Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1, Episode 4 – “Dreamcatcher”.
Starfleet ships are built for deep space operations and Star Trek: Prodigy episode 4 shows why it’s a bad idea to land a starship on a planet. Having escaped the mining slave world of Tars Lamora ruled by the evil Diviner (John Noble), the ragtag young crew of the USS Protostar is familiarizing themselves with their new starship with the help of Hologram Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). But the rebels led by Captain Dal R’El (Brett Gray) placed themselves and their starship in danger when they landed the Protostar on an unknown planet.
Although most of Star Trek is set in outer space, starships are capable of landing on planets. J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek 2009 even depicted the USS Enterprise being built in Iowa instead of in an orbital shipyard. However, Star Trek rarely depicts starships landing on planets due to the prohibitive costs of the visual effects, which was especially the case during Star Trek: The Original Series. From a production standpoint, the transporter was invented as an ingenious (and cost-saving) method to quickly and conveniently beam characters off the Starship Enterprise and onto the planets Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew visit each episode. But there have been rare occasions where a starship landed on a planet, such as in Star Trek Into Darkness when the Enterprise submerged itself in the ocean of the planet Nibiru.
Star Trek: Prodigy episode 4 is a cautionary tale of why starships should stay in orbit when visiting a strange new world. When Hologram Janeway gave the Protostar’s crew a mission of exploring a Class-M planet in the Hirogen system, Dal led his crew to land their starship on the surface. But they soon learned the planet is a malevolent sentient being that makes visitors see their deepest desires so that it can consume them. When Dal and the others realized they were in danger, they were too late to save the Protostar. The planet captured the starship with tendrils and prevented it from lifting off, leaving Star Trek: Prodigy‘s characters trapped in the hostile world.
The fact that the USS Protostar has landing gear means it was built to land safely on planets. Indeed, the Protostar appears to be much smaller than starships like the Enterprise so it could be built for sub-orbital missions as well as for incredibly fast warp travel since the Protostar boasts two warp drives. But this still doesn’t mean actually landing a starship on a planet is a good idea, especially since doing so often violates the Prime Directive. In Star Trek: Prodigy episode 4, Hologram Janeway mistakenly detected no life forms on the planet so they didn’t think they were breaking Starfleet General Order One and exposing a pre-warp civilization to technology that would violate the natural order of their evolution.
This is unlike Star Trek Into Darkness when Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) ordered the Starship Enterprise into Nibiru as part of a mission to cool down its planetary core. Kirk ended up breaking the Prime Directive by coming face-to-face with the planet’s natives and allowing them to see the Enterprise when it lifted off to rescue Spock (Zachary Quinto) and escape Nibiru. But in the Prime Timeline, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) also broke the Prime Directive in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by landing a Klingon Bird-of-Prey into 1986 San Francisco. Luckily, the Klingon ship was cloaked, although a fishing boat’s crew saw the starship when Kirk beamed two humpback whales aboard.
It’s interesting that, as the Protostar’s training avatar, Hologram Janeway encouraged Dal and his crew to land on the planet instead of advising them to keep the starship in orbit and beam down. As a Starfleet ship, the Protostar certainly is equipped with transporters, although Gwyn found the shuttlecraft was damaged. Regardless, landing the USS Protostar on what turned out to be a hostile world proved to be a terrible decision and it illustrated why Star Trek keeps starships in orbit during Starfleet away missions.
Star Trek: Prodigy streams Thursdays on Paramount+.
