If you wanted to catch Star Trek Prodigy but haven't yet, better watch it soon!

[Mort]

Paramount+, which had renewed Prodigy for a second season, has not only cancelled it - but has decided to remove the series from its platform entirely.

It might get picked up by another streaming service, or it might not. As of now, it will be gone from Paramount+ sometime next week.

Details here.

 

[Ryujin]

Given the licensing costs, I think it's doubtful that any other streamers will pick it up. Pity.

 

[Umbran]

It is a pity, because it is a pretty good show.

Note, what I've seen suggests that they will be allowed to finish post-production on Season 2, which is almost complete. That says to me that Paramount is very open to it finding a place to be shown. While the licensing costs won't be negligible, I imagine Paramount is going to want to recoup some of that cost, and so may not be so harsh on what they charge for it.

 

[MarkB]

It's a slow start, with lots of stereotypical "moral lesson of the week" episodes, so I can see how people would bounce off it. But it does become very good.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The stuff I read so far suggest that Paramount overall isn't doing so well, and trying to sell of Prodigy to someone else might be a kinda desperate move to make some money.

Would be sad if Paramount ends up struggling when a new generation of Star Trek shows are hitting their stride. And if Paramount fails, it will probably fail in the way of being bought up by someone else, which probably means even more monopolization in the entertainment market.

 

[Mort]

The stuff I read so far suggest that Paramount overall isn't doing so well, and trying to sell of Prodigy to someone else might be a kinda desperate move to make some money.

Would be sad if Paramount ends up struggling when a new generation of Star Trek shows are hitting their stride. And if Paramount fails, it will probably fail in the way of being bought up by someone else, which probably means even more monopolization in the entertainment market.

That tracks. It's merging with Showtime and, likely, trying to shed licensing and other costs any way it can.

 

[Umbran]

That tracks. It's merging with Showtime and, likely, trying to shed licensing and other costs any way it can.

Given that Paramount owns Star Trek, shedding a Trek show isn't shedding licensing costs.

 

[MarkB]

Given that Paramount owns Star Trek, shedding a Trek show isn't shedding licensing costs.

Might the Nickelodeon connection have caused issues? I know it's owned by Paramount Global, but it might have some separate licensing arrangements from Paramount+.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

It's a slow start, with lots of stereotypical "moral lesson of the week" episodes, so I can see how people would bounce off it. But it does become very good.

That's 100% what happened to me. I also just found Dal deeply obnoxious. TV teens/preteens are often deeply obnoxious. I think the tropes of them are overly influenced by Hollywood writers who have or had terrible relationships with their children.

Also I have the version of Paramount+ with ads, and I found the particular selection of child-programing oriented ads particularly irritating when I tried to watch the series (and another constant reminder that I wasn't the target demographic and should probably be watching something else).

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Not only cancelling, but cancelling with a substantially complete but un-aired second season, and removing it from the service seems unlikely to really make strict financial sense. Much like Disney's disappearing of the Willow series, or HBOs of Westworld, it feels like they wanted to make sure there was something being removed that their board or shareholders were actually aware of to prove that they were taking the belt-tightening seriously. A nice fat sacrificial lamb had to be brought to the altar.

Not to say these "sacraficial lamb" shows didn't involve financial failures, just that most the losses were already lost, they all have fans, and I don't really believe the ongoing expenses in royalties fail to be covered by the value of having high production value content that a significant, albeit disappointing, number of people do like on their services. Paramount+, in particular, has an actual problem of a lack of breadth and depth of content (you get beyond the few premium orginal shows, and you quickly discover little but an ocean of Z-grade made-for-basic-cable dreck). I think it is a "political" decision to prove that someone within the corporation is doing their job to someone else within the corporation or amongst its major investors. While it is probably the right decision for the people making it's careers in the near term, for the corporation as a whole it is probably not actually a rational, sound business decision.