STARFLEET ACADEMY and the KURTZMAN problem and TREK issues overall

STARFLEET ACADEMY and the KURTZMAN problem and TREK issues overall

No one noticed I didn't review the awful season three of STRANGE NEW WORLDS, nor episode five of SFA or 8, 9 and 10. I was shocked by what I saw in the lowering of quality and retroactively they made me even hate the first four episodes which, at first, I saw as at least entertaining and even some 10/10, even Jay Den's backstory but....in hindsight.

Anyway here are some of my responses to the high praise given the characters and SFA in general and my review of the flavored, unearned glory given to both Kurtzman's error/era and the 1990s TREK in general. I think they are all quite flawed and almost a total waste of time. Given there is some goodness and even greatness among the muck but still....here goes the compilation.  

CALEB

I will give him this: he's handsome, fit, well built, looks good dressed in anything or nothing at all, muscled, good looking, and very, very tall and a pretty good actor, too. He desrved a better show and better writers. The character of Caleb is even good and a great premise to start with. Basically he's a taller, more mature (barely) version of Loki from SPACE ACADEMY. Sadly, Caleb is played like a Gary Sue rather than a real kid who had to live on the streets, angry at Starfleet Ake for "making a mistake" by imprisoning his mother who helped kill a Starfleet guard who had a family and separating him from his self entitled, poor evil mother Anissa, who wasn't going to sit in a cell and wait while she had a kid to help her in her evil. Anissa doesn't find him. He escapes and as a little whittle boy he avoids Ake who can't find him two minutes later. When he returns, he's angry for about two minutes but decides to fit right in and be a good whittle tall boy. Suddenly, he's no longer an isolate until the other characters in bad dialog tell us he is so. What we see is very different: he's not an isolate at all. He's suddenly friends with the big dumb comical Jay Den and we see them together in two scenes in ten episodes. He's buddy buddy with Genesis who tricks him, he the street kid who probably had to work con scams. He suddenly has mad skills for computer hacking (who was his trainer on the streets, the kid from WAR GAMES?). He can manage wiring and can mad fight (that might make sense). He acts less like a street kid orphaned by bad parenting (his dad, a male isn't important to the show thus he's not discussed, probably Wuss Break In IS his sad!) and more one of the spoiled rich kids from ANIMAL HOUSE or one of the characters that want to break out of ANIMAL FARM. Suddenly, he's well trusted by Ake so much so he is allowed in her private room to help her pack (she's a total loser she can't even pack her own bags) in yet another comic relief scene that doesn't work. He tells her he's going to hack into places he's not allowed to and she lets him go off and do that. He tells her he's not going to stay on vacation with the family she wanted him to and she lets him. Rather than using vacation time to find the much wanted Anissa (not for punishment for cuddling and coddling), the two are going to enjoy some ME TIME. Caleb also as a street kid who should be loyal to those who saved his life, doesn't text back Tarima Sue who saved his life. Everyone is afraid of her, she who saved their lives from the Furies that Starfleet officers (who gamble against them on the bridge) put them in. She, for her part, plays victim, poor me. Boo Hoo. If she acted sooner, two white guys would still be alive. No matter. Caleb doesn't text her for FOUR weeks or more, making him unlikable too. He's male and the show thinks lesser of males. Aso for ignored brown men? No, no, and no. Brown men are all over TV these days or haven't you noticed and rightly so. They're great. But further to character, it doesn't make sense, he calls college his home which no college student does. His long sought after mom is gone again by ep ten's end and he's alone again but he has his "crew", his "community" and his bare foot pseudo mom in Achey. SF does not value who you are and what you do in this show: it takes in EVERYONE, every loser who swallows a com badge or who is a 120 day old hologram who can't figure out what she is or wants, a coward who fled the lost Klingon family who can't fight, the rich girl who is trying get out of daddy's shadow who had every LOR mention she has fear, and the fish boy who has three ways while having (and later leaving) an arranged marriage and duties at home on fish world, among others. SF used to be exclusionary, taking only the best who might survive in such a job. Instead, now, they take on those who might DIE on the bridge and get you killed by their non action or their actions. Sam has a meltdown in a crisis, Genesis leaves the capt chair to go pee and/or comfort and hug a needy Sam while the world is ready to burn, Jay Den can't calm Sam down and can't fight Furies much other than throwing them around and not killing them, even when his friend is in danger (and he doesn't seem secure in his gayness either by lack of better writing). So, imagine any of them in charge of you during a crisis. You're dead. This also goes by way of teachers who don't teach but mock, insult, and seem to hate their students using sarcasm and jokes to embarrass or excuse them. Or prompt them into prank wars using life forms that may get killed or may kill others. SF is not excellence here but de-excellence. Shame about all of this show. It has a great cast, great premise stolen from other shows (Sky High, Zoom Academy, Space Academy), Sandro among them, the best of them really but the writing is just lacking. He, and we, deserved better. Ah well, let's go watch Saved by the Bell where at least the tone is assured and another brown boy gets merited.

 

 AKE:

the many faults of Ake on Starfeet Academy: quirky is fine...for someone like Doctor Who's the Doctor but for a SF officer who needs decorum and to set an example, her level of quirky is just no acceptable.

The whole sitting in a chair thing and bare feet thing is a non starter as she does that so infrequently so who cares about that? If you watch the whole show, she makes other mistakes and does other things that are far worse than any of that and in fact, she never sits barefoot on the bridge while commanding the crew.

 She does however, let a small boy escape under her nose and two minutes later can't seem to find him or where he or his mom later on went.

The college kids find mom right away. Instead of using her time to find the escaped assistant to a murderer, she goes on vacation and even the son Caleb decides to use his time to ...sun bathe and engage in his own quirky toxic games with the equally criminal minded Genesis who against all her own personality traits is using him to do illegal things to protect herself from others seeing her LOR that GOT HER INTO SF in the first place with comments about her fear (WHAT? NO ONE PUTS that in a LOR).

 There's so many things wrong with that I don't know where to start but never mind.

Caleb tells the commander he's going to use his time to break into computer things and she shrugs it off and he does. Then she doesn't punish him with anything more than community service (Genesis, too, though SHE should be expelled).

Also badly written: there's no other student who stayed behind at the college AND no actual real guards on a STARSHIP which is at the college. What's wrong with that? Lots. Let's move on.

Ake allows gambling against her students on the bridge by the equally unfunny but striving to be comedy relief Luva but it's okay because Ake bets for them and loudly, all of this.

She also trains students in an area of space that's deadly twice over (Furies are known to be in the area AND the ship the "kids" are on when active once killed the crew). She has them trying to activate the ship!

Others have countered that with: other cadets have done the same thing as if that's a good thing! What else?

She fails to make nice with the Betazed and needs Caleb to get TarimaSue to do it. She antagonizes the War College (war college? What?) leader, she instigates the prank war so her students win by feeding them info about how to make a new life form and use it against the equally immoral War College Cadets, regardless that the new life form and/or the cadets may get hurt or killed, she continues to laugh at the War College leader and fails to see the plan Nus Brackin (Wuss Break In) instigated.

She fails to protect the War Lab and needs its one ship to help and it is quickly disabled.

In addition, nothing the teachers teach (if that is what they are doing, seems as if the teachers are just insulting cadets) is used to help overcome the problems the cadets face. What else? Lots.

 She punches Wuss after he's detained. She lobbies to let Anissa go even though it was the right choice to put her in jail the first time (Yes, entitled Anissa, we DO think you should sit in a jail cell since you helped kill a man and yes, his family should hate you). She believes it was wrong to put Anissa in jail (did Ake really think that Anissa should raise Caleb?).

 I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff. A terrible character, a terrible person, and a being unfit to command.

Oh yeah, member she used a Kling On former love to get him to betray his own people to make the Kling Ons think they won a battle they really didn't? And she thinks it is a great idea to herd all the Klingons into one spot on one planet. Pandering much? And why care if the Klingons won't help the Federation anyway?

FLAWS: 

how long a list would you like? Let's go with as much as I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others who can find more and I can find more too if I care to watch this laugh fest again.

 

First: Anissa committed a crime and decides she should not be in jail and escapes. She thinks her raising her son is important: I say he's better off not being raised by her.

 

Ake makes the first of many mistakes: she thinks Anissa should have been let go. She has Caleb escape under her watch and can't find him two seconds later.

 

Anissa either, though the 20somethings find her easy enough and faster than she did.

 

Ake helps the students continue the prank war, alienating the equally nasty War College commander (why does Starfleet have two academies and why is one a War College?) using a rare life form that puts it in danger and cadets in danger as they create it from scratch.

