Summary
“Kids These Days” and “Beta Test” make for a surprisingly engaging premiere. The show’s a little corny and on-the-nose, as expected, but it features enough action and humour to remain engaging.
I was fairly sure I was going to hate Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Who can blame me? In Episode 1, “Kids These Days”, first impressions aren’t great, and kids these days seem to be the problem. There’s something undeniably youthful and performatively quirky about this YA take on the long-speculated-on idea of a series or movie based around Starfleet Academy, and it seemed to be pitched a bit too young and a bit too smug for my tastes, even into Episode 2, “Beta Test”, the second half of a two-part premiere. But the reservations began to wane eventually.
Sure, the awkward stuff doesn’t disappear entirely, but it becomes a bit more tolerable, in part because a lot of the core dynamics are solid, there’s plenty of action, and the humour is okay. I can appreciate that this reads a bit like damning with faint praise, but I’m being serious. There’s a good show here with an interesting premise and unique-feeling characters – not to mention the always-great Holly Hunter – but you’ve just got to bypass a veneer of performatively hip silliness to get at it.
A Clunky Introduction
Take the opening scenes, for example. There’s nothing egregious here, but they’re functional more than anything, designed to introduce the leads and a villain, with a moral conundrum bolted on top to create some seriousness. In short: Alisha and Caleb are prisoners of the Federation, on trial for aiding and abetting a villain named Nus Braka in theft and the death of a Starfleet captain. Alisha and Caleb only helped because they were starving, but the law’s the law, so Alisha is sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Caleb is to become a ward of the Federation.
This, we’re to understand, is the kindest option, but it doesn’t sit well with Nahla Ake, who’s handing out the sentence. She eventually resigns from Starfleet, and fifteen years later, when she’s asked to become the chancellor of Starfleet Academy, Caleb, who has grown into a huge but deeply resentful anti-establishment bad boy archetype, is her first port of call. He’s her chance for redemption, an opportunity to redress some of the wrongs committed by an imperfect institution.
But it means Caleb is going to school. Only then might he be able to find out what happened to his mother – she’s played by Tatiana Maslany, so of course, she’s still alive and has recently escaped from prison, apparently with Nus Braka – and find a purpose beyond just being a rabble-rouser. But can he accept authority? Can he get on with his fellow cadets? Can he let go of his lingering mistrust and cynicism? All questions for subsequent episodes to answer. But I’m suspecting yes, yes, and yes, in case you were wondering.
Meet the Team
In these first two episodes, the core cast are admittedly thinly sketched, but there are quite a few of them, and one expects several individual episodes will delve into their personal backstories and quirks. For now, though, they’re mostly reduced to their key characteristic or how they relate to Caleb.
For instance, he has a nemesis roommate in the form of Darem Reymi, a Khonian, though they’re clearly going to come to respect each other down the line. Jay-Den Kraag is a Klingon, but wants to be a healer, not a warrior; Sam is a hologram; Genesis Lythe is a potential love interest, and Tarima Sadal, who doesn’t show up until Episode 2 and occupies a big chunk of it, is a Betazoid and daughter of an important dignitary – and also, of course, a love interest.
There are officers too, including the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, Jett Reno from Star Trek: Discovery, a brilliantly funny Gina Yashere as Jem’Hadar/Klingon Lura Thok, who is completely slathered in prosthetics and makeup but is instantly recognisable thanks to her distinctive voice, and, of course, Ake herself, who can’t stop breaking most of the Federation’s rules, especially anything pertaining to Caleb, but also offers an interesting viewpoint of the Federation pre- and post-Burn thanks to her Lanthanite DNA allowing her to have lived to hundreds of years old.
Don’t get me wrong, all of these characters need more specific focus, but that should – hopefully! – come with time. Defining everything in terms of how it affects Caleb isn’t a strategy for long-term success, I don’t think.
Heroes and Villains
If Starfleet Academy Episode 1 is more of a Discovery-style action-focused episode about the cadets having to come together to repel an attack by Nus Braka’s pirates, Episode 2 is more of a classic Star Trek deal, with a delegation of Betazoids venturing to the Academy to discuss terms of re-entry into the Federation after years of isolationism. Both modes are compelling for different reasons, and clunky for others, but I do enjoy that the show can obviously do both.
Hunter and Paul Giamatti, who plays Nus Braka, have great hero and villain chemistry, and I strongly suspect that Braka is going to be a recurring bad guy. He also gives Caleb a clue about how to track his mother, which he picks up on in the second episode and is only made possible through an alliance with the Betazoids, which ties everything together fairly well but does, again, make everything a bit too Caleb-centric. He’s obviously the main character, but Trek always works best as an ensemble, so subsequent episodes need to split their attention more evenly.
But the fact I’m immediately interested in these characters and their dynamics, despite being mostly one-note for now, speaks pretty well of Starfleet Academy overall. So, I’m happy to give it a chance. Hopefully, a few more people do the same.
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