Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for the Star Trek: Prodigy episode “Supernova, Part 1.” Read at your own risk!
It may feel ridiculous to suggest that anything about “Supernova, Part 1” is funny, especially this close to Star Trek: Prodigy’s Season 1 finale. Dal and the crew were unable to stop the activation of the weapon, and just when it seemed The Diviner might be swayed to help them stop it, he was killed by Asencia. The moment was one of Prodigy’s heaviest scenes to date, but it also created a hilarious moment for the showrunners and writers when working on Season 1’s penultimate episode.
I had a chance to speak to Star Trek: Prodigy's showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman about how the children’s show handled the very adult death of The Diviner, and I learned a hilarious little tidbit about the problem they ran into when writing the episode. The brothers explained that while they’ve typically gotten a lot of leeway in what they’ve shown, the penultimate episode presented a big issue that they didn’t recognize until someone else pointed it out. Kevin Hageman shared that while they knew The Diviner’s fate, they didn’t really think about the reality of his dead body hanging out on the bridge in the back half of the episode:
That was an accident. When we first wrote it, our director pointed out you have this dramatic face-off with the Asencia stuff in the end, and The Diviner's body is just lying there the whole time on the bridge. We’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we can’t have that.’
Had The Diviner ultimately recovered from his wounds, it might not have been an issue. Of course, The Diviner dies midway through the episode, and with the realization that his corpse would just be hanging out on the bridge while the rest of the chaos unfolded, Star Trek: Prodigy’s team had to get creative.
Thankfully, they are responsible for the creation of the Vau N’Akat species and were able to make a change that will ultimately impact the species going forward. Dan Hageman explained how this problem forever changed the lore of the Vau N’Akat:
So now, the Val N’Akat, canon-wise, when they die, they evaporate.
Had The Diviner been one of the many previously established villainous species on Star Trek: Voyager, Prodigy might’ve had a bigger problem on its hands. Now, assuming we see more Vau N’Akat appear going forward, there’s always going to be a way of handling the dead bodies! I guess that’s a grim upside for a kid’s show, but a great way of assuring the action can stay without children being scarred by the lifeless husks of the Vau N’Akat when they fire up their Paramount+ subscriptions.
The good news is that if any other upcoming Star Trek series chooses to feature the Vau N’Akat, a death scene shouldn’t look too weird in live-action. The world of Star Trek is littered with unique species and other weird stuff, so even if it was an on-the-spot fix, it’s perfectly in line with this franchise overall.
Star Trek: Prodigy concludes Season 1 over on Paramount+ Thursday, December 29th. The current situation isn’t great for the crew and Starfleet at large, so we’ll have to see exactly what happens in the finale and how it lays the groundwork for Season 2.
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