 

Ake fails at the Betazed diplomatic meeting.

 

Sam fears getting shot, Sam can eat food and is seen trying to or eating food but in a later one claims not to.

 

Caleb knows she's drunk in the bar but leaves her alone anyway.

 

Ake lets Luva bet / gamble on the ship on the bridge during a training mission against her students. Ake gambles too for them.

 

Ake has a training mission in an area of space where Furies are known to be AND where a ship activated once killed people and the mission is: to activate the ship. WHY not train in a holodeck instead?

 

Tarima can save everyone but two white males have die before she does.

 

She and Caleb had sex but the gay males merely get hand holds and a peck on cheek possibly twice each in TEN episodes.

 

Tarima saves everyone (except the two males) but everyone shuns her as if she's to be feared. Tarima herself plays victim for two more episodes.

 

Caleb doesn't call her for four weeks.

 

Genesis: got into SFA with LOR that had people write about how fearful she is? What? She decides to erase those as if someone is going to look at them again and risks it all to do so, tricking Caleb. Before that she was dead set on being straight and narrow. She ruined it for herself.

 

Ake should expel her. She is a cliche as is Jay Den, who sets back gay male representation 25 years by being written as a female and telling Remme NOT to hold true to his word, his duties, and his bride to be...and formerly Remmie was this outgoing bully extrovert who had multiple partners but now he's loyal to one girl until he's not.

 

The premise: leave your duty and family to go be an a hole back at college.

 

In those shoes Jay Den can barely walk.

 

Caleb tells Ake he's going to get into all the computers he shouldn't and she lets him after she can't pack her own luggage. No other student stays at the Academy at all?

 

 

 

Back to the Lab: a secret weapon lab making multiple weapons of destruction and/or energy powers is guarded by ONE star ship that is easily knocked out of commission. SF didn't think to put other ship to guard the lab? It is taken and many die and weapons stolen.

 

One atom of Omega should be able to blow up a significant galaxy, as much as Nus (a cliche villain who stands around making jokes and putting people on trial when he can just kill them and extort money from the entire Federation--for a great villain see Sidwell in General Hospital who has his hands in everything and can be charming, realistic, over the top, and menacing and funny, unlike Nus who is none of those things despite Paul) has it should destroy the entire universe.

 

two minutes is two minutes except in ep 10 where during the near destruction of the universe, Genesis leaves the captain's chair to go stop tantrum baby Sam and gets blamed for Sam following her around like a puppy dog, when it's Sam's own fault. While the uni is ending.

 

The Doc now disrupted, now knows how to stop the mines by stabilizing them? What? The mines are already stabilized. Do they mean deactivate them?

 

Suddenly, Sam and Jay Den get the idea too. Maybe it would have helped if they knew this stuff an hour ago?

 

Anissa doesn't think she should be sitting in a cell after helping Nus rob and kill. I do.

 

Caleb would be better off being raised by almost anyone else and btw, Caleb doesn't act or react like ANY street kid I've ever seen. Go on? You want more? There's a ton more.

 

Sam is 120 days old? And yet she is let into SFA. Sam comes from a race that SF doesn't know much about? Or do they?

 

 

Sam is supposed to be studying humans but for next semester wants to room alone?

 

The Doc with a bullhorn at dinner, Reno a miserable sarcastic crone at dinner. Ake laughing at the War College guy. The big meeting he worries about never being shown.

 

There's supposed to be a black out in that episode (ep5?) that HE caused and yet....in the subplot A, when needed there's energy everywhere. There's no human guards on the starship in SFA, Caleb gets through all the security, and why is there a starship in the Academy anyway?

 

The writers don't seem to understand Betazed's either unless Tarima is a Tomorrow Person or a Time Lord. Reading someone's mind is not empathic. They seem to understand Kling Ons less.

 

Jay Den curtseys and almost falls.

 

And no college kid calls his college his home. Ever.

 

 

Sure I missed a load of other stuff but that's just the stuff I could remember on the fly. the fly? Not funny. The announcements about student sex? Not funny. Sam? Not funny, not charming, not realistic.

 

Tarima’s biggest distinguishing trait in the early episodes was choosing to enroll in the War College rather than Starfleet Academy because she wanted more discipline and focus in her life. But after she winds up in a coma from using her Betazoid psychic powers to rescue the Starfleet cadets in episode 6, she’s forced to change schools because Starfleet Academy can offer more trauma support. Why wouldn’t War College have programs to deal with the trauma of being in battle? This just feels like a lazy way to wedge her into the classroom.

 

In the season finale Tarima uses her psychic connection with Caleb to find his mother. It would have been far more compelling if that bond just let her talk to Anisha and try to get her to help Starfleet. Instead it lets Tarima perfectly locate Anisha’s position in space like she’s a psychic navigation computer. Tarima wound up feeling more like a plot device (and romantic accessory for Caleb) than a real character.

 

Grade: F

 

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is streaming on Paramount Plus.

 

 

Darem is basically the same character as Genesis, but his development is even weaker. He and Genesis are quickly framed as competitors, but Genesis is better at everything. Darem explains his drive comes from being a Khionian noble with extremely demanding parents. But when Darem goes home to marry his planet’s crown princess, his parents aren’t even present. When he walks away from the arranged marriage because he’d rather be in Starfleet and with Jay-Den, the only person he has to explain himself to is his fiancée. There’s no reason given for his parents’ absence. That feels like a wasted opportunity to show Darem standing up for himself and build further kinship with Jay-Den, who also abandoned the path his parents wanted him to take. Professor Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) says the cocky Darem will probably wind up becoming a pilot instead of a captain. Maybe a change in focus will help him distinguish himself next season.

 

Grade: F

 

Genesis is pretty much a one-note character: an overachiever desperately trying to live up to the reputation of her admiral father. The one compelling wrinkle is that she’s so obsessed with how she’s perceived that she edited her letters of recommendation to remove notes about those very insecurities. That scandal gets her pulled from a program for aspiring captains, but she faces no meaningful consequences. Three episodes later, Genesis winds up in the captain’s chair anyway.

 

Grade: D

 

The Klingon medical student Jay-Den had by far the best episode of Starfleet Academyseason 1. “Vox in Excelso” showed what being an iconoclast cost him, even as he demonstrates his reverence and understanding of his people’s way of life by advocating for their autonomy from the Federation. He also got the best relationship plot: a love triangle where he was put in the position of weighing his romantic preferences against supporting a grieving partner.

 

Then Jay-Den practically disappeared from the show. In episode eight, the character has a cold, so misses a big cathartic emotional arc. He’s one of two main students left behind when the other protagonists go on a mission to find Caleb’s mom. The love triangle never progresses. His story isn’t the worst, but it’s the most disappointing because of how much potential was squandered.

 

Grade: D

 

 

SAM has the strangest backstory of the main cast as a recently created holographic emissary for the Kasquians, a species trying to determine if they can trust the Federation. She was a ray of sunshine amidst the show’s brooding teens because of her childlike enthusiasm for meeting people and learning new things. Her arc initially focused on setting boundaries with her creators, learning to accept her own limitations, and using her bubbly personality to get even the most taciturn characters to open up.

SAM instantly connected with Starfleet Academy’s sole holographic instructor, The Doctor (Robert Picardo), and spent most of the season trying to get him to be her mentor. In episode 8, “The Life of the Stars,” The Doctor has to choose between letting SAM die or taking full responsibility for her and spending 17 years of relative time raising her as his daughter. The slow push and pull of their relationship was undermined so that Starfleet Academy could imitate the seminal Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Inner Light.”

 

What’s even worse is the personality transplant SAM receives from this treatment. She returns to Starfleet Academy as just another brooding teenager, viewing her past self as embarrassingly naive. She’s literally sapped of color, trading the striking gold makeup and hair accents she wore in the first half of the season for a more subdued look. Besides being cranky, SAM doesn’t show any new interests or depth from her new childhood. Maybe next season we can at least see how she feels about her dad’s passion for opera.

 

Grade: C

 

Captain Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) was the judge who sentenced Anisha, but since then she’s worked to make things right. When Caleb is arrested for trying to break his mom out of prison (he doesn’t know she actually broke out years ago), Nahla rescues him, brings him to Starfleet Academy, and promises her full support in finding Caleb’s mom. Caleb’s skepticism about Starfleet inevitably breaks down as he excels in class and makes friends. By the end of the season, he reunites with his mom but decides to stay in school.

 

This plot arc checks all the boxes. Caleb ends the season in a very different place than where he started and his story fits into the themes of the show. But it’s also very predictable. The best moments are when his friends call him out on his mommy issues and relentless need to push everyone away. They’re still endlessly forgiving, so he never faces any real consequences for his selfishness and recklessness. Now that Caleb’s story is largely resolved, I’m hoping someone else gets the spotlight next season.

