“Kids These Days”
Written by: Gaia Violo
Directed by: Alex Kurtzman
“Beta Test”
Written by: Noga Landau & Jane Maggs
Directed by: Alex Kurtzman
We’re back! Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience!!
For now, I’ll just share the thoughts I posted to Mastodon while this instance was still on the Genesis Planet…
Overall, a very strong couple of episodes. The cadets are all interesting enough, though Jay-Den and SAM are outstanding. Caleb is the sort of Rebellious Young Person that can grate on people, but I think the show compensates for that by making him a bit of a punchline. His backstory is also compelling enough (I actually thought his separation from his mother seemed very real), and his motivations are clear.
Nahla Ake is fantastic, and Holly Hunter brings a lot to the role. The character is quirky, but grounded, and you can see that she carries multiple lifetimes of experience.
Paul Giamatti is clearly having the time of his life as Braka. Time will tell whether he remains a cartoonish pirate (which I’d be fine with TBH), or if they’ll give him more to do.
I’ve always loved the post-Burn setting, and I’m looking forward to exploring that status quo. The Betazed stuff is intriguing, and I hope we learn more about this “psionic wall” of theirs.
Also, “Discovery is unavailable because X” is the new “the transporters don’t work because X”.
“Discovery is unavailable because X”
Also, did they have what seems to be personal transporters before or is that a new thing? Where they apparently only have to think “I need to go to that room” and they’re instantly transported? That seems like it’ll be a major issue for future writers to come up with excuses why they can’t just put the characters where they need to be.
That has been a thing since DSC season three, and I really hope they explore exactly how that works in this series.
Ahh, I suspected as much, I don’t remember many details from that tbh. Thank you for clearing that up.
That seems like it’ll be a major issue for future writers to come up with excuses why they can’t just put the characters where they need to be.
Only a little more of an issue than transporters already were. How often have writers had to add in an exotic atmosphere or cave ore or ion storm or just enemy shields to justify not beaming out of a bad situation?
This show is one part Lower Decks, one part Prodigy, one part Discovery, and a dash of SNW… I dig it. Excited to see where it goes.
Welcome back! I enjoyed both these episodes. I don’t like this time period, the post burn Federation. The rebuilding could interesting but it’s not really aspirational and I really could use some aspirational content in my life, vaguely waves at every thing.
Rebuilding in the wake of global disaster (and honestly it’s been one after another my whole life) is exactly the kind of inspirational content I think we need right now. 90s Trek was all about “things have been great, it could be better!” and I think our message today really should be “things have sucked for a bit, but how do we recover the greatness we know we’re capable of?”
I hadn’t really seen that point of view before but I really like it. Shit has sucked for a while maybe some stories about how cool fixing it would be are what I need.
This, very well put. I’ve been struggling to vocalise why I like this to folks and I think you nailed it.
Its a different message for a different era. And one we need. Too many are looking at the near and potentially bleak future, we need them to realise that hope can still lay beyond that.
Totally! I haven’t loved the post-Burn setting but the way this show is already contextualizing it, and the optimism it’s doing it with is already starting to change my mind.
And it’s even carrying over from the show into real life, which is one of the things I love most about Trek and its good to have this out there. There’s some nitpicks, as there always are, but so far I can deal with them, especially if it stays consistent. 🖖
I haven’t loved the post-Burn setting but the way this show is already contextualizing it, and the optimism it’s doing it with is already starting to change my mind.
Same. A lot of that stuff just feels more comfortable with time and I appreciate how Star Trek always pushes it a little bit. People FREAKED OUT with the Klingon changes in TMP/TNG. Then FREAKED OUT that DS9 was on a space station with a “politically correct” captain. Now we think of those things as normal, nostalgic even.
Yeah, this. Sci-fi fanbases and especially Trek/Wars fans are constantly flipping out when their sci-fi is socially progressive at all, even if it started that way.
I liked it too, but I find rebuilding to be aspirational. Like maybe the most aspirational thing possible.
I had some concerns going in, but enjoyed them a lot more than I expected. Good to see some familiar faces, especially Vance as he was one of the better Disco s3 additions.
Going into it I wasn’t sure about a school-based Star Trek, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the first two episodes. It helps that the characters are a little older than I thought they were going to be (university instead of high school), but there was also some enjoyable writing in there that kept me interested and made me laugh a few times. Shout out to SAM, I was concerned at first because these fish-out-of-water characters are easy to make annoying but I ended up quite liking her.
I did have a few issues (I still don’t love the burn as a plot device), but overall I’m interested to see what happens in the next episode.
Also, yay Prodigy references!
Episode 1: with expectations at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (because I watched Discovery), I was not too disappointed by this episode. Was it good? Also no. I think the story is fine in principle, it doesn’t unfold in a believable way, but not the worst we’ve seen in Star Trek. Other than that I was irked by what the captain says at 41:55:
make eh(?) your speed maximum impolt
Really, impolt, you couldn’t do a second take on that?
Episode 2: quite a bit worse, the plot progressed for like 3 minutes in total, and there was a lot of that teen drama that wasn’t interesting or amusing.
Overall felt like these were written by people who know a lot about Star Trek at a very surface level, and have a very TV-idea of what college life is like. I’ll keep watching, for now. Out of franchise loyalty more than actual interest.
There was many a memberberry.
At one point I thought that it didn’t look very Trek-y, somehow. Which can be explained of course by the fact that an entire millennium of progress has happened. It should be more surprising that anything does still look familiar. The thing is though that I watch Star Trek for the Trek-iness. The visual familiarity is part of it. I don’t know yet.
Let’s hope episode 3 starts being about more than Caleb’s mum. And science.
