Star Trek: Starfleet Academy - Boldly Going Nowhere, But So Very Youthfully

By John Kirk

Rating: C+

I looked at my hair in the mirror the other day and it looked like the artificially aged Captain Kirk’s in the original Star Trek episode, The Deadly Years.

After watching Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – a kind of Beverly Hills 90210 in space - I’m aware that I’m not the audience for this show, and that saddens me. It’s Star Trek, my favourite franchise. But this series doesn’t work, at least, for me.

I’ve watched and re-watched the first six episodes , searching for what was good. There are positive factors to write about and I’ll start with them.

Following on the heels of the series Star Trek: Discovery, the ship of the same name jumped a thousand years forward in time to discover the Federation to be a shadow of its former self. A shortage of dilithium (reduced by a galaxy-wide condition known as “The Burn”) prevented exploration and it wasn’t until the Discovery arrived that the Federation and Starfleet rebirthed its original purpose.

That brings us to the resurrection of Starfleet Academy – sort of Starship School - and that brings us to the series.

Holly Hunter is Nahla Ake, Chancellor and Captain of the Academy, a retired Starfleet Captain and Lanthanite (a long-lived species). She sees the posting as the chance to make amends to a child she let down 20 years prior. One of the conditions she has in accepting the challenge is to find and bring this former child, Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) into the Academy and give him a second chance.

It's a bit of a dull premise, to be honest, but I said I’d start with the good first.

The Aesthetics

Starfleet Academy has beautiful sets. The technology is bright and shiny – the transporter effect is instantaneous. The academy itself is a selection of CGI filmed at the Pinewood Star Trek Stage in Toronto, and incredible locations around Waterloo, Ontario, San Francisco and Van Nuys, California.

The costuming is impressive and that’s all Avery Plewes and Gersha Phillips. But the varsity and team jackets are incredibly designed and I would definitely love to wear one. They’re impeccable works of art and really add to the visual appeal of the show.

Beautiful humans make up the cadets, playing whatever alien races they are playing. Even the older cast who play the faculty are well-chosen and Holly Hunter seems to have a timeless beauty. (Perhaps she is half Lanthanite after all.) Youth presumably brings a spirit of optimism. But they are the most stunning cast of a Star Trek show I’ve ever seen.

The Demographics

It’s not a secret but Star Trek needs a new, younger audience. With its predominantly student-aged cast, Academy is aimed at same. The cast are young, physically attractive and eager to learn about the mysteries of the galaxy.

The students are even divided into two groups: Starfleet Academy and their nemesis, the War College – the division of space farers who have kept earth and the remnants of the Federation safe in the Burn era. This creates a team-rivalry storyline that younger audience members can relate to – at least a lot easier than giant hands or doomsday devices in space, I guess.

The Importance of Teachers

This really strikes home with me. As a teacher myself, I appreciate the validation in this series. The sad reality is that teachers aren’t valued as much as they should be in current American culture and to see them represented here obviously means a lot. 

 Sadly, here’s what doesn’t work in the show.

Time Frame

This is a by-product of Star Trek: Discovery moving the franchise to another time. This was not a great story choice.

In 1000 years, it’s clear that there really hasn’t been much of a change in either humanity or the other established races of the Federation. There are a lot more hybrids, including a hybrid Klingon/Jem h’adar, Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) as First Officer, which may cause a few fans to scratch their heads. After all, the Jem H’adar are from the Gamma Quadrant of space and are decanted, not bred. So … yeah.

Also, even though it’s shinier, the technology is unchanged. Comm-badges, phasers, warp drives, transporters that are still affected by jamming fields and interactive computers – it’s very familiar. One would imagine more advanced tech.

Also, reaching back to previous Trek for inspiration (and legitimacy), the names of historical figures like Kirk, Spock, Sisko, Archer and so forth are all grouped within 250 years. In a thousand years, were there no other inspirational names?

Casting

Familiar faces have been hyped up in recent months. There aren’t enough of them.

Robert Picardo reprises his role as the holographic Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager. Now he is an ancient hologram performing the same role as the Academy’s medical officer. Why? Tatiana Maslany, another hyped addition, really isn’t used much. Tig Notaro reprises her Discovery role as Engineer Jett Reno and it’s puzzling why she is teaching at an institution a millennium ahead of her time. Also, as I’ve never been a fan of her comedy, her dry delivery doesn’t add much to the dialogue.

Aside from Holly Hunter’s and Paul Giamatti’s (the interstellar villain, Nus Braka) names added to the mix, there’s a definite lack of star power.

Run Time

The episodes seem long at just over an hour, and they are plagued by tedious dialogue.

There are three dominant emotional themes in the writing: romantic, melancholic or cloyingly humorous. For instance, sometimes Nahla Ake brings a 1960’s barefooted (literally) hippie style to her teaching as Chancellor. It’s difficult to reconcile this with her experience as a starship captain. Attempts at humour are sadly awkward and it isn’t until later episodes when some serious pathos is achieved. Mostly, the show has the vibe of a teen dramedy.

In addition to this, the lack of exploration in this series runs against the very notion of “exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and civilizations.” Given that the Federation has encountered over 4000 new species, there doesn’t seem a need to find any more.

Also, the shiny nature and the aesthetic beauty of the 32nd century doesn’t really seem to support the notion that the Federation and Starfleet is a shadow of its former self. That’s the underlying foundation that contributes to the inauthenticity of the whole series.

Watching this, I can’t help but think about how much I loved Star Trek: Prodigy. It had the emphasis of learning that is possible in Starfleet Academy.

It makes me wonder if Star Trek is in its own Deadly Years.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Starring Holly Hunter, Robert Picardo, Sandro Rosta, Tig Notaro, Zoe Steiner, Gina Yashere, George Hawkins, Karim Dane, Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard, Oded Fehr, Paul Giamatti, and Tatiana Maslany. Debuts on CTV Sci-Fi Channel and Paramount Plus January 15.