Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

While the core tenets of the franchise are ever-present, the series breaks the mold in all the best ways. For fans who loved Star Trek's recent animated offerings for their bold willingness to do something different, Starfleet Academy is once again pushing the boundaries of this universe for the better and building a world worth returning to.

It is a nostalgic treat for Trekkies while also being something completely new, and isn’t afraid of a little silliness along the way, while still managing to retain the core ethos of what makes “Trek” tick.

While the dialogue is never so dense that I felt completely lost, I found myself checking out every time the characters spent too much time explaining complicated scientific concepts or deep-cut Trek lore. Fortunately, the show has, in its talented young cast, a built-in north star.

The student characterizations are overly familiar collegiate archetypes, which makes the professors/administrators the more interesting bunch, including Voyager’s holographic (now grouchier) doctor (Robert Picardo), sarcastic former Discovery engineer Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) and Ake’s No. 1, snarly half-Jem’Hadar, half-Kilingon Lura Throk (scene-stealer Gina Yashere, “Bob (Hearts) Abishola”).

“Starfleet Academy” will certainly be an acquired taste, and it’s likely a lot of veteran Trekkies will turn their noses up at it on concept alone. Sometimes, it earns that reputation. .... If creator Giala Violo and showrunner Noga Landau keep sharpening their characters’ immature edges, they might just find exciting new frontiers to explore.

Whether this series can live up to that legacy remains an open question, but it’s planting some of the right seeds.

Unsure of whether to extend a hand to new fans and make a sprawling, centuries-spanning universe accessible, or to play the hits to a fanbase often frustrated at the show's continued direction, it will likely wind up satisfying nobody.

ST:SFA is working on bringing the Next Generation to Trek. It's fresh, has great actors both seasoned and new, and it is pushing the boundaries. We love it and my kids are finally learning to LOVE Star Trek. Thank you for this show!!

It's not great. Some of it does feel like Trek, but some of it is taking it a step too far. And Holly slouching in that chair annoys me to no end. A captain's chair deserves some respect.

As a lifelong Trekkie, I consider this Star Trek "lite". It's nowhere near as bad as everyone is saying. Familiar Coming of Age stories, so if you are a teenager I feel like you would definitely like this. The storylines are okay (and a bit predictable) but I've "seen it all". Lol The visuals are as good as any ST series out there!

the acting is good, the set design is amazing, the writing is so bad - SO bad. like, how did no one just face these writers and say, “youre a dumb corny writer. try again.” just so relentlessly predictable and the klingon character can barely grunt out words but we have to suffer watching him find himself. like bro, you can be lgbtq, but you have to be able to ACT BRO. not a single earned emotional moment.

This show introduces new characters, lore and technology into the franchise and definitely feels somewhat like a trek show. However, it suffers from it's inherited legacy and things it introduces itself. The writing at many points just doesn't acknowledge things we have seen in earlier episodes or deals with the fact that the discovery exists in a good way. Whilst I think most of the best acting and dialogue is in the last two episodes, it does contain some of the worst writing of the whole season. Overall I wouldn't say it's unwatchable, the acting is mostly great. It's just the writing that doesn't know when to play something off as a joke or leave it as a serious tone, or how to deal with or intigrate things from the past that they want to integrate.