I enjoy the fact that the doctor’s holo novels are a running joke.

Legit surprised on the LARGE role Wesley had this season 😮

One of my favorite things in... heck, in all of Star Trek, is the end of Is There In Beauty No Truth, when, now that Zero has all the facts, everyone stands back and lets them decide for themself what they want. That idea, "it's your decision to make, we'll respect what you choose, but it's important you know everything you can before you choose" is just, so so important.

Will Wheaton SHINES in this episode!

The folded uniform in Wesley's vault, I think it maybe HIS dress uniform from his deleted scene in the Troi/Riker wedding!

Ellie, I love your Janeway hair!

Don’t forget the last thing Beverly said to Wesley. Be sure to bring a sweater in case it’s cold on those other planes of existence.

Well done, Ellie! This makes it official: Wesley Crusher is now the Doctor Who of the Star Trek universe.

I’m happy we’re getting more Wil Wheaton in Star Trek, I hope if legacy happens he’ll check in on his brother. Imagine Wesley vs Q!!!

Petition for a Temporal Wars series staring Will Wheaton...🤔

I love Ellie going rogue and giving up and downs to whatever she wants. I had always kind of wondered how much was host inspired...it seems most of it.

I think the sweaters was probably more of a call back to Beverly's line to Wesley at the end of Journey's End where she told him to "be sure to pack a sweater for when you go to these other planes of existence."

Data: I HATE THIS STUFF! Guinan: More? Data: Yes, please!

Now you mention it, it is kinda stunning that the reveal of Wesley Timelord Crusher wasn't leaked from the premature French release. I wonder if they had to cut a moment where Wesley recognised the Nova Squadron pin on Ma'Jel's collar and had some Emotions about it, for time. It seems like a point of connection that he would have noticed.

Wesley’s white and gray uniform…possibly his dress uniform from Riker and Troy’s wedding in Nemesis from his deleted scene??? This would have been the last starfleet uniform he was ever seen in.

Another big Doctor Who reference is the concept of the Loom themselves as parasites consuming the contents of a doomed paradoxical universe. This is lifted directly from the Ninth Doctor episode Father's Day.

The way I took it was that when Wes dropped Janeway back on the bridge, he also messed with time/space a bit - the ship is back in orbit (the viewscreen shot was similar but the exterior shot was far from the planet surface), she has her clothes back on, the ship isn't falling to pieces, and at least most of the crew seem to be restored (I didn't go back to check exactly who was previously deleted though). I figured that was part of the "well this is a kid show so Wes should hit the reset button" to counter all the death and destruction.

Excellent job, Ellie, welcome to Ups& Downs!

The EMH facing off with an invading enemy is a callback to ST First Contact, when Dr. Crusher evacuates sick bay she activates the EMH and orders him to stall the Borg while the crew escapes.

I'm not all that fond of the glitchy holograms, either, but the "Ha ha, sorry Sean" had me dying of laughter for a good minute 🤣

Ellie absolutely adore your Ups & Downs debut, you nailed it!

The loom reminded me of the machines from the matrix. Awesome design.

MIddleton got the redshirtest deal of them all, not just died, but got erased from existance. But also, Galaxy Quest: "what's my last name?" by Grubthor's hammer, give him a last name...

Re animation eating whole cake in one bite: it’s easier/cheaper to animate. ESPECIALLY in CG animation. I worked on a preschool CG show & we had this same discussion. Director hated the “big bite” & thought it could be a harmful example to kids to eat a cupcake in one bite. Then he was told the cost of animating separate bites (since each bite would require a separate prop design, build, texture, lighting, etc) & suddenly he was totally fine with the characters eating in one bite! Also one of the producers thought it was cute to see them eat in one bite & thought it was a waste of run time to take separate bites. But I feel ya! My pet peeve is hanging up the phone without saying bye. So far I’ve been able to sneak in a bye on the other end of the phone at least.

-- replace this section with me gushing how wonderful and adorable Ellie is -- this was one of the best ups and downs of the entire channel, Ellie your new fresh take on Trek shines thru in such positive light. Please more of Ellie.

HANG ON A MO!! Wesley Crusher has a "TARDIS"!! In the new series of Doctor Who, they name drop Star Trek and he says "We should visit those guys" or something like that... THIS is how they CROSS!!! THE DOCTOR MIGHT HAVE LITERALLY MET WESLEY CRUSHER!!!!

Friendly reminder: these characters are still children. Sure, they've been through a lot. But they can still be naive and idealistic. 🖖🏼

One of the best seasons of Star Trek, Ever!

