As Star Trek: Prodigy approaches its first season finale, it’s your mind to my mind in “Mindwalk”! The episode was written by Julie Benson and Shawna Benson and directed by Sung Shin.
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The Dauntless approaches. Aboard the Protostar, Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), Captain Dal R’el (Brett Gray), Gwyn (Ella Purnell), Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), Zero (Angus Imrie), and Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) react with fear. The Living Construct has taken control of the Protostar and locked the crew out of its controls.
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Meanwhile, Hologram Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) grapples with the realization that her programming was compromised by the Construct. Janeway deactivates herself, reasoning that she can’t sabotage them if she doesn’t know what they’re doing.
The Dauntless hails. Dal orders them not to answer the call. If contact isn’t established, the Construct won’t activate. “Unless they board us,” Gwyn says. Dal states they can’t let them take the ship.
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From the Dauntless, Doctor Noum (Jason Alexander) and the Protostar crew catch sight of each other across the space between the ships. Murf blows a raspberry.
Awkward.
Rok notes that they aren’t just locked out. The Protostar warp drive is powering up.
Dauntless Pursuit
Commander Tysess (Daveed Diggs) hails Vice Admiral Janeway, to no response. Elsewhere on the ship, The Vindicator (Jameela Jamil) puts Janeway’s unconscious body into a closet. She is standing with The Diviner (John Noble) and Dreadnok (Jimmi Simpson).
Dreadnok suggests throwing Janeway out of an airlock. The Diviner says her absence would cause unwanted attention. Since Janeway will be unconscious for several hours, the Vindicator posits a plan. She says she’ll move Janeway’s combadge to her quarters and tell the Dauntless crew she asked not to be disturbed.
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The Vindicator orders Dreadnok to erase all records and assumes her Ascencia disguise.
Dauntless machinations.
The Protostar jumps to warp. The Dauntless follows. “Asencia” says she could close the gap if they re-route power from the quantum slipstream. This will allow the Dauntless to merge its warp field with the Protostar’s and lock onto its course. Noum notes if their Protocore is engaged, it will tear the Dauntless apart. Asencia says their Protodrive is offline. She tells Tysess that Janeway wants that ship. Convinced, Tysess orders the warp bubbles to be merged.
Can Jankom Pog fix this??
Aboard the Protostar, Zero notes the bubble merging strategy. Jankom is relieved they aren’t shooting. But then the Dauntless fires. Gwyn states they’re trying to take out their shields so they can board. Dal laments that they could resolve this with communication. But Zero states communication would activate the Construct.
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Rok begins to Treknobabble. Jankom says he doesn’t know how to do any of that! Gwyn posits using Zero’s telepathic abilities. Zero says this would require their hive mind. Rok has another idea.
Mindwalk with Me
Rok states that Dal could be Zero’s hive mind. She recalls the fact that he read Okona’s outrageous thoughts in “Masquerade.” Zero agrees that the telepathic DNA in Dal’s augment genes could offer the boost necessary to make telepathic communication with the Dauntless possible.
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Zero tells Dal to relax, close his eyes, and reach out with his mind. Zero takes Dal’s hands and instructs him to imagine himself crossing the void of space to the Dauntless. “Follow my voice,” they say. “Follow my mind. Focus on Admiral Janeway. Make contact with her.” Images of unconscious Janeway appear. The Dauntless fires again. Dal falls unconscious.
A POV shot shows Dal’s perspective as he wakes on the floor to find Murf looming above him. Except this is Janeway’s mind in Dal’s body. She wonders aloud what Murf is, then asks what’s wrong with her voice.
Janeway says she knows them and identifies each of them by their names. She asks how she ended up aboard the Protostar. Gwyn says she’s not making sense. Jankom realizes their minds have switched bodies. Zero confirms this.
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Rok says there must be a scientific explanation. Zero states that Janeway’s neural patterns have been swapped with Dal’s. Gwyn deduces that Dal’s mind must be aboard the Dauntless.
