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| Episode: | 1 | | | Writer: | Gaia Violo | | | Director: | Alex Kurtzman | | | Air Date: | 15-Jan-2026 |
Well this went and ruined all my plans.
I was going to focus my attention on my Super Adventures video game site for a few more months, while secretly stockpiling a few sci-fi reviews. Then in April I'd be like 'Surprise! You thought sitting through years of RTD2 Doctor Who and Garth Marenghi's Strange New Worlds had permanently destroyed my interest in science fiction, along with my faith in humanity, but I'm back'.
But nope, they had to suddenly drop Starfleet Academy on us in January! They've given it the Section 31 slot, reserved for projects they have the utmost confidence in. So now I'm watching this, because it has 'Star Trek' in the title. If they didn't want me to share my opinion of it, they should've called it Space Academy: Future Cadets. I would not watch that show.
I have to be honest, I've been dreading this series forever. As a tiny baby I knew I didn't want a Young Kirk and Young Spock movie, in the same way I had zero interest in the Young Sherlock Holmes movie. I did try the Starfleet Academy game but its cutscenes made me cringe. Though the funny thing is, at this point I'm actually more bored of the idea. We saw cadets becoming officers in Star Trek '09, then ensigns growing up in Lower Decks, then children becoming cadets in Prodigy, it has been done.
Anyway, I'm going to go into this with optimism and an open mind, I HOPE IT'S REALLY GOOD!!
(Warning SPOILERS, for episode 1 and bits of earlier Star Trek shows.)
It's actually part of the new opening sequence for the Star Trek franchise's 60th anniversary, so it'll also be at the start of every episode of Strange New Worlds' fourth season I suppose. The show's producers must be panicking, worried that if their audience catches a glimpse of something so horrifically dated they won't know whether to turn the video off, throw up in disgust, or just faint. (Sorry, SNW just really frustrates me, I'll shut up about it now).
This actually features a bunch of ships; there's the Enterprise-A, a rough looking Enterprise-D, the Defiant, Voyager, the NX-01, Discovery... though not the Protostar, Cerritos, Titan-A or La Sirena, weirdly. And it ends with a first look at the USS Athena from Starfleet Academy. They must have real confidence in their design to show off some of the best looking spaceships in all science fiction and then stick their own ship at the end.
Anyway here's what they've given us for the 60th...
RECAP
Starfleet officer Nahla Ake sends pirate Nus Braka and his accomplice Anisha Mir to prison, causing her young son Caleb to go on the run. Ake retires due to the guilt of separating a kid from his mother, but is persuaded 15 years later to return as the chancellor of Starfleet Academy. Meanwhile Caleb Mir has become an outlaw in search of his mother, and Ake gives him the option to escape prison by joining Starfleet.
They travel to Earth on the USS Athena, a mobile Starfleet Academy. But when Caleb attempts to call his mother it draws the attention of Braka, who disables the ship. Fortunately Caleb knows how to get rid of the programmable matter blocking their weapons, and with the help of the other students is able to give Ake the ability to fire back. Braka escapes, but Caleb decides to accept his punishment for sending the message in order to stay in Starfleet, and maybe one day find his mother.
REVIEW
It didn't entirely grip me, but the prologue does do the important work of establishing the motivation for the two leads, as Caleb is driven to find his mother and Ake is driven by guilt over separating them. That, plus the guilt over her own son dying in the Burn.
The episode's very vague about the Burn, which kind of backfires for new viewers as it makes it seem like the season's mystery. If you haven't seen Discovery, there's no clue here that the whole Burn situation has been solved already. All the episode tells us is that Starfleet Academy is returning to San Francisco for some reason.
So I thought it was a bit of a shame that Thok is played for comedy pretty much any time she shows up. Especially as actress Gina Yashere immediately impressed me in the role, and in the role of first officer. She's the mean one, there to be feared while Ake gets to be the fun loveable headmaster.
His hair had to be cut because it was in a non-regulation style, but you'd have to study the Academy guidelines to know that, as it seems like you can get away with almost anything. The scene cuts straight from Caleb to Jay-Den standing there in uniform with his long dreadlocks intact, and the other students have all kinds of hairstyles. In fact it's been a Star Trek tradition for crewmembers to have wild hairstyles ever since Yeoman Rand weaved her hair into a basket and I wouldn't want that to ever change.
I will give them points for uniform continuity with Star Trek: Discovery though. For the first time since Star Trek: Voyager, a new Star Trek series has been allowed to stick with the uniforms that Starfleet had already been using!
It makes even more sense that the series is set on a ship, as my biggest issue with the idea of a Starfleet Academy series has always been that you can't put students in jeopardy every week without seriously stretching credibility. And Star Trek series always have jeopardy, this was never going to be about kids dealing with school drama.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer had the Hellmouth under the school as its story generator, pulling in evil on a weekly basis, Harry Potter justifies its danger by being in a whimsical fantasy world full of vengeful wizards, but Star Trek is about people escaping normality and going to where the adventures are.
