Nightmare Fuel / Star Trek: Prodigy

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Star Trek: Prodigy

Season 1

"Lost and Found"

• Tars Lamora is this in general with its dark and jagged appearance and the unsafe conditions that enslaved workers are forced to work in by creepy robotic enforcers. Add to that the fact that orphaned children are sometimes enslaved there and that the one in charge is willing to use Mind Rape as torture and the nightmare fuel almost goes off the charts.
• Drednok is a creepy Soft-Spoken Sadist who Would Hurt a Child and has enough built-in firepower to bring down a starship. Add in the fact that he can transform into a giant spiky robot scorpion, and you know he'll be making an appearance on the bad dreams of junior Trekkies everywhere.

"Starstruck"

• Our heroes near death by exploding star certainly counts.
• The Diviner's ship is a Red and Black and Evil All Over Ominous Floating Castle covered in Spikes of Villainy and is definitely scary.

"Dreamcatcher"

• The planet the crew lands on is this in spades, at first it appears to be lush and friendly but it turns out that the vegetation actually acts as a carnivorous superorganism that tricks its prey with hallucinations and replicas of their greatest desires so it can absorb their nutrients. Said replicas turn disturbingly violent when prey sees through them and tries to leave and the superorganism itself is strong enough to restrain a starship. On top of all of that, the crew is seemingly stranded on this world and the Diviner is coming for them.
• The vines communicate with Dal using an illusion of Janeway. Seeing a character who had been so upright and nurturing earlier in the episode - let alone a heroic figure who had been idolized by so many fans for years - turning so creepy and manipulative AND willing to attack a child on top of that is utterly unsettling.

"Terror Firma"

• As if creating illusions of one's greatest desires as a trap isn't scary enough, the superorganism can can also create constructs of its prey's worst nightmares and make said constructs phaser resistant. According to Zero the superorganism is the planet that it inhabits, which is evidenced by its ability to move hills around to confuse its prey.
• We also find out how the superorganism digests its prey; it rains acid on the planet. All in all "Murder Planet" is an appropriate name for this world.

"Kobayashi"

• Apparently Janeway’s old colleague Chakotay was the previous captain of the Protostar. His last captain’s log reveals this as the ship is boarded by an unseen enemy. Hologram Janeway has no memory of this and no other clues to Chakotay’s fate are given.

"First Con-tact"

• The reveal that Dal’s guardian, who he trusted, had sold him into slavery.

"Time Amok"

• Due to a tachyon anomaly, the warp core explodes, and the crew experiences it at different speeds. We get to see most of the kids die.
  • Jankom goes first, as his time was sped up the fastest. A very grim example of Shoo Out the Clowns.
  • Rok has to watch a log file where Gwyn is consumed by the blast.
• The Diviner and Drednok's knowledge of the ship continues to be unnerving. They are able to hack the vehicle replicator from thousands of light years away to create a remote body for Drednok, and Drednok is able to delete Holo Janeway (thankfully not permanently) using Chakotay's access codes.
• We don't know precisely how long Rok was alone on the ship trying to fix everything after undergoing this kind of trauma. And she’s only 8. Definitely also a Tear Jerker.

"A Moral Star, Part One"

"A Moral Star, Part Two"

• At long last we know the Diviner’s intentions… he has traveled back in time to destroy Starfleet and the Federation. After Starfleet made first contact with his world, it eventually destroyed itself in a bloody civil war between those who backed the Federation and those who wanted nothing to do with them. Thus, the Diviner traveled back in time with a plan to use the Protostar to smuggle a virus into the Starfleet systems, causing their vessels to turn against each other. As Gwyn puts it, he is seeking to prevent one tragedy by causing another.
• Zero removes their containment suit and reveals their true form to Mind Rape the Diviner into submission. After being used on who knows how many innocent miners, Zero is angry enough to go all out on the Diviner. And the man is left an insane, babbling wreck at the end of it.
  • Not to mention what almost happened to Gwyn. She caught just a glimpse of Zero’s true form in the reflection on Dal’s comm badge, and she was left almost catatonic, repeating “…we can’t go… we can’t go…” in reference to the Diviner’s ultimate plan. Thankfully, she recovers, but at the cost of forgetting all about the virus that could wipe out Starfleet…
  • Zero's voice as they strip off their suit… Angus Imrie truly sells the rage.
  • The only other Medusan we've seen, Kollos, had a rather subdued effect when Larry Maverick and Spock were exposed go him. Here, Zero's true form creates winds and shockwaves off of them strong emough to push the others backwards.
• The Diviner’s final fate might evoke Alas, Poor Villain comments from the audience. After being driven to madness, the crew and the miners leave him alone on Tars Lamora as the sole "unwanted". He is last seen crawling around, babbling, and scribbling a circular pattern into the dirt…

