It’s almost a cliché to begin by mentioning Star Trek‘s agenda to “boldly go,” given how transformative the franchise’s many shows have been over the years, but it’s a very relevant point for Paramount’s upcoming Starfleet Academy. Set 120 years or so after The Burn, the show is very consciously aimed at the younger audience Trek has long coveted (with varying degrees of success), but absolutely knows its legacy. With the franchise on the precipice of a new era, though, is this future one Paramount will persist with beyond the already-filming second season?
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There’s something of an identity crisis at play here: Starfleet Academy is both nostalgic (and full of call-backs for misty-eyed old folk like me) and provocatively new, actively challenging established lore. So you get the almost breakneck contradiction of the actual Doctor from Voyager, and a wall of commemoration for Star Trek icons of the past, and the idea of a queer pacifist Klingon, and a lore-confusing Jem’Hadar/Klingon hybrid. There’s clearly an agenda to appeal to a younger base of fans (which isn’t entirely unsuccessful), but the simultaneous aspiration to appease older ones. I’m not so sure lots of the “old school fans” will enjoy this, and frankly, you can already hear the online activist element sharpening their pencils on some of the decisions. But let’s just all agree: not all Star Trek is for all Star Trek fans.
Rating: 3.5/5
| PROS | CONS |
| The Starfleet Academy idea is a solid one, ripe for strong character work | The humor is only partly successful |
| The cast are mostly very good | The visuals can be distracting at times |
| Not afraid to be different | The writing of characters becomes oddly inconsistent quite quickly |
| The action is great |
Starfleet Academy’s Young Cast is Mostly Very Good
As the title up there says, Starfleet Academy is probably best thought of as Star Trek: Hogwarts, given it focuses on a group of plucky youngsters finding their way in a strange world. And the analogy explains the second biggest challenge for the show (after the audience split issue): the balance between a YA “magical school” story and something that’s recognizably Star Trek. I actually think the show does well on both fronts: as a school-set drama, it captures inter-personal dynamics, hormonally-charged conflict, identity issues, and the potential for really annoying characters. If I have a criticism there, it’s that the character types feel a little like a Breakfast Club-like checklist of teen archetypes, but that’s always the case.
The young characters are roundly pretty good: Sandro Rosta does well as the roguish hero of the piece, Caleb Mir, who is only in the Academy as either punishment or a chance of redemption, depending on how you view it. He’s the victim of Starfleet overreaching, who shares that particular trauma with his mother, played by Tatiana Maslany (who will hopefully appear more in the show’s second, so far unscreened, half). Karim Diane as unexpected Klingon Jay-Den Kraag, and Kerrice Brooks as hologram student SAM have arguably the most material to work with, but they share focus with Bella Shepard’s Betazoid nepo-baby Genesis Lythe and George Hawkins’ insta-bully Darem Reymi. I like them all enough to forgive some of the wonky writing (like Darem’s nast streak and alien superpowers being dropped out of relevance almost immediately and SAM initially being insufferable).
Starfleet Academy Brings In Old Heads (& Legacy Characters)
This being a far-future set adventure, there’s not much opportunity for cameos, but Robert Picardo’s Doctor is a great touch (he’s also older for reasons explained in the first episode, and more grumpy). He’s joined by Discovery‘s Tig Notara, who stole scenes in that show and does so again here, Oded Fehr (briefly), and apparently Mary Wiseman’s Tilly (but she doesn’t actually turn up in the first 6 episodes). I’m almost sad this wasn’t a show set during one of the older generations of Trek, where we could have had walk-ons and visiting professors for a recognition factor, but I’m sure that would have been cast off as nostalgia-bait, and we’re not here to discuss what the show could have been in an imaginary world. That’s for Stranger Things.
And then there’s the more senior newcomers: Stephen Colbert is a voice-only supporting role, so don’t get excited too much; Paul Giamatti has outrageous amounts of fun chewing the scenery as villain Nus Braka; and Holly Hunter plays Captain Nahla Ake as Star Trek‘s first boho-in-chief. Both of the latter are unconventional, and some of Giamatti’s mugging opened some old Rhino wounds, but Hunter is captivating, and manages to remains authoritative even when she’s lounging over her captain’s chair in a way stuffy sorts might call disrespectful. I quite enjoyed the frivolity of it, even during the energetic first episode, which feels a little like a movie and stands apart from the other episodes.
Starfleet Academy’s First Episode is Impressive, the Humor Less So
Before it slows down, Starfleet Academy opens with a full-blooded premiere that sees Nus Braka attack the Academy’s school-ship, the USS Athena, to steal the core. It’s a typical Star Trek episode-of-the-week setup, which cleverly allows for the characters to all show their mettle and their individual skills (even if they’re later changed quite confusingly). The action is great, the pace compelling, and there’s a surprising amount of humor for those who like levity to soften their peril. It’s not exactly like the other episodes, which step back to focus on individual characters, and it’s probably more like Discovery than The Original Series, despite the attempts to capture its tone.
Tone is an interesting point to discuss here too, because it’ll probably be discussed a lot. There’s more slapstick than I would have expected, more swearing, and modern-day language, and one character in particular – Gina Yashere’s Klingon/Jem’Hadar first officer Lura Thok – who is baldly presented as comic relief when I expected a straight figure. And the joke rate is a little too high and insistent for me, with SAM grating in the earlier episodes, but finding her way as they progressed, admittedly. I like that it’s a nod to TOS’ spirit, but humor is only good when the jokes land, and they don’t always work in Starfleet Academy.
Final Thoughts On Starfleet Academy
Did I like the new Star Trek show? I did, for lots of reasons, but it hasn’t yet earned its right to be called great. There are lots of good and new ideas here, which I always want from Star Trek (as much as I would happily watch all nostalgic revivals and reboots too), but some of the execution is sloppy. It may be just me, but I find the obvious over-reliance on the Volume to film jarring, and I cannot understand why everything still needs lens flare.
What I did very much like: the Athena, which is a genius idea for a school, given its real-life teaching opportunities (like consciously throwing the crew into danger every now and then), and its Captain, who grew on me immensely. But that’s Holly Hunter for you. Some of the bolder elements feel like they’ve been held back in a way early Discovery was less scared of, but as a show aiming to captivate younger potential Trek fans, I would say it was successful without being so obvious with its intentions to become insufferable.
If you like Kurtzman-era Star Trek, you’ll like it, but there’s enough here for the older heads if you persist and keep an open mind. None of this is contradictory to the will of Roddenberry or the protected ideal of Star Trek, after all. And the opportunity to see Starfleet crew members before they’re hammered into shape is an interesting enough one to carry things forward for Starfleet Academy.
The first two episodes of Starfleet Academy debut on Paramount+ on Thursday, Jan 15.
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Image Courtesy of A-1 Pictures -
Image Courtesy of Prime Video