 

Grade: B

 

 

 

 

Caleb’s story was central to this season’s plot, so he got the most screen time of any of the show’s characters. His mother, Anisha (Tatiana Maslany), worked with Nus Braka when Caleb was a child, and she was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the death of a Starfleet officer. That gives Caleb a personal connection to Nus, who, in the grand tradition of Star Trek trial episodes, uses Anisha as his key witness to question the Federation’s benevolence.

 

 

 

imed to shake up the Star Trek formula for the franchise’s 60th anniversary by focusing on a group of young adults studying to be Starfleet cadets. After a rough pilot that was overstuffed with exposition and character introductions, showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau settled into a compelling formula of using classes on everything from debate to the mysteries of the universe to frame character-driven episodes. But in the back half of the season, their work started sliding in quality like they were students with senioritis.

 

 

Come, Let’s Away,” brought a major tone shift and emphasis on the schemes of series villain Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti). But focusing on a big threat to the United Federation of Planets left much less time for character development, causing many plotlines to feel rushed or underdeveloped. Now that the season is over, we’re grading the storylines for the show’s six main characters — and hoping they get better treatment when they return to school for season 2.

 

HIDING BEHIND REAL HATE

well I don't think it's true that everyone complaining (the show is bad and NOT because of diversity or representation but because of bd writing in EVERYTHING) but if you really listen to the characters in the OS, Deep Space Nine, TNG and possibly VOY you will find they mck alien races, differences, and customs. They are irritted by aliens. They often believe that "all members of that race" are like "that" and more. Riker also once told aliens they did not belong in Starfleet because they were all too imature...and as presented in the show, he was right. There are numerous examples of all of this. Often Troi reads an alien and she tells Picard that the whole race is like that based on this one individual. That's the basic idea OF bg try. The whole idea behind Starfleet, itself just created to present a conflict against Kirk in COURT MARTIAL is that they are the elite and better and know better than most others and they will impart "help" to other planets that think differently and have solutions that to SF seems...imoral. Much of that is the total opposite of what ALL IN THE FAMILY tried and succeeded at: showing a bgot's stoo pdty for what it was and making him a multi faceted, realistic man who had reasons behind his stew pit ity and thought and confronting him with situations that CHANGED him and his attitude by the end of the series, thus also changing many a bigt themselves in real life. SFA and recent trends seem to NOT understand that TV can demonstrate how wrong some thinking is rather than condmning the person who has such wrongness about them. You can't change someone you're constantly villainizing and deleting and canclling. You can change them when you show them the real result and the truth behind such htred. Instead lirals and those who don't hte, HTE BACK and the more you resist something, the more it grows and gets stronger. Instead of hte, understanding is needed and then real change and discussion and listening can happen. NONE Of that is happening from the current TV shows OF TREK and DOCTOR WHO. Heated Rivalry and other shows like it ARE showing that differences can be mended and bd frames of thought (bigory, hmo pobia) can be reversed and changed to find the good in someone who formerly didn't behave like a good person. had to edit to get published. It's really anoying that I have to edit certain words.

 

HURTZMAN: WHAT WENT WRONG

what went wrong is they messed with the past of TREK, got a lot wrong in the Kurtzman error which made it feel like an alt universe and a bad one at that. Murky slow pace, bad representation, especially for gays as one of the gay men pictured kills the other, only they return to life or something. SNW started out as if it could be the past of the original TREK but then in season three they did things to Vulcans and added Trelane in one ep with Q as well and the Gorn (in s2 too?) making this a bad show AND not a TREK that could take place before the original show at all. Spock laughs and is more human, exploring his human side, which is a good premise but can be pushed too far, Chapel in s3 became an unlikable woman and soon they are turning the captain into Muppet in s4, s3 used cliche tired plots. DISC was slow, murky, boring, and then moved ahead in time or something. The characters were unlikable. Picard has promise of something new and two good characters in Elnor and Santiago but dropped them mostly in s2 and s3, killed both off, returned one to life and did nothing with him but made him to go SF cadet training. Instead, after a horrid season two where they wrote out Elnor and Santiago acted like a moron, they had the worst TREK with the worst dialog and worst plots, most inane illogical occurrences, and slow pace and moronic missions and plots in one long boring storyline, they then had to reset in season three and while better, it used an old plot (Kirk's Son from the movies) and brought back tired, boring, old folkies from TNG, which was never my favorite as it was slow, boring and unpromising. THEN as if all of that is not bad enough, they went and did ten of the worst TV episodes for the worst TV show ever SFA. The ideas and characters and cast were all great but each and every script was not serious, boring, silly, illogical and horrid. Every scene has something wrong in it. Every script has about 15 things wrong. It could have been serious, darker, and edgy. Instead, it was silly, illogical and insulting. The worst mess of a franchise since Moffat took over DOCTOR WHO and slowly but surely destroyed that show.

 

YOU VS ME:

YOU: 1. The Gateway to the Franchise

The franchise must draw in a younger demographic to ensure its future. Starfleet Academy serves as the perfect entry point, leaving 'breadcrumbs' that spark curiosity about the entire Trek legacy. Whether it’s the high-stakes diplomacy of Deep Space Nine, the survival themes of Voyager, or the foundational ideals of The Original Series, this show acts as a bridge that turns new viewers into lifelong fans.

 

ME: Trust me, younger people are not going to fall for this drivel for very long. Young people are not du mb as they are depicted in this series. With so many choices to choose from, they will find TV shows and other media that give them what they want: action, adventure, realistic characters they can relate to, more truthful premises, and good story telling. Younger people know when they are being cheated and being manipulated by writers who just have the “feels” moments without the build up needed to make those “feels” mean something. SFA does not have high stakes that matter or that are logical events of what’s gone before but are more out of the blue and thus fake and shallow. This show doesn’t have the themes of good TREK.

 

 

 

 

YOU: 2. IDIC: Diversity as a Strategic Asset

It wouldn't be true Star Trek without a sharp allegory for contemporary issues, and the show grounds its diversity in the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC—Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. This isn't just representation; it’s a demonstration of how unique cultural perspectives solve "unsolvable" problems.

 

 

ME: IDIC is wonderful. Sadly, this show does not have that in any meaningful, comprehensive or fulfilling way. It throws it all together and therefore does more damage than if it didn’t address any of that in any way. Sadly, we need GOOD SOLID writing that we do not get to be the great representation that other shows such as HEATED RIVALRY, SINGLE OUT, DEAD BOY DETECTIVES, LOVE VICTOR, YOUNG ROYALS and many, many others are already doing. Just because a character is diverse, doesn’t mean they are well written. The well written and realistic part has to come first. Caleb acts like no street kid ever and in fact, is a Gary Sue instead of a realistic orphan who grew up on his own on the streets of the universe. The idea had premise and interest but as presented that “idea” of Caleb is barely present. Instead we get a confident, super human who can do many things the plot needs him to do including turning insecure in the last episode as if he will fail there, which he does not, in many of the various cliches and predictable slow turns and burns this show takes, none of which are surprising or entertaining. And it’s not just his character, it’s all of them.

 

YOU: Two moments perfectly illustrate this:

* Jay-Den and the Klingon Crisis: In the episode “Vox in Excelso,” the Federation faces a diplomatic stalemate with Klingon refugees who refuse a new home because it feels like a "handout" rather than a conquest. Jay-Den’s inclusion is the only reason this crisis is resolved. Because he understands the Klingon soul, he proposes a solution that allows the Klingons to "win" the world through a mock battle. Without a Klingon in the room to bridge that cultural gap, the Federation’s standard diplomacy would have failed. His diversity wasn't just a trait; it was the key to peace.

 

ME: This might mean something if the solution were….one, really Jay Den’s: I believe they are Ake’s. And more importantly if it was Jay Den’s solution: it doesn’t hold water. Kling Ons are not stoo pit enough to believe a fake battle is a real battle that they won fair and square (as if Klingons in the real show were ever fair and square, they were not; in fact, they were merely created to represent the tyrannical Russian Gov’t and its military during the Cold War aftermath of WW2 and not some honorable savage under control group).

 

ME: Jay Den’s mere existence needed better writing and better directing; as such he’s an embarrassing coward who fled his people to go be safe when they needed him among them; and also as such, he’s a cliché gay male representation, which is bad as it sets back gay male representation at least 25 years; we need the representation, only we needed it better written and more realistic; TREK might try again and here’s a suggestion: BEFORE you do a gay Klingon, which is a premise that has merit, maybe get a human gay male representation right first and stop the gay baiting and show them having as much sex as the hetro couples copulating on screen while your “maybe” gay males hold hands twice and peck on the cheeks once in ten episodes. 

