SPOILER ALERT! If you have not watched the Season 1 finale of Starfleet Academy yet, stop reading right now. Seriously. Turn back. Go watch it first and come back later.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way...

As everyone who knows me already knows, Star Trek has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up watching reruns of the original series, and when The Next Generation premiered I was about thirteen years old. That meant I was glued to the TV every week when it aired. At that point in my life I didn't really have a strong father figure around, so in a lot of ways Captain Picard became that for me. His leadership, his calm intelligence, and his sense of moral clarity had a big influence on how I looked at the world.

Like most Trek fans, I've also learned over the years that a lot of these shows take time to find their footing. The Next Generation had a rough first season. Season two started improving, and by the time seasons three and four rolled around the show really hit its stride. Deep Space Nine followed a similar path. The early seasons were a little uneven, but once the Dominion War storyline kicked in the show became something special.

Voyager was much the same way. The first season or two had some bumps, but eventually the characters settled in and the show started to shine. Enterprise was an interesting case. The first season was actually very strong because everything felt new and exploratory. Then seasons two and three leaned hard into the Temporal Cold War and the whole dark anti-terrorism storyline, which kind of lost me. Finally season four got really good just in time for the show to get canceled, which was frustrating because it felt like they had finally figured out what they wanted the show to be. The mirror universe. The augments. Canceled. Sad.

Then came Discovery, and honestly it never really clicked with me from the start. The pilot episode immediately lost me when I had to read Klingon subtitles for what felt like half an hour. I hate reading subtitles, and it just didn't grab me. Some of the characters were great. I loved Saru, and I thought Captain Lorca was fantastic. But Michael Burnham never really resonated with me, and the whole arc from convict to captain just never sat right. Don't get me wrong, Sonequa is a fine actress, but the character annoys me.

Part of the issue may simply be where I am in life now. When I was younger, I watched Trek and looked up to these characters as authority figures. Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and even Janeway felt like leaders you respected and wanted to learn from. There was optimism there, a sense that humanity could be better. Discovery shifted a lot of focus toward younger characters and emotional drama, and for me it sometimes felt like watching 90210 in space. That's one of the reasons I stopped watching the CW superhero shows. Arrow. Supergirl. Flash. Teen angst and drama. Yuck. Fortunately Superman and Lois was a lot better even though a lot of that show focused on their sons.

To be clear, the social themes have never bothered me. Star Trek has always been about equality, progress, and social issues, and that's one of the reasons I love it. But the tone of Discovery just didn't land for me. When the show jumped into the far future it lost me even more, because the technology suddenly felt completely out of control. In earlier Trek shows the technobabble from Geordi or Data at least sounded vaguely plausible. Discovery pushed things so far that it started feeling like magic instead of science fiction. That's one thing early Star Wars did right - they had "magic" like the Force, but they kept it vague and mysterious. Then they ruined it trying to explain it. Midichlorians, what!?

That said, Discovery did give us some things I genuinely enjoyed. Captain Lorca was great. The introduction of Pike was fantastic. I was initially unhappy with what they did with Spock when he first appeared (beard? Ew! I didn't know Vulcans could grow beards!) However, he eventually evolved into a version of the character that felt much closer to the Spock we know and love.

Strange New Worlds, on the other hand, I absolutely love. It feels like a return to the roots of Star Trek. Episodic adventures, strong characters, great captain, and that sense of exploration that defined classic Trek. I've even been hearing rumors about a possible Star Trek Year One series featuring the new Kirk, and I have to admit I like this new actor playing Kirk even more than I liked Chris Pine.

So that brings me back to Starfleet Academy. Going into this series I was cautiously optimistic. I've mentioned before in previous Captain's Logs that I wasn't thrilled about it being set in the far future timeline. Personally I think they missed a huge opportunity by not setting the show in the past. Imagine a Starfleet Academy series set during Kirk's era or Picard's academy years. You wouldn't even need the famous characters as main leads. They could show up occasionally as side characters or classmates. That would have been fantastic. Did you year about that cadet that BEAT the Kobayashi Maru? What!?

Because the showrunner came from Discovery, I was a little nervous (OK, a lot nervous) about how the show would turn out. And I'll be honest... The first half of the season was a struggle for me. I didn't really connect with the characters right away and I found myself pushing through some episodes just out of loyalty to the franchise. More teen angst. Ugh.

