The latest Star Trek series has now been over for a week, and with the dust settled on Starfleet Academy, it’s a good time to survey what happened. Was it all successful? No. Far from it, in fact, but the same can be said for basically every Star Trek show in history. There were moments of brilliance in there, great references back to old Star Trek lore, and some genuinely good new ideas and new characters. It was also more of an acquired taste than some older fans will have wanted to see (hence some of the more vocal criticisms from within the fanbase), and has immediately become a sort of lightning rod for bad faith engagement bait at the same time.
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In between the two extremes, there is truth, as always: the show was surprisingly provocative (like an upstart youngster, you might say), and while it was also carefully observant of some old lore, it wasn’t afraid to make some swings. Did I like Starfleet Academy? Yes. At its best, it could stand shoulder to shoulder with the stronger first seasons of Star Trek, but at its worst, it was more evidence that the current era of Star Trek might be better off ending completely when Starfleet Academy Season 2 eventually releases. Here’s the highlights and lowlights of the first season,. WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Starfleet Academy Season 1.
8. Best: The Doctor’s Storyline
The return of Robert Picardo’s EMH (AKA The Doctor) in Starfleet Academy was a major part of the marketing campaign (and rightly so). He’s one of the best characters in Voyager, and his quirky (and often exasperated) dynamic with human crewmates was always a highlight. Plus, the idea of seeing how 800 extra years of service might have matured his taste was always going to be a draw. And for all the complaints about nostalgia-baiting, the show’s payoff of The Doctor’s lost hologram family from seminal Voyager episode “Real Life” was one of the writers’ room’s smartest decisions. For years, The Doctor sought connection through understanding, and the reveal that he sabotaged all potential relationships out of fear of further hurt was a great setup for him to realize his purpose as a father.
7. Worst: The Humor is… Uneven At Best
Generally speaking, Star Trek has a strange – and sometimes strained – relationship with humor, and Starfleet Academy too often felt like it was hitting a joke quota. The first episode set the bar by introducing a character who had – somehow – swallowed her comms badge, which did nothing other than attract needless criticism from pitchfork-wielding cynics. There was too much slapstick at times, and as much as I enjoyed the prickly silliness of Gina Yashere’s Lura Thok, if the script had been 30% more restrained, she would have been more enjoyable. Worf worked because his steel-straight approach to even ludicrous situations was a contradiction, but Thok was involved too much in the comedic manipulation.
6. Best: Nus Braka (Eventually)
I will admit here that I wasn’t entirely taken with Paul Giamatti’s Nus Braka in the otherwise very good pilot episode. He seemed a little too pantomime-like – a caricature with the volume too high (like his… regrettable performance as the Rhino in The Amazing Spider-Man 2). Without context, his quirks felt insufferable, and his pompous pageantry even more so, but he definitely grew in stature as he got more screentime. I think the balance dropped into place when his ego was matched by true threat and true nastiness (in Episode 6) and by the time he was leading the kangaroo court against Ake and the Federation in the finale, I didn’t want him to go away. Sadly, he apparently isn’t returning in Starfleet Academy Season 2, but we can at least enjoy what we had.
5. Worst: The Ship Designs
The Athena is an interesting ship, without being quite as impressive as its functionality, but compared to the other Star Trek flagships, it just feels like it’s missing something. The design looks regal, but in a way that is almost too deliberate, and while I did enjoy the way it transformed into the Academy in San Francisco, the attempt at a cool factor has never been as noticeable.
And if the Athena feels consciously over-designed, the other ships that we see flashes of are homogenous to an almost fatal degree. We see new ships at various points – including a new Intrepid class (the Sargasso), which simply isn’t as good-looking as Voyager. And then when we see the fleet come to the rescue
4. Worst: There’s a Bit of an Identity Crisis (& It Shows in the Pacing)
At times, it feels very obvious that Starfleet Academy was written by several different people. Worryingly, it also occasionally feels like none of them actually talked to each other, such are the breakneck changes in pace. One of the major criticisms around the show is the prioritization of the personal and identity-related stories of the cast (as if that wouldn’t be expected in a school-set series), and it rings true when you consider the pacing. We start with a major set-piece episode, then there’s one midway through, and then the finale dials things up. Between those, the episodes swap between plodding and sedentary in pace.
I don’t hate the focus on character stories, personally, but the opening episode sets up the Athena as an active spaceship that uses missions as learning opportunities. And frankly, the idea of Starfleet cadets cutting their teeth in active missions is a lot more interesting than theatre. The latter isn’t fundamentally bad, but offered the alternative, I’d barely need to think for a minute. So with that promise bubbling in the background, to have episodes that plod along philosophically (including the one immediately following Nus Braka’s big escalation) just feels a bit off.
3. Best: The Nods To The Past (Jake Sisko in Particular)
Somewhat inevitably, Starfleet Academy has been accused of liberally throwing out “memberberries” in the hope of pandering to old school fans. We saw the tribute wall that honored the likes of Wesley Crusher and eventual Admiral Harry Kim, the garden tribute to TNG‘s Mr Boothby, The Doctor’s callback episode to “Real Life”, and of course the Sisko episode. Yes, it might be frustrating to some that there was no resolution to the Sisko mystery (there was, he committed to his sacrifice), and no appearance by Avery Brooks, but the episode was a genuinely great tribute to Sisko’s legacy.
The appearance of Cirroc Lofton’s Jake Sisko was the high point of the season for me: he was the victim of Sisko’s decision to leave at the end of Deep Space Nine, and to see how it impacted him was great closure. And Jake is the kind of lower-impact cameo that somehow feels like it means more in shows like this. It feels like it shows more of a conviction to celebrate the whole past and not just the glossier parts.
2. Worst: Some of the Gen Z Targeting
Maybe I’m too old, but some of the obvious targeting at younger audiences in Starfleet Academy didn’t just feel like it wasn’t for me (which is fine and totally encouraged, I’m not that entitled), it felt like it was intended to annoy me. And it did. I initially found SAM insufferable, for instance, particularly when she danced for no reason I can still fathom. I also found the swearing a little unnecessary: obviously, swearing is a divisive thing in Star Trek anyway, but at times, it felt like an attempt to be edgy for the sake of edginess. Perhaps that’s all a bit “old man shouts at cloud”, but it just didn’t feel like a show written by younger people for younger audiences: the deception wasn’t convincing enough.
1. Worst: How Most of The Adult Crew Were Treated
Perhaps controversially, I also didn’t like the majority of the adult crew of the Athena. Ironically, I don’t think the show did either, given almost all of them were jettisoned out of the season after a single episode. Remember when the casting of WWE star Becky Lynch (Rebecca Quinn) was presented as an exciting thing? Yeah, that didn’t matter because her role amounted to a walk-on, along with the rest of the crew who vanished to parts unknown too quickly. That also included the student liaison officer, whose incredibly important job of working out learning opportunities was apparently forgotten about the moment it was introduced.
The adult crewmembers were used like plot devices – Ake aside. The crew disappeared; Lora Thok was missing from multiple episodes, despite being Ake’s second in command; Tilly turned up for a flyby lesson; and the student liaison vanished. It was all very transparently set up to allow the kids to step forward, but it could have been handled more elegantly. And it may not be particular popular with fans of Starfleet Academy, but I also didn’t love Holly Hunter’s Ake. The shoeless hippie vibes I could take, and the chair lounging was fine when it made sense, but there was too much self-conscious cat-like behavior and the act grew rather annoying. This was only compounded by how great Hunter was in the more serious moments. More of that in Season 2 please. Less languid rolling around like you’re on mushrooms.
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