 

 

YOU: * SAM and the War College Disadvantage: When SAM, the holographic cadet, explores the sensory experience of 'Gumbo,' it highlights a major blind spot in the Federation's more rigid institutions. The War College found itself at a tactical disadvantage because they ignored the importance of alien food cultures and rituals. While the military-minded focused on shields and phasers, SAM’s journey reminds us that understanding the 'heart' of a culture is a strategic necessity.

 

ME: Just having a War College makes no sense. Military tactics should be taught in the Academy, not a separate College.

 

ME: If Sam were at all a realistic hologram entity being, this might work. I have to admit, while I can remember anything in TREK that was worth remembering (can anyone forget the original Gorn encounter, the Doomsday Machine tension, the fun of the first Tribble episode, and even the scope of the animated series?), I can not recall much of what the War College vs Sam regarding food. I do remember the outlandish moments too: Sam sticking her tongue out to lick water or something? Sam being cowardly that she can shot and yet she can vanish from one place and reappear in another, so why doesn’t she? Sam this or that, none of which makes sense or makes her a realistic holographic being (and TREK and science wise, Tarima has problems too being a Betazed and the writers do not seem to understand what an empath is as against a telepath unless she’s both which is what they seem to be trying to tell us). Her entire background and reason for being at SFA (they accept 120 day olders?) makes any bit of sense and almost every scene with her is flawed in some way and/or annoying as her character before her literal glow up (with a fake parent as if she’s human) is irritating and baby like (but she’s still worshipped by Tarima’s equally unrealistic but almost more engaging brother, possibly another gay baiter character) and after her glow up, she an entitled, blaming others more annoying outlandish bore. SAM wants to pout during a total universal crisis and blames Genesis for SAM herself following Genesis around like a baby. Equally outlandishly stoo pit, Sam is there to study humans for a race that seems as if it is God like and do it without her and WITH her they can access all data quickly so why a project about the equally bland Sisko? If they want to learn if humans are too risky for them, why send a newly developed baby? Why not just access the entire history of humans to find out and make judgement that way?

 

 

YOU: 3. More Than a Teen Drama

Without these deep allegorical layers, the show might have been just The Breakfast Club in space. Instead, it proves that a university setting is the ultimate laboratory for IDIC. By showing us that Jay-Den’s specific background was the only way to save the Klingon people, the series reaffirms that our differences are our greatest strength. It’s a vital evolution of the Federation's ideals for a new generation.

 

ME: Less than a teen drama. If this were drama, or even SAVED BY THE BELL comedy, this might work. The show has no tone. It’s trying to be all of that and none of that at the same time. These two ideals cancel each other out leaving us with nothing. There are no deep allegorical layers or any layers at all beyond the superficial what’s there is what you see and feel. The Breakfast Club was entertaining if not deep but was actually, in truth, deeper than anything SFA tried and failed to make us feel without doing the work and world building and character creation to drive those feels and back up those feels with real motivations and real reasons to drive home a point. Instead, things come out of nowhere and don’t really jive with what we knew about the characters mere episodes or even scenes before.

 

 

ME: the university setting fails too or rather the scripts fail to show us anything that the students are learning that is of real value in their two crisis during the season’s run. Or anything of value in space. The solutions are skills they had before, not ones they learned at the Academy. Surviving in space without tech, relating to truly alien life forms, detecting alien life forms with your own senses, how to work a space suit, how to cope in extreme environments, how to bluff, how to detect alien cultures that are so very different they might need you to adjust to a change in social cues and commentaries, even ones that might seem immoral or evil to you, NONE Of that is addressed in the classes. Instead, we get a gimmicky episode about feelings in a theater class that is supposed to address the emotions of the deaths of two males who were white and who died because Tarima didn’t make the sacrifice early enough. AND Tarima plays victim, while her friends blame her FOR KILLING EVIL MURDERERS OUT TO KILL THEM. She saved them all and they make her suffer for it. Worse: She makes herself suffer for it. And to make matters and characters more unlikable, Caleb doesn’t call her for four weeks! Tarima saved them only because Caleb “loved” her, meaning he was her boyfriend and sex partner (which by the way Jay Den, Kyle, Dareem, and Tarima’s possibly gay brother DO NOT HAVE on screen—or at all that we know of).

 

AND Tig’s character –the dismal, miserable Reno---who at dinner was so exuding she did not want to be there to help Ake (the Doctor was equally irritating with a bull horn at dinner?)---is not a good teacher during the classes. She’s sarcastic, self reflective instead of exuding and dishing out info to help her students. Like Luva, her love, she puts them down, insults them and crushes their spirit…until, surprise, the plot relies on her not doing that: in a crisis situation. As the universe is about to explode (in an equally illogical plot by the cliché villain that Ming The Merciless would shine next to), Reno decides to use THAT as a teachable moment. Everyone praises her for that but if she had taught her students all semester anything at all that would help them here, she wouldn’t have to do that. And even here, she’s putting them down.

 

And by the way, Genesis gets her captain seat…and complains she has to go pee AND leave it to go hug it out with a blaming, patronizing, pouting breaking down Sam who need her feels rubbed…all during a total crisis. Engaging? No. Entitled females? Yes. Jay Den can’t do a thing about it either so stands by in his skirt watching helplessly (he does that a lot which is why he’s written out…at least five times during this season so much so that he barely shares any scenes with Caleb and yet…by season end they claim to be besties?).

 

The show also DOES NOT show differences as greatest strength. It takes all the “my family failed me so I found a new family” theme and puts every character into that flawed premise: Tarima, Caleb (his mother was a criminal who belongs in jail), Sam (she will do it her way and not the way the God like powers that be that sent her there want her to---WHY they fix her instead of just replace her with a being that can get the job done quicker is beyond me and the writers), Jay Den (who then advises Darem—Me Rad spelled backwards, to do the same: leave your duty and leave those who trusted your false persona), Dareem (who changes the most from ep to ep without any real motivation to and who lied to his family and arranged bride that he claims to love yet leaves to go be “an a hole” and  a D word in college and who was supposed to be loyal to his bride to be yet cheated on her with various partners at the same time in thruples if he is telling the truth: we never find out), Genesis (the cliché of rich daddy girl trying to outshine her father), and all the rest.

 

Face it, none of your arguments hold water. The show is a mess and has even more problems (plot wise, more techno babble than Doctor Who and past TREK combined, a Doctor who pulls an answer to the last ep problem out of nowhere and a failing captain). It would do better to be cancelled NOW and/or start all over in some other universe, possibly the MIRROR universe because doing the complete opposite of what they did here would be best. As it is the first season, like PICARD season two (which was worse), this is a lesson in how not to write characters, not to write for TV, not to write for sci fi, not to write for teen drama and not to write in the TREK universe. If would be future TREK writers watched this and PICARD season two and did the total opposite, they’d be good, even great.

 

 

TREK'S ALWAYS BEEN WOKE and....NO, NOT REALLY, NOT FULLY:

1968 — Uhura, a Black woman on the bridge, kisses Kirk → people were outraged. Some stations wouldn’t even air it.

 

Uhura was ground breaking and let’s face it, iconic but she was never really allowed to do all that much. As for the kiss, it was not as ground breaking as all that: she and Kirk never had a relationship before that kiss (and SNW and the movies are all just alternate universes) or after that kiss. They were being forced to do that by evil aliens who thought it amusing. Hardly a groundbreaking relationship. While other shows like LAND OF THE GIANTS had a black man as second in command and in on the action in EVERY episode.

 

And I'll add in that Kirk always (**&ed women in every ep, which is hardly woke. 

 

1987 — The Next Generation launches → fans reject it. “That’s not Kirk. That’s not my crew.”

 

And indeed, it was not. I could take Picard. Riker was annoying. Worf and Geordi didn’t relate to anyone well, except maybe each other and Data. Data was basically a rip off of the LOST IN SPACE robot trying to find his human side, only now instead of action adventure, we had numerous episode devoted to talking about this. Many episodes were slow and dull. Troi was interesting and had a sort of romance with Riker that worked. Bev and Picard had this will they/won’t they thing going that after season five got stale and boring and annoying. Many episodes just fell flat and left a lot of guest characters who should have been involved heavily in the lives of the characters, gone and forgotten. The family aspect vanished. And we had numerous horrid eps involving holodecks, Kling On culture and war, Worf’s son, and changing time (which would plague 1990s TREK all throughout). And in magazines and interviews, the promise of a gay male character that might be a regular. Never happened. And the one character who had promise: Wes, was disliked by TREK fans, and taken out of the show. So no, nothing great. Thought season three was good and got off the ship a lot more, the other seasons were not great at all. Some great eps here and there but mostly a dull, boring affair. And one episode seems to tout terrorism as a good solution.

