Starfleet Academy Review: Bold Experiment or Space Soap?

I went into Starfleet Academy expecting to have a hard time with it. A Star Trek series about students, set mostly around a school and in the 32nd century, sounded like the kind of idea that could go very wrong very quickly, and sometimes it does. But after watching the first season, I don't think the basic idea was the problem. There is something genuinely interesting about seeing the Federation through the eyes of people who grew up after The Burn, especially because they know a very different Federation from the one we saw in earlier Star Trek shows. The trouble is that Starfleet Academy doesn't always know whether it wants to explore that idea or simply have fun with a group of young people at school, which makes Season 1 a very uneven experience. When it works it really feels like Star Trek, but when it doesn't it can feel more like a space version of a young-adult drama.

Holly Hunter Is the Best Reason to Watch

Holly Hunter gives the show a personality almost immediately, as Chancellor Nahla Ake, she doesn't play the usual serious Starfleet leader who stands perfectly straight and gives speeches about duty. Instead, she's much stranger than that, with a character who can be playful, casual, and even a little odd while still feeling like someone with centuries of experience behind her. That combination works well, and Hunter gets some of the season's best material when Ake is dealing with Caleb. Their shared history gives those scenes an emotional edge, especially because Ake knows that her own decisions helped shape the life he's living.

Paul Giamatti is having a completely different kind of fun. Nus Braka is loud, theatrical, and often ridiculous, but Giamatti commits to every bit of it, clearly enjoying the chance to play someone who can walk into a scene and completely take it over. His character also becomes more interesting once we understand the history between him and Ake. Hunter and Giamatti are probably the two actors I most wanted to see together whenever they appeared on screen.

The Show Gets Better Once It Stops Trying So Hard to Be a School Drama

This is where my opinion of the season changed. The early episodes spend a lot of time introducing the cadets, their rivalries, personalities, and relationships, and while some of that works, other parts feel like the writers are checking boxes because, well, this is supposed to be a school show. Then the season reaches its stronger episodes, and suddenly the whole concept starts making more sense. The fourth episode is a good example because Jay-Den Kraag's story gives the show room to explore identity, expectations, and what it means to choose your own path instead of simply following what others expect from you. That's the kind of character story that fits naturally into Star Trek.

The season also has some fun with SAM, the young holographic character who is essentially learning how to understand people and the world around her. Her curiosity gives the show a chance to do something Star Trek has always done well, which is taking a character who sees humanity from the outside and using that perspective to make us look at ourselves.

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I Don't Mind the Basketball-Court Drama. I Mind What It Replaces.

A lot of the criticism around Starfleet Academy comes down to the fact that it feels too much like a teen drama, and I get it. The cadets argue, have crushes, compete with each other, and make stupid decisions while sometimes they're standing around talking about personal problems when there's a perfectly good galaxy outside waiting to be explored. But I don't think young characters are automatically a problem for Star Trek. The franchise has always had room for people who were inexperienced, emotional, stubborn, or simply wrong, and the real question is what the story does with those traits, and that's where Starfleet Academy sometimes loses me. The 32nd-century setting gives these characters a huge amount of material to work with because they grew up after The Burn, their view of Starfleet isn't the same as Picard's, Kirk's, or Burnham's, and they're entering an institution that is still trying to repair its relationship with the wider Federation. Yet sometimes the show would rather have them argue on a basketball court, and that's a missed opportunity. I don't need every episode to become a 50-minute philosophy lesson, but I did want more moments where the personal problems of these characters connected to the much bigger world around them.

The 32nd Century Makes the Cadets More Interesting

This is the part of the premise I really like. The Federation has been through something terrible, and The Burn damaged the trust that held the Federation together. So imagine being born after all of that, you grow up hearing stories about what Starfleet used to be, but that's not the Starfleet you actually know. For you, the Federation is not some perfect symbol from the past. It's something damaged that adults are trying to rebuild, and that changes the meaning of becoming a Starfleet officer. Caleb is especially useful for this story because he doesn't automatically trust the institution. His history gives him a reason to question the people who are asking him to believe in Starfleet, which is much more interesting than simply making him the rebellious kid in class.

The other cadets have their own ways of dealing with this new Federation, too. Jay-Den's struggle with Klingon expectations, SAM's attempt to understand organic life, and the different backgrounds of the cadets all give the show ways to ask the same basic question: What does the next Federation actually look like? and I just wish the season had pushed that question harder.

This Is Still Star Trek

For all my complaints, I don't think Starfleet Academy has forgotten what Star Trek is about. Empathy is everywhere in the story, and the cadets have to learn that being a good officer isn't about being the smartest person in the room or winning a fight; It's about understanding people, making difficult choices, and accepting responsibility when things go wrong.

The setting is different, the characters are younger, and the tone is lighter than some fans might want, but none of that automatically makes it less Star Trek. In fact, I think the youth angle could become one of the show's best ideas if it were given more room to grow. The people rebuilding the Federation shouldn't all think exactly like the people who built it the first time, and that's the whole point of having a new generation.

The Backlash Is More Complicated Than "Fans Hated It"

The reaction to the show has been all over the place. Some people clearly came into it wanting to hate it, and online review bombing doesn't tell us much about the actual quality of a season when ratings are being pushed down on purpose. At the same time, I don't think it's fair to blame every negative reaction on a review-bombing campaign. There are real problems here; The writing can be uneven, some of the dialogue is awkward, and certain character conflicts feel much bigger than they need to be, while some of the more interesting science-fiction ideas get less attention than they deserve. That's criticism the show has to own but even if you remove bad-faith reviews from the conversation, Paramount still has to ask whether enough people were watching and whether those viewers cared enough to come back.

Season 2 Being the Last Season Feels Like a Turning Point

With Season 2 set to be the final season, Starfleet Academy now feels like part of a bigger change happening around Star Trek. The franchise spent years expanding in different directions, and Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and now Starfleet Academy all approached the universe differently and I liked that. Not every experiment worked for me, but I'd rather see Star Trek try something new than watch five versions of the same show.

The problem is that experimentation still needs an audience. Starfleet Academy may have been too different for some longtime fans and not distinctive enough to pull in enough new viewers, and that's a tough place for any series to be.

I Wanted More From This Season

I'm glad Starfleet Academy exists, and that's probably the simplest way I can put it. I like the idea of showing what happens when a new generation inherits a broken Federation. I like Caleb's complicated relationship with Starfleet, I like what the show does with Jay-Den and SAM, I like Holly Hunter far more than I expected to, and Paul Giamatti is clearly having the time of his life.

But I kept thinking about how much better the season could have been if it trusted its 32nd-century setting a little more. The show has an entire civilization recovering from The Burn sitting behind these characters, and that's an enormous story. Instead, we sometimes get school drama that could happen in almost any setting and that's where Starfleet Academy loses me.

I don't think the answer was to remove the young characters or turn the series into another serious space opera. The answer was to make their problems matter more to the world around them. Let them argue about what the Federation should become, let them disagree about whether Starfleet deserves their trust, and let their friendships and romances collide with real ethical choices. Give me more of that, because the idea of a new generation rebuilding Star Trek's future is actually a very good one, but the first season just didn't quite know what to do with it yet.