WHY WE LIKE IT: A fun new cast and ship, fresh and fun.
WHY WE DON'T: Where are Tilly and HER cadets?
REVIEW: A Starfleet Academy series has always seemed viable to me, especially when Trek was at its biggest, in the mid-90s, when "teen/young people" soaps were equally big in Prime Time. Well, it's a genre that's big again, usually mixed in with genre elements (think Riverdale and such), so they finally pulled the trigger on it. As soon as Tilly started a new Academy in Discovery, it was clear the show would take place in that show's largely unexplored super-future, which made me, on paper, pine for a more "classic" Academy (but knowing we dodged a bullet by not getting yet another "let's recast everyone we know" series, if they'd gone with Baby Kirk - been done - or Baby Picard). But in execution, the super-future is a lot of fun and the opportunity to do some world-building instead of contentiously re-imagining the past.
The genius idea here is that part of the Academy is a ship - the U.S.S. Athena, which has a beautiful winged laurel shape - that turns into a building on campus. That means Chancellor Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) can also be a captain - I love how she gets cozy in her giant chair - and cadets aren't necessarily stuck on the same campus grounds every episode. Far more adventure OUT THERE. But as a spin-off of Discovery, we do have a dreaded "season arc", though having seen episode 2 already, I can at least infer that it's mostly going to be a running subplot with, at the very least, a weekly B-plot supporting it. That's more Strange New Worlds than it is Disco or Picard, and I hope they strike the right balance. And so this makes Caleb Mir, a rogue with untapped potential who nominally hates Starfleet for separating him from his mother during the post-Burn hard times and now looking for her, the main character. Everyone else, save perhaps Chancellor Ake who is trying to rectify that mistake (hers), are supporting players. I had hoped Tatiana Maslany would play more than a Flashback Mom, and that hope remains.
There are a LOT of characters in this show, so many it's hard to know which will become a concern, except those that are currently in the opening credits (or the closing credits, in this case, kudos to the production for not spoiling the Academy by showing the actual opener in episode 1), and even that is subject to change in modern Trek (the show adds a few names in episode 2). I suppose we can split the cast in two: Faculty and students. Of the faculty, Ake is obviously most fleshed out and I like what Hunt is doing with her, even wondering if some of the decisions (like having her feet up in the captain's chair) were initially hers or in the script (the production is allowing ad libs in a way that was never possible in the Berman era, and indeed, there's a lot of humor in the show). She's part Lanthanite, like SNW's Pelia, and shares her long life (though not quite AS long, she still remembers the Federation before the Burn) and wild hair. Following strict sentencing of Caleb's mother 15 years ago made her drop out of Starfleet, devote herself to teaching on Bajor, and keep trying to fix what she feels is a travesty of justice. Caleb will be the principal's pet, but he can't trust Starfleet or others much at all, and it's a dynamic that is already paying dividends. Ake's Number One, a Klingon/Jem'Hadar lady that could only be possible in the super-future, is my favorite otherwise. She shouts at the kids like we're in a Dominion Boot Camp and is generally hilarious. The Doctor from Voyager is still active all those centuries later and the ship's CMO/Academy's medical professor and he's, of course, very funny too. It's like Robert Picardo never stopped playing him. Speaking of A.I. characters, Stephen Colbert plays the voice of the A.I. Dean of the school, pretty much blasting cafeteria messages all day - we'll see if this gets tiresome, and Brit Marling is the voice of the computer when it's doing more computery things. The rest of the Athena's bridge crew is likely to get even less screen time than Discovery's, but I do like that they have someone specifically tasked with assessing the pedagogical value of things when they're out in space (even if that gets the ship into hot water in this case as a possible field trip turns out to be a pirate lure). Admiral Vance seems to be part of the cast, fine, but despite IMDB's promises, Tilly isn't. I'm sure she'll appear eventually, but she's conspicuous by her absence, as are her cadets. That said, I don't think we need her.
As for the kids, obviously we have to like Caleb as he's our POV character. He's the kid who didn't grow up in the Federation, is only at the Academy because it's his way out of prison and Ake's promised to help find his missing mother, and has an edge. But not too much edge. Despite being closed-off and causing problems by, for example, hacking the ship's systems to find his mom, he's got a good heart, jumps to the defense of bullied cadets, and makes friends more easily than he'd admit. His automatic uniform and haircut are hilarious in the face of his resistance. And of course, he's highly proficient - fighting, engineering, computers... - and he and the cadets get a chance to show what they're made of on their trip to Earth. A lot of people are already favoriting Jay-Den Kraag, the Klingon who only wants to become a doctor. He's unusual for a Klingon and has a similar amusing deadpan as Worf. My favorite cadet, however, is Genesis Lythe. She's very witty, and has the kind of smart mouth that gets one into trouble. In a way, she plays the mentor to the others, having grown up in space, a real Starfleet brat. She's the one I would fancy if I were in her cohort. And she's "normal", whereas the others have super powers. SAM is the Academy's first holographic student, already fangirling on the Doctor (he's a legend), and very awkward indeed (she's only months old despite her 17-year-old programming). She can interface with computers and probably has other tricks up her photonic sleeve. Though generally, her special power is positivism, which clashes well with some of the darker characters. And of course, there has to be a school bully, and that's Darem Reymi, a snobbish alien who presents as human, but whose true form is aquatic and can walk in space without a suit for 8 minutes. He's a jerk (I love the "A-hole 1 to A-hole 2" exchange), but no one can say he's not brave. Otherwise, Cadet Pickford is a noticeable comedy relief character who seems ill-equipped for Starfleet, but she's not in the main cast.
And then there's the recurring villain. Paul Giamatti is Nus Braka, an outrageous pirate - he's having a LOT of fun with this, and so are we - who is part Klingon, part Tellarite (a hybrid they probably came up with because they wanted an obnoxious Tellarite, but didn't want to give him the pig make-up, so Klingarite it is), and responsible for dragging Caleb's mom into his crimes. He's escaped, but he knows the secret code between mother and son, and follows the signal to the Athena, lays a trap, and almost steals its warp core. But for the cadets, though Ake does a good job of stymieing his efforts while they do their thing (often without the proper access given adults). Nus escapes, but not before eating all the scenery. His main function in the episode is showing the audience that just because it's a "school soap" doesn't mean there won't be action and space stuff.
One of the things the show does have to look out for is how it balances forging a new future and referencing the franchise's long and varied past (especially given its 60th Anniversary this year). The Academy is full of Easter Eggs, from the Wall of Famous Cadets (I can't say "alumni" because my own, tragic, descendant Josh is on there and he never graduated) to the Doctor's opera club, to seeing Bajor and the Badlands again, to random aliens in the background (should we have a black and white Charonite in the class? weren't Bele and Lokai the last of their kind? maybe others made it off-world prior to Let That Be Your Last Battlefield... okay, fine, I've talked myself into it), there are a lot of freeze-frame moments. Just so long as they don't detract from the story, we're fine. And so long as we keep doing new things, too. A few cadets are from entirely new species, and what about that big scarab pirate in Nus's crew! It's a fine balance.
LESSON: Everything's a teachable moment.
REWATCHABILITY - High: A great first episode, with lots to look at and a host of new characters with great potential. I think we have a winner!
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