Starfleet Academy Brings SciFi Life To Old Tropes
Starfleet Academy Has A Clear Path For Its Stories
I wonder if episodes of Starfleet Academy took Star Trek concepts and tried to find ways to make them fit into generic college/high school plots, or if the show started with those tropes and then figured out how to make them fit the world building. I have not seen interviews that answer that; I know no one in the writer’s room, but I have to assume one of those is how they wrote this show.
Which isn’t a complaint, to be clear. Star Trek is not my primary science fiction fandom (I’m a Doctor Who nerd) but I do enjoy a pulpy, episodic, high-concept series as much as the average nerd. After a very exposition heavy first episode, the next two settled into a template, and the fun was the modifications. Episode two of Starfleet Academy has an interesting political debate between massive groups—while also making a classic high school romance scenario be part of the solution. Episode three (I only watched through episode three) was all about rival schools, from prank wars to sports teams, while including phaser fights and alien plants. As long as the show doesn’t deviate much from that, it could just chug along, and I do think audiences will remain engaged.
An Episodic Structure Will Suit This Style Of Show
That said, Starfleet Academy does come off as uneven in its specifics. Which specifics? Well, basically all of them. Sometimes the CGI looks great, and I’m impressed by how well-designed the campus appears. Other times, wow, do those little flying machines look shoddy. The same is true of the acting, writing, pacing, representation, humor, etc. I think part of the issue is simply that the episodes are so freaking long. Starfleet Academy has too much time and yet acts like it doesn’t. Episode 3, for instance, has storylines and reveals that could’ve easily been five episodes. We have multiple plotlines about family trauma, the introduction of an entire in-universe sport (with very loose rules), a sudden confirmation that two characters are dating/married/some other form of a couple, and Starfleet Academy is doing all of this while also attempting to establish multiple minor antagonists, continue the season’s overarching plot, and pushing along a romance. I do not envy the juggling act, but I also felt a little exhausted after each episode. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the full lore going in (I have no idea what The Burn is), so I’m also trying to internalize a ton of extraneous data—but I can’t be the only one in this situation and shows need to account for that.
And yet, still, I felt the magic of Star Trek. And I suppose Starfleet Academy is impressive for that. I imagine an appeal of Star Trek for longtime fans is imagining living in this futuristic world(s), and I was very much on board for that escapism, pretty quickly. I liked that for every battle scene, there’re interesting moments of diplomacy or trickery or on-the-fly problem solving. I loved seeing a world with so many cultures and people all interacting, and some concepts I do know about the universe get interesting shifts from their stereotypes (a Klingon doctor is such a cool idea). I have little idea how well Starfleet Academy is handling its many disability rep moments, especially with having a holographic A.I. student who doesn’t seem to fully understand being a human, but I do appreciate how much rep there is everywhere. It’s not just one character; we see people using wheelchairs, people using sign language, and the show seemingly considered disabilities for alien species, too, like that little hormone inhibitor. There’s clearly a vast array of people working behind the scenes to make this show work as well as it does, and you can feel it in a lot of moments.
Starfleet Academy Sets Up Many Compelling Arcs
You also get the sense that Starfleet Academy considered its core characters a lot and made sure they had big backstories to explore. I’m a little tired of a super competent female character’s backstories involving her learning a ton of stuff from her brother/father (thus making it seem like the other person should get credit for her dedication and skills), but otherwise Genesis is a great example of a captain-in-training, and I like how instantly you get that feeling. Similarly, Caleb could’ve been the “genius” character archetype who just rattles off techno babble to solve problems, but he’s actually just knowledgeable in certain ways, on certain subjects, like someone actually would be. And on and on it goes with the main cast. We don’t get as much about the others by episode three—they haven’t gotten as much time to shine—but Sam’s teleporting scene, Darem’s scene with his parent’s messages, Tarima’s whale monolog, and Jay-Den’s first medical emergency scene all give strong points of characterization that at least indicate where they could go—and how they fit into the team. It’s a classic of writing advice that characters are what people latch onto with storytelling, and I’m seriously considering watching Starfleet Academy on my own time because I want to see these characters eventually become the ones at the helm of a Starfleet vessel (which is obviously where the series is going).
I can’t say how Starfleet Academy compares to, say, Next Generation—and that would likely be an unfair comparison to make anyway—but I can say that as a casual fan, it’s a fun, enjoyable series that has enough good stuff going on that it’s worth sinking time into. I like episodic story structure sometimes; it’s nice to relax into a world and a cast of characters and just see what they get up to in a fleshed-out universe.
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