Star Trek Starfleet Academy – First Impressions

Well, not just first impressions, the first couple of episodes impressions, which in the terrible ways of modern telly is a third of a season. I’m currently having Voyager on in the background while doing chores and it’s twenty-six episodes a season. TWENTY-SIX. I’ve stopped being bitter about Kes leaving because in modern terms she’s was in the series for eight years.

But, yes, Starfleet Academy. I’ve caught up on all the other Treks at last, so I was finally allowed, by my own capricious rules, to watch the newest Trek, hurrah! I was ready in my heart and soul to finally welcome a Star Trek series I’d hate, because ever since – some decades ago now – I became aware of the possibility of a Starfleet Academy series (I believe that chat/rumour was young Kirk and Spock), I have hated the idea. I don’t want to see kids learning stuff! I want space adventures! So, naturally, I was all geared up for some Internet rage.

Alas, it not to be. If they want me to hate it then they’re going to have to work very hard in the next seven episodes to turn things around so I can give a bona fide shot at a rage post. So, here they are, my first impressions of Star Trek Starfleet Academy, in a handy bulletpoint format (spoilers for first three eps!):

• Holly Hunter is amazing. She is absolute presence, and charm, and fun, and it is a bit mad they’ve got an actor of her calibre and status starring in this thing. It’s at least thirty percent her fault I can’t bring myself to get some hate on. And it’s a bit brilliant to have a sci-fi series where the lead is a woman in her late sixties. And while mostly she is the chancellor of the Academy doing chancellor-y things, we also got to see her doing Space Law, and captaining a starship in battle. Would I rather have a Holly Hunter captain a starship and mouth off magnificently to bad guys? Probably, yes. But this is what we’ve got, so I’ll take it.
• The Doctor! The Doctor! The Doctor is back!!! This was why I went from idc when the series was announced to “oh no, they’re tricking me in,” He’s not in it nearly enough frankly (I would *also* probably like this a lot better if the focus was on the teachers and not the students) but every moment of Bob Picardo on-screen is a magic one. His performance is just perfect. And I got a wee Voyager kick out of his first line being “tricorder! ….medical tricorder,” which is his first line here, and was one of his first way back in Voyager‘s pilot ep.
• And, of course, having a couple of Disco dudes back in was wonderful. Admiral Vance and Reno, both marvellous, both not having nearly enough time because this insists on being a show about the students, but every moment very much appreciated.
• The students are not nearly as annoying as I thought they’d be. Which is very considerate. I don’t actually, properly, dislike any of them. Which is extremely annoying. Big bad rebel student did have my ire initially, but once he got his hair cut and I could see his face properly, it turned out he was both startlingly handsome, and doing rather well with acting a character trope that I can’t stand. Gah! I really was trying but…I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting softer with telly, I’ve just finished watching The Chute (a thoroughly medicore at best Voyager ep) and think it’s pretty neat in a bunch of ways.
• Klingon dude is fun if one-note so far. Genesis I would have loved when I was a teenager, and I am not opposed to her as an adult, confidence and leadership skills and pretty alien forehead attachments ftw. Angry insecure dude who can turn blue got more interesting, but also is another character trope I am unfond of so I should technically be hating on him. Hologram lady is one-note so far, but a delight. Betazoid girl (Betazoids have been downgraded to empaths, which amused me – lessons have been learned about problems with plotting when telepaths are in the room) reminds me of Adelaide Kane, an actor I very much enjoyed in Reign (and who had a guest role in Strange New Worlds!). Betazoid boy is…an amusing idiot…has he done anything yet apart from be a bit rubbish in a slightly funny way?
• Jem’Hadar-Klingon lady is much like fully Klingon dude: one-note, though quite a different note. And it’s…a note that I do find mildly amusing but she’s in it enough that I am now COME ONE have her do ANYTHING ELSE. Just a tiny, tiny smidge of character breadth, I beg you.
• You might notice I’m mostly not using character names. That’s because I don’t remember any of them, and also if I looked them up and used them I’m uncertain anyone reading would know who I was talking about. Ever since Enterprise they don’t put the character names in the credits, and there are a lot of invented names in Starfleet Academy. A lot. So I don’t know anyone’s name.
• I am absolutely one of the fans who paused on the big board of Starfleet names and read through it all. Some of the names make no sense. The dudes who died on the Valiant were terrible people! Very much not the best of Starfleet. But this is also a long time in the future and I imagine the Burn exacerbated records being lost rather a lot, so I’m choosing to believe that it’s actually accurately portraying incomplete knowledge of history. But mostly it was delightful and cheering. Particular thumbs up to Captain D’vana Tendi, and Commander Beckett Mariner.
• The exocomp! A small cheer there with massive kudos to whoever’s responsible for the subtitles where the exocomp is named as Almond Basket.
• On a similar note, there was a dude from Cheron at the Academy! Those guys from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield did not end up mutually assuring *complete* destruction! Their species survived! …well, at least one of them survived and it’s been quite a while, so I assume their civs…one of their civs at least, is recovering. Though they claimed to live over 50 000 years so…no, no, everything is fine. They’re fine now.
• Getting Betazed back into the Federation by deciding to build the new Starfleet HQ on Betazed and that whole people want progress, but fear change thing is so earnestly Trek I clapped. It always felt weird that Earth was so very centred in the Federation when there were four founding worlds. (Betazed was not one of them, but that’s beside the point.)
• Speaking of founding worlds, a half-Tellarite! Hurrah! But no Andorians, boo. Bring me my Andorians with beautifully puppeted antennae a la Enterprise, you cowards!
• But the most important thing is a simple question: am I enjoying it? And the answer is yes. It’s fun. It’s not the intense magic of Disco season 1, or the sheer giddy joy of having a new Lower Decks episode and knowing almost certainly (there are two episodes in the series I dislike) that for twenty minutes you’re going to have an awesome ride, but I like it. I don’t need to be madly in love with all my telly. Sometimes I just want to enjoy something pleasantly watchable. And Starfleet Academy is very pleasantly watchable.