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The second season of Star Trek: Prodigy — one that almost went unseen, when the show was initially cancelled by Paramount+, before being picked up by Netflix — is filled with all sorts of cameos from familiar Trek characters (and actors), and connections to Trek lore… but there’s one specific appearance that show creators Kevin and Dan Hageman felt was particularly necessary: The Next Generation’s Wesley Crusher.

Spoilers for Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 follow! If you haven’t had a chance to watch the full season yet, read on at your own peril.

Speaking at the show’s San Diego Comic-Con 2024 panel on Sunday morning at the show, Kevin Hageman said that the show was created as an entry point into the larger Trek mythology for newcomers. “We wanted to bring new people into Trek. For new people, we asked our writers room, what are the greatest hits?” he explained, adding, “We feel like it’s Star Trek 101, whether you’re a young kid or an adult who’s scared of Star Trek.”

The second season of the show tells a larger story that crosses realities and travels through time, which makes it particularly reasonable to bring in Wesley — a character who went from Starfleet offspring to ensign to omnipotent member of The Travelers, a group that can travel space and time, who the Hagemans described as Star Trek’s “very own Time Lord” during the panel. His involvement in the show was credited to series staff writer Jen Muro, who in particular was a big fan of Wesley, the brothers explained, but there was a very specific reason for bringing him in that went beyond plot.

“Wesley Crusher is the original prodigy of Star Trek,” Kevin Hageman explained. “This guy needs to come back and help out [the Prodigy] kids.”

Although Prodigy season 2 was released after the second season of Star Trek: Picard — which also featured a cameo from Will Wheaton reprising his Next Generation role — it turned out that it was Prodigy that originally got the ball rolling on his return. The Picard producers “knew we were going to do something with him, and they said, ‘it’d be great if we could use him as well,’” Hageman said. “We were really into that.”

Wesley’s involvement — and the fact that it tied Prodigy to Picard as well as The Next Generation — served an important secondary purpose as well, as it turned out.

“As you see, there’s a lot of touchstones with Voyager [in Prodigy], simply because it was organically tied with Janeway,” Kevin Hageman said, “but we wanted to make sure this wasn’t just a Voyager sequel. We wanted to touch on all the different elements of Star Trek.”

Star Trek: Prodigy is available to stream on Netflix now.

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