Trivia / Star Trek: Prodigy

• All-Star Cast: In addition to Mulgrew, the cast boasts such recognizable names as Ella Purnell, Jason Mantzoukas, John Noble, Dee Bradley Baker, and Jimmi Simpson. There's also the use of dialogue from previous Trek episodes that allowed for guest appearances from Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, René Auberjonois, and Nichelle Nichols, along with having Gates McFadden provide new dialogue for Dr. Crusher.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Like with Patrick Stewart, Kate Mulgrew was hesitant to return to the role of Janeway, but she was very invested in the idea of introducing Star Trek to a new generation of fans and signed up to return to her iconic role.
• Channel Hop: After being cancelled by Paramount+ and removed from the service, Netflix picked up the series for its second season alongside the streaming rights to the first season.
• Character Outlives Actor: Reused dialogue allowed Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and René Auberjonois, who respectively passed away in 2015, 2005, and 2019, to return to the roles they made famous when they all appear on the holodeck. Later, Nichelle Nichols would pass away in 2022, only a year after her character appeared in the episode, with Celia Rose Gooding having assumed the role of the iconic communications officer on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
• Dawson Casting: Jason Mantzoukas was 50 when he voiced Jankom Pog, who is only biologically 16. However, the character is much older than he appears due to having been kept in stasis on a sleeper ship from before the Federation was even founded.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Janeway's presence on this series led Paramount to forbid the character from appearing elsewhere for now, as plans to include the character on Star Trek: Picard for its final season were quashed.
  • No content from Star Trek: Lower Decks was included, apparently because that show hadn't debuted yet when Prodigy began production. Only time will tell if season 2 acknowledges anything from LD.
• Fake Nationality: The British-born Ella Purnell fakes an American accent for Gwen.
• In Memoriam: The episode "Kobayashi" is dedicated to Rene Auberjonois, James Doohan, and Leonard Nimoy, "who inspire us to go boldly."
• Ink-Suit Actor:
  • The character model for Janeway closely matches the character on Star Trek: Voyager, even sporting her bun hairstyle as seen in the early seasons of the series.
  • Likewise, the character models for the simulated versions of Spock, Uhura, Dr. Crusher, Odo, and Scotty closely resemble their respective original actors.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: As of mid-2023, the series was removed from Paramount+ in its entirety, resulting in it being snubbed for that year's Star Trek Day celebration's 50 Years of Animation special. The network was eventually able to shop the series to Netflix, who posted the first season in Christmas 2023 before airing Season 2 in 2024.
• Posthumous Credit: Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and René Auberjonois, all of whom passed away by the time the series aired, are credited for returning to their respective roles as holographic versions of Spock, Scotty, and Odo, which reused audio from their previous appearances.
• Promoted Fanboy: The ship's computer is voiced by Bonnie Gordon, whose band the Library Bards has some songs about Star Trek.
• Refitted for Sequel: Back when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was developing its 30th anniversary episode for the franchise, one idea that was tossed around was to have the Defiant crew end up on Sigma Iota II from "A Piece of the Action", where they discovered that the planet had reshaped its entire society in worship of Kirk's crew from the Enterprise. However, that wound up being reworked into "Trials and Tribble-ations". The idea was somewhat reworked for "All The World's a Stage", albeit with a society that only roughly understands the basics of the TOS era.
• Role Reprise:
  • Kate Mulgrew returns as Kathryn Janeway, first as a hologram, and later as the human Vice Admiral Janeway as well.
  • Robert Beltran also reprises his role as Chakotay.
  • Gates McFadden makes an appearance as a holographic Dr. Crusher.
  • Using archived audio from their original appearances, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and René Auberjonois are able to reprise their roles as Spock, Scotty, and Odo (albeit in holographic form) respectively, some time after their passings, while a similar tactic is used for Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, who was still alive at the time of the episode's airing but unable to reprise the role due to health issues.
  • Billy Campbell returns as Captain Thadiun Okona.
  • Ronny Cox reprises his role as Edward Jelico from the TNG episode "Chain Of Command".
  • Season 2 will bring back Robert Picardo as The Doctor.
  • In the French dub:
    • Denise Metmer, who dubbed Kate Mulgrew in the dubbed version of Star Trek: Voyager, voices Hologram Janeway and Vice Admiral Janeway.
    • Ingrid Donnadieu, who voices Uhura, dubbed Zoe Saldaña as Uhura in the dubbed version of Star Trek (2009).
• Saved by the Fans: After Paramount+ unexpectedly reversed their decision to renew the show for a second season (right in the middle of post production in fact), fans campaigned to have Netflix or another streaming platform pick it up so Season 2 could be finished. They succeeded, and Netflix picked up the rights in October of 2023.
• Screwed by the Network: Paramount+ renewed the series for a second season, only to not only cancel it halfway through post-production, but then announce they were removing the series from the streaming service altogether. (The studio eventually sold the rights to Netflix.)
• Short Run in Peru: The French dub of Season 2 was made available in France on France Television free streaming service in March 2024 before its international release on Netflix.
• Un-Cancelled: Season 2 was greenlit and meant to air on Paramount+ like the previous season, but for reasons reportedly related to tax write-offs, it was purged from the network and had its renewal revoked. Netflix picked it up to finish Season 2, at the very least.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Kate Mulgrew almost didn't return as Janeway initially, unsure about whether or not she wanted to come back to the part. After some months of negotiation, she was convinced that the series could be a bridge to a new generation of fans, and signed on.
  • "Kobayashi" suggested that René Auberjonois and Nichelle Nichols were both meant to reprise their roles as Odo and Uhura respectively, similar to Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher, but the former's passing and the latter's declining health meant that archived audio had to be used to bring them back instead. Auberjonois in fact passed away mere weeks before he was slated to record Odo's lines for the episode.
• You Look Familiar: In a possible Casting Gag, Jason Alexander returns to Star Trek to voice Doctor Noum of the starship Dauntless, opposite Kate Mulgrew as his commanding officer, Admiral Janeway. Alexander previously guest-starred on-screen as the Think Tank spokesman Kurros in Star Trek: Voyager.