Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

[TangledThorns]

STAR TREK: Glee ? lol

[Thom]

Yeah, I don't have much faith in them being able to pull it off. I like that they have Holly Hunter and Dadmiral, but right now that is not enough. 

I'll give it a look, but if it is too STD() then I'll pass. 

[lechuck]

My biggest gripe with this show, is that we have to contend with the established DSC backdrop stupidity of humans/earth having dropped out of the Federation. 

It is so galling to me that something humanity fought and stood for all of previous Star Trek was wiped out in a single episode because of "we don't have warp drive!". 

[Thom]

19 minutes ago, lechuck said:

My biggest gripe with this show, is that we have to contend with the established DSC backdrop stupidity of humans/earth having dropped out of the Federation. 

It is so galling to me that something humanity fought and stood for all of previous Star Trek was wiped out in a single episode because of "we don't have warp drive!". 

Most everything else about the Burn was shyte, but having Earth no longer be a part of the Federation was (IMO) a nice twist. And something I could see happening, esp after the destruction of most of Starfleet and any other facility using dilithium in their power generation. Earth, being the 'heart' of the Federation could have been hardest hit and taken the longest to recover in the post-dilithium universe. 

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, lechuck said:

My biggest gripe with this show, is that we have to contend with the established DSC backdrop stupidity of humans/earth having dropped out of the Federation. 

It is so galling to me that something humanity fought and stood for all of previous Star Trek was wiped out in a single episode because of "we don't have warp drive!". 

You're not alone there. 

That Starfleet Academy is another unasked-for spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery is likely to make the series a hard sell for a lot of Star Trek fans.  

You'd think Discovery's status as the fandom's un-favorite and the lowest-rated Star Trek series of all time would given the network pause for thought even before their first spinoff of the series, Section 31, crashed and burned so hard it became the worst-reviewed Star Trek title of all time.  Kurtzman keeps doubling down on his bad idea as if he hopes that if he just keeps pushing fans will come around and like it.

Spoiler

Fun fact: If you compile a list of the ten worst-rated (by audience score) Star Trek seasons and movies, Star Trek: Discovery and its spinoffs account for six of the ten lowest-rated titles in the franchise.

Discovery seasons 2-5 all made the list (accounting for 6th, 7th, 2nd, and 3rd place respectively), as did Short Treks season 1 (8th), and Section 31 (1st).  The other four stinkers to make the list are The Final Frontier (4th), Picard season 2 (5th), The Motion Picture (9th), and Insurrection (10th).  

A dishonorable mention goes out to 11th place winner Star Trek: Discovery season 1.

 

 

4 hours ago, Thom said:

Most everything else about the Burn was shyte, but having Earth no longer be a part of the Federation was (IMO) a nice twist. And something I could see happening, esp after the destruction of most of Starfleet and any other facility using dilithium in their power generation. Earth, being the 'heart' of the Federation could have been hardest hit and taken the longest to recover in the post-dilithium universe. 

That's the thing... it wasn't.  Earth's role in the story is basically getting sh*t on for hoarding dilithium after the Burn and going isolationist because they assumed the Burn was an attack.

[Thom]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

That's the thing... it wasn't.  Earth's role in the story is basically getting sh*t on for hoarding dilithium after the Burn and going isolationist because they assumed the Burn was an attack.

Goes to show how well that show stuck (stunk) with me... And see, my idea was already better than anything STD() came up with! 

But the truth remains that 900 years is a loooong time. Even half of that. Nothing stays the same, so an isolationist Earth coming about after the catastrophe of the Burn is not an impossibility.

And I think it would have been better if the Burn had been an attack, but then there are so many things about the Burn that are just silly anyway.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Thom said:

Goes to show how well that show stuck (stunk) with me... And see, my idea was already better than anything STD() came up with! 

But the truth remains that 900 years is a loooong time. Even half of that. Nothing stays the same, so an isolationist Earth coming about after the catastrophe of the Burn is not an impossibility.