Truly hope Netflix will pay to do a third season . I guess Paramount still owns this series even tho they abandoned it.Then again maybe Skydance will revive Prodigy

I loved season 1,, felt like Trek and definetly not just for kids, season 2 surpasses season 1 in every single way and i pray Netflix picks it up for more seasons.

Up and downs from a new face is cool. Thanks for letting us decide weather the HAL 9000 is an up; that is an UP.

I have theory. Admiral Jelico in the 24 th century is actually the goa'uld infected senator Kinsey from 21th.

Love how Wesley mentioned the Nerada incident that at that present time hasn't happened yet! It happens when the romulan star went super nova in star trek 2009

Did anyone notice Wesleys sweater was the same one he wore in Encounter at farpoint?

I JUST realized what Ellie did to her hair. Gorgeous!!!

Well done, Ellie. Your first UPS & DOWNS video and it's over an hour and 20 minutes long. That's a hell of a way to start.

Unfortunately, I had Wesley's appearance spoiled for me. I don't remember exactly where it was, but it was from someone who had seen the French versions. Thankfully, I didn't know the extent to which he was in the season. A great job by Wil Wheaton!

Absolutely brilliant that Wesley showed up. I was so happy 😁

Shame on Paramount for cancelling Prodigy. Cheers to Netflix for picking up Prodigy. I am simply amazed that I can care so much about the characters. I am amazed that they can be so very touching. I do not care how they do it, but I want five more seasons of the show.

Smashed it Ellie. I have been re-watching the relevant eps prior to the release of the ups and downs. Look forward to seeing yours next week

I’m sorry, where did you get that shirt!

Welcome Ellie! You are going with JayCee as the ship name when there is Chakotway? I love the way they brought Wesley into this season. His cameo in Picard was so tacked on it felt bad. But here we got to explore who he was now and what being a traveler has done to him. An excellent addition.

This was a lot of fun, great work by everyone at TC! A couple of the gems that I liked were (Kris?) the editor added in a shot of Adm. Vance eating an apple when Ellie was discussing the replicator (fantastic reference), and mentioning Tom Paris the image was actually of Nick Locarno. A couple other things - I think Wes said 'Timey Wimey' at one point. I recall Wes grabbing Gwyn's hand and running in a very similar way that Matt Smith would grab Karen Gillan or Jenna Colemans' hand.

as always awesome job, Ellie! looking forward to part3

My *protostar up* for the week is that Ellie is hosting!! Sean-I love you, but it's great that you let the resident Janeway Stan share in the hosting duties. Now some running commentary: - Cmdr Tysess clearly wanted the kids to steal the ship in E06. He stopped just short of out-and-out saying, "Here's the keys to the ship. I'm going to look away for the next ten seconds..." - It is a testament to the writers understanding their characters that Rok didn't even consider fighting her holo-twin. Glad you commented on it. - Re: "the"s in _F&F_ franchise name-either is acceptable, given that _The Fast and the Furious_ is the first film, but _Fast and Furious_ (no. 4) marked the hard pivot of the franchise into action movie spectacle. - Did anyone else get Borg vibes from the Kazon computer? Is it possible it" went rogue" after absorbing some Borg programming? - I disagree a bit with your "cult vibes" comment re: E08-I took it as "Black-and-Orange morality." The non-corporeal inhabitants clearly didn't mean any harm, Zero wasn't trapped on the planet, and I really don't think anything would have happened if he had been eaten besides him being stuck in the belly of the space manta for a few aeons. - Steve Shives goes into this in detail, but the reason Wesley works in _Prodigy_ is largely because you need zero preexisting knowledge of the character to appreciate his role in the show. Rok's fangirling serves the secondary purpose of getting anyone who cares up to speed, but otherwise, his character stands on its own for these two episodes! - As someone who really hates the "noble blood" / "small universe" trope, finding out that Maj'el isn't just some random Vulcan is a big *down* for me. - Glad you covered the USS Cairo in Cetacean Observations. Definitely wanted to know what was up with that.

Ellie... Wesleys white uniform is from Star Trek: Nemesis. It's his dress uniform from the wedding scene. Sometimes he's included sometimes not in the edit. Schrödinger's wedding invitation.

I loved Ellie's energy. She seemed so excited to do this.

I actually enjoy occasionally having someone else step in for Sean doing the Ups and Downs for Star Trek episodes. I like Sean in this roll, but he does have a particular point of view, and - just like you and all of the rest of us - he has particular things he always ups or downs. It's nice to get a fresh perspective. He always downs mentions of the Kobayashi Maru, you always down animations eating food in a single bite. It's good to have a change every now and then.

Great job with the Ups & Downs, Ellie! I love getting different opinions on these episodes, and a lot of the observations you bring up just go to highlight how well thought out everything is. Looking forward to you and Sean covering the rest of the season.

