It’s been a minute since Star Trek premiered a series. The last one was 2022 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, if we exclude last year’s series-that-ended-up-being-a-movie, Star Trek: Section 31.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy spins off directly from Star Trek: Discovery, modern-day Trek’s flagship series, and occurs after the events around the Season 4 premiere (not the series finale’s flashforward to Zora’s abandonment—yeah, I’m still not over it).
With its two-episode premiere — Season 1 Episode 1 “Kids These Days” and Season 1 Episode 2 “Beta Test” — Star Trek: Starfleet Academy does a solid job introducing two central characters and a villain, but leaves room for the rest of the ensemble to develop depth and direction.
A Little Background
Because of a cataclysmic event called The Burn in 3069, the United Federation of Planets fragmented and ceased to exist. It was every planet for itself, with many societies becoming dangerously insular.
It wasn’t until Michael Burnham and Discovery resolved the mystery of The Burn that reopening Starfleet Academy was even considered.
On Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Episode 1 “Kobayashi Maru,” Burnham addresses the inaugural class of 3190.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy borrows from various school/camp-centered series where a highly diverse group of classmates meet and discover each other’s unique abilities.
Think Breaker High in space. (For those of you not of a certain age, Breaker High was a 1990s teen series about a school aboard a luxury cruise liner. It starred a young Ryan Gosling in his pre-Young Hercules existence.)
The comparison is valid — and better than Hogwarts, Camp Half-Blood, or (shudder) Pandora — because Starfleet Academy cadets live and learn aboard the USS Athena, a fully functioning starship. Also, because they’re pretty clueless.
As the academy’s Chancellor, Nahla Ake is also Captain. On “Kids These Days,” we meet her when she sentences half-Klingon half-Tellarite space pirate, Nus Braka, to life imprisonment.
In the next breath, she remands his involuntary accomplice, Tatiana Maslany’s Anisha Mir, to a rehabilitation camp, separating her from her young six-year-old son, Caleb, who will become a ward of the Federation.
Caleb’s a bright, resourceful spark off his mother’s rebellious flint and flees Ake’s custody immediately, going on the run for the next 15 years.
We learn that this incident causes her to resign her commission and take a job teaching small children on Bajor.
Kids These Days
Like much of the Kurtzman era Star Trek, the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere opens with cinematic style.
The trademark opening voiceover is Ake’s, delivered in a storytime introduction, providing a brief synopsis of The Burn’s effect on Starfleet Academy.
“Long ago, Starfleet Academy took the finest minds, hearts, and spirits of every generation and taught them to be lifelong explorers of space, our final frontier. Then, one day, Fate handed us an unimaginable loss: The Burn. And it all went away.”
The first scene establishes Anisha and Caleb’s close relationship, before Braka is dragged in and Ake delivers judgment for their crimes and things go wrong.
Fast-forward 15 years, and Caleb’s apprehended by some rough law-enforcement goons and transported to the V’rilik Penal Colony.
He attempts to hijack the transport so he can track down his mother but fails.
On Bajor, Admiral Vance visits Ake, who is two-fisting ice cream cones, and offers her the Chancellor position.
When she turns it down, he drops his ace. They’ve found/caught Caleb and will let her take him to Starfleet Academy if she takes the job.
In the exchange, we learn more about Ake. She’s part-Lanthanite, the same species as Pelia on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Lanthanites are extremely long-lived compared to humans. Ake is 422 years old when she takes the deal.
USS Athena
At V’rilik, it takes a bit for Ake to convince a still-pissed-off Caleb to come with her to Starfleet Academy. Ultimately, it takes her promising to reunite him with his mother, who escaped her imprisonment a year previously.
So 20 minutes into the 75-minute premiere, we finally get our first glimpse of Starfleet Academy, the USS Athena, sporting the impressively long registration number, NCC-392023.
And that’s when the tone shifts considerably and the resemblance to Breaker High becomes hard to ignore.
The USS Athena is brand spanking new, all shiny windows, tubular lights, and K-Mart-like public address announcements. Announcements intoned by no other than Stephen Colbert.
Attention, all personnel, the mess hall is now open. Make sure to visit because sometimes h-anger is the greatest enemy of all.
With equally shiny DOT drones speeding around inside and a distinctly carnival-inspired score in the background, our first impression of the academy is of a cruise ship or Las Vegas casino.
Ake is greeted by Cadet Master Lura Thok, who makes a strong first impression as a disciplinarian when Caleb decides to literally throw his junk around before refusing to comply with standard uniform and appearance guidelines.
By the time Thok orders Caleb to do 200 push-ups then and there, and adds the weight of passing Klingon Cadet Jay-Den Kraag’s luggage to his back, we’re in comedy territory, with Ake desperately trying to stifle her laughter as Thok trots out her most terrifying bark.
Welcome Aboard
Oh, the fan service is delivered hot once Caleb’s cleaned up.
First, there’s The Doctor with Robert Picardo reprising the role he played on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Prodigy, with possibly less bedside manner than he had when serving under Janeway.
