The latest Star Trek series to stream on Paramount+, Starfleet Academy, has managed to garner a significant amount of negative press, but I have to ask if it's anywhere near as bad as its detractors would have us believe. After watching the first five episodes to drop, which constitutes half of the first season, my response is a wholehearted 'not really'.
To understand my take on this, I have to put it into the perspective of other streaming Star Trek series and one dreadful made-for-streaming TV movie. Starfleet Academy is decidedly light years ahead of the dreadful Section 31 movie, and for my money is even superior to the thematically similar animated Lower Decks series. I still don't understand why the moronic drivel of Lower Decks is so beloved. I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the entire final season.
At its worst, Starfleet Academy has moments that are equally as cringe-worthy as pretty much all of Lower Decks, and borrows way too much from the silly side of Strange New Worlds, but at the same time, it has shown its ability to bring viewers pleasingly thoughtful fare, especially in the fourth and fifth episodes, which focus on specific characters' paths of self-discovery. In episode four, Jay-Den Kraag (Karim Diane), a dispossessed Klingon, gains a sense of belonging, in worlds of both Starfleet and the Klingon Empire. While this at times feels like a re-tread of Worf's journey through Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, an impression bolstered by Diane's performance, which all too often feels like he's trying to channel Michael Dorn's performances as Worf, it is redeemed by the nuance and growth Jay-Den experiences by episode's end.
Speaking of DS9, episode 5 is an artful homage to that series as SAM (Kerrice Brooks) attempts to discover the true fate of Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) at the end of DS9. Although the elder Brooks (no relation to Kerrice) does not appear in the episode, it he did authorize the use of a prerecorded voice-over at the end of the episode. Also, SAM does share a couple of scenes with Cirroc Loftin, reprising his role as a middle-aged Jake Sisko, who helps her discover, Wizard of Oz style, that the answers she was seeking differed greatly from the truth that she found, which was perhaps inside of her all along.
As the remaining five episodes of Season 1 drop, one can only hope the show will continue along the path of the two most recent ones as it charts its own course, unique from where previous iterations of the franchise have been before. Yes, it feels kind of soapy at times, but it is intended to appeal to a younger generation of viewers, a demographic to whom that type of content would appeal. Let's face it, those of us who came aboard with the original series represent a demographic that will, before too long, be aging out, so the powers that be are arguably on the right track to create stories that will appeal to newer audiences,
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Update 14 March:
The tenth and final episode of Starfleet Academy's inaugural season dropped two days ago, and things did indeed get better--much, much better. We were even treated to a cameo appearance by a favorite character from Discovery, Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), who had become an academy instructor by the end of that series. Her episode at least partially made up for the disappointment for her absence as a series regular. While the remaining episodes retained a certain amount of soapiness, the characters' journeys of self discovery, both individual and collective, continued to be front and center, making for some compelling moments, especially in the two-part finale, which stands up favorably with any of the best Star Trek two-parters and even plays out better than some of the weaker Star Trek feature films.
I am now of the opinion that the awkward cringeyness of the seasons early episodes was a clever and necessary move, designed to help viewers appreciate the characters' growth over ten episodes. They came in wondering if they belong and came out after ten episodes knowing that indeed they do. Interestingly, the writers chose not to create a season cliffhanger, but instead tying up most of the hanging plot threads. Still, it will be interesting to see what happens when the cadets return for their second year at the academy. Even with scant clues as to how the second season will unfold, we know they will come back with a greater sense of cohesion and belonging, that they have found a home. They will certainly come back more seasoned, and with an understanding of what it means to be a Starfleet officer that no textbook could hope to teach.
Fortunately for viewers, we will find out the answers to those questions when Starfleet Academy returns for its second season, which is already in the proverbial can, awaiting its premiere. The larger question is where Star Trek is going from here. In addition to another season of Starfleet Academy, we have two more seasons, or one and a half, depending on how you want to look at it, remaining of Strange New Worlds, but no word on what's coming after that. At the moment, no new Star Trek series or films are in production, or even pre-production to follow what has already been shot, but is yet to stream. The most plausible explanation is that Paramount's new management has not yet decided what to do, following the merger with Skydance and the possible takeover of Warner Bros., both of which significantly complicate the equation. Perhaps the proverbial field is about to be allowed to lie fallow, as has happened before, while those decisions are being made.
Update, 24 March:
In recent days, Paramount has announced that Starfleet Academy is indeed headed for cancellation after Season Two, with no new Star Trek projects presently in production, pre-production, or planning phases. Does that mean it's all over for Star Trek? Probably not. If we look at the history of the franchise, there have been periods of inactivity that have ushered in new and prolific eras. When the original series was canceled in 1969, we didn't get any new voyages until the original crew returned in animated form on Saturday mornings in 1973. Shortly after the animated series' cancellation, a new live action series, tentatively titled Star Trek: Phase Two, went into pre-production, but then evolved into a feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which launched the feature film franchise that ran for six films with the original cast, which ran from 1979 until 1991, and four with the Next Generation cast from 1994-2002. The success of the feature films resulted in a return of Star Trek to the small screen with The Next Generation (1987-1994), Deep Space Nine (1993-1999), Voyager (1995-2001), and Enterprise (2000-2005) in continuous and overlapping production for the better part of a quarter century. A year later, in 2006, the first of J. J. Abrams' Kelvin timeline Star Trek feature films entered pre-production for release in 2009, and six months after the third and final one premiered, the streaming era commenced with Star Trek: Discovery, followed in quick succession by Picard, Prodigy, Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, Section 31, and Starfleet Academy. That's more than six decades of almost continuous Star Trek TV shows and feature films with gaps of no more than two or three years, including pre-production periods, stretching back to the shooting of the first pilot, "The Cage", in 1964. Dry spells have happened from time to time, but they are always short-lived.
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