 

 

1993 — Deep Space Nine → a Black captain, a story about war, faith, and occupation → “too political, too dark.”

 

Nothing wrong with a black captain. But make him likable. Sisko was not. Lots of comedy scenes and lots of Ferengi episodes and they’re just not a great race for entertaining me at least. Boring, silly, unfunny. All the characters, even the transporter guy O’Brien who was fun in NG (and not given a enough there to do), are unlikable here. Not one of them was relatable or interesting. Almost all of them were annoying, especially O’Brien’s wife. There was a guy who melted (Odo?) and visits from Troi’s mother and Q, of course. And a great big boring war arc with evil cults and what not. After three or four seasons, I bailed. I checked in a few times a year to see if it got better. One episode with O’Brien and the hot doctor trapped in a hostile universe seemed worthwhile. But many episodes still had time travel and schtick that goes with that (O’Brien a few seconds ahead dies but the O’Brien a few second behind lives? WT?). No, no, and no. Clearly these were STAR TREK but they weren’t good or entertaining. Again, a few good eps emerge but not as many as NG.

 

There’s always a promise of something in these 1990s TREKs and usually that promise is NEVER fulfilled.

 

 

1995 — Voyager → Captain Janeway, a woman in command → people questioned if audiences would accept her leadership.

 

Starts out great. LOST IN SPACE STAR TREK style. Okay. Great idea. Great premise. Great captain, in charge and commanding and well acted. Again, though, the other characters were sort of unrelatable but at least this time, they were outrageous enough (Kess? The Doctor, Tuvok, Kess’s husband) to be likable and watchable.

 

At the time, again, it was promised we’d have one of these main characters revealed as gay and I think I read where the actor who played Harry told us that he was told Harry was gay and he played it that way. Certainly, the ep where he and Tom Paris are made to fight each other showed their love for each other as more than just friends. But as in all TV before recent eras, it’s pretty much forgotten about next week when the next problem happens, almost like a reset on everyone’s emotions, feelings, relationships and love. And again, then slowly, the same thing that beset NG hit VOYAGER. No one seemed to relate to each other now that the initial crisis of working together was over.

 

Worse: Kess leaves and we get 7 of 9 and her gimmicks. The show became the 7 of 9 show which was basically the same as two NG stories: Picard unbecoming his Borg side and Data trying to find out what it means to be human. It’s all boring in all places. 7 of 9 should never have been added. And of course, all the men fall for her, even Harry, it would seem.

 

After season four or five I gave up on this garbage. Every now and again I’d check back in. Time travel and changing time to save everyone time and again, a common NG and Deep Sleep Mine cliché, here used again and again and again. Forced isolated stories to give each character their due, almost always fell flat and felt fake.

 

One good ep was the Doc waking up as the hologram he was in the far future to find a civilization that sees Voyager as a weapon of mass destruction and Janeway as a kind of evil villain (think the main WW2 evil man). POV was explored. But those were few and far in between. 

 

 

2001 — Enterprise → different tone, different feel → “this isn’t Star Trek anymore.”

 

And they were right. It wasn’t. Only, it was. Promised as TREK before the OS, this didn’t look like it, feel like, sound like it, or act like it. It looked as if it took place far after VOYAGER even. So that was strike one. Strike two was again, the promise that one of these officers could be or would be gay and would come out of the closet soon. Never happened. Strike three: bad and boring stories in season one. I had given a lot of time and effort and tried to like 1990s TREK and be patient while they gave me stories I could like. They failed to. Mostly. Two or three good stories a year is what NG and Deep Sleep Mine and later seasons of VOY gave me. I was not willing to give this show more time and effort so bailed after episode three. Bad show.

 

Years later, I saw the tail end of the series, the last four or five episodes and they were more action adventure and more TREK and more entertaining. They still, despite directly stating they would, did not present a gay male character.

 

 

2017 — Discovery → new lead, new style → same words again: “not real Trek.”

 

Saw the pilot. This one is strange. I like the characters. They’re real. They felt real. I didn’t like the pilot. It was slow and the Kling Ons strange as if this were a new universe and not our TREK Universe. There was even, in later episodes, a lot of action and adventure and space stuff. For some reason, the ongoing arc just did not capture me.

 

They even had two gay males. As a couple. One is likeable, the other is not. The unlikable one kills the likable one. Maybe it was an alien that did it, taking him over or having copied him. I lost interest faster before that.

 

I do seem to recall, or maybe that was in PICARD, an attack tribble which is a fantastically scary idea. And imaginative. Nothing came of that. In any case, DISC, is rare: a TREK I recognize as good and worthwhile but one that doesn’t spark my interest enough to watch ANY more of it. I liked the bad captain idea and that the female officer had to replace him. I like the idea of this show more than the show itself. Maybe some day I will watch it. I did go back and watch the Pike eps because I LOVED STRANGE NEW WORLDS season one so much.

 

 

2020 — Picard → older, broken, human → “they ruined him.”

 

Season One was okay. I can accept some of that. I didn’t find it unrealistic. Yet, season one and three seem to me to repeat the mistake of the movie (six?)  that stated Picard should feel lonely and sad because he never married, never had a son to carry on his name and has no legacy despite him saving the universe/multiverse many times. THAT’s a sad premise and one that is totally false and almost homophobic. Season One made some bold moves and some questionable ones but at least it tried (Love the “Picard STFU” scene) and was mildly entertaining. Season three wasn’t trying at all. It just repeated the Kirk Son movie storyline with Picard and his son and Bev (yes, Bev, far too late to have any kind of relationship with Picard—the show should have started with them married!). It also featured the old folks from NG that I had no desire to see back in uniform at all. It tried to make us think some of these characters had a rapport (Troi and Bev?) that doesn’t work. Still it was far superior to the trash that is season two of Picard. S2 is the worst TV show season ever (and that includes STARFLEET ACADEMY and POWER RANGERS).

 

False premise, bad character beats, awful dialog, awful plotting, the worst choices by characters and the writers, Picard a coward, and time travel to the present day or something. Just the worst. 7 of 9 is back and in season one almost made up for her destroying Voyager but here, in season two, she’s the worst and her lover is even worse.

 

What’s even more tragic is that they had a great character male in Elnor, a unique one that they just forgot about and shifted around and got out of the way in season one and in a season two move that is just unintelligent, killed him off, and later brought him back to life, just to get him out of the way for the old folks like the boring Worf, the more boring Troi, the totally dull Geordi and the stiff Riker. Elnor is one of those unfulfilled characters that would work in or out of STAR TREK but never got a chance at life.

 

Santiago fare better and worse. Better because in season two he got more air time. Worse because in season two he got more air time…and the dialog and plot are just so awful for him. He manages to get arrested by ICE who here, are going to take a bus load of innocent immigrants out to the desert and kill them. He hooks up with one of them, an entitled annoying mother and her brat son and takes them to their ship! Santiago had a chance to get dumb when Elnor didn’t. The writing here is dumb as F. And it’s not just with him: Jurati, Picard, his various female helpers, Guinan, and 7 of 9’s lover all say and do things that make no sense at all, either in common sense in raiding a party and/or freeing ICE victims that weren’t freed before? Or showing a little brat around an already open door ship. Jurati at one point goes out of the ship, leaves it open for a cop to go in and get killed by the Borg prisoner, and goes to sleep in an open abandoned house? And there’ s a lot more. Here’s some of the dialog:

 

 PICARD season two quotes that have to be heard and read to be believed:

 

“The trial never ends.”

 

“It’s not my job to be interesting.”  

 

“To put a point on it, you need to give me something.” 

 

“Telling stories isn’t really your thing, is it?”

 

“And obviously you know how the main story ends?” 

 

“What, you mean once we’re through with all this shit?”

 

“Even your closest friends call you captain.”

 

“Plus we’re the main event. Now Jurati and Rios, they’re like a side story.”

 

“It’s kind of how I roll?”

 

“Something you’re afraid others will see?”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

 “boring ass non-fiction”

 

“I thought to myself, I really must see Jean Luc. So I simply sought out the nearest explosion.”

 

 

 

“Well, that was all kinds of terrible.”

 

“How much worse can it possibly get?

 

 

 

“If you don’t shut up, I will find a way to destroy you.”

 

“Everything’s so intense. All the cars and honking and shouting.”

 

Laris: no one of any importance

 

Rios: Let’s take our positions.

 

“I get your pardon.”