Granted, 900 years is a very long time indeed (for Humans) and things can change a lot in such a substantial period.

That doesn't mean that what they did made sense, though.  One of the many reasons fans hated it was that it didn't make sense in context or out. 😆

Trying to launch a new story off a springboard made of pure idiocy and character shilling is probably not the best idea.  

 

8 minutes ago, Thom said:

And I think it would have been better if the Burn had been an attack, but then there are so many things about the Burn that are just silly anyway.

Literally everything about the Burn is stupid. 

That's why, when the idea was originally pitched back in 2006 as the premise for a stand-alone animated series called Star Trek: Final Frontier it got no farther than a handful of rough story treatments and some concept art before CBS said "No thank you".  Kurtzman et. al. actually managed to make the bad idea behind Final Frontier worse.

[Thom]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

Literally everything about the Burn is stupid. 

That's why, when the idea was originally pitched back in 2006 as the premise for a stand-alone animated series called Star Trek: Final Frontier it got no farther than a handful of rough story treatments and some concept art before CBS said "No thank you".  Kurtzman et. al. actually managed to make the bad idea behind Final Frontier worse.

I like the Burn when it was an attack. Your enemy finds a way to turn all of your ships into bombs and goes for it, heralding a millennia of upheaval and darkness. Perfect. But then they took the meat out of it for some sap story of misunderstanding and happenstance. STD() had some good story ideas, but no good follow-through.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Thom said:

I like the Burn when it was an attack. Your enemy finds a way to turn all of your ships into bombs and goes for it, heralding a millennia of upheaval and darkness. Perfect. But then they took the meat out of it for some sap story of misunderstanding and happenstance. STD() had some good story ideas, but no good follow-through.

Sounds like the unproduced Star Trek: Final Frontier would have been right up your alley then.

Spoiler

In that, the event analogous to the Burn was a surprise attack with omega particles that destroyed subspace in across large parts of the galaxy in the mid-25th century and made warp drives unusable.  The event started a war between the Romulans and Federation that saw Qo'nos annexed, Andoria destroyed, and the Federation split in two by ruined tracts of subspace.

The idea probably would have worked a lot better if it'd been set closer to the 24th century shows.  There were just too many issues with trying it as far into the future as they did to the level that it became a certifiable Idiot Plot.

 

I have to wonder what Starfleet Academy will do to justify its 32nd century setting besides being grim and boring and throwing a bunch of familiar 24th century enemy species into the background as Federation members.  The writers seem to have forgotten that technology advanced a lot even in the 2370s of Voyager and Deep Space Nine.  Voyager's doctor is teaching at the Academy, despite being a first-generation EMH whose software has been obsolete for 818 years.

That's like going to a history class today and finding out your instructor is Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Or someone from the 24th century rolling up to a computer science class to find the instructor is f***ing Clippy.  (As much as I love Robert Picardo and his role as the Doctor... there are so many problems with the idea in this series.)

Edited July 28 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  Or someone from the 24th century rolling up to a computer science class to find the instructor is f***ing Clippy. 

Don't get me started on THAT little b@$7@rd.

I'd sooner see Badgey make a return.

Edited July 28 by pengbuzz

[lechuck]

On 7/28/2025 at 2:42 AM, Thom said:

Goes to show how well that show stuck (stunk) with me... And see, my idea was already better than anything STD() came up with! 

But the truth remains that 900 years is a loooong time. Even half of that. Nothing stays the same, so an isolationist Earth coming about after the catastrophe of the Burn is not an impossibility.

And I think it would have been better if the Burn had been an attack, but then there are so many things about the Burn that are just silly anyway.

Certainly not an impossibility, but this is Star Trek we are talking about, it is all about positive portrayal and message. 

The whole decaying organisation or failed state type of story telling is another one of those that floated around for years with Star Trek. I was never fond of this idea being explored, But it's one thing creating this depressing backdrop, it's another when you on top take the whole point of Star Trek – namely us humans – and portray them as crappy entitled beings with stupid infighting in their solar system that they are completely incapable of resolving themselves (what happened to 900 years of Federation experience?) all because it's not "easy riding" any longer. That might be a reflection of our current human society, but I want to see a reflection of how we can be much better. 