I kind of hated this scene though, with Sam saying 'hello' in different languages to everyone walking by, in failed attempt to make a friend, and Genesis introducing herself with a quip. Sam is being set up as the Data of the cast, who doesn't really get humanity yet, and I feel like the actor is up to it. The writing just let her down here. Genesis's lines aren't doing her any favours either, though her character worked better for me when I learned that she's a bit of a Wesley Crusher or Beckett Mariner, with famous Starfleet parents and lots of Trek experience.
In fact everyone gets to work to solve the problem like they've been on a starship for years (with the exception of poor Jay-Den), with Caleb stepping into the Chris Pine Kirk role of brilliant rogue who knows how to solve the problem all the experienced officers are struggling with. Prodigy began with its characters having a lot of room to grow, but these guys are pretty capable already.
Speaking of the makeup, the dude actually looks Klingon! I've had real issues with Discovery's alien makeup every since the first leaked shot of the redesigned Klingons. And they just kept doing it! Even after jumping to the future to better integrate the series with the rest of the franchise they couldn't resist redesigning the Ferengi, just because. It was so frustrating.
Starfleet Academy has plenty of remixed makeup designs as well, like the half Klingon/half Jem'Hadar Thok, and the half Klingon/half Tellarite Braka, but I reckon they're absolutely fine as long as we get a baseline Klingon to confirm that no unnecessary reimagining is going on.
Then it turns out that he's one of the main characters!
I don't mind the series having some young adult elements, that was pretty much inevitable from the start, but I don't appreciate it reminding me of Enterprise's decon chamber scenes! At least no one started getting their kit off and rubbing gel on each other purely for the sake of the episode trailers.
My thoughts about the love triangle are: I don't care. Maybe someday I will, but right now I do not.
I appreciated that his time with the Prodigy crew was actually acknowledged and they even confirmed that Gwyn eventually became captain (no confirmation for pool D'al though).
Sorry DS9 fans, Nog never made it to captain, that's a fact of the universe now. Some set decorator just wrote the end of his story.
Harry Kim made it to admiral though, which is probably the biggest clue yet that this is a dark splinter timeline.
I have to give the writer credit for bringing Braka back into the story without it seeming contrived. Caleb accidentally signals him, and he comes running because his nemesis Ake is there. Then he effortlessly disables one of the most important Starfleet vessels instantly, because that's just how it goes lately.
This gives Paul Giamatti a chance to show off his acting skill in the role of 'slightly more drunk Harry Mudd'. I don't know why he has a game of noughts and crosses etched into his hair, that's just another of his mysteries, which will undoubtedly be explored in his more contrived reappearances. Though this is such a stock scene at this point that I don't really have any comment about it, other than I'm not really sure a hostile hologram should be able to boop the captain's nose.
Though I liked how Ake literally blows him away at the end of the scene. And how she always puts her feet all over the chair. Don't get me wrong, I would never encourage that abhorrent behaviour in real life, but it adds to her personality that she sits like a cat and is about 300 years past giving a damn if the seat gets dirty.
I should probably care more about that than I do, especially as its a teachable moment for the cadets, but it kind of suits the episode's action movie reality. In fact the episode's like season 3 of Picard in fast forward, with Caleb in the role of brilliant rogue Jack Crusher. Except here the villain that invaded the ship gets away in an escape pod, so they'll be back to menace the ship in a few weeks, provided someone ever comes by to pick them up.
And that's how it ends I think. Oh hang on, I just remembered... the San Francisco scene with everyone looking out of the window as the ship touches down on Earth.
Part of the issue I had with this episode and why I don't rank it very high, is because it keeps trying for Star Trek 2009 style comedy while never being all that funny, and the music keeps trying to help. This is one of the things I absolutely can't stand about Strange New Worlds - I don't like comedy music. Unless I'm watching Looney Tunes, or one of the hundred other exceptions I can't think of right now.
But hey, on the plus side we got to see a young Cheron on the ship (white on the right side like the one from Section 31), so they clearly haven't gone extinct. Also there are Orions at the academy too, getting along with everyone just fine despite that whole Emerald Chain business from a few years back.
RATING
Alright, the episode gains points for not having a horrible blue tint, a complete lack of logic, or characters hugging and/or crying to degree which becomes laughable. But it also loses points for all that stuff I mentioned earlier. Plus it has zero scenes of characters going to class... I think that belongs in the list of positives.
The episode's definitely in the Star Trek: Discovery mode of dumb action adventure you're not supposed to think too hard about or take too seriously, but has some proper heart with the guilt-ridden Ake getting a second chance to help the kid she failed 15 years ago. The likeable young cast couldn't elevate the material they were given this time, but they did keep my attention for the whole 70 minutes and that's not easy.
So overall that works out to be around...
6/10
About where I expected really. I didn't think it was going to be Section 32, more like a below-average episode of Discovery. But I'm a Next Gen/DS9 fan, so I hope it grows up along with the characters and gives us some proper sci-fi drama. At least some of the time.
NEXT EPISODE
Alright, next week it's episode 2: Beta Test. But if you want to share your own opinions on Kids These Days (the episode I mean), then you can use the comment box below.
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