It’s been a long road for Star Trek: Prodigy, getting from there (Paramount+) to here (Netflix). But, perhaps fitting for a show so engaged as a spiritual sequel to Star Trek: Voyager, that journey homeward bound might need to keep going on for a bit longer: it’s emerged this week that the animated series is starting to run out of time before it needs a new savior.
This week it was confirmed that Netflix—who saved Prodigy from being completely scrubbed off streaming services last year, after Paramount abruptly pulled the plug on the show during the production of its greenlit second season—is about to lose the streaming rights for Prodigy‘s first season next month, with rights for the second season set to expire at the very end of 2025, on December 31.
“While the future removal of Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix is disconcerting, it has little to do with lack of viewership or anything nefarious,” Kevin and Dan Hageman, Prodigy‘s showrunners, said in part in a post on social media about the licensing rights.. “We hold out hope someone will pick it up. The next generation of Trek fans deserve it.”
Although the Hagemans dance around it, the lack of news about a potential third season of Prodigy since the sophomore’s debut on Netflix last year, paired with the news about the series’ licensing renewal, doesn’t paint an optimistic picture for the series’ future beyond simply finding a place for the current seasons to stream online. But at least this time fans don’t have to worry as they did when Paramount first tried to scrub the show offline, leaving certain episodes unable to watch at all: Prodigy season two got a physical release on Blu-ray and DVD last year, so even if the show is beamed off of Netflix without renewal in the coming months, at least the series will remain accessible in a more reliable form.
We’ll bring you more on Star Trek: Prodigy’s fate as and when we learn it.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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