It would have been way more interesting to see humans still embracing the Federation, still being the explorers wanting to understand the universe and still being there to help others as much as they can. Exploring the human condition (what makes these 32nd century humans go on?) despite the current hardships and adversities of the Burn would have made for excellent stories. Instead we got very lazy and thoughtless writing, all for the sensationalism of making everything even more depressing and dark.

[Thom]

1 hour ago, lechuck said:

Certainly not an impossibility, but this is Star Trek we are talking about, it is all about positive portrayal and message. 

The whole decaying organisation or failed state type of story telling is another one of those that floated around for years with Star Trek. I was never fond of this idea being explored, But it's one thing creating this depressing backdrop, it's another when you on top take the whole point of Star Trek – namely us humans – and portray them as crappy entitled beings with stupid infighting in their solar system that they are completely incapable of resolving themselves (what happened to 900 years of Federation experience?) all because it's not "easy riding" any longer. That might be a reflection of our current human society, but I want to see a reflection of how we can be much better. 

It would have been way more interesting to see humans still embracing the Federation, still being the explorers wanting to understand the universe and still being there to help others as much as they can. Exploring the human condition (what makes these 32nd century humans go on?) despite the current hardships and adversities of the Burn would have made for excellent stories. Instead we got very lazy and thoughtless writing, all for the sensationalism of making everything even more depressing and dark.

I saw it as the Federation going through a Dark Age. A thousand years is a long time for anything to stay stable, much less in existence. If they had done it right, it could have been a very good and hopeful story of the 'light of reason' brushing aside the dark and the beginning of a new Age. Instead, we just got some pretty crappy stories.

[Seto Kaiba]

29 minutes ago, Thom said:

I saw it as the Federation going through a Dark Age. A thousand years is a long time for anything to stay stable, much less in existence. If they had done it right, it could have been a very good and hopeful story of the 'light of reason' brushing aside the dark and the beginning of a new Age. Instead, we just got some pretty crappy stories.

It probably could have been reworked as a good and hopeful story about the triumph of reason over fear, but only in a very different sort of Star Trek series.

One of the (main) reasons it fell so flat with audiences was that the bleak and miserable 32nd century future after the Burn really wasn't all that different from the bleak and miserable 23rd century future Discovery had already spent two seasons showing us.  The year on the calendar changed significantly, but little else did.  Discovery's crew were miserable bastards who hated themselves and each other, the galaxy was still damned and doomed at the hands of alien warlords from TOS-era species, and the whole thing was one massive idiot plot (The Burn) built on a string of plot holes and continuity errors and orbited by a string of smaller idiot plots.

It could have worked if it'd been done with a crew that had... y'know... actually believed in and embodied the Federation's ideals.  Discovery's crew seemed to be no more than dimly aware that the Federation even had ideals, and certainly couldn't name them if you asked.

Spoiler

It would probably also have been a good idea to set it many hundreds of years earlier too... instead of inexplicably having the entire galaxy still using millennium-old warp drives instead of any of the newer and more advanced FTL drives introduced as far back as 800 years earlier, inexplicably acting like dilithium is required to make a warp drive when one of the major powers had been making them without dilithium for 800-900 years, or trying to make a century-old unsolved mystery out of a major disaster that occurred in an era when building a time window was a common practical lesson in high school science classes and a trained engineer could cobble one together out of 900 year old electronics and literal kitchen utensils.  

 

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It probably could have been reworked as a good and hopeful story about the triumph of reason over fear, but only in a very different sort of Star Trek series.