Vice Admiral Dal
A POV shot aboard the Dauntless gives us Dal’s perspective as he awakens. Wondering why his voice sounds strange, Dal catches sight of his reflection (Janeway) and screams. He stumbles into the Dauntless corridors, whispering to an unhearing Zero as he skirts contact with the crew.
Meanwhile, holding cuffs, The Diviner enters the room where The Vindicator stashed Janeway’s body. He opens the closet and finds it empty.
A Vulcan crewmember encounters Dal in the hallway. They share an awkward conversation. Dal is beamed to the bridge. The Vindicator reaches for her phaser. But since Dal doesn’t remember her role in Janeway’s incapacitation, The Vindicator holds off on force.
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Dal attempts to fake it as Janeway. He falls out of the Captain’s chair. Tysess says a few more phaser volleys will knock out the Protostar’s shield. As another phaser blast is fired, Dal orders them to cease. Tysess says that firing was Janeway’s orders. Dal says he changed his mind. A befuddled Tysess accepts this and says they’ll end the pursuit. Not wanting to lose his body, Dal says not to do that, either. Dal says to continue pursuit, “then, ‘pew pew pew’?”
Noum approaches Dal and orders him to drink some coffee. Dal sips the beverage and then spits it out. The bridge crew reacts with expressions of skepticism.
Tête-à-tête
On the Protostar, the crew explains the Construct situation to Janeway. She realizes that they haven’t answered hails from the Dauntless to protect them.
Janeway approaches the Construct hologram. She says that when she was a Cadet, she learned that a good officer keeps an open mind. Turning to the crew, she says she made quite a few incorrect assumptions about them. She says she will help them. But in order to do that, she must return to her ship and body.
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Zero explains that Dal is a human augment. His genome has been spliced with 26 different species. Rok and Zero believe Dal’s telepathic gene was hijacked by another gene in his DNA. They believe his Organian DNA is responsible. Janeway reasons that being in Dal’s body with his DNA, she should be able to reverse the mind swap.
Zero attempts to guide Janeway’s mind like they did for Dal. But there’s no success. Zero says there must be a variable that hasn’t been taken into account.
“Ascencia” and Dal
Aboard the Dauntless, “Ascencia” has been called to Janeway’s quarters. A model Voyager sits on the desk. Ascencia questions Dal’s inability to recollect a previous discussion. She says they can’t contact them unless the Protostar answers a hail or the Dauntless crew goes aboard. Dal plays it off as a “test” that Ascenia passed.
Noum enters and says a medical scan has picked up faint cellular damage in Janeway’s cerebral cortex. Noum says he’d like to run more tests. Dal says after a nap.
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Dal continues to be awkward as he puts Tysess in command and leaves the bridge. Asencia says the Protostar is heading for a restricted sector near Gamma Serpentis. Tysess observes this is near the heart of Federation space. Asencia asks, “If there’s a weapon on their ship, can we really stop them alone?” Tysess says he’ll notify Starfleet Command to reroute all ships to that vector.
Janeway and Janeway
On the Protostar, Janeway says that whoever locked the controls must know the ship inside and out. She has a realization and interacts with the screen on the Captain’s chair. The entry to the Construct chamber opens. Inside, Vice Admiral Janeway finds Hologram Janeway.
Admiral says she knows what Hologram did. She’d be hard on her, but she knows how hard Hologram is on herself. At first, Hologram believes the interloper is Dal, but soon learns it is the Admiral. Admiral proves it using a childhood memory of their father saying, “C’mon, Kate. Make something great out of that mess.”
Hologram says an attempt to contact Admiral using telepathy sounds like something Dal would do. Admiral wonders if she and Hologram can deactivate the Construct. Hologram explains they can’t restore access to the Protostar without Construct authorization. While the Admiral can’t restore the ship’s programming, Hologram is a “non-essential” program. This means Admiral can purge the Construct’s influence and rebuild her corrupted files.
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As Admiral executes this, Hologram’s memories are restored. She sees flashes of Captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and The Diviner. Admiral asks what happened to Chakotay. A recording of his “mayday” call plays. “The Protostar sustained heavy damage after passing through a temporal anomaly,” he says. Past Hologram warns they’ve been boarded. A trio of Dreadnoks appear.
