Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

[Thom]

Sounds like everyone behind the scenes need to go back to school.

[mechaninac]

11 minutes ago, Thom said:

Sounds like everyone behind the scenes need to go back to school.

That's where they "learned" to write and produce such dreck...

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I assume 100 monkeys at typewriters could make a better show.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Thom said:

Sounds like everyone behind the scenes need to go back to school.

There's only so much an education in the fine arts can do when the student is completely lacking in talent or simply unwilling to understand the assignment.

And oh boy are Paramount and Alex Kurtzman unwilling to understand the assignment.  Their commitment to making this unasked-for grimdark Trekslop instead of what audiences have clearly said they want is quite something.  I mean, you'd think when the franchise's bottom ten seasons by review score reads like an itemized list of your efforts it'd be time to consider an alternative approach.  Like maybe changing jobs to become a mime.  

Spoiler

The current Bottom 10 TV seasons by score includes all of Discovery, all of Short Treks, the first two seasons of Picard, Strange New Worlds's third season, and Lower Decks's first.

I have little doubt that Starfleet Academy will rescue Lower Decks season one from the #10 spot on that list.  Whether it'll rescue Section 31 from the bottom spot is still an open question...

 

[pengbuzz]

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's actually worse on a second watch.  The writers are really doing a champion job of making this captain look like a complete buffoon.

  Hide contents

> Ship detects tachyon interference (AKA "there's a cloaked ship nearby")
> Doesn't raise shields, ready weapons, or go to yellow/red alert
> 12 incoming projectiles
> Orders a red alert and shields raised, but not evasive action
> Attempts to shoot down a dozen incoming mines with... a single torpedo launcher instead of the dozens of other weapons the ship has?
> Kicks her first officer off the bridge to go babysit
> Ship's being engulfed by programmable matter
> Activate backup holographic comms instead of taking measures to escape?
> Orders ship out of the area
> Told that helm is unresponsive and power is being drained
> Enemy ship pops up behind them
> Orders a "full spread" from the weapons she was just told are subject to a power drain
> Reminded the weapons don't work
> Ship gets grappled
> Orders the ship that she had already been told has lost helm control and which just got immobilized with grappling lines to take emergency evasive action
> Orders all remaining power to forward shields, when the ship is being shot to pieces from behind.
> Finally sends a distress call, wastes time repeating herself for an automated distress call.
> Calls the doctor for a casualty report instead of seeing to the safety of her ship
> Everyone's wearing a personal transporter, but sure let's carry the injured instead of beaming them directly to sickbay that's a great idea.
> Multiple injuries but no "casualties".  Casualties includes injuries you buffoon.  You're CARRYING one of the casualties.  You mean no fatalities.
> Captain asks to be told if/when someone dies.  F***ing WHY?
> Damage control robots can put out little incidental fires but not evacuate the wounded?
> Main power's failing, let's spend precious power taking a 3D conference call from the guy attacking us!

With so many cuts, it's hard to tell if it's the writers or the editors who are making the captain look like the galaxy's least attentive Pakled.

Two words: Captain Feckless.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Two words: Captain Feckless.

No, I'm pretty sure Michael Burnham isn't in this one... 🤔😜

I'm sure the academy curriculum has probably changed a bit since the 2370s when field study was a sophomore year activity, but all things considered if this series is going to work at all it's going to need a fantastically good explanation for why the Starfleet Academy Earth campus's first incoming class in over a century is being immediately thrown into harm's way on a poorly supervised training ship in the badlands instead of... y'know... attending classes at the titular academy.

Having said that, I know it's going to be the dumbest f***ing thing I'll have seen since SNW dressed Chris Myers up like a Power Rangers villain and tried to play it laser straight.

[Dynaman]

On 12/9/2025 at 10:12 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

need a fantastically good explanation for why the Starfleet Academy Earth campus's first incoming class in over a century is being immediately thrown into harm's way on a poorly supervised training ship in the badlands instead of... y'know... attending classes at the titular academy.

To be fair, they don't really need a good explanation - The Motion Picture got away with the Enterprise being the ONLY vessel between the Klingon border and Earth for example.  With as many problems as ST: V had at least it had a better reason for why the Enterprise got sent on that particular mission.

Not that I plan on watching this, I've still not watched the last season or two of Discovery even though I had P+ to watch SNW.

[Seto Kaiba]

31 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

To be fair, they don't really need a good explanation - The Motion Picture got away with the Enterprise being the ONLY vessel between the Klingon border and Earth for example.  With as many problems as ST: V had at least it had a better reason for why the Enterprise got sent on that particular mission.

To be honest, I feel like that example underlines why they need a fantastically good explanation for why the Earth campus's first incoming class have been sent into harm's way on a starship instead of attending classes.

The Motion Picture was the second-lowest rated title behind Final Frontier until Section 31 rolled in and stole the bottom spot, and the whole "the Enterprise is the only ship in range" thing is one of Trek's most-mocked cliches due to ex post facto setting changes in later works.