At least there was some diplomacy. Although it was weird that they’d negotiate while standing at lecterns surrounded by hundreds of people. Sit down, have a cuppa together, have a conversation, not a debate.
Also, I’m supposed to ship Caleb and his roommate whose name I have forgotten, yes? The way they interact is textbook shipping material. Not to mention They Are Roommates.
Oh also, no Cerritos in the 60th logo sequence hellooooo?
No Protostar either
As an animated Trek fan, that definitely irks, especially as it’s an animated sequence.
I have a suspicion that there’s something about animated design IP rights behind the decision though.
The old owners had decided to jettison animated Star Trek, and some other Paramount+ animated content to make the streamer mainly live action focused. Which, at the time this was announced, seemed very odd because Paramount’s owners were trying to sell the firm to Skydance, which is a major producer of high end animation for streamers.
So, my thought is that Skydance wants its own animation studio to be doing any future animated content for Paramount. There will be exceptions for long running Nickelodeon animation such as SpongeBob, Beavis and Butthead or Dora the Explorer, but relatively recent creations will get short shrift.
You sound like you know what you’re talking about while I know very little if anything - how does that IP rights stuff mean that the Cerritos and the Protostar can’t be in that sequence?
Generally, Paramount owns all Star Trek IP rights.
However, reusing some things isn’t cost less. In some cases, they have to pay residuals to specific individuals or subcontractors who have creative rights.
Historically, this has led to weirdness such as renaming the Locarno character from the TNG episode ’Lower Decks’, played by Robert Duncan McNeill, to become Tom Paris in Voyager because Paramount didn’t want to pay the writer who got scrip credit for the TNG episode ongoing residuals for creating the character.
I don’t know enough about whether creators of animated character designs have rights to similar kinds of residuals, or the production houses like Titmouse for Lower Decks, but one has to wonder. It was so strange that Paramount+ suddenly said it was refocusing away from animation just as Skydance started its moves to acquire it.
I felt better once they got out the prisons; the ship aesthetics have some generic sci-fi aesthetic to them, but having the reds in them makes it feel overall much brighter and Trek-y. Honestly, even though it’s not as bright as TNG, just being able to actually see scenes was nice.
So far I’ve just watched episode one, but I think we’re off to a great start. I don’t know Holly Hunter from anything except Batman v Superman, so I didn’t know why everyone seemed so happy to have her on board, but I get it now. Nahla isn’t much on paper, but Hunter really makes me love the character. She sells the comfort and confidence without feeling at all silly or non-genuine.
I thought Caleb would be a harder character to like, but he won me over pretty quickly too. His introduction definitely started on the right foot. His mode of escape reminded me of Jason Todd stealing the tires off the Batmobile. Good stuff.
The other cadets are a mixed bag so far. Jay-Den and Sam seem fun, the others seems like boring cliches, but none of them have been given a lot of time yet so it’s still a wait and see situation.
The episode itself was a little messy, especially the action at the end, but I get that it was the first episode and they felt they had to give everyone something to do. Still one of Trek’s better premiers.
Watched the second episode now, and my opinion has not changed much! The romantic subplot was putting my partner to sleep, but I thought the two had pretty good chemistry — until that very forced argument. I guess I’ve seen young couples get into heated arguments about stupid things in real life too.
Nahla and Caleb’s scenes together were great fun as well.
One of the things I wished Discovery had taken more time to delve into was how society has changed in the burn-era isolationist Earth. Now it seems as though Academy is downplaying how much Earth had changed, but shifting that isolationist role to Betazed. A little disappointing, but I can understand the decision given how insistent so many fans are that Star Trek feel unerringly Optimistic. Maybe we’ll get to spend some more time delving into how Betazoid culture has shifted instead.
Free Coffee in the lounge!
Great show :-)
Annotations for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x01 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/34296905
Annotations for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x02 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/34297028
Is anyone else concerned that they might making the same decision they did with Discovery and making the series into “Star Trek: Caleb Mir”? At this point, everyone else already feel like background singers to me.
I enjoyed these more than I thought I would! Most of my own thoughts after watching have been broached here already, but there was one thing that interested me in SAM’s interactions with the EMH Doctor:
Didn’t he seem visibly shaken when asked about the Protostar crew, like he knew something SAM didn’t? I don’t recall the conversation exactly, but could this be a backdoor to giving the Prodigy storyline some closure down the line on Academy?
I’m theorising in part because after “Those old scientists” I could definitely imagine a similar animation-to-live-action crossover. We already had a Brikar walking around on campus, and I’m fairly sure Ella Purnell could pull off Gwyn on camera 🙂
Didn’t he seem visibly shaken when asked about the Protostar crew, like he knew something SAM didn’t?
I didn’t think that at the time, but on rewatch…maybe? At least some of the Prodigy kids are on the memorial wall, but that doesn’t really mean much in context. I’m not sure how the production timelines of the two series aligned when this pilot would have been filming, but they may even have been attempting to do a little synergy.
Protostar mentioned! A little too much Shakey Cam. A little too much swearing. Cuss words still feel weird in Star Trek. Sound mixing in the Xenomythology scene of Episode 2 felt off. So, did they forgo green makeup for some of the Orions(?) because it’s hard to apply? Some of those looked digitally colored. Apparently, they heavily considered making Gamora blue instead of green because of such problems with application, so I don’t blame them. Episode 2 got real cheesy near the end. I’m glad to see a love for what seems to be all of trek, with cameos of species like Brikar from Prodigy, the Exocomp, old style Klingons, DS9, and so on. Overall though, it just seems like the priorities are skewed and much of it looks kind of cheap.
Anyone remember the show Breaker High?
Na na, nanana hey hey
I fucking LOVED Breaker High. Ha!
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