Admiral asks if Chakotay and the crew are dead. Hologram says she doesn’t know. Rok calls down to say they’ve found a way to restore Dal and Janeway’s brains. Admiral asks if Hologram is coming. Hologram answers: “Yeah. Let’s make something great out of this mess.”
Backtracking the Mindwalk
On the Protostar bridge, Zero says before they were noncorporeal, ancient Organians would transfer consciousness to other bodies through touch. Janeway says she wasn’t touching Dal. But Rok explains that when the Dauntless fired phasers, the energy transfer created a link. Janeway reasons they need Dal to fire on the ship to recreate the conduit. But Zero counters that losing their badly damaged shields would allow the Dauntless crew to board, activating the Construct before Janeway can stop them.
Rok giggles as she concludes that Dal and Janeway need to go out into space and physically touch each other. Janeway cites Star Trek Voyager’s “Threshold” as proof that she can survive anything.
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Murf alerts the rest of the crew to the fact that he has spotted Dal aboard the Dauntless. Gwyn realizes Dal is using Morse code to spell “S-O-S.” She suggests using Morse to tell Dal their plan, but Jankom says he’s pretty sure that’s all the Morse Dal knows. Janeway says she has an idea: charades.
Using an E.V. Suit as a prop, the crew mimes the plan to Dal. He slowly pieces it together and mimes back a response. Unfortunately, the Dauntless command crew witnesses his celebration. Tysess says they need to get Dal to sickbay. Dal flees but is quickly captured by the Dauntless support crew. Dal asks if they know who he is. As Noum administers a sedative, he states that they do not.
My Thoughts to My Thoughts
On the Protostar, Janeway tells Rok that she’s going to make a great science officer someday. Rok embraces her. Gwyn thanks her for giving them a chance. Gwyn hopes they’ll see Janeway if they end up making it to Starfleet, saying Dal wants it more than anyone. Janeway has a reaction. Gwyn asks why, and Janeway explains that as an augment, Dal won’t be permitted to join Starfleet.
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In the Dauntless sickbay, Dal awakes to The Diviner. The Diviner says it was only a matter of time before she determined his identity. He says for most of his life, Starfleet has been the villains who destroyed his world. Because of this, Janeway’s kindness surprised him. However, he remains devoted to his mission and the salvation of his people. Which is why he must undertake this action.
The music becomes more tense. But The Diviner releases the restraints. He requests Janeway protect Gwyn if his mission fails. Dal says he’d do anything for Gwyn, too, and leaves.
Leap of Warp
Dal sneaks through the Dauntless. He puts on an E.V. Suit and exits an airlock. But he must traverse the hull of the ship to reach the jump-off point. Inside the Dauntless, the command crew realizes what’s happening. But beaming can’t take place due to the warp field. Noum says the lives of everyone on the ship are being endangered.
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Dal leaps off the hull of the Dauntless. Meanwhile, Gwyn tells Jankom to prepare to deactivate the aft shields for a few seconds. Zero offers Janeway some last-minute coaching. Janeway says it isn’t her first rodeo. She continues that she’s going to ensure the Protostar crew gets “a fair shake” once they’re out of this mess. Hologram thanks Admiral for the memories. Murf and Dal exit the airlock, with Murf acting as a tether to the Protostar.
Janeway and Dal are about to touch. But the Dauntless uses a tractor beam to begin pulling Dal back. Janeway orders Murf to stretch as far as possible, but it isn’t enough. Janeway says she needs to create a conduit and reaches for the phaser on her belt. She fires at Dal, creating the conduit necessary to return them to their proper bodies.
Restoration
On the Protostar, Dal reawakens in his own body. This time, he immediately embraces Murf.
Gwyn says it’s good to have him back. But then an alert reveals they’re dropping out of warp. They’ve arrived in Federation space, and they’re welcomed by dozens of Starfleet ships, with more arriving. Gwyn says she’s glad the Admiral is on their side. But Dal says, “Yeah. About that.”
On the Dauntless, Janeway awakens. She finds herself inside the brig.
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