Spoiler

Though in fairness, the Enterprise being The Only Ship made sense in context at the time The Motion Picture was made... but the setting has evolved considerably since then.

TOS-era Star Trek was extremely vague about the particulars of its broader setting.  The Enterprise was an Earth starship for the show's first 18 episodes until the writers invented the Federation in the season one episode "Arena".  At that time, "Earth Starfleet" was envisioned as a fairly small organization with only 14 or so "Starship-class" starships of the same type as Enterprise.  Seasons two and three implied that Starfleet was a larger organization than that but never showed it and continued on with the premise that Starfleet had two dozen or so ships.

It wasn't until after TAS ended and Franz Joseph published the Star Fleet Technical Manual in 1975 that the Star Trek setting first accommodated the idea that Starfleet was a much larger organization operating several dozen to several hundred starships of multiple classes.  But that ended up non-canonical when Roddenberry and Joseph had a falling out.

So when TMP was made, the official line was still that Starfleet was a smallish organization with several dozen starships to its name spread out across a huge area of space on long term exploration missions... making the premise that the Enterprise was the only ship of sufficient power in the area narratively plausible.  It wouldn't be until Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan that they'd finally introduce another starship class (the Miranda-class USS Reliant), and later titles established the Federation and Starfleet were a lot bigger than previously indicated and always had been... retroactively making the overused "The Only Ship" plot device look sillier.

Starfleet Academy is going to need a fantastically good explanation for why the entire incoming class of cadets were packed onto a starship and sent into harm's way or it's going to get branded an Idiot Plot because there's no obvious contextual explanation for it.  The occasional bit of bad writing was easier to excuse when seasons were twenty-six episodes long, but when you only have ten episodes per season the audience is a LOT less forgiving.  Not to mention that if you launch your series with an Idiot Plot your series is unlikely to recover, as Discovery and Picard both failed to do.

 

31 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

Not that I plan on watching this, I've still not watched the last season or two of Discovery even though I had P+ to watch SNW.

I'll probably hoist the ol' jolly roger to see if the first season is worth it... though as you can tell I am not getting my hopes up even a little.

[Thom]

Sounds like they would have been better doing a third season of Star Trek Prodigy instead. Heck, they could have done it live-action too, with the cadets on the second Protostar continuing the Federations explorations after the attack on Utopia Planetia.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 12/13/2025 at 8:59 AM, Thom said:

Sounds like they would have been better doing a third season of Star Trek Prodigy instead. Heck, they could have done it live-action too, with the cadets on the second Protostar continuing the Federations explorations after the attack on Utopia Planetia.

Hm... yeah, a third season of Star Trek: Prodigy would almost certainly get a warmer reception from fans than another season of Discovery's 32nd century grimdark misery, even if it is leaning very heavily on Star Trek: Voyager for audience appeal.  That said, that reception would still be pretty darn frosty considering the second season ended with a descent into the grimdark miserable hopelessness of the Picard era that will dominate the setting for at least the next 17+ in-universe years.  Fans hated it in Picard, so they're not likely to welcome it as part of Prodigy either. 

Now that I think about it, it's a bit odd that Paramount cancelled Prodigy only to essentially introduce a new series with a very similar premise in Starfleet Academy.  In both cases, the story revolves around a bunch of kids who've been in Starfleet barely long enough to ask where the bathroom is being packed onto a training ship and sent into harm's way.

Spoiler

TBH, it kind of feels like the writers of new Trek keep forgetting what Starfleet Academy IS.

It's not some 8-12 week boot camp.  It's a 4+ year university-level educational institution that also functions as Starfleet's officer candidate school.

Wesley Crusher might've gotten to serve as an acting ensign for a year or two because of nepotism, but even he was eventually told to go to the Academy and get the proper education (and then dropped out in his third year).  Dr. Bashir did eight years in the academy.  Four years for the regular Academy training program and four more to get his M.D..  Nog got an accelerated graduation after a bit over two years, but that was in extremis due to the war but also got an indecent amount of on-the-job training from the Deep Space Nine crew.  Pretty much everyone else did the 4 year program.  Even Data.

In Discovery, Michael Burnham never attended the Academy.  She got a field commission through nepotism and somehow nobody bothered to make her actually attend the Academy or receive any formal training even after she was promoted all the way to first officer (all under the same captain who gave her the field commission).  Sylvia Tilly did not finish her Academy studies.  She was given a commission out of the blue without finishing her training for... not committing genocide?  Then she somehow goes on to be an academy instructor despite having only a year or two of practical experience and technical knowledge that's 900 years out of date?  

In Picard, Elnor joined Starfleet in 2400 and was already serving on the Excelsior a year later.  Seven of Nine gets the full Mary Sue treatment and is given a field commission to the rank of Captain by Picard, a commission to the rank of Commander and a first officer post without setting foot at the Academy or having any formal training, and then a field promotion to captain from another captain.

The kids in Prodigy never do get to actually attend the Academy, with Janeway giving them all field commissions out of spite after they only did a few months of prep school.