Yay, just watched the hour that I missed on Friday and again super well done Ellie! Now past midnight on to episode 11 to 15 🖖

A tip for remembering where things are when doing green screen stuff - you can put cues off camera! Just tape up a green and red symbol on the correct sides so you can just point towards the red one.

Re: Vulcan marriages. I'm pretty sure that the Vulcans that end up in Starfleet (or as Ambassadors for that matter) are regarded as the crazy, out of control Vulcans (ref: T'Lyn)

Yay Star Trek : Prodigy, Ups & Downs with Ellie Every episode is amazing Season two has something for everyone 🖖

Actually, there are Ten Bajoran Orbs. Sisko found the 10th one and used it to expel the Pagh Wraiths from the Wormhole in season 7.

Awesome job, Ellie! You've got this! What a great Ups & Downs episode. Wooooh! What a lot to cover in these 5 episodes! Thanks for insights that I missed. See you next week! Live logs and proper! 🖖

This season has been the best Star Trek I have seen in quite a while except Strange New Worlds but this season has been absolutely wonderful.

I find it interesting, that they try to explain all inconsistencies of the different shows this season. They even find a way to explain how the uniforms shifted the way they did. Why do we have on one hand the "all good things" combadges in prodigy while the later picard uniforms have the Voyager combadges? Someone noticed and took the time to find a way to explain how this happened. Therefore "Prodigy" becomes the glue that ties all the series of the 24th and 25th century together. Well played, Kurtzman team. Well played.I hope you will cover that, Trekculture, Shawn.

The number of Voyager crew that got erased by the Loom could go a long way to explaining why the ship seemed so empty in "Imposters".

And Wesley is wearing his sweater 😂great to see him again

Wesley’s time travel console is also reminiscent of the Ancient Consoles that SG1 find in many episodes of Stargate which can also be used for time travel.

Janeway after the encounter with the Loom: it's great I haven't lost any crew members! Hasn't happened to me in years! 😂

TWO latinum ups in one episode? We're getting wild here

The phased planet I think more goes back earlier than Doctor Who's The Stolen Earth. Dee Space Nine had an episode with a planet out of phase where Dax almost stayed on it.

Oh, also I can't believe it just clicked in my head... that episode with the Kaizon an the computer.... I think Prodigy just gave us one of the biggest lore easter eggs in all of trek without anyone noticing. That computer... I think that was where the Borg originated from. Look at it's shape an design, it's the same or similar to those nodes found inside of borg cubes. It uses link tech to control people. It talks about improving them... it essentially all but assimilated Merph but without nanoprobes. It was located directly next to an abandoned transwarp hub... I mean, the signs are all there.

How absolutely gratifying to get the twofor of a Gary Seven callback and finally a wrap up of Wesley's journey at the same time. 🥰

Can we please stop putting spoilers in the thumbnails for these videos? I don't really want to have to unsubscribe to the channel until I've had a chance to watch the whole season.

Wes was right not to try to help her, initially -- there's _vastly_ bigger stakes. They're lucky things turned out as they did. :P It's literally the "hard call" we just referenced. He does it, he's bad. The kid does it, she's a hero. C'mon.

Was the hidden planet not a reference to When the Bough Breaks from Season 1 TNG? Assumed that Wesley perfected the idea of cloaking a plant.

I think the episode where zero gets a body when Ellie criticized about not having question the situation we should remember these are kids that's being portrayed

I enjoy seeing Ellie on Ups and Downs. I'm all for more TrekCulture folks mixing things up!

1:01:50 Ellie, Moriarty doesn't count as he never left the holodeck. Remember, he tricked Picard and Data into thinking he left the holodeck, but all he did was manipulate the holodeck environment to create that illusion. Data realizes this only after Picard gave "the computer" his command codes, only to find out they weren't talking to Enterprise's computer, but a simulated computer voice on the holodeck, thus giving Moriarty access to all of Enterprise's systems.

I'm a straight man but I have no problem saying a Chakotay looked great with the silver in his hair.

Great job, Ellie! I’ve always enjoyed your WhoCulture videos, so it’s great to see you with TrekCulture too. You’re rocking that Janeway hairstyle!

Well done Ellie. Hope you will do much more U&D's in the future

Thanks TrekCulture ❤

I literally cannot disagree more on downing Gwyn's decision to take Zero to get help. For this mission, they needed everyone and Zero literally couldn't even HOVER anymore.

My biggest issue with the Loom is the scene where they were just erasing Voyager crew left and right. These people didn't just die, their entire existence was erased, and still no serious repercussions for the timeline... To me it seemed that there were so many folks that were just so insignificant to history on that crew... That's so sad.

