasteless it is to posit that a Native American character, whose people have survived a genocide, is now a genocide survivor who copes with child slavery.
(Sir, those are my emotional support child slaves.)
Anika: It is offensive to even think that that is a possibility. I’m sorry to be slapping down fan theories, but that one, I really cannot stomach.
Liz: This is an animated series for children, and they are not going to make a beloved member of the franchise a supervillain and an abusive father who keeps child slaves.
Anika: And like, why, why do you cast John Noble to pretend to be Robert Beltran? Like, no! No. None of that makes sense.
I am just really disturbed by the whole, you know, Chakotay being caught up in it, Chakotay having something to do with it, like, he’s somehow responsible. He’s the main Starfleet guy that the Diviner hates, maybe? But he never hated Starfleet. He the most collaborative Maquis on the ship.
Liz: He is basically a born collaborator. Like Odo.
But anyway. I saw you shared that, and I was like, oh, for fuck’s sake. And then I saw a serious discussion about the possibility in the comments at the TrekMovie review. And I was like, this is bad and it needs to stop.
Obviously, Chakotay is Murf. I think that’s pretty clear.
Anika: I mean, I would accept a Murf over the Diviner every time. I think that part of this is wrapped up in adult fans needing a quote unquote secret box and or twist to solve. And no.
Liz: I think it’s, in part, a need to tie the Diviner to grown up Star Trek and established Star Trek canon. And in part, particularly since season one of Discovery, everyone is looking for the next big twist. Which is kind of silly because we have not had a big twist since Lorca was revealed. Star Trek did one season of mystery box storytelling, and we’ve never recovered.
Anika: And we need to let it go. I’m going to go out on a limb and say, all of storytelling needs to let it go.
Liz: I was going to say, I love a mystery. I love finding things out as the story unfolds, but.
Anika: But that’s different.
Liz: And the twist for the sake of the twist, and the mystery for the sake of being mysterious, is something that television is moving away from. You know, Yellowjackets, the big twist is right in front of us the whole time.
Anika: Everything doesn’t have to have a twist. And I’m saying this to the people making the media, and I’m definitely saying it to the people consuming the media, because it’s not necessary. You don’t have to guess what –WandaVision is another one where there was never a twist. And yet people inserted all that into it. The closest it came was Agnes, and even that, I feel like, wasn’t shocking.
Liz: Yeah
Anika: And also wasn’t the plot. At the end of the day, having a big battle with Agnes or Agatha was because it was an MCU thing and it needed to have a big battle. That’s not what the story was about at all. That was all, you know, sound and fury.
Liz: Yeah. And it was the least interesting part of the story.
Anika: So therefore the Diviner is not Chakotay. Murf is not Chakotay. Chakotay has a role in this story that we’re going to learn and it’s going to be great. And again, let’s go back to the beginning of our conversation. The showrunners and the writers of Star Trek: Prodigy, they are confident. They know what story they’re telling, and they’re going to tell it. And that is great. That is what I want for everyone.
Liz: And ultimately, this is not a story about the adult characters. So–
Anika: Exactly.
Liz: –when Chakotay turns up, he is going to be dealing with the children.
Anika: Right. We are supposed to be paying attention to their story. Their story is what’s being told. And I love that story. I love all of them. I want to spend more time with all of these characters And I’m very excited
Liz: Yeah. And if I, as the person who is always attached to the adult characters everywhere, can focus on the kids. Anyone can do it
Anika: Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.com, including links to our social media, credits for our theme music and transcripts of our episodes. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, all at antimatterpod.
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Join us next week, when we will discussing the mid-season finale of Star Trek Prodigy, A Moral Star Part Two.
Liz: I am not prepared.
Anika: I know! I’m gonna miss them.