One of the (main) reasons it fell so flat with audiences was that the bleak and miserable 32nd century future after the Burn really wasn't all that different from the bleak and miserable 23rd century future Discovery had already spent two seasons showing us.  The year on the calendar changed significantly, but little else did.  Discovery's crew were miserable bastards who hated themselves and each other, the galaxy was still damned and doomed at the hands of alien warlords from TOS-era species, and the whole thing was one massive idiot plot (The Burn) built on a string of plot holes and continuity errors and orbited by a string of smaller idiot plots.

It could have worked if it'd been done with a crew that had... y'know... actually believed in and embodied the Federation's ideals.  Discovery's crew seemed to be no more than dimly aware that the Federation even had ideals, and certainly couldn't name them if you asked.

  Hide contents

It would probably also have been a good idea to set it many hundreds of years earlier too... instead of inexplicably having the entire galaxy still using millennium-old warp drives instead of any of the newer and more advanced FTL drives introduced as far back as 800 years earlier, inexplicably acting like dilithium is required to make a warp drive when one of the major powers had been making them without dilithium for 800-900 years, or trying to make a century-old unsolved mystery out of a major disaster that occurred in an era when building a time window was a common practical lesson in high school science classes and a trained engineer could cobble one together out of 900 year old electronics and literal kitchen utensils.  

 

To SNW's credit: they portray a much more optimistic and brighter universe; hard to believe SNW and DISC inhabited the same continuity. O.o

[Seto Kaiba]

14 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

To SNW's credit: they portray a much more optimistic and brighter universe; hard to believe SNW and DISC inhabited the same continuity. O.o

It really is.  It's even harder to believe Strange New Worlds is literally a spinoff of Discovery.

If Starfleet Academy follows on from Discovery's tone and themes, it'll be nigh unwatchable.  If it takes after Strange New Worlds it might actually be worth giving a look.  The "good vibes" and optimistic outlook are essential for it to feel like Star Trek.

Edited August 2 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It really is.  It's even harder to believe Strange New Worlds is literally a spinoff of Discovery.

If Starfleet Academy follows on from Discovery's tone and themes, it'll be nigh unwatchable.  If it takes after Strange New Worlds it might actually be worth giving a look.  The "good vibes" and optimistic outlook are essential for it to feel like Star Trek.

Yeah, I may tease you about SNW and all, but at the end of the day, I'll take it hands and feet over DiscoveryofDoom.

[lechuck]

[Seto Kaiba]

Boldly written by Pakleds, for Pakleds. 🤮

If that trailer was supposed to make me want to watch the series, oof... mission failed with distinction.  That just looks like more of everything that already wasn't working in Star Trek: Discovery.

[Chas]

All that trailer shows me is that this show in NOT for me.

Hope they get the new fans they want, 'cus I don't  think they'll be getting any old ones back with this.

 

[Roy Focker]

I don't understand what I just watched. Is this for the current audience or new audience or older audience? I can't describe the premise or tone. You could take that trailer and reedit to make trailers for at least two different shows. 

 

[pengbuzz]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Boldly written by Pakleds, for Pakleds. 🤮

If that trailer was supposed to make me want to watch the series, oof... mission failed with distinction.  That just looks like more of everything that already wasn't working in Star Trek: Discovery.

Okay...somebody please initiate the self-destruct sequence for this steaming pile of QI'yaH...

[mikeszekely]

I'm not touching Starfleet Academy with a 10 foot pole.  The first season of Discovery was mediocre at best, and while I'll admit to actually liking most of the second everything that's happened since they went to the future has been straight trash and I refuse to acknowledge it.  Anything set after the early 2400's is non-canon in my book.

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

I don't understand what I just watched. Is this for the current audience or new audience or older audience?

It seems to be aimed at an audience of people who enjoyed Star Trek: Discovery and thought it was a worthy installment in the Star Trek franchise.