The white and grey uniform could also be a reference to the piloting uniforms in the Voyager race episode as well.

Ellie - I think you missed another Doctor Who reference, let alone from your heroine River Song, when Wesley says something like "Nobody loves spoilers."

Great job Ellie! Looking forward to the next video! 😊

The Looms give me some Stephen King's langoliers vibes.

I think you did great for your first ups and downs. Could be a little faster in delivery, but overall, the energy is there, and I love the enthusiasm. Also the double-latinum ups. Screw the rules, we have Tank Top Janeway! Also, normally it's only one latinum per episode, so the fact you're doing 5 episodes in one go means you've got wiggle room. I say it's good to go.

I loved the scene in the mess hall from episode 7, the kids personalities being all mixed up. 😂

I think the episode about Zero receiving a body was a very clear allegory for transitioning. That's one of my issues with Ellie continuing to call them a cult: that's an inflammatory accusation used against trans people all the time. While I'm sure that's not how she meant it, that's nevertheless the fears that sort of description is feeding into. The point wasn't that it was a cult, or that you should see the people as suspicious, the point is that, like with everything, transition does still carry some risks or consequences. I'm actually glad the writers didn't go the easy route and make it a cult- the "red flag" was that Zero may not have an unwaveringly fantastic time from start to finish in their new body, but as we can see, they still enjoy practically everything about the experience. Because nothing in life is going to be 100% roses and daffodils, but in the end, it's still what makes Zero feel complete. And portraying the non-corporeal corporeals (trans people) as being benevolent and offering this to people like Zero as a form of altruism, with the only real catch being that you will experience everything that comes with living in a body, I think is very complimentary for trans people, considering they are constantly portrayed as "seducers of the innocent," or preying on people. One of my favorite queer allegories in Trek to date has been this episode.

Welcome Ellie! Glad you have a chance to do 2 of these.

Ellie, if you’re having trouble with Rok Tahk’s techno babble; think “reversing the polarity”

Starfleet ships are notoriously understaffed for their size. Modern aircraft carriers usually have *5000* crewmembers. EC Henry has a good video about this.

Thank you for the video! I had a fantastic time and loved getting caught up with your excitement. Thank you also for those brief shipping mentions.

Wasn’t the first appearance of a Targ as Kruge's pet on Star Trek III?

Excellent video Ellie - fresh voice, face and perspective on the excellent Prodigy series - very happy for you to share space with Sean.

48:17 Me watching Star Trek (2009) - Kirk, Sulu, and Olsen Who the hell is Ols...ooohhh 😈

You did great, Ellie. On a side note, i feel bad for people who hadn't watched prodigy yet and had rhe wesley appearance sppoled by the thumbnail. Couldve easily used the same thimbnail but blurred the face or something. Heck, that mightbe even inticed some people to click. That aside, great job!

Love the t-shirt and Janeway hair! Great review and thoughts!

I think one of the main reasons for the "red light when technology goes bad" is that it is something understood universally. If you had someone unfamiliar with the language, they would still understand that something has gone wrong and the people are in danger. In the end, it's about the ease with which you can get your message across; the easier it is for everyone to understand, the greater the acceptance of the media. One may be forgiven for thinking that Janeway et al would have picked up on the holograms if she and the crew hadn't been studiously avoiding them since space dock. Let's be honest, none of the crew, let alone the senior staff, have made any effort to willingly spend time with our team, so there was no real way they could have picked up on the unusual behaviour. Starfleet the Voyager crew may be; compassionate they are not.

The two spocks meeting destryoing the universe kinda like Doc Brown warning Marty "not to run into your other self...the results could be disastrous....could destroy the entire universe....or perhaps be merely limited to our own galaxy".

Just watched thru to the end of e20 - what a beautifully written close. Can't wait for you to catch up so I can work out what I just saw ! 🤪

a very good ups and downs, Ellie nailed it^^ one little thing i recognized. On Voyagers sickbay, the doctors balt patient laying on the biobed is looking very similar to picard even though its not picard.

Tiny down (or maybe just a remark): when Jankom presents the holograms for the first time, he fist-bumps with is own hologram and we can clearly hear a "clonk" sound, but immediately after that he says that the holograms don't have substance and can't interact with anything.

I Loved every second Wes was in this Season, easily my favourite Character which is ironic because i hated him in TNG. Same Story with Anakin in Star Wars hated him in the prequels but He grew on me in Clone Wars. I think i should watch TNG again, been a while.

42:01 wasn’t Wesley’s “TARDIS” set up in caves he and Picard had their last mission together in? That’s where it looked like to me. I also felt reminded of a TARDIS console. Very fun. Wesley was the last person I thought would become a Doctor Who analogue.