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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew looks familiar? Star Trek did it three years earlier, with Prodigy... kind of

A group of dispirate kids lost in space after coming across a mysterious spaceship? Seen it back when it was on Paramount+ and Netflix and starring half the cast of Star Trek: Voyager

Features by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Mon Dec 02 2024

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If trailers for new Star Wars series Skeleton Crew seemed familiar to viewers, it’s probably because they really have seen something like it before — namely, Star Trek: Prodigy, which also centers around a group of disparate kids who discover a spaceship and end up lost in space as a result, bonding as they work together to get home. Both series also include a token adult in the group, whether it’s the hologram of Janeway in Prodigy, or Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law) in Skeleton Crew. Yes, he’s really called Jod Na Nawood — a name that, let me tell you, my spellcheck is not a fan of; that said, “Joe Na Nawood” does still have a ring to it.

I’m not declaring that Skeleton Crew is inherently a copy of Prodigy, although the timeline of both shows precludes the usual 'two teams working on the same idea simultaneously' explanation that’s accompanied similar coincidences like Marvel and DC debuting the X-Men and Doom Patrol in the same month, or Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiering in short succession; Skeleton Crew was initially reported to be in pre-production in February 2022, four months after the first season Prodigy had aired. That said, both shows are dealing with exactly the same problem — how do you make a show about kids in a franchise that’s pretty deliberately centered around adults doing adult things? — so it’s not the biggest surprise they alighted on a near-identical solution.

Star Trek and Star Wars: Mirror Universes (Entirely Accidentally)

What’s particularly odd about the coincidental parallels between the two shows are the ways in which the differences feel as if they belong to the wrong show. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’s kids come from what seems to be a very settled, very suburban scenario that feels… well, pretty not-Star Wars, to say the least. (Have there always been space-suburbs in the background of Star Wars all along, curiously untouched by the galactic conflict? That feels somewhat disappointing, in ways that it’s hard to fully explain.) However, the concept of a space suburb feels very Star Trek — just think about the times the franchise has returned to Earth, and everything looked immediately comfortable and somewhat dated even by the time you saw it for the first time. If someone told me that there are extensive space suburbs just a short drive from Starfleet Academy, I’d immediately agree.

Similarly, the Prodigy crew are former child slaves running away with a stolen spaceship… which feels far more in keeping with the Star Wars mood than Star Trek. We’ve got spice runners and bounty hunters and smugglers and all kinds of other illegal activities in the Star Wars galaxy, so the idea of some slavers stealing children just… fits. (Especially to anyone who’s seen The Phantom Menace; hi, little kid Anakin!) Yet… somehow, this is the start of the Star Trek show?

Kudos to both for steering away from expectations, at least, I guess.

Star Trek and Star Wars: Boldly Going in Similar Directions

The two shows aren’t in direct competition, of course — Prodigy is believed to be over, unless Netflix has quietly commissioned a new season in the past few months and told everyone involved to stay quiet about it — but it’ll be interesting to see how Skeleton Crew zigs where Prodigy zagged, and what lessons it might even have learned from its accidental predecessor. (One of them might be, bluntly, that fandom might care more about a live-action series than an animated one.)

It’ll also be worth paying attention to see if Skeleton Crew has been constructed with the same larger goal as Prodigy — namely, to act as an introduction for younger viewers to Star Trek as a whole. Prodigy managed that by tying into the larger mythology of the series in a number of ways — not least of which, cameos and appearances from a host of familiar faces — and bringing the characters themselves into the larger structure of Starfleet in the actual show. We already know that the Skeleton Crew kids are going to run into a Jedi, but will they also find characters from other movies and shows at some point, as well…? The series is set during the time period of The Mandalorian and assorted spin-offs, which means it’s not impossible… but surely younger audiences were already tempted into those shows by Baby Yoda years ago, right?

As Skeleton Crew continues, it’ll be fun to come back to this and decide whether or not the series learned anything from Prodigy’s experiences… or if the two really are as separate as their creators would have us believe.

New episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew debut on Disney+ Mondays at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, through December and January.

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.