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Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episodes 17 & 18 “Brink” and “Touch of Grey” Review: All the World’s a Stage

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episodes 17 & 18 "Brink" and "Touch of Grey" Review: All the World's a Stage
Credit: CBS Studios/Netflix

“Brink”

After their successful battle against Asencia’s (Jameela Jamil) Rev-1, Voyager and Protostar arrive at Solum, per Starfleet’s orders, to thwart a possible all-out war between the Federation and the newly militarized Vau N’Akat and their inexplicable time-space weaponry.

While Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) can’t send away teams to the surface to gather intel, as Starfleet has ordered her to simply stay near the planet for now, the sneaky admiral determines sending a non-Starfleet crew to scout for intelligence is a sensible idea. So, Gwyn (Ella Purnell), the person who knows the planet best, is charged with leading her away team to gather what useful knowledge they can about Solum’s weapons. Gwyn just has one suggestion: the away team also rescues her father, Ilthuran (John Noble). Janeway agrees it’s a sensible idea if they want to prevent an all-out civil war on Solum.

This away mission is an important one for the dynamics of our young crew. Whereas Dal (Brett Gray) has always been the de facto leader, Janeway asserts it’s Gwyn who should lead this time, and Dal, to his credit, agrees without issue. Helping the away team complete their mission is a personal cloaking shield recently created by Rak-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui) and Voyager’s engineering department. This shield, while far from a perfect illusion, should hide the away team as they travel the streets of Solum.

Credit: CBS Studios/Netflix

Our first critique about this episode comes from this cloaking shield, which serves a critical service to this episode’s narrative. The illusion of invisibility is so far from perfect, we can’t imagine anyone could overlook the away team if they were even in the middle distance. Light shimmers and refracts off the cloak in an obvious way; we aren’t sure if that effect is just for the audience, or if that’s how characters see the team. If the latter, we don’t know how anyone on the streets of Solum can ignore the away team, and if the former, the audience would surely be smart enough to know when they were looking at our cloaked protagonists even with a perfect illusion of invisibility.

Landing on Solum, the away team, which consists of Gwyn, Dal, Rok-Tahk, Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), Zero (Angus Imrie), Murf (Dee Bradley Baker), and Maj’el (Michaela Dietz), who effectively resigned from Nova Squadron to come with the group, start by following the source of a transmission apparently from the Vau N’Akat resistance: Ilthuran’s workshop. Upon getting to the ransacked workshop, the crew finds an unexpected but all-too-familiar face: Asencia, but it’s her younger self, not the older one who is now in control of Solum.

“There’s two of her? Gah, of course there’s two of her. I hate time travel.”

– Dal upon seeing the younger Asencia.

This Asencia has joined the resistance, those fighting her older self’s martial rule; Gwyn’s father is among the resistance, too, but he has been captured. Upon asking how Old Asencia harnessed temporal powers to create fleets of ships, Young Asencia tells the group Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) is in Asencia’s grasp. The away team’s mission just became a bit more complicated: should they rescue Wesley, rescue Ilthuran, or both?

Credit: CBS Studios/Netflix

It’s Gwyn’s call, and on the surface, we think it should be an easy one. Wesley is the key to saving the timeline and preventing the Loom from temporally eliminating everything. Despite how important Ilthuran may be to Gwyn and Solum, Welsey is the more important player here. But, a daughter’s love for her not-yet father wins out, and Gwyn risks dividing the away team; Gwyn, Murf, Rok, and Zero are going to save Wesley, while Dal, Jankom, Maj’el, and Asencia are going after Ilthuran. While we respect the crew’s recognition of Gwyn’s leadership, how could anyone, including the logical Maj’el, not challenge Gwyn’s decision to split the team to rescue her father?

The half who rescue Wesley do succeed in their mission mostly thanks to the incompetence of guards in and around the building where the Traveler is being held. Wesley is happy to see the group, not realizing quite yet that not all the Protostar crew are there with him. He asserts to his saviors that he planned to be captured so Asencia could create the wormhole technology the Protostar crew would then need to get their ship back to Tars Lamora. It’s a bit of a convoluted and risky plan, especially since the battle with the Rev-1 could have easily gone another way, but the important thing now is escaping Solum with Wesley – not so easy considering the Traveler is severely weakened thanks to his self-imposed torture from Asencia.

