You know what? I like it. I'm on board. Predictably, all the people who were bashing the Starfleet Academy trailers and other preview content were quick to release their reviews, bashing the first two episodes that were released on Thursday. It must be exhausting to hate new Star Trek shows so much and yet continue to force yourself to watch them and write entire reviews about how much you hate them. Now, to be fair, I had my share of criticisms of the previews. That trailer was painfully formulaic and hard to watch, and I'm still pretty skeptical about the show... but there were definitely elements to these first two episodes that I really liked. (As a side note, the only Star Trek production that I find nearly unwatchable is the straight-to-streaming film, Star Trek: Section 31, but that's a story for a different article.)

⌛ Timeline Disambiguation: Let's get some basic understanding out of the way first, to avoid any misconceptions that I've already seen flying around the internet. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy starts off in the year 3192*, about a year after Star Trek: Discovery ended. This is the 32nd century. That's over 900 years after shows like The Original Series and Strange New Worlds, and over 800 years after shows like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Lower Decks. Things change a lot in 800-900 years, so some things that are established in Star Trek lore in the 24th century, like “There are no Jem'Hadar women”, are clearly no longer applicable in the 32nd century. These are not mistakes, these are conscious choices made by the showrunners.

All right, with that out of the way, let's dive in with my initial reactions.

👍 Episode 1's Prologue — Before we get to the school in the year 3192*, the first 21 minutes of the premiere episode is a prologue that takes place fifteen years earlier, in 3177*, and then continues with Caleb's roguish life in the present. It's actually quite good, and it sets up a decent impetus for the series. It does sort of scream, “THIS IS A PILOT!”, so it will be interesting to see how the show settles into a normal routine later in the season.

🤷‍♂️ Instant Transformation — I guess I have to give them credit for subverting expectations. I figured that Caleb was going to be a brooding, uncooperative jerk for a long time before slowly assimilating into his new role at the Academy, but it turns out that he just walked through a magic portal which gave him a snappy uniform and clean-cut hairstyle. Sure, he's still mischievous and recalcitrant, but at least they spared us the arduous journey of him fighting against conformity of appearance.

👍 USS Athena and Lighthearted Comedy — So, we get our first look at the USS Athena. The sets are gorgeous and will definitely be a treat to enjoy. And we also find out a little bit more about what this show is going to be. With the lighthearted music playing in the background and numerous comedy gags in a row, I'm on board with this genre. I grew up with Trek in the 90s, and one thing that that era was never any good at was comedy. At its best, 90s Trek comedy still seemed to be relying on decades-old performative arts that said “this is how you do comedy” even if it wasn't funny. At its worst, 90s Trek comedy was completely idiotic farce, usually involving the Ferengi. The comedy aspects in this show, however – including simple things like comedic timing – feels more modern.

👎 Playing Keep-Away — This was it – this was the first moment I rolled my eyes and groaned. I was enjoying the episode until this first, dumb, stereotypical “young adult” moment. Oh look, someone has to be the bully and do stereotypical bully things. How pedestrian.

👍 The Doctor — “...then, your adolescent memories will wake you screaming for the rest of your adult life!” Ah, it's always good to see The Doctor. First appearing in Star Trek: Voyager, and then in Star Trek: Prodigy, Robert Picardo is a seasoned Trek actor who will bring much to the show. At the Doctor's first appearance here, he asks an assistant for a tricorder. After being handed the device, he frustratedly specifies, “medical tricorder!” This is a repeat of the Doctor's first appearance in the 1995 Star Trek: Voyager premiere, VOY 1x01/02: Caretaker, when Harry Kim also fails to hand the Doctor the correct type of tricorder.

🤷‍♂️ The Doctor's Aging — I swear that I remember reading an early interview with Robert Picardo (the Doctor) where he said that there was a “really good reason” for why his character appears to have aged, despite being ageless. It turns out that we get the throw-away explanation that he chose his aged appearance by adding an aging subroutine to his program. I don't think this is a “really good reason”, but on the other hand, it doesn't matter. I think most fans are happy to see the Doctor again, and they understand that real-life human actors age over time, so they are willing to accept simple explanations and are happy to move on. We've seen this before with other ageless characters like Data and Q.

👎 Captain Ake's Priorities when Under Attack — I complained about this in the trailer, and unfortunately, seeing the full scene doesn't add any additional context to make it better. With shields failing and the ship heavily damaged, Ake prioritizes emergency holographic communications and checking in with the Doctor instead of, I don't know, literally anything else. There's also apparently a huge disconnect between what was written, and the final results from the visual effects department. The line, “Target locked on to us at 320 degrees mark 2” would put the enemy ship in front of them – just off the port bow. Ake also calls for all remaining power to forward shields. Unfortunately, the enemy ship is obviously behind them, not in front of them.

🤷‍♂️ The Cadets are the Only Ones who can Save the Ship! — We saw this coming, right? We had to have some sort of horrible disaster to give the main cast of cadets the opportunity to show off all their unique talents and abilities. Because apparently all of the adults are... where, exactly? The Doctor said there weren't any casualties... but for some reason there are no adults around to get an EV suit or to perform the EVA that could save the ship. Thankfully, one of the cadets can do a spacewalk without a suit, and of course Caleb has the magic know-how to disable the stuff that is crippling the ship. Who needs the adults, anyway??

👍 Lura Thok — “If I am going to bleed to death, I require significantly less cheerfulness in my final moments!” Yeah, I'm enjoying this character so far. As a side note, I find her makeup to be quite impressive – not only is she covered in this dark blue/grey exterior, but they've also managed to make her gums and tongue grey to match. It really keeps you in the universe instead of pulling you out with makeup that is literally only skin-deep with an incongruously human-pink-colored mouth.

🤷‍♂️ Ake's Chair Acrobatics — I get it, doing acrobatics in her Captain's chair is going to be Ake's “thing”... but it is, at times, a bit silly.

Finally, I'm not going to delve into a deep analysis of the big wall of honorees in this article, but there are two names up there that I feel I need to point out. The first name is ACDR KAREN FARRIS, and to that I say: Absolutely Not. “Acting Commander” Karen Farris (and I put her title in quotation marks because her field promotion was dubious at best) was a Starfleet Cadet on board the USS Valiant, in the DS9 episode, DS9 6x22: Valiant. She was not a hero nor a distinguished officer, she was an obsequious stooge who failed to protect her classmates from the megalomania of the “Acting Captain” Tim Watters. The second name on the wall that I'd like to point out is ADM HARRY S.L. KIM, which is obviously a misprint, because I refuse to believe that he ever made it past the rank of Ensign. Ha!

So, all in all, I think it's off to a good start. I was going to write some more about the second episode, as well, but I think this is enough for today. Suffice to say that things calm down a bit in Episode 2, and I think it was another good story worth watching. Overall, the show is more palatable than I expected, without too many annoying “young adult” moments... though, they do certainly still exist. Most of Episode 2 was enjoyable to watch, with the notable exception of that last, stupid, “dicking-around-in-the-dorm-room” scene.

My only other concern is going to be the overall story arc of the show. Obviously, we can't have Caleb finding his mother and going off to live happily ever after in Episode 3, so I fear that the show is going to get strung out with adventures-of-the-week while little to no progress is made in finding Caleb's mom. If it turns into a tease each week with some minor clue that reveals no real substance about Caleb's quest, that's going to get tiresome quickly. But, we're just going to have to stay tuned in and see how this plays out! ◼