Star Trek's Unjustly Cancelled 2-Season Sci-Fi Officially Makes the Case for a Revival

Published Sep 23, 2026, 2:11 PM EDT

Lacy Baugher Milas is an entertainment and culture writer whose bylines have appeared in Paste Magazine, The A.V. Club, Den of Geek, Jezebel, Digital Spy, Telly Visions, and more. A lover of Time Lords, fantasy stories, period dramas, and tumultuous 90s rock bands, you can find her on social media pretty much everywhere as @LacyMB.

While Star Trek turned 60 this month, the future of the franchise feels more uncertain than it has in quite some time. Yes, there are technically two series still airing, and they will continue to do so well into 2027. But for the first time in over a decade, no new Trek season is in production, and no new projects have even been greenlit.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is wrapping up its fourth season this week and putting the pieces into place for its final outing next year. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will be back for a second season, but the show’s already been canceled, and everyone knows it. Word on the internet streets is that the much-hyped spin-off idea Star Trek: Year One is dead in the water, and there’s little buzz about what (if anything) we can expect next in the franchise’s TV universe. But maybe an answer to the sort of series Trek needs to recalibrate its future has been staring us in the face all along.

'Star Trek: Prodigy' Ended Too Soon

The animated series Star Trek: Prodigy originally premiered on Paramount+ in 2021 as part of the streamer’s larger Star Trek universe, which also included shows like Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Strange New Worlds. Set five years after the U.S.S. Voyager returned home, it follows a group of young aliens who stumble upon an abandoned Starfleet ship on a prison-mining colony and must work together to pilot it across the galaxy.

Despite garnering widespread critical acclaim, Paramount canceled the series after a single season of 20 half-hour episodes, even as work had already begun on a second outing. Miraculously, Netflix stepped in and released Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 in 2024. But that streamer also ultimately declined to continue the show, and the voyages of the U.S.S. Protostar’s crew officially came to an end.

It’s always a shame when any show ends, of course, but the loss of Star Trek: Prodigy was a particularly harsh blow. Its first two seasons were remarkably well-received critically, boasting a combined 97% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Season 1 rated at 94% and Season 2 earning 97%. Its voice cast includes notable names like Ella Purnell, John Noble, Brett Grey, and Kate Mulgrew reprising her role as Star Trek: Voyager's Admiral Kathryn Janeway and Hologram Janeway. Showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman clearly had plans to continue the story in place.

Now, with the franchise in something of a holding pattern, and no clear vision for where it’s going next, why not let Prodigy fly once more? There’s clearly an audience for it, and one that appears as though it’s been steadily growing since the show ended. While Prodigy isn’t currently available on any commercial streaming platform, it’s still regularly ranking on pay-to-view service charts like the Apple TV Store. Surely, that’s a sign that there’s still a place for this show within the larger Trek franchise.

'Star Trek: Prodigy' Was Ahead of Its Time

Star Trek: Prodigy was remarkable for several reasons. It was Trek’s first real swing at programming that specifically targeted younger audiences. (Something, I think we can probably all agree, the franchise needs a bit more of these days.) While it featured appearances by several legacy characters — alongside multiple versions of Janeway, the show also included guest spots from Robert Beltan’s now-Captain Chakotay and Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher, among others — it was easily accessible to new viewers.

Its cast of colorful alien teenagers hailed from a mix of classic and intriguingly brand-new species, including a Medusan, a Tellerite, and a Brikar. Best of all, almost none of these characters had any idea what Starfleet or the Federation even was. The end result was a surprisingly smart, funny, and completely original adventure series that used its relative blank slate to not only tell new kinds of stories, but interrogate the first principles of the franchise from the ground up.

As the group finds purpose within the found family they slowly form within the walls of the uniquely advanced vessel they’ve accidentally stolen, Star Trek: Prodigy embraces many of the core themes and complex moral questions that have long made this franchise so powerful. Character stories with difficult choices and moral lessons, problems solved by a liberal application of science and understanding, and a prevailing sense of curiosity and optimism are the pillars of Star Trek, and this show has all those things in spades. Heck, there’s even some well-handled science babble, clearly meant to educate younger viewers without talking down to them.

In our current entertainment moment, when dystopian dramas and gritty science fiction feel as though they’re everywhere, we need shows like Star Trek more than ever. Save for Doctor Who — which is also unfortunately on an extended hiatus at the moment — there’s no other property on TV that is as relentlessly optimistic and as deliberately uncynical. It’s a show that sees and embraces the best in humanity, purposefully encouraging those watching at home to do the same. Star Trek: Prodigy was determinedly following in those same footsteps. Now seems like a perfect time to give it a chance to fly again.

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  Gwyn (voice)

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  Brett Gray

  Dal (voice)