PRO Season 2 DVD

Real world article
(written from a production point of view)

Star Trek: Prodigy - Season Two is a region 1-only DVD release featuring the entirety of the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy. Contrary to the preceding region 1 release where the first season DVD release was divided into two parts, North America now received its second season DVD home video format in one release. It debuted in North America on 12 November 2024.

While the first season DVD releases were issued with bonus gift items, the second season release came with none. As usual, the discs came mounted in a standard plastic snapcase, but in this case without the customary carton slipcover.

After having formally introduced the release format for the prior LD Season 4 DVD release seven months earlier, the season two Prodigy DVD one became the second official Star Trek franchise DVD release for which the "Manufactured-on-Demand" (MOD) only – meaning that no stock for retailers (the so-called SKUs; Stock Keeping Units) was produced – release format was applied. Contrary to the Star Trek: Lower Decks season four DVD release, which was not even referenced in its official trailer, the Prodigy season two DVD variant was this time around dutifully announced in the franchise's official home video format trailer, though still failing to mention that it concerned a MOD release. [1]

Disc contents

Disc
Episode
1
Episodes
2
Episodes
3
Episodes
Special Features
  • Producing Prodigy: The Legacy (1080p, 6:01)
  • The Odyssey of Prodigy (1080p, 18:40)

Background information

  • For Canadian Region A fans/customers this, and/or its Blu-ray and digital download counterpart releases became the very first time that they could officially watch the season in a legal manner, as the season had not been streamed by Netflix in that country. [2]
  • The number and length of the special featurettes on this release are rather paltry when compared to those on the previous season home video format releases, and this had everything to do with the cancellation of the series by the Star Trek franchise and its subsequent removal from all Paramount Global platforms in June 2023. It did result in the season not being covered in The Ready Room aftershow (where specials on the underlying production were usually featured as well), despite its host, Wil Wheaton, prominently recurring as his Star Trek: The Next Generation alter ego Wesley Crusher in the second season. Wheaton got the chance to say his piece though, in the special features of the home video release.
  • The franchise had already experimented for the first time with the MOD-only format for the even earlier LD Season 3 Blu-ray release as a cost-saving scheme, but which was remarkably not applied for its then DVD counterpart, as application of the release format should have been the more logical option for the DVD format. While Blu-ray and DVD are both facing rapidly dwindling sales, this is especially pertinent for the DVD, which as a physical home video format was in the process of being phased out at the time. As a result of this, DVD releases, the Star Trek ones included, usually only enjoy a modest one-time-only pressing in the current market – meaning that once sold out, no new DVD batches are manufactured for retailing SKUs afterwards. Applying the MOD-only release format would at least eliminate the stock keeping costs at distributors and retailers.
  • For those customer fans still preferring to own their home video productions as a DVD, the on-demand option was introduced at selected online retailers, [3] the franchise's go-to online retailer Amazon.com in particular for their international coverage, to have a DVD professionally manufactured to industry standards. This was not restricted to customers in the American home market alone as it was also available to customers elsewhere in the world, albeit in NTSC encoding only (not an issue as digital disc home video players had already been able from day one to play the various television formats), typically through Amazon.com (US). This also indicated that the MOD DVD variant was actually region-free (reinforced by the lack of the customary DVD region indication in the listings of on-line retailers, Amazon included), contrary to DVDs sold as regular retail copies.
  • Being retailed as a MOD-only product, meant that customers received their DVDs in the standard plastic snapcase only, without the customary cardboard slipcase, which was an additional cost-saving element.
  • While both the UK and Germany have seen their own near-concurrent Blu-ray releases, no Region 2 DVD variant was offered as MOD option in either territory, their DVD customers having to make do with the US MOD release instead.
  • As with the first season home video format release, it was on 28 July 2024 announced at the San Diego Comic Con that the digital purchase option of the entire second season was to proceed the physical disc releases through the usual array of digital vendors, such as Prime Video, the iTunes Store and others, starting the next day on 29 July. [4]
Previous release:
Star Trek: Discovery - The Complete Series
Star Trek: Prodigy
DVD
Next release:
LD Season 5 DVD
Previous series release:
PRO Season 1 DVD
Next series release:
Final DVD in series
DVDBlu-rayDigital