Watching this teaser, I was struck again by the same thought that struck me after I watched Section 31.  Paramount seemingly doesn't understand that most Star Trek fans did not like Discovery and were either hate-watching it or holding out hope that it would Grow The Beard like TNG did after its lamentable first season.  It's following Discovery's formula in pretty close formation.  The protagonist is a resentful kid full of unprocessed childhood trauma who joins Starfleet via nepotism rather than talent.  There's a giant alien category traitor from a one-temperment species (a Klingon med student), a girl with apparently-untreated severe autism, and some legacy characters who are there to convince fans to tune in (USS Voyager's EMH Mk.I and Jett Reno), and a ridiculously scenery chewing villain with no redeeming qualities whatsoever from a TOS-era species to make an unlikable main character seem less awful by comparison.

You'd think Paramount would take stock of the audience review scores at some point and realize the pattern.  Of the 64 seasons and movies put out so far, the 15 bottom ranked titles include all five seasons of Discovery, both seasons of Short Treks, Section 31, the first two seasons of Picard, and Strange New Worlds season 3.  The only other titles on that list are the worst of the Old Trek movies... 5, TMP, Insurrection, and Nemesis.  

 

13 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

I can't describe the premise or tone. You could take that trailer and reedit to make trailers for at least two different shows. 

It seems to be a very similar premise to the unsuccessful Star Trek: Starfleet Academy comics from the 90's.  

That is to say, a diverse squad of freshman cadets including an everyman, an admiral's kid, proud warrior race guy, a Betazoid, and the clearly autistic one from the incoming class at Starfleet Academy's San Francisco campus are assigned to a supervising officer with multiple lifetimes of experience and pretty much never attend any classes because they're giving a ship right off the bat and spend all their time fighting threats to the Federation.

The Starfleet Academy TV series has the everyman (played by Sandro Rosta), the admiral's kid (Bella Shepard), proud warrior race guy (Karim Diane), the Betazoid (Zoe Steiner), and the clearly autistic one (Kerrice Brooks).  They've traded the Trill in for a half-Lanthanite played by Holly Hunter, added a spoiled rich kid (played by George Hawkins), and for a ship they have an actual starship not a Danube-class runabout, but the rest seems pretty on the nose.

Having read the comic, I should probably just be grateful that they've skipped the inclusion of the other character archetype from the comic's cadet squad who was killed off and replaced by the Betazoid.  The preachy Soapbox Sadie girl with the implausible backstory whose entire identity and character was tied up in oversimplifying a politically charged topic.

 

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

I'm not touching Starfleet Academy with a 10 foot pole.  The first season of Discovery was mediocre at best, and while I'll admit to actually liking most of the second everything that's happened since they went to the future has been straight trash and I refuse to acknowledge it.  Anything set after the early 2400's is non-canon in my book.

Anson Mount carried the second season, that's why they gave him his own show... so he could carry the franchise.

[Knight26]

I have enjoyed Strange New Worlds, and really don't have an issue with Season 3, though I can see why some do.  Honestly the best recent Trek series is still Lower Decks.  But yes, Discovery was horrid, can't bear to watch it, and I abhor all of the ship designs from once they jump forwards in time.

[Thom]

it's going to air whether I watch or not, so I will give it a few episodes to see how it does. Not too hyped unfortunately. 

[David Hingtgen]

All they have to do is greenlight Legacy, with Capt Seven of the 1701-G, and you've got a guaranteed audience.  Is it guaranteed to be good?  No, but it's got a heck of a lot better shot than what they're doing. "The latest Enterprise out exploring the cosmos".  Basic, but we've veered off-track for a while now.  DS9 was a great one-time experiment, but when like 3/4 of the shows lately are "not a ship of experienced people out exploring", it seems we've lost the core aspect of the franchise. 

There's always a cadet or "fresh from the academy" person on board, but when entire shows (don't forget Prodigy, and to a lesser degree Lower Decks) focus heavily on that, and not the people "actually good and experienced at the thing they do" it can drag things down, or stretch believability/plausibility.    "Why are the noobs always saving the galaxy?  What are the people who are actually supposed to be better at these things doing in the meantime?"    

::edit::  OMG, I just realized I basically made an early TNG anti-Wesley post.  Well, the sentiment remains...