Then, Thok brings Ake to the bridge where the captain addresses each crew member by name. They represent a spectrum of mixed species heritages, some familiar and some not.
Once settled in, Ake addresses the ship. As she comments on the rebirth of Starfleet Academy after 120 years, she reminds them that they’ll be walking in the footsteps of the greatest Starfleet officers who ever served.
At that moment, in the General Hall, the cadets stand, listening, in front of a wall displaying a list of very recognizable names, such as Lieutenant Junior Grade Wesley Crusher, Captain Seven of Nine, and Admiral Harry Kim (#IYKYK).
For the really knowledgeable Trekkers watching, they’ve also included IRL Trek superstars Erin MacDonald, Tawny Newsome, and Kirsten Beyer, all at the rank of admiral.
Ake’s welcome speech is appropriately inspiring, with the classic Trek theme music underscoring its weightiness, although Caleb makes a show of being underwhelmed by the moment’s importance.
Meet the Gang
Once the ship is on its way to Earth’s San Francisco campus, the parade of character tropes begins.
There’s SAM, an awkwardly thirsty Kasqian, shouting out multilingual greetings and attempting to engage anybody in conversation.
Genesis Lythe, a Dar-Sha female, approaches and fills SAM’s need with humor and equanimity. They walk and talk and end up bumping into Jay-Den, who drops an antique viewer.
Enter the smug, entitled bully, Khionian Darem, leading a little entourage of minions. He grabs the viewer and doesn’t give it back when asked.
Caleb’s passing through. He nabs the viewer from the minions and reminds everyone that “The asshole always pops up early.”
And there we have it. Not exactly a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a criminal, and a princess, but pretty darn close.
Getting Down to Business
With the core characters established, we get another tone shift as Big Bad Nus Braka attacks, alerted to their location by a covert message, Caleb hacks the system to send to his mother.
The cadet gang bands together in heroic fashion and saves the day. Braka gets away in an escape pod, laughing maniacally, which appears to be his baseline operational mood.
The USS Athena limps into dock at the Earth campus, the cadets’ wonder at seeing it soundtracked with a stirring rendition of “If You’re Going To San Francisco.” It’s a classic Trek camera pan, capturing a wave of relief and joy. Even Caleb looks impressed.
In the final scene, Caleb meets with Ake in her quarters, and she offers him the option of staying and serving out his punishment for hacking the comms and attracting Braka’s attach, or leaving.
We learn here that Ake had a son in the Academy when The Burn happened.
Caleb points out that he isn’t her son, which she recognizes, but when he decides to stay, and she says, “Second chances,” it feels like she’s talking about both of them.
Beta Test
The back half of the premiere event introduces the rival institution, the War College, and establishes Earth-Betazed relations. Along the way, we get a glimpse into classes and the continued petty animosity between Darem and Caleb.
“Beta Test” is an incredibly apt title for this offering. It feels like a rehash of a lot of what we learned on “Kids These Days.” Caleb is still pushing boundaries. Darem’s still incredibly punchable. Ake gives good speeches, and Thok is hilariously scary.
Of course, Darem and Caleb end up roommates. Why in the world would cadets share quarters in the 32nd century?
The Best Part of Any Star Trek
Personally, any Jett Reno sighting makes an episode worth watching, bonus points if they’ve got candy. Yeah, their class would go completely over my head, but the soundbites would be the GOAT.
Being a cadet in Starfleet Academy means being open to the people around you. And that connection is where time and space really live.
However, “Beta Test” also presents the higher-ups (Vance, Ake, and the War College head) having to get along for the optics. When protocol runs up against personality, something’s gotta give, and Ake’s not one to fight the dissonance for long.
When Tarima Sadal, the influential daughter of the Betazed president, insists on Caleb giving her a tour of Starfleet Academy, no one is more apprehensive than Ake.
The exercise in trust is multi-layered. There’s the floundering example of Caleb and Tarima, a structured one between Tarima and her father, and a loving, confident one with her brother.
There’s also a lot of serendipity at work. Caleb and Tarima’s meet-cute leads to her holding the key to Goja-V. He’s probably the only cadet who has poked around the Academy enough to know where the humpback whale observation lab is.
With 422 years of experience, Ake makes connections better than most. Her heart-to-heart with Caleb triggers the solution to the Betazed negotiations.
You Can Always Build Something
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is trying something new. New alien species. New interplanetary contracts. An entire concept that’s never been tried on such a scale in the Trek ‘verse before.
But they’re building with materials that feel familiar, maybe a little worn, and depending a lot on comedic and romantic tropes to shoulder the development of character, relationships, and narrative.
There’s nothing deeply flawed here. The foundation is solid, the messaging true to the aspirational spirit of Trek, but there’s a need for more — in the mission, in the learning, in the motivation — to bolster its walls and secure its future.
What’s your read on the premiere, Fanatics?
Will you tune in again for Caleb’s sulking or SAM’s a-lot-ness? When will Braka crop up again, and is the search for Anisha enough of a hook?
Hit our comments with your initial impressions! Let’s get the Trek Talk rolling! Make it so.
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