But somewhere along the way the show started to find its legs. The turning point for me was the episode where they discover the derelict ship during what was supposed to be a training mission. That episode suddenly raised the stakes and gave the characters something real to react to. From that point forward the season really started improving.

The last two episodes in particular were very strong. The penultimate episode (and yes I love that word) and the finale both delivered some great moments. The characters that initially annoyed each other started coming together as a team, and that dynamic felt very Star Trek.

One of the best moments in the finale was Caleb's speech during the tribunal. Paul Giamatti's villain was fantastic throughout the season. He's one of those actors who can elevate any scene he's in. But Caleb's speech brought back something that I think has been missing in some of the newer Trek shows. That sense of optimism. That belief that people can be better.

And that right there is the heart of Star Trek. Early in the season I was also annoyed by Captain Ake walking around barefoot all the time. I'm sorry, that just feels gross on a starship. But as the season went on the characters started growing on me. Even the one kid, Darem, who was initially the - pardon my French - asshole of the group, started evolving into a pretty decent guy by the end. I like how they're grooming him to become the pilot.

The holographic character, Sam, was another example. At first she was incredibly annoying. But then came that episode where she and the doctor essentially lived seventeen years together in their own time while only a couple weeks passed in reality. That storyline allowed her character to mature, and suddenly she became far more interesting.

I also really like the Klingon cadet. The character concept is great and I like what they're trying to do with him. However something about the voice is bothering me. The actor's real speaking voice is actually much higher pitched, and he did a TikTok about he's been working with a voice coach to lower it for the role. But it sounds like they're also adding some kind of digital harmonic effect in post production. The result makes the voice sound too artificial.

You can't beat Michael Dorn as Worf - The GOAT - when it comes to that deep Klingon voice. He was the gold standard. What they're doing here reminds me of Christian Bale's Batman voice, which always sounded like he was gargling marbles. Ben Affleck handled it better by using a voice modulator, which made sense because Batman was wearing a high tech suit. But that kind of effect doesn't really work for a Klingon. They should drop the voice processing.

As for the rest of the crew, the Betazoid character is great and has a lot of potential. I also like the other female lead. She's a solid character, even if I still think Genesis is kind of an unusual name. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but it still makes me chuckle a bit. Apparently that was a popular name for girl babies around 2010. Who knew. Maybe their mothers were all Wrath of Khan fans. LOL.

I also can't finish this review without giving props to Jett Reno. Tig Notaro absolutely owns that character. Reno has that perfect combination of dry humor, blunt honesty, and the kind of no-nonsense attitude that makes you believe she's been keeping starships running for decades with nothing but spit and duct tape. She delivers every line like she couldn't possibly care less, yet underneath that you can tell she genuinely cares about the students and wants them to succeed. That balance makes her the perfect officer to be leading a mission like this. Reno was already one of the brightest spots on Discovery, and I'm really glad they brought her into Starfleet Academy. Every scene she's in is better because of it.

Now I do have one major nitpick with the finale: that minefield. Look, I understand the idea. It's the MacGuffin of the episode. It's the big obstacle our heroes have to overcome. But the scale of it just doesn't make sense. If we're talking about a minefield spanning thousands of light years, do you realize how many mines that would require? We're talking an astronomical number of devices spread across an incomprehensibly huge volume of space. It simply wouldn't be practical.

I know it's science fiction, and Trek has always stretched reality a little bit. But this is one of those moments where better science consulting could have made the situation feel more believable. And just to be clear, I'm not claiming to be a physicist. I'm no Brian Cox or Neil deGrasse Tyson. But I've spent my entire life reading science and science fiction, and I have a pretty good sense of what at least sounds plausible. That episode set off my bullshit detector.

So if anyone over at Paramount happens to read this, here's my official application. Yes, that's right folks. I will absolutely work as a Star Trek science consultant for cheap. Possibly even free. Now database consulting on the other hand... That I definitely will not do for cheap anymore. :)

So where do I land on Starfleet Academy after the Season 1 finale? I've gone from cautiously optimistic to looking forward to Season 2. The first half of the season was rough for me, but by the end the show finally started feeling like Star Trek. The characters are beginning to gel as a crew, the writing found a little more confidence, and most importantly that sense of optimism is starting to come through again. If Season 2 builds on what worked in those last couple episodes, tightens up the science a bit, and lets these characters keep growing, this could turn into a really solid Trek series. I'm not completely sold yet, but for the first time I can honestly say I'm looking forward to seeing where they go next. And that's a good sign.

LLAP
RR