Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 Episode 8 “Is There in Beauty No Truth?” Review: A dance with mortality

Season 2 Episode 8 “Is There in Beauty No Truth?”

Prodigy takes a good, child-friendly look at the human condition as our favorite Medusan gets a chance at being a real person, with all the foibles that entails.

A week after getting wrecked in the previous episode, Zero is but a shell of their former self – and even that shell is falling apart. Despite her friends’ best efforts, Zero remains immobile and largely useless; that is, until they hear a fellow non-corporeal call to them across the stars and invite them to a planet where all its inhabitants are non-corporeal beings.

It’s a great find for Zero, who has been struggling for quite a while with an existence devoid of traditional senses. The people of Ovidia IV don’t have that issue, though, as they embody humanoid vessels – vessels made by the elements found on and around Ovidia IV and its beautiful double-ring formation. For real, Ovidia IV is like a leveled-up version of the Baku world from Star Trek: Insurrection.

“Will I feel anything?”

“You will feel everything.”

– Zero and Ion, as Zero undertakes bio-transference.

Thanks to the hospitality of the colony’s Medusan leader, Ion (Christine Rose Schermerhorn), Zero gets their own body and soon is celebrating the joys of being a humanoid. But it isn’t all just drinking, eating, and dancing, as the people of Ovidia IV also celebrate their mortality, a key element of living a corporeal existence.

During their Feast of the Senses, the people of Ovidia IV remember to celebrate fear and death with a race across a grassy field while dodging attacks by a massive flying animal, called a nazamon – because why should a party just be all fun and games? This nazamon threatens to devour racegoers should they dilly dally on the race course, but Zero partakes anyway for the thrill of it – and that’s indeed what the colonists get out of this menacing race for their lives.

During the Running of the Nazamon, Zero’s friends risk becoming the nazamon’s snack to catch up with them to warn them of something the crew just learned: should Zero leave the planet, the humanoid vessel will break down over time, just like a real body. To maintain immortality but still feel the pleasures of being corporeal, Zero must stay.

To the Mudusan’s enormous credit, the idea of leaving their friends – the ones who risked their own lives to warn Zero of the colony’s hidden secret – is worse than facing mortality. So, the found family leaves the planet together, with Zero positively transformed by their experience on this planet. They continue their quest to find Chakotay, with Zero living in a new, mortal body.

The best Star Trek stories – and indeed, science fiction tales in general – are the ones that examine the human condition – what it means to be mortal and sentient, and all the pros and cons that entails. Prodigy takes some time from its main quest to offer our protagonists a chance to explore that theme themselves, and the non-corporeal Zero is a natural catalyst for that storytelling. The human condition is a weighty topic for younger viewers, but Prodigy’s charm eases those younger minds into a serious topic. Parents, this episode will likely spur some decent conversation with your youngsters.

Outside our heroes’ side quest, this episode also moves the needle back on Voyager-A as Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her staff realize, with the help of Maj’el (Michaela Dietz), that the former crew of the Protostar are actually holograms. This prompts several questions from Janeway, including where the real youngsters are – something she’s bound to find out when Voyager returns to where the Infinity was assumed destroyed and picks up their warp trail.

The discovery of a missing eight minutes aboard ship – the time seen at the end of “The Fast and the Curious” – prompts only more questions. Holo-Gwyn, attacked by tendrils during that period of frozen time, alerts the Voyager crew that the real kids received a secret message from someone they think must be Chakotay. She also relates that when she disappeared in that space of missing time, something was there to “take her” and it was generally a terrifying experience. However, she can’t articulate that experience before her program is shut down to avoid an overload. We expect to find answers to many of the questions facing our younger heroes and those aboard the Voyager in the next four episodes of this season.

Stray Thoughts:

• The colony of non-corporeal beings is comprised of Paxans (as seen in TNG’s “Clues”), Medusans (originally introduced in TOS’ “Is There in Truth No Beauty,” which this episode’s title references), and Calamarains (as seen in TNG’s “Deja Q”).
  
  
• The game the holo-kids play, parrises squares, is well-known to Voyager and The Next Generation fans. Voyager’s “Real Life” mentions how this sport is popular among youth.

The Star Trek: Prodigy voice cast includes Kate Mulgrew (Hologram Kathryn Janeway), Brett Gray (Dal), Ella Purnell (Gwyn), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Angus Imrie (Zero), Jason Mantzoukas (Jankom Pog), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), John Noble (The Diviner) and Jimmi Simpson (Drednok) in addition to recurring voice cast members: Robert Beltran (Captain Chakotay), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Jason Alexander (Doctor Noum), Daveed Diggs (Commander Tysess), Jameela Jamil (Ensign Asencia), Ronny Cox (Admiral Jellico) and Michaela Dietz (Maj’el). 

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