I had recently done a review of the pilot episode for Starfleet Academy, and I thought the show had potential. As of last week it’s had six episodes, and so far it’s a mixed bag. When this show hits, it’s as good as anything that Star Trek has produced, but at least as often it gets too cutesy for its own good. Of course, there’s always a risk of cutesiness where Stephen Colbert is involved in anything, however peripherally.
Basic impressions:
Holly Hunter as Captain Nahla Ake, as I said, is playing a very Holly Hunter-like character, and while she holds her own in dramatic situations and is presented as a competent captain and administrator, still walks around barefoot and says granola-hippie chick stuff like “children are our ambassadors to the future.” I would venture to say that one’s opinion of the character is probably one’s opinion of the show in general.
Sandro Rosta (as cadet Caleb Mir) is certainly physically impressive and has potential as an actor, but his brooding loner archetype has been done to death in other media, which may explain why the middle episodes haven’t been using him as much. I’m also not the only one who’s noticed that he has more chemistry with Holly Hunter as his substitute mother figure than he has with his romantic lead (Zoe Steiner).
Otherwise let me review what’s been shown up to last week:
“Beta Test” – in which the Federation negotiates for Betazed to rejoin the alliance. Since the galatic “Burn” of dilithium, the telepathic Betazoids have enforced a psionic shield to protect their planet, and Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) points out that this defense will not suffice against the advances of Federation science, or that of their enemies. Even so, the Betazed government leader advocates for isolationism against the wishes of some of his own delegates. Caleb ends up falling in love with one of these delegates, Tarima (Steiner) not realizing that she’s actually the daughter of the leader. Wackiness ensues. (Incidentally, the Betazoid leader is deaf and needs sign language to communicate with non-telepaths; this seems like the producers’ nod to DEI, but it later turns out there is a reason for his disabilty.) Eventually the Federation offers to move the government capital from its historic home in Paris, France to the Betazoid homeworld. With this Tarima and her brother end up joining the school, but while the brother ends up becoming one of Caleb’s roommates, Tarima for personal reasons joins the rival War College, which puts a wedge between him and her.
“Vitus Reflux” – the rivalry with the War College is further explored. In their defense, during the Burn, the War College was a lot more necessary to the survival of the Federation, with exploration at a standstill and defense as a primary. At this point in the history it is the established school and the Starfleet Academy is just being rebuilt, so the kids at the War College have some reason to feel superior. Even so, things degenerate into a prank war, and the Academy regulars feel obliged to step up. There is also a parallel plot with the elitist Darem (George Hawkins) in rivalry with Genesis (Bella Shepard) to lead a battle-simulation team against the War College, and trying, at first unsuccessfully, to recruit Caleb and Jay-Den. It turns out that Darem and Genesis both come from deeply perfectionist families, and that realization causes them to quit competing with each other and become more team-oriented. Even so, the character histories are in service of a movie-comedy frat rivalry, and one of the recurring issues with this season is that the War College head Kelrec (Raoul Bhaneja) keeps getting set up as the Dean Wormer to Captain Ake’s Otter.
“Vox in Excelso” – as is often the case with post-original Star Trek, the Klingon episode is a step up from what came before, and Karim Diane’ as Jay-Den turns out to be one of the better actors in the young cast. The Klingon medical student Jay-Den remembers the events that brought him to Starfleet as a planetary disaster threatens an already decimated Klingon race, and the Federation is obliged to take a position. In the public debate, Jay-Den ends his studious avoidance of conflict, taking up the unpopular position that the Klingons cannot survive on Federation charity. This episode thus squares the circle and shows how this most un-Klingon character is still totally Klingon.
“Series Acclimation Mil” is the episode centered on “Sam”, (Kerrice Brooks) the photonic life form who was created by the artificial Kasqian culture to be an emissary to the Federation. This is the episode where the cutesiness is on full blast, with details like the cartoon doodles in Sam’s point-of-view scenes, and the fact that Darem’s race vomit glitter. Sam tries to approach other cultures by crashing a Bajoran appreciaton course, and changing her parameters to get herself drunk. All of which confirms that while she is infectiously cheerful, she is also too much. The serious story, such as it is, is where Sam chooses her elective course as a biography of Benjamin Sisko, the Emissary of the Bajoran Prophets. Sam finds out that Sisko was partially created by the Prophets, just as she was purpose-created, and despairs that her course in life is set, as his was. But in a virtual conversation with Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton), Jake tells Sam that he knew Ben Sisko primarily as his Dad. He had a career, interests and a life of his own, no matter what his ultimate fate was. And this inspires Sam to stay on her own course. Even so, the episode is dependent on Benjamin Sisko and it points up the fact that Avery Brooks has been retired for years and refused to be directly involved in this episode, and this absence calls attention to itself in a way that undermines the story.
“Come, Let’s Away” – and here, shit gets real.
Caleb and Tarima finally consummate their relationship, and establish a Betazoid mind-meld. She brings him into a safe space in her mind, but sees a fragment of memory where Caleb is taken from his Mom during childhood. Caleb freaks at this (accidental) invasion of his privacy, and breaks things off. Shortly thereafter, the two schools are brought together on the Athena for a joint space mission to explore an abandoned Federation ship, one group from each school boarding the vessel and the other cadets observing from the command ship. But immediately they are ambushed by alien Reavers Furies who take them hostage and threaten to cannibalize them. The away team’s badass War College commander sets up a fight for the kids to escape, sacrificing himself in the process, but the cadets are holed up on the ship’s bridge with transporter signals jammed. Over a barrel, Vance tells Ake to negotiate with her old enemy Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti) because apparently he’s fought Furies before and defeated them. And this leads to all kinds of psychological probing between the two as Braka holds out for concessions. Meanwhile Tarima uses her bond with Caleb to contact him on the hulk and send communications from the Athena. Eventually Braka tells the Feds that the Furies are descended from bats and thus vulnerable to sonics. Vance commissions a cruiser from a nearby research base and has it equipped with a sonic cannon to assist the Athena. But when the ship arrives, Braka, now safe on his flagship, reveals that he was working with the Furies all along. The Furies breach the bridge, disrupt Sam, kill another cadet and Tarima ends up overloading her power with a psychic scream that kills all the invaders but puts her in critical condition. The research base, now undefended, is raided by Braka’s crime syndicate, who kill its staff and take their critical experimental projects.
It’s hard to see how they’re going to go back to silly school rivalry after that.
That’s an example of how the show can come up with genuinely dramatic work, but up to that point it’s been atypical. As the first season of Starfleet Academy winds down, it will be worth seeing if the story will end up being worthy of this setup.