"Asylum"

• The crew make contact with a Federation relay station, and we finally see the Diviner's plan unfold as the station's defense system turns on itself, slicing the station to pieces in a matter of minutes.

"Let Sleeping Borg Lie"

• The kids meet the Borg. Enough said. Even the hologram version of Janeway sounds scared.
  Janeway: I'm an advisor, and I advise you to run away as fast as you can!
  • Gwyn has to walk through a parade of Borg drones, her weapon sheathed, in order to make herself not a threat to the Borg so they would ignore her. She slowly walks past them with none of them paying attention... until one drone turns to stare at her.
• The Collective speaking with Zero is incredibly eerie. The whole scene takes place in a mental landscape of shifting Borg tech and moving cables that eventually knot around Zero and entrap them as they're assimilated. And the whole time the voice of the Borg is unnervingly polite and Affably Evil instead of the usually brutal bluntness they have on other Trek series.

"All the World's a Stage"

• The Enderprizians ask the kids for help with a curse that has threatened them for generations, caused by something called The Gallows. Ultimately it's revealed to be a wrecked shuttlecraft (The Galileo, from Kirk's Enterprise) and once this is discovered, the cure is trivially simple for the crew to create, but until their arrival, the Enderprizians were faced with a terrifying deadly threat they couldn't begin to understand, let alone deal with, due to their limited knowledge and technology, all because an unfortunate ensign literally fell out of the sky in a stricken spaceship.

"Preludes"

• After using the autopilot to send a crewless Protostar into the past, Captain Chakotay and his crewmembers are stranded on Solum of the future. They've just robbed the Vau N'Akat of what that race believes to be a just revenge against the Federation, and they have no reason to expect help from anyone, anywhere. Their chances can't be good.

"Supernova, Part 1"

• We finally get to see the Living Construct in action against Starfleet, and it is terrifyingly effective. Not only is the fleet intended to intercept the Protostar slicing each other to pieces, they're all automatically calling for reinforcements, who arrive and get infected, who then call for reinforcements, and on and on...

Admiral Janeway's Logs

• The log released after "Ghost in the Machine"... or rather, given Janeway's current state in the aftermath of "Preludes", the lack of one. It's just a file not found error, but the reason the log wasn't recorded makes the error incredibly eerie. And of course, it gives no answer as to the situation on the Dauntless. Were the Diviner and Vindicator forced to flee with Janeway in tow, or is it an All Your Base Are Belong to Us situation?
  Vice Admiral's Log, Stardate 61401.5.
  
  Error. Error. Cannot comply. No log recorded.
• The log released during the "Supernova" two-parter isn't so much a log as Janeway recording what may be her final words as she and her crew abandon the Dauntless while the fleet tears itself apart.
  "This is Vice Admiral Janeway –- we are under fleetwide Red Alert! Starfleet systems overtaken by enemy forces! We've lost primary controls –- the Dauntless is coming apart all around us. I've ordered the crew to abandon ship, evacuating to the few non-Starfleet vessels that haven't yet been targeted by the Living Construct. Klingons, a Gorn trader – even a few Vulcan civilian ships. Their computer systems are isolated from Starfleet's for security reasons... but who knows how long it will save us. More Starfleet vessels are arriving by the minute to answer the priority one distress calls, only to be ensnared for destruction. A trap of good intentions, escalating exponentially. Asencia is as devious as she is two-faced. I must believe Starfleet will endure this... but if the signal continues, and the Living Construct adapts... who knows. Chakotay, if you're out there... and somehow find this... just know we never stopped searching. Fate's hour is upon us."

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