Nickelodeon’s Animated ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Gets an Official Title, Logo

First announced over a year ago, way back in January, 2019, CBS Television Studios second animated Star Trek series officially has a title, and logo, thanks to the production company’s Star Trek Universe panel at this year’s Comic-Con@Home. Welcome to the growing ranks of Lower Decks, Picard, Discovery and more: Star Trek: Prodigy.

Described as following a group of “lawless teens” — and is there any other kind, he asked, shaking his fist angrily in the general direction of TikTok — Prodigy finds a group of kids discovering a derelict Starfleet ship, and using it to “search for adventure, meaning and salvation.”

Though there are currently scant other details, including any sort of look at the information provided by CBS and/or Nickelodeon, where the series will begin airing in 2021, we do know the series is being developed by Emmy® Award winners Kevin and Dan Hageman (Trollhunters and Ninjago) and overseen for Nickelodeon by Ramsey Naito, EVP, Animation Production and Development, Nickelodeon.

The former names — and their credits — should give you a little bit of a hint of the tone the slime-time network is going for with the series. Unlike the also animated Lower Decks, which debuts on CBS All Access on August 6 from Rick & Morty vet (and Solar Opposites co-creator) Mike McMahan, Prodigy most likely won’t be straight up comedy. Ninjago, which is part of LEGO’s expanding empire, certainly has its comedy moments; but it also boasts a vast mythology that expands every season, as well as well choreographed action and “it’s good” according to my five-year-old son.

In an interview with TrekCore after last year’s New York Comic Con panel, Star Trek producer Heather Kadin elaborated a bit more on the choice of producers, as well as confirming the series already has a two-season order, due to the ongoing animation work. “The reason we went to the Hagemans is because if you’ve seen their work, you know that they’re not writing Muppet Babies,” Kadin said. “It’s not Little Spock and Little Kirk. It’s not playing down [to viewers] that way. Even [with] their characters in Ninjago — they are teenagers — I was able to watch that with my kids and they write with a very epic quality. They tell stories the way we tell stories in live action: serialized, turning over cards… I think it will be a great way for fans to introduce the franchise to their kids, and for new fans to be formed, because it’s such a big franchise, [it can be hard] to get into as a kid.”

Random and highly unnecessary Muppet Babies slam aside, it sounds like the goal here is to bring the action, hope and adventure of a regular Star Trek series, without the off-putting adult themes (talking about Shakespeare, drinking tea, etc). As for when in the Trek timeline this is set, without details on the characters themselves, the type of starship they’ll be in — and is it called the Prodigy, or is that just the name of the show, one wonders? — or anything else, we’ll just have to speculate for now.

The series will be from CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Katie Krentz, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth will serve as executive producers alongside Kevin and Dan Hageman. Aaron Baiers will serve as a co-executive producer. In addition to the aforementioned series, CBS is also developing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a spinoff of Discovery featuring Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck) and Number One (Rebecca Romijn); and the long-gestating Section 31 series starring Michelle Yeoh.