 

“Try harder.”

 

“I’m just not myself tonight.”

 

“Deep respect for a grown man that will scapegoat an innocent child.”

 

“Trust me. We’re the good guys.”

 

“Good guys never say that.”

 

 

 

“I’m gonna go touch everything!”

 

 

I noticed you left out STRANGE NEW WORLDS: probably because no one has anything bad to say about season one. It was TREK more than the OS was TREK. It felt genuine, adventurous, lively, funny in the right areas, and relevant. All the eps in season one were 10/10 eps other than the fairy tale ep (that was a 0/10 or  1/10 and really, really bad).

 

Sadly STRANGE NEW WORLDS could not keep it up. Season Two was good but involved Kirk time traveling back in time with Khan’s daughter or something but only in one episode so unlike PICARD season two, we’re onto something else next week. The much hated musical episode at least had a reason for that happening and it was fun and the songs were actually good. The characters were still likable.

 

STRANGE NEW WORLDS season three is downright awful, maybe more in a way than SFA season one is. I think the writers got wind the actors were having a good time with comedy scenes and silliness (the Spock changes souls with his mate ep in season one was hilarious) so unwisely, they did more of that. This season cements the show as being NOT in the ORIGINAL TREK universe. Chapel becomes nasty to Spock, Spock becomes more human, opening his human side more so maybe there’s an arc there but it feels wrong in a lot of ways but I could accept that. What I cannot accept is the whole Vulcan DNA thing against the Vulcan culture reasoning for being logical and seemingly cold. All the others treat Spock as if Vulcans are racist because it’s in their DNA and that they are logical because of their DNA. This is wholly wrong. And if that was just it, it would be upsetting but the rest of the ep is played for laughs…that aren’t there.

 

Anson Mount, so good in seasons one and two, is awful here and that one episode cements his role as awful now. His acting up to that episode is spot on in every episode. Sadly, that episode destroyed whatever merit he brought to Pike and I cannot wait for him to get off that show now.

 

Chapel is even more nasty as a Vulcan and that ep damaged her character as well.

 

Other episode are either retreads (Q and Trelane, more Gorn) or direct rips offs (The Gorn stranded with that pilot they/them is directly ripping off a UFO episode which might have taken it from literary sci fi). Point is: the show is bad. I think three of the ten episode are highly unwatchable, it is that bad. Maybe that season is worse than SFA and almost as bad as Picard Season Two.

 

2026 — Starfleet Academy → younger voices, new perspectives → and here we are… again.

 

Yes, bad writing, bad directing, bad premise, bad character consistency, bad science, bad morality, false premise, and nothing realistic. EVERY scene is poor, every character beat beat. Every plot just bad. Maybe ep1 is okay but there are issues there, too. Even Paul Giamati,  who everyone praises,  has a character that makes no sense and falls apart in the last two episodes. Reno is equally dismal as a sarcastic teacher who seems to hate her students and teaches them nothing they can use in their adventures. Her lover Luva, yes really----gambles against her students on the bridge during training …in  a very dangerous area of space, known by Ake to have Furies and a ship that might explode if activated…so the students are supposed to active it. What?

 

New perspectives are not supposed to be in illogical scripts and false premised ideals. And characters who change from ep to ep. It doesn’t work, and the gay representation, so badly needed, is written as a joke, a comedy sitcom, and as light while the hetero couple get full on sex, our gay heroes (IF they are gay, it’s hard to tell) get a peck on the cheek once and hand holding twice in TEN EPISODES. No, no, and no.

 

Every ep has something wrong with it. At least ten to 15 major things wrong and about 5 minor things wrong. Those cannot be overlooked.

 

SFA is a bad show. TREK has failed. And the result is losing fans and losing audience members who know when they’ve been cheated and know false premise and false promises to wait until it gets better. It is clear that it will not get better and the makers of it, desperate to get their product out there don’t care one bit about what the audience thinks because they made season two without any feedback from them about season one

 

DAREEM he is and he isn't? Many things?

wait, what? No, no, and no. Dareemmyee was a totally ill written nightmare. First he's presented as the antagonist to Caleb but after one episode it doesn't work: there's no real contact there at all and when there is it's sort of a smiling grudge of friendship that just does not work. He's a bully and a tough guy. Until....he isn't. He's also presented as this sexually active being who has been with girls, guys, and others unless he was lying. Or bragging. THEN, he's presented as this guy who wants to lead as a captain. He tries to out to do that (and maybe even cheat on Genesis?) Genesis but eventually gives it over to her, which goes against everything we've seen of him. He's also gay baiting in the writing: he stands close to Jay Den for some reason, I guess liking him sexually though you would never know it. The gay males are not treated the same as the het males and females are in this series. They get to stand close, give looks, and one peck on the cheek and two hand holding scenes, none of them with Reamme or Dareem or whatever his name is with Jay Den, that's with Jay Den and Kyle who, like a few other students, vanishes mid way. Dareem then is presented as this shy guy who is loyal to his arranged marriage bride, arranged by his family cause she needs his help in ruling. Turns out she doesn't. And he --thanks to Jay Den's speech and the example the Kling On sets by abandoning his family and his people in mind if not actions---leaves his marriage and his people to go be what the writers make Jay Den call an a hole and dck. SO no, no, and no. Bad writing is bad writing and this show had the bad writing permeate every corner of this show, which had a fair premise but is filled with false premises, unrealistic and boring characters who keep changing and doing things wrong and right at the same time, who are not consistent and bad plotting, and more technobabble than all of TREKs put together with STARGATE and DOCTOR WHO. This show is the worst writing I've ever seen.

 

 

PICARD or PICK HARD?

The entire run of Picard was great. No, no, and no. PICARD season 2 is the worst POS I've ever seen, in dialog, truth in writing, character development and actions, consistency, and cliche. Just awful.

 

Streaming is not the problem either but content and the writing. Season 3 "giving fans what they wanted" which is pandering old folks in old storylines (Kirk's Son from the movies) and false hetero premises (Picard is nothing unless he has a son to carry on his name and lo and behold here's one!).

 

Changing direction did NOT keep the promise of the original storyline which was a sort of TREK BLAKE'S SEVEN. You have no idea what you are talking about. In addition, creativity and promise went out the window when they also sabotaged Elnor and wrote the best character out and killed him off, then brought him back in the cliche of time change. Even worse what they did to Santiago: marry him off to some hag nag with a brat son that he took onto their futuristic space ship to go touch everything.

 

And you blame the nitpickers, the fans that hate many of the things YOU THINK Trek stood for but often does not (Riker, Picard, Kira, McCoy, Spck and others often say racist things). VOY using 7 of 9 and letting Kess go produced some of the most boring eps of the entire franchise. I hate 7 of 9. She was there like Charlie's Angels were there: for the boobs. 

 

And finally, you misunderstand the idea of fan and fanatical. Someone is fanatical about the worlds they see, the shows they love, and when those shows are handed to someone who is not a fan, that’s a bad thing. Being a fan is a good thing. It means you love something so much, you’re willing to even give it a chance to change and when that change is not good for the vision and entertainment value of the show and makes it into something with a completely offset tone, inconsistent universe, and reversing or mocking the values of that something before it, then the fans are vocal. You react by hating that they are vocal and blaming THEM for what happened to Star TREK? No, no, and no. What happened was they put a man in charge who meant well but hired writers who thought they knew their profession and knew TREK. They didn’t know either one.

 

Some basics of writing are ignored in many episodes of Picard, Strange New World season three, and all episodes of SFA. Additionally, the most extreme of episodes gets basic TREK lore wrong and asks us to believe things that can never be. For example, we are to believe Kling Ons would NOT know a battle was being faked by the Federation or that they were out numbered and/or out fire powered by the Feds and that fakery was mostly due to one of their own, dishonorable traitors who “loved” Ake? Ewl and no.

 

Nah. If that portrayal had dignity, responsibility, and spouted good dialog and wore great clothes, bigots would have nothing substantial to say but with Jay Den and if he is even gay, and Kyle and Tarima's brother and Dareem, the writing is so bad as to arm them with more and more ammo to make more and more comments and sadly, some of those comments are correct. When the writing is VERY BAD for diversity, representation, social issues and whatever else (science, logic, character consistency), it just makes things worse for those things more than if they weren't present.

 

AND make no mistake, SFA is badly written from start to finish in almost every area. There's a good show buried deep inside there but so deep as to be almost missed. You can use your excuse of racists, misogyny, homophobia, male priv, and whatever other buzz words you libtards (and/or conservtards) call it these days but the truth is that many critics are none of those things and want diversity, gay male representation, and social issues and message but IN good scripts. That's not what we got here.

