Starfleet Academy series (spoilers)

[Crazedwraith]

The first two episodes of a new series dropped yesterday on Paramount Plus.

Spun off from Discovery it features a new class of students entering Starfleet Academy in the 32nd century. The Academy taking place both on the San Francisco campus and a ship the USS Athena.

Only watch the pilot so far. It starts in basically the bad old days of the post burn Starfleet pre-Discovery fixing everything. And our Captain separating a mother and child and the child going on the run. fifteen years later, said Captain, who resigned after than incident, is assigned to be head of the academy. At that same time that child is arrested after a life of crime, so the captain gets him out out of guilt and gets him to go to the academy.

The big academy ship is going from starfleet headquarters to earth. We meet the cadets. Said criminal. a pacifist klingon, an admiral's daughter who's lived on ships and starbases her whole life. A tilly like awkward Hologram girl and an asshole bully. (who's looks human like but is the first of some alien species that can survive vacuum)

oh and the emh is the cmo of the ship and the prodigy cast get an explicit reference and name drop. There's a memorial wall that has lot of names and end ranks of past crew. According to TVtropes a good chunk of them never made far past their end rank of the shows (apart from Harry Kim who ended up an Admiral)

The ship is ambushed en route. The main cast cadets rally to save the day. They get to earth and the starship lands to make up the campus building.

I've got a lot of petty complaints about the concept and a few other things. I'd have been fine with the main cast just being... regular cadets not some criminal who doesn't want to be there but it so talented etc has a link to the captain etc. A few too many aliens with weird powers. (a orementioned vacuum capable cadet.) and I still don't like the aesthetic of the 32nd century ships. but nothing too drastic. It was a perfectly fine start.

[bilateralrope]

Putting the entire academy on a single ship seems like a bad idea. It's too easy for someone to wipe it out, as the first episode demonstrated.

There's a memorial wall that has lot of names and end ranks of past crew. According to TVtropes a good chunk of them never made far past their end rank of the shows (apart from Harry Kim who ended up an Admiral)

I'm curious how many of the names on that wall are characters we know, and how many are from other parts of Starfleets 1000 year history.

I've got a lot of petty complaints about the concept and a few other things.

Same here. But I'm enjoying what I've seen so far despite them.

[Crazedwraith]

There's a memorial wall that has lot of names and end ranks of past crew. According to TVtropes a good chunk of them never made far past their end rank of the shows (apart from Harry Kim who ended up an Admiral)

I'm curious how many of the names on that wall are characters we know, and how many are from other parts of Starfleets 1000 year history.

Yeah, just from watching, not doing any analysis, it's massive weight towards names we recognise.

--

Just watched episode 2 in chunks across an evening. Again it didn't quite click for me.

So Betazad's not rejoined the Federation yet and has been blocking off a big chunk of space with its psychic powers... somehow. But they have a youth organisation that wants to rejoin the Federation. So their president is making a show of coming over and demanding massive concessions in negotiations to rejoin.

Caleb meets the president's daughter romantic hijinks and disagreements ensue. He finds out his mother was in betazed space. They get Betazed onboard by promising the Capital of the Federation will be on Betazed rather than Paris, Earth. The End.

It doesn't feel like an episode than naturally fits an Academy show, it feels like an episode for an adult focused show that's had the academy forced into it. The Academy bits aren't bad. There are Brikar and exocomps floating around and the EMH and Jett Reno teaching wacky classes but so far they're window dressing.

And anyone who isn't Caleb and to a lesser extent the bully got a mandatory couple of lines. The problem is Genesis and Sam and Jay-Den are as interesting if not moreso than Caleb's plot. So I hope we get more of the ensemble as the show goes on. This one was about reiterating Caleb's whole... thing.

I also hope the Klingon/Jem Hadar lady gets more to her than being a Klingon/Hem Hadar.

[bilateralrope]

Some interesting details across both episodes:
- The Badlands have changed color.
- Bajor seems to have remained in the Federation through the Burn.
- The academy has gates that look designed to be easily climbed.
- Holograms are easily confused.
- Everyone carrying those jars of mucus around seems like a bad idea. Would it be better to care for them by leaving them somewhere ?

They get Betazed onboard by promising the Capital of the Federation will be on Betazed rather than Paris, Earth. The End.

I liked that resolution. It's a creative way of finding a solution that everyone accepts, and all Caleb did was keep everyone talking until one of the adults thought of it.

I also hope the Klingon/Jem Hadar lady gets more to her than being a Klingon/Hem Hadar.

I want to know why the Jem Hadar changed from a cloned species to one that reproduces sexually.

[bilateralrope]

It looks like Starfleet Academy has upset Elon Musk and Stephen Miller.

That is a good sign.

[Crazedwraith]

I know it's mindless anti-woke stuff but the specific complaint: "oh no, she's using reading glasses!" Is hilarious.

Like James T Kirk you mean?

[Batman]

Kirk was almost a thousand years earlier! Surely they didn't have advanced medical technology (or warp drive, artificial gravity, deflector shields, transporters...) back then?

[aerius]

I didn't think it was possible to write something worse than ST:Picard, but they've done it. This is like a Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff in space, all the characters are insufferable shits who make me want to punch them in the groin. One episode is enough, I'd rather clean toilets than suffer through another minute of this trash.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Ever since DISCO I've taken a more slackish attitude on Star Trek and so far I'm enjoying the YA-ness in this series. Hopefully not all of the stories are limited to inside the campus.
I like the part in the 3rd episode where they come up with an elaborate prank which involves some technobabble as opposed to a mock combat to "win" the "war". Very Trek-ish

[bilateralrope]

That was a brightly lit bedroom.

Also, how badly did that prank of beaming the first years to Alcatraz break the transporters if it took a day to get everyone down ?