Star Trek: Prodigy: Ghost in the Machine

December 8, 2022 3:59 AM - Season 1, Episode 17

These kids today, obsessed with their video games about collectible monsters, back-alley brawls…Victorian mysteries…and, uh, 1940s jazz clubs.

Memory Alpha doesn't want us to escape:

• Jason Alexander voiced the biker, bar, and pirate versions of Doctor Noum.

• Rok's explanation of how holoprogram participants can seem further away from each other than they are is consistent with the details presented in the TNG Technical Manual.

"Sounds like you just earned yourself two more scoops of sadness!"
- Jankom Pog

"Let's pop this blow stand!"
- Gwyn

Poster's Log:
Given all the jokes, in the fandom and in canon, about what really goes on in holodecks (boy I'm glad we never got that Tarantino Trek movie), it's perhaps little wonder that this show hasn't used it much.

Anyway, cool twist on one of Trek's most reused hooks. Shades of the TNG season 7 ep with the train. And I didn't see the ending coming; it's always fun when we unexpectedly find ourselves questioning major characters' motives, BSG-style.

You could really tell Jason Alexander was having fun in this one. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two lines were adlibbed. (We just restarted Seinfeld and I'm increasingly of the opinion that without him, that show can't work.)

Poster's Log, Supplemental:
Mark my words: if the Trek franchise is ever going to have a seriously successful video-game tie-in, it's going to be Delta Heart Magical Veterinarian. …I mean, I'd play it, if it had stuff like tribbles, targs, glommers, Ceti eels, mogatus, mugatus, mugutus, gumatos…

posted by CheesesOfBrazil (4 comments total)

Lots of fun and style in this one; especially appreciated is how they show the holodeck being used for more imaginative scenarios than the live-action-budget-friendly ones shown on the live action shows. I mean, there was some of that in this ep too--the Victorian-mansion-hosted mystery club isn't that far off from Sherlock Holmes, and the B&W jazz club crossed Captain Proton with Vic Fontaine's club--but Pog's streetfighting game reminded me a bit of Cyberpunk 2077 with its soundtrack, and having a pirate ship attacked by a giant Pokemon was the best. Also, Diviner-as-a-bartender made me think that, if they ever did a live-action crossover with some of these characters, having Steve Buscemi play him would be a dream casting.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:35 AM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also, I'm pretty sure there was a screen showing them standing in an empty holodeck that Janeway was looking at, so somehow holos don't show up on camera?
posted by Marticus at 3:03 PM on December 8, 2022

I enjoyed this episode. And the twist about who was responsible was a GOOD twist, because it's blindingly obvious once it happens.

I liked the way they were using the holodeck to work through their own Kobayashi Maru situation. I'm rooting for these kids and am crossing my fingers for a hopeful end to the season.

BUT!!! What happened once Janeway discovered who Asencia really was? I'm on tenterhooks here!
posted by rednikki at 5:35 AM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Well, I guess that puts to rest any remaining ideas about how "this doesn't really feel like Trek somehow." They've done a holodeck goes berserk episode. It's Trek.
posted by Naberius at 10:04 AM on December 10, 2022