After escaping Asencia’s headquarters without issue, Wesley finally notices half of the group is not present, and this isn’t a good thing. The Traveler didn’t plan on only half of the crew being together; he needed all of them for the correct destiny to play out. As it stands now, they are on the wrong path, something that panics the seasoned Traveler.

The missing crew mates do turn up in short order, but only because they’ve been captured by Asencia’s forces after rescuing Ilthuran – not that we see how they are captured. With the party at the mercy of their enemy, Gwyn makes another hard call, but this one is the correct one: she uses the one-use emergency transporter taken from Voyager to beam Wesley and Ilthuran to the ship. This leaves our young protagonists stuck on Solum, but at least they are together, as Wesley wanted.

Taken together, this episode of Star Trek: Prodigy tries to balance the tension between personal loyalty and the larger stakes of the inter-timeline conflict. Gwyn’s leadership and the difficult choices she makes underscore her growth as a character, while the divided away team’s missions add welcomed complexity to the narrative. However, we think the plot is somewhat hindered by an implausible cloaking shield, which strains credibility in an otherwise engaging storyline. Despite these minor qualms, this episode effectively raises the stakes for the young crew, leaving them in a precarious situation that sets the stage for even more dramatic developments in the three remaining episodes.  

Stray Thoughts:

  • It’s hard to believe Voyager can be within easy eyesight of Solum and transporter range but still be undetectable to the enemy ships in orbit or ground-based observatories.

  • Did the away team wait until they were in the middle of the city before activating the cloaking field?

  • While rescuing Wesley, Zero mentions they have trouble sensing Vau N’Akat… and no way isn’t going to play a role before the end of this season, right?

  • When Gwyn looks at Dal and says, “Sometimes, you make the hard call,” why did Dal assume she was asking him to throw Wesley the transporter? And how did Wesley know to grab the device that was flying past his face? Seems like a bit of a leap in logic.

“Touch of Grey”

“Touch of Grey” begins immediately where “Brink” left off, with Wesley and Ilthuran beaming aboard Voyager as the young crew below is at Asencia’s mercy.

However, we are first treated to an important scene that happens just before the two men arrive on Voyager. In her ready room, Admiral Janeway ponders the challenges she has faced as captain of first Voyager and then Voyager-A. Indeed, the seasoned officer is wondering if early retirement wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Honestly, who can blame her? The mental and emotional strain of dealing with the challenges she has faced understandably has taken a toll, and now a group of kids is depending on her for rescue. Whereas we never thought much of Janeway’s future in Starfleet before, this scene in “Touch of Grey” suddenly brings this issue to the forefront.

“This isn’t your first rodeo. You, of all people, know it takes time and patience.”

“You’ve been away too long. Have you forgotten I’m not a fan of either?”

– Janeway and Chakotay.

With Wesley and Ilthuran on Voyager, Janeway plays catch up about what’s happening on the surface, including Wesley’s plan to allow Asencia to capture him and invent time travel technology needed to allow the Protostar to return to Tars Lamora. Importantly, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) informs Wesley his all-powerful Traveler abilities are disabled for now due to the shock he endured at Asencia’s hands – which, in our opinion, is an all-too-convenient way to rationalize away Wesley’s abilities to easily rescue the crew.

Credit: CBS Studios/Netflix

Down on Solum, the fear-mongering Asencia asserts to the general public that she has captured alien spies who were intent on disrupting Solum, and she issues an ultimatum to Janeway: come down to the surface, or else. Janeway, knowing Asencia is likely springing a trap for the Federation, elects to go rescue her crew anyway. Of course, Asencia just can’t shoot Gwyn’s away team and be done with it; instead, she leaves the group at the mercy of a savage trapped Loom. It’s a terrifying situation, but all they need to do is dodge the creature long enough for the admiral to affect a rescue. At least the Loom has a restraining collar on it so it can’t slow down time.

