‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ To Launch On Paramount+, Nickelodeon Next; Franchise Front & Center On New Streamer

Dominic Patten
·4 min read
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There is going to be even more Star Trek on Paramount+ than initially anticipated.

The March 4-launching ViacomCBS streamer revealed today that Star Trek: Prodigy now will be making its premiere on the platform later this year. Originally, as Deadline reported exclusively last summer, the kids orientated CG-animated series was set for Nickelodeon.

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And Prodigy still is, kind of.

Dropping a first look today too (see above), the 20-episode first season of the series created by Kevin and Dan Hageman will have a second window on the cable channel following its Paramount+ premiere. Neither debut dates for the first ever Star Trek series for children in the franchise’s long history were announced on Wednesday at the Paramount+ investors day presentation.

“This is about having the best of both worlds in terms of utilizing the Paramount+ platform to expose Trek fans and their families to this incredible show for them and their children and in our early days of Paramount+ give a lovely boost to the platform,” Paramount+’s EVP Development and Programming Julie McNamara told Deadline. “Then, to have it be on Nickelodeon linear following that would expose it to a kid audience that may not have that initial Trek interest,” the exec added.

“So, the combination of the two gives us the best possible chance of hitting all of our demographics and targets in terms of expansion of the franchise that it promises,” McNamara continued.

Added Ramsey Naito, President, Nickelodeon Animation, “Debuting Prodigy on Paramount+ alongside the complete Star Trek universe points to our strategy of growing Nickelodeon’s reach by expanding our top franchises and diving deeper into their worlds, and their characters and stories.”

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Centering on six misfits who take over a beat-up Starfleet ship that they know almost nothing about, Prodigy intends to advocate the Trekverse philosophy of inclusion, curiosity and adventure.

“This show is really for younger kids,’ Trekverse overlord Alex Kurtzman said to Deadline. Kurtzman is an executive producer on Prodigy, along with Heather Kadin, Katie Krentz, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth and co-showrunners the Hageman brothers. Ben Hibon will direct and co-executive produce, with Aaron Baiers also serving as co-EP on Prodigy.

“As somebody who grew up watching certain shows that spoke to me as a kid, but then also spoke to my parents so that my parents could watch it with me, I think that speaks very much to one of the things that Trek does right,” Kurtzman said. “Families watch it together. A parent can watch it with their children. And this show is going to be for our youngest audience so far, but I think given the scope and scale of it it’s not really going to look like anything you’ve seen before in that we have a really cinematic approach to what we’re doing.”

“The idea is that we should be able to project this in a movie theater and it would hold strong and stand the test of a big screen,” Kutzman proudly stated of Prodigy as the seven-year old CBS All Access mutates into Paramount+ this week.

Similar to what Disney+ has done with their Marvel and Star Wars properties and what HBO Max has done with its DC superhero content, Paramount+ will now have its entire Star Trek franchise in one place. Along with Prodigy, there will be the new-ish shows of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – which we got a glimpse of sorts of in one of the many pumped up promos that ran in the presentation. Plus, no pun, there will be hundreds of episodes of the original Star Trek series and the likes of Next Generation and all the rest, plus the Star Trek movies.

As franchise boss Kurtzman proclaimed in a video shown during the sprawling and somewhat delayed Paramount+ presentation:

“If you put them all together it forms a very complete package, Kurtzman noted of the Trekverse. “And that is really nice because our goal has been to make sure that you don’t watch one Star Trek show and think well, I’ve seen this one so I don’t need to watch the other ones. It’s a cohesive, very curated and manicured approach that we’ve taken.”

“Engage,” as Jean-Luc would say and Paramount+ is hoping you will do.

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