The first two episodes of season 4 of Discovery have aired... My fiancée decided to get us Paramount+ (in part, due to several Star Trek series leaving Netflix, but also because of some interest in a few other shows on the service), but I refuse to watch this show on principle. Nevertheless, I'm still reading synopsis/reviews of the show out of morbid curiosity...
The Federation is rebuilding now that the mystery and threat behind "The Burn" is over. The Federation is back up to 59 members, from the 38 they had in the last season (although still significantly lower than the 350 member worlds pre-Burn). Starfleet Academy has reopened after it closed 125 years earlier (um... what? Some species in Starfleet are long lived enough for some of them to still be around, but how are there species like humans still in Starfleet if they've not accepted/trained any new officers in 125 years!?). However, the first new class only consists of 18 cadets. The new Federation President, Laira Rillak (who interestingly has human, Bajoran and Cardassian ancestry) introduces the new Archer Drydock, so that they can begin building and upgrading the fleet after 125 years (yet, the lack of a drydock didn't seem to stop them from performing a refit of the Discovery in the previous season). Currently, the Voyager J is docked there to fit it with a new "Pathfinder Drive" (a new, next generation take on Discovery's Spore Drive... So I take it the writers have completely forgotten the crew had agreed to stop using the spore drive when they found out it was damaging the ecosystem of aliens that lived within the mycelial network back in season 2), to lessen their dependence on dilithium. Starfleet gets a distress call from Deep Space Repair Beta Six, and Discovery is dispatched to help them. Turns out the station has been hit by gravity waves. Ultimately the station ends up destroyed, but despite the loss, the President sees this as a success because Discovery managed to save some of the personnel who otherwise would have died. I guess she and Burnham butt-heads over differing philosophies on this issue, as Burnham believes they shouldn't have lost anyone on the mission, but are interrupted with news that the gravity waves have also destroyed Book's homeworld, Kwejian.
Discovery is then sent to investigate the source of these gravity waves, and locate an anomaly 5 light years in size (5 LIGHT YEARS? How did they not see something that massive before now?!). Book and Stamets end up taking Book's ship into the anomaly to collect data (a planet and a space station light years away got destroyed by gravity waves this thing puts out, but a tiny ship can fly INTO it and survive?), because it has a debris cloud around it that deflects sensors. Although Stamets only joins him as a hologram, so as not to risk both Spore Drive pilots (which begs to question why either of them have to go at all. If Stamets can collect sensor data as a hologram on the ship, couldn't Book pilot as a hologram as well?). Things get dicey, but they get out of it. And apparently this anomaly is moving, seemingly randomly changing course, making it a threat to the entire galaxy...
Another thing of note... Apparently Gray is going to be getting a new Golem body that they'll be able to transfer his consciousness to once it is ready. It's the same technology that was introduced at the end of the first season of Picard to resurrect him. Apparently it never came into wide use due to a low success rate... Despite they've had 700 years to perfect the technology. But I'm glad they haven't "cured" death with this technology.
So, the writers keep making the same mistakes. Every season of this show is some galaxy spanning threat that only Discovery/Burnham can put a stop to. Which they keep compounding... War with the Klingons. An AI that wanted to evolve to be a real AI and kill all organic life. The Burn that destroyed most of the dilithium in the galaxy. A 5 light year sized anomaly that puts out gravity waves powerful enough to destroy whole planets and moves at random. It's a tired cliché. Not every story arc needs to be a universal threat.
Meanwhile, Prodigy has gone on a hiatus until January. I have yet to watch the episodes beyond the first one, but now that I have access to them, I plan on watching this series. One thing they revealed in the final episode prior to the hiatus...
The USS Protostar is equipped with a Protostar Engine, in addition to having a dual warp core system. I assume the idea is somewhat similar to the Romulans using an artificial quantum singularity to power their warp drives, only Starfleet has somehow figured out how to contain a baby star instead, and the drive appears to only be used to give the ship a massive speed boost while at warp.
Edit: Watched the first 5 episodes of Prodigy last night. I really like it. I was a bit leery about the concept of a bunch of kids finding a starship and going on adventures... But they pull it off pretty well I'd have to say.
Little more in depth on Prodigy...
Holo-Janeway quickly realizes the kids are not officers, but concludes they must be cadets. Not sure if she actually believes this or not, since it should be obvious they aren't cadets either... Janeway then explains the Federation to them and asks if they want to plot a course there. The kids are excited (bit ironic considering many of them are from Federation worlds in the first place) except for Dal, who sees the Federation as just another word for someone in charge, which he does not trust. Instead, he points them towards a red giant. The kids then explore the ship (putting Gwyn in the brig, finding the crew bunk area, the captain's quarters and engineering).The ship is equipped with a dual warp core system, just one of which Jankom Pog says can get them to warp 9 (begging to question why such a small ship would need to generate so much power with two cores). Zero is perplexed by a larger 3rd core between the 2 warp cores, which Jankom Pog hasn't figured out yet. The star Dal has directed them to turns out to be somewhat more of a death trap... as a white dwarf is consuming its partner red giant, and the gravity from the two is preventing them from escaping. Gwyn briefly escape the brig during the situation (and attempts to use the ship's shuttlecraft replicator to escape), but is stopped by Rok-Tahk. After eventually asking holo-Janeway for help, the kids are able to figure out how to get the situation under control, and escape the stars gravity.
Following their close encounter with the binary stars, the kids have taken holo-Janeway's advice to learn how to operate the Protostar. Holo-Janeway informs them sensors have detected an M-class planet nearby (in the Hirogen system) and suggests, as Starfleet cadets, they check it out and the kids are excited to get off the ship for a bit. After landing (it would seem the Protostar is not equipped with a transporter, which is odd for a Starfleet vessel in this era. That or the kids have yet to discover it), the planet turns out to be a bit more of a death trap, trying to trick the kids into staying so it can consume them. I assume this is actually a plant on the the planet, considering the episode portrays it as vines attacking them, but the characters don't make any distinction, making it out like the planet itself. I have to wonder if this is meant to be the Hirogen homeworld. It may explain why they became a race of nomadic hunters. And we find out Jankom Pog came to the delta quadrant on a sleeper ship. It explains how some alpha quadrant species are here, but I hope they elaborate on this a bit more, since I feel it still leaves some questions.
Gwyn once again escapes and attempts to steal the Protostar (and sends a message to her father), but vines from the planet disrupts power and forces the ship to crash back down (holo-Janeway attempts to save the ship while Gwyn escapes, but finds most of the ships power is being used for protostar containment, which she has no knowledge of and cannot access). Strangely, there is an abandoned Klingon ship on the planet the kids briefly take refuge in while trying to make their way to the Protostar. The Diviner arrives, and rather than help his daughter, attempts to obtain the Protostar for himself.. but it turns out to be the vines tricking him. The other kids reach the real Protostar and rescue her. The Diviner returns to his ship and chases them at warp. The Protostar is being over taken, and with the rest of their power being taken up by gravimetric protostar containment, Zero realizes the third core is a protostar. After seeing her father choose the ship over her, Gwyn turns against him, and activates the protostar drive... Allowing the Protostar to escape with a massive boost.