The kids’ rescue comes in the form of an away team consisting of Wesley Crusher, Janeway, Chakotay (Robert Beltran), and the Doctor, all of whom are a bit out of practice when it comes to away missions; Ilthuran is left on Voyager to ensure he survives to eventually reunite a fractured Solum. Heading down to the planet in a replicated Vau N’Akat shuttle, the team takes a page from Return of the Jedi and waltzes right by enemy ships in orbit to make their way close to the dome where the youngsters are fighting for their lives. While the Doctor pretending to be a Drednok is amusing, we must question how good Vau N’Akat security is to let the away team’s shuttle down to Solum considering all the red flags the Doctor produced.

Janeway’s away team reaches the dome but finds it heavily guarded and the youngsters under attack. It’s time for a desperate play, so Janeway orders Chakotay and Wesley to find a weak spot in the structure’s defenses while she uses the Doctor to fool Asencia into thinking the admiral herself is giving herself up. Kudos to Prodigy’s writers – leaning into the Doctor’s penchant for drama was an effective way for this episode to reveal the ole’ holographic switcheroo, although we must ask why didn’t that reveal come before we see the real Janeway approach her away team?

While Asencia is distracted, Zero contacts Admiral Janeway telepathically to tell her the Loom is just as much of a prisoner in the dome as the young crew. Janeway figures they can use this fact to their advantage, and quickly blows a hole in the dome to affect a chaotic rescue. Asencia starts to have an even worse day when she realizes not only that the Protostar crew has escaped her capture, but the Loom formerly at her beck and call is also loose, sans restraining collar. Moreover, she receives word that the resistance against her rule, led by Ilthuran, is rebelling, so how she deals with both the Federation and Solum uprising will be a key element of the season finale.

Credit: CBS Studios/Netflix

The final piece of this rescue plan is Wesley remotely guiding their replicated ship to pick up the away team, and not a moment too soon, as Vau N’Akat guards were closing in. Safely in orbit, Janeway reassures Gwyn and her crew that Solum’s nascent civil war will be averted, and the Protostar will be returned to its proper place, no matter the cost. Bring on the season finale.

“Touch of Grey” aptly sets the stakes for the two-part season closer, as we learn Solum is devolving into civil war as the chance for the Protostar’s safe return is growing narrower and narrower. We appreciated this episode for its surprising hint of what’s to come for Janeway – that is, a well-earned early retirement, should the admiral choose to do so. We wouldn’t mind that being a happy ending for her, anyway.

Our major lingering questions about this season of Prodigy have to do with Gwyn’s supposed assumption of Protostar captaincy, and what that means for Dal, the one who historically has sat in the center chair. Will Gwyn willingly become captain – not a far-fetched idea, considering the command presence we’ve seen her exhibit, including on the away mission to Solum? Will Chakotay continue to serve with the young crew, since after all the Protostar was his ship? In any case, the finale will have a high bar to clear after the amazing season one ender.

Stray Thoughts:

  • Janeway asserts to Wesley that he should talk to his mother, which leaves the door open for another Gates McFadden cameo before the season is over.

  • Did Janeway really split up her landing party without telling Chakotay and Wesley her plan to use the Doctor as a decoy?

  • Why did Asencia taunt Janeway by saying, “You’ve come a long way from Earth” when Asencia just saw Janeway in the battle with the Rev-1?

  • Asencia asserts both she and Janeway know “Voyager without your command is like a fire snake without a head,” to which Janeway has no retort. Are we meant to believe Janeway believes her crew is ineffective without her?

  • Why did the explosion Janeway caused by breaching the dome disable the Loom’s collar and associated technology?

  • Did Asencia not think to hail the orbiting Vau N’Akat ships and order them to stop the rogue shuttle from leaving the planet?


The entire first and second seasons of Star Trek: Prodigy are now available to stream on Netflix.

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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Written By

Kyle Hadyniak has been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and isn't ashamed to admit that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek: Nemesis are his favorite Star Trek movies. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @khady93.

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