 

And your excuses for this show being this bad, are vile. ANY portrayal would not make them fearful. ALL IN THE FAMILY actually changed minds of bigots, racists and homophobes. SFA just gives them reason to hate those ideals and not see another POV. ALL had great writing; SFA had sophmoric, bad and illogical writing. If you can't see the difference, YOU are a huge part of the problem and then turn around and use your politics and creative hate to do the same thing they do: use the show for your own purposes rather than for what it is: SH T.

 

 

what do YOU LIKE about SFA?

I just maybe want them to explain what they like about it? And maybe see that the show is flawed in almost every way, every scene. As for discussing feelings, I do want to: maybe i'ts you who feel deep down that the truth is that this show is deeply flwed in the writing and deep down you dislike it too and know how bad storytelling is its main problem and you don't want to face that.

 

There are clips of Roddenberry's very talk about this feelings business and preaching stuff (as opposed to using good writing to get across a message) and he knew it would be the death knell for storytelling and shows if they did that. Now his franchise is doing that but I dont even mind that.

 

What I do mind is midless plot holes that liter every scene, unlikable and inconsistent characters and the false premise that criminals like Anissa should go free. Saddle us with all that plus a captain who acts like a rogue but also is supposed to be funny and head of a college, when clearly she can't do one thing right and you have a show born to be hatd. And if it were just one character that was bad or one plot hole or one episode, it could be overlooked but I see "fans" like you who want to overlook the whole season, claiming it is finding its feet and we should like tr sh, which is what this is.

 

Other than that, it's fun to watch because it's funny because it is so bad. It's a lesson in how not to write for TV, how not to write for TREK, how not to write Sci Fi, how not to bring gay male representation to a script in that manner but in a more serious way, how not to craft a believable villain, and on and on. You and others can pretend that this show is not that bad but the truth is: it is. Every choice, every scene, every character, every moment is pure badness.

 

Kling Hadar: maybe give us the “any number of things that could have happened” as a plot? So that weirdness can be explained?

 

Sadly, if someone has a condition where she swallows her comm badge, she should not be allowed in Starfleet. They need to take only the best of the best, not a weird group who have daddy issues, social issues, non fighting issues and divided loyalty issues. All these characters have are issues and while that might be good for drama and conflict, it doesn’t make these characters realistic or noteworthy: it makes them candidates for getting someone killed either in training or when they become incompetent SF officers.

 

 

There is no excuse of the glitter vomit. Frakes seemed to think it was silly and he was right but he seems to have had no choice but to use it and like it. Sad.

 

It’s not just Gen Z slang: Wuss Break In uses Earth terms all over the place in almost every speech he makes that he thinks is funny but isn’t. Paul isn’t good in this no matter what others say. He shines only because the writing compared to the other characters and their dialog is so poor. HOW would a Tellarite/Klingon know such terms? He’s have to be an aficionado of Earth TV in the eras of 1990 to now and he’s not.

 

NO defense for this poor show and it’s poor choices, poor writing and set back of gay male representation (and probably diversity, too).

 

STARFLEET ACADEMY: S1E7:

KO’ZEINE (COSIGN really?)

 

Another really bad episode. A character study again and a truly bad, unfunny one. I mean is this supposed to be funny? It’s not.

 

Romantic? It’s not.

 

Exciting? It’s as far from exciting as Alpha Centuria is from our sun.

 

No one is making good choices, especially not the writer.

 

Jay Den: doesn’t know his friend is to be married, doesn’t know the customs of his friend and decides to abandon him but then does not.

 

Darem: been a fake to his people almost his whole life; would rather placate them than to do what he really wants to do and at the Academy is an asshole. For sure. You can’t have it both ways. He’s either a nasty person who abandons his people to get his own way or he’s not.

 

Genesis: the biggest disappointment. Poor her. She had a Starfleet daddy. She faked her reference letters? How? Why? And if her letters all said she was operating on her fear, how did she get in? Did she get the slug killed? And really, playing games with toxic material? Ewl. She and Caleb should be kicked out.

 

Reno: ewl. Luva’s rants are annoying even for a few moments.

 

Ake: let’s Caleb and Genesis off the hook too easily. Both should be expelled. They could have gotten someone killed. And it’s that easy to get into a starship bridge? And the ship is kept at the academy? With no actual people guarding it? No, no and no.

 

Caleb: the actor is 6’2 and near Holly Hunter’s 5’2 unimposing frame, he looked as if he’s optically made into a giant even though I suspect he has not. He IS very hot though with his 5 percent body fat, muscles, abs, and near naked scenes again. BUT he hasn’t called or reached out to Tarima in FOUR weeks?!!! And he’s still, even after SHE saved his life (while letting two others die first)? What a total jerk. And his speech at the end is so pandering and cry baby.

 

SAM: she leaves for a spa. A hologram going to a spa. Nuff said.

 

Kyle: almost a non character. Jay Den doesn’t show up but Kyle sun tanned anyway. How did they communicate? Were there any other buildings on the fish world which was dried up, a lot like the episode. Kyle is actually rather boring and when being insulted, almost too nice. He feels like a cardboard cut out.

 

This show is filled with great visuals and an impressive cast (at least the cadets, I can’t say much for Holly Hunter, though she’s okay but the lady playing Reno is terrible). But that’s all it has. It has almost no meaning. The planet looks okay with the CGI but the scenes there take place in one area and look cheaper than a Sat Morning Kid show like THE FAR OUT SPACE NUTS or LAND OF THE LOST, which actually looks better than this unmoving, boring set.

 

This show does not deserve a second season, let alone a third. It has such promise but it’s such a disappointment.

 

Another boring, annoying, badly written character study where almost nothing happens except one character almost ruins her dream, another had his dream girl but doesn’t appreciate it, and the other abandons his duty for what he wants and his love abandoned too to be …alone at Starfleet. Because of a speech made by Jay Den. Did Jay Den make that speech intention of getting Darem to leave? It’s not made to look that way but who knows. And who cares. This is not a space adventure show, it’s a soap opera and not one of the good ones.

 

I almost want this show cancelled here and now. And yes, it is that bad, boring, and pointless.

 

 

Next week: HYPTENUSE.

 

1.           Tarima uses her power when she's able to and saves them. Before that, the subspace field distortion prevents the Athena from beaming them out. She's also terrified to expose this ability, because, frankly, it's terrifying.

Well, if she could get in Caleb’s head, then…why not do it and destroy the Furies BEFORE that or did she actually beam over to do that, I did forget if she had to beam over there to do that….no, she was on the table when she ripped out her device so she wasn’t there physically to kill the Furies but I could be wrong about that so no, no, and no. She could kill the Furies BEFORE the beam out, then there would be no need for urgency FOR the beam out or even an urgent need at all. Let's let her wait because it will create urgency...is stupid.

 

2.           Tarima talks about her first time because Caleb ASKS her to.

 

Yes, possibly but why would he do that? And even if he did that (I believe you) is it really okay for Tarima to talk about that in detail. AND how did Caleb know to ask about that? And what guy does that? Ask a girl to talk about a past conquest unless he has a kink to hear about how his girl enjoyed a past guy? Which with this show, it’s possible, gurl!

 

 

3.           Ake is forced into the negotiation by Vance, and, you know, sometimes you just don't win. Like Picard says, it's possible to do everything right and still lose.

 

I’d settle for Ake doing ANYTHING that’s right and still win at least once. She gambles with the Jem lady over her students getting things done right or wrong ON THE BRIDGE. She separates a child from his mom and then can’t stop the child from getting away or find him in years. She doesn’t see the pirate’s plan from a mile away. She can’t negotiate with the Betazeds and instigates a prank war with cadets creating a rare life form that she’s not sure will not hurt the War College. She then wants to make nice with the War College after showing them up. She gives up in ep1 right away. She can’t protect the cadets she put in danger.

 

 

 

 

4.           A lotta haters have been complaining about how the stakes are so low in this show. The cadets go to do a real training and now it's all "ooooh, so dangerous, think of the children!" Pick one or the other. Others died there? You mean the starfleet officers who died when the drive malfunctioned on it's first test? No one's asking them to actually use the drive in the exercise, just to get the power on.

 

Stakes are low in this show so…let’s contrive to put cadets in danger in training. I pick logic. The show by its nature has low stakes---it takes place in a college. There are other things at colleges that could happen….if it were set in the here and now and if they want to do political messages, well, there’s a ton of urgent danger I could mention about things that take place at colleges NOW but simple security would prevent those being plots in whatever century this show takes place in but knowing SA, their security probably sucks. Putting power on in a ship that once malfunctioned---uhm, a good idea? No, no, and no. And you failed to mention that it was known the Furies were in that area.

 

 

5.           We don't know enough about SAM's internal makeup to decide this. Caleb doesn't get her drunk, he shows her how to get drunk and she chooses to do this herself, and while Caleb leaves, Genesis is right there. And when Darem calls Caleb to come help with the fight -- never mind the fact that SAM hits two war-college cadets and they hit the floor -- he comes running.

 

Caleb sees her turn up the number to a 12 and still leaves to go have a kiss. “He shows her how to get drunk.”  She wants to get drunk to learn about how humans are not risky and then gets into a bar fight CAUSE SISKO would do it that way. Would he? Oh, so Genesis is there to…save her friend from being a dope and yet did he even tell Genesis that Sam was drunk for the first time in her 120 days of life? Maybe? Oh, he set up a situation that he walked out of so him coming running is a good thing?

 

 

6.           There's no gay baiting. We still actually have no idea if Jay-den is gay, or Kyle for that matter, and different people engage in overtly sexual/romantic conduct in different ways. Jay-den is obviously shy and also somewhat oblivious. He's not gonna hop in bed with anyone.

 

You obviously don’t know what gay baiting means. The statement “We still have no idea if Jay Den is gay or Kyle for that matter” IS gay baiting. They seem gay. They act gay sort of. They hold hands maybe? While the het couple holds hands, kisses, gets to know one another with actual full on conversations (about past sexual partners, family, and more) and not just light hearted, shy banter of maybe three lines about their bearing (gosh). That’s the very definition of gay baiting. They might be gay so keep watching! They might not be so we can keep those homophobes and traditional old heteros happy and watching. But they are but they aren’t.

 

 

7.           Reno is NOT un-likable. The Doctor is helping the War College Chancellor with a ceremonial dinner. Ake is a great leader as shown by her compassion, empathy, and connections to her cadets.

Reno at the dinner in ep 5 is miserable being there and acts accordingly. Does she even like Ake, or the Doctor or the War College guy? She seems like she hates them and hates being there. It’s not funny but it’s supposed to be. Just like the Doc with his bullhorn at dinner: it’s not funny but obnoxious. And Ake sort of screws up this dinner too and/or the War College guy is just being overly sensitive and a jerk, too, again.

 

8.           This is not the Starfleet of just after the Dominion War. They are diminished.

Ahh, so they can develop a super weapon in secret and not protect it but they can fake out Klingons in a fake space battle and not take on ANY damage but not protect the Lab IN SPACE! No, no, and no.

 

 

9.           The Sargasso is not taken out by one shot. They sustain damage under heavy fire, taken by surprise, and they're not shot by the Furies, they're attacked by the Venari Ral, with a very powerful warship.

I didn’t count the shots but it took how long to take out the Sargasso—less than a minute? Named after an area of sea that  ships  vanish in. Great. Name our ship after an area that ships vanish in. See:  “The Sargasso Sea is often portrayed in literature and the media as an area of mystery, where ships and wreckage can become mired in weed for years, even centuries, unable to escape.[34] Outer-space equivalents are a recurring motif in science fiction.”

 

 

“So yeah, that was definitely a block of text you posted, but I'm not sure if you're actually watching the show and misunderstanding it, or writing all of this based off of AI summaries.”

 

You’re not sure about a lot of things actually. Watched the show and even enjoyed most of eps1 to 4 and ep 6. Ep 5 is just illogical and boring at the same time. Your accusations of AI are unfounded and just an excuse to circumvent what is lazy writing, poor characterization, and a totally bad captain.

 

STARFLEET ACADEMY-s1e6: COME, LET’S AWAY

(SPOILERS)

 

What all the conflict in the reviews have caused is that…we or rather maybe just I, can’t really watch with a freedom of just watching. This episode, like all the others, like all TREK really, has issues but it’s fast paced, action packed, and makes more sense. Sure, why are cadets allowed on the bridge in a crisis? Why are they training on a real destroyed ship when there are holodecks? If Tarima could do that, why didn’t she just do it sooner? And SAM continues to not make sense: if she’s a holoimage person, she should not be able to be shot or at the very least, she can vanish and go onto the ship to safety. Her entire presence is a mistake, despite her still doing more to save the team than say, Jay Den, who seems to toss one of the Furies (who gave them that name? aren’t those female monsters from Greek mythology?) and Kyle who shoots maybe one or two?

 

It’s truly shocking that there are two deaths (SPOILERS below) and Tarima is left in a coma or coma like state so the show is not afraid to go there and get someone killed or hurt badly. That’s surprising.

 

What’s not surprising and could be signaled from the start is that pirate villain from ep1, Nus Braka, who is called on by Starfleet’s Admiral Charles Vance, is really working with the Furies. That could be signposted from far away. It is surprising they were after some Starfleet Lab in space, which is attacked with its main ship gone by HIM and the Furies.

 

First, if the lab is that secret and that predisposed to having a deadly weapon on board, why not have better protection than one ship. Second, that ship that was protecting them, when it rushes to help the cadets, is QUICKLY and EASILLY disabled. So what kind of protection was that? No, no, and no. And third, why not have more than one ship protecting that Lab? Many die.

 

On the plus side, Giamatti’s Nus Braka is a good villain, intimidating and using mind games, physically intimidating as well. Here, he does nothing physical but he still seems to generate power and in entertaining ways.

 

We learn a bit more about Capt Ake and she is NOT perfect, having stayed at her post while her son dies. She is only half Lanthenite (maybe that’s stated before?) and can practically live forever. Kelric is more likable and here, does not act like a jerk. This gambling thing between Ake and the half Jem, half Klingon (that in and of itself a bone of contention between fans and for many fans but not myself) Lura Thok, a heavy set (that being another bone of contention but again, not with me) character, is not a good thing. They’re gambling on their cadets’ success or failure! NO, no, and no.

 

Okay, so apart from all that, this was superior to last week’s POS episode that centered around Sam, Jake and Sisko, the last two from the insipid Deep Sleep Mine.

 

First, Caleb is super hot in the opening segments, having sex with Tarima and basically parading around his 9 percent body fat, abs, perfect skin, biceps and triceps. He and she are amazing to look at and their scenes together and apart are believable and entertaining and their rapport evident and well placed. I also like their story about being shocked by each other’s reactions to her powers. I like strong telepaths with angst and she is one of them.

 

This episode held together better than the last episode and had pace, action, fights, chases, and a strong sense of urgency which the last episode and if I’m honest, episodes 2,3, and 4 also did not have, even though I liked those.

 

This was no character study but involved character development and character choices and that was its strong point along with the new villains who are creepy as can be.

 

They manage to kill the adult watching the cadets (his name seems to be Vomit spelled backwards, sort of ---Tomov) and even more shockingly, B’avi, the Vulcan War College cadet, who saves Caleb and thus, the others. He is shown on screen dead, more than once.

 

Is B’avi spelled backwards, “I Vape?” sort of?

 

In any case, this was entertaining if flawed episode with flawed logic and a flawed premise but as it came after the worst of the first six episodes, it seems like a 9/10 but is really probably more like a 7/10 or a 6/10.

 

As for critics, the professional reviews seem to like the show more, the fans seem to be divided and the regular audience seem to not like it. 

 

I truly can’t decide but as I was entertained, so far by five out of six of the episodes, despite the false premises, the Deep Sleep Mine connection, the weird adults, and the twenty somethings acting like middle schoolers, seem to like it. I think it’s far superior to NEXT GENERATION, VOYAGER, DEEP SLEEP MINE and ENTERPRISE, not to mention the JJ Abrahm first two movies, and possibly even on a par with the third, which was action, a DIE HARD IN SPACE, with jokes and adults acting like twenty somethings or high schoolers (and Chris Pine’s Kirk in the first movie accelerated to captain for no explicable reason and over Mr. Spock, no, no and no).

 

All in all, this was superior to the first one but the entire premise of STARFLEET ACADEMY sort of precludes it from making any kind of sense. Cadets at a school, even a military school, need to be safe (maybe?) and skilled (the heavy set comm badge swallower needs to be dismissed from the bridge because she’s panicking and to be honest, she should be dismissed from Starfleet and sent home; sure, she’s fallible but such behavior in a time of crisis should indicate this job is not for her).

 

Still, I look forward to each new episode, love the cast and most of the characters, and think that this show could be improved and evolve into something even better. I DO see the faults but I don’t use those to promote total hatred against the show. Those that do are somewhat suspect for being racist and homophobic, which is sad because some of them are but some of them and some of the others who are not those things have valid points as to the show’s internal logic, the lack of a connection of worth and continuity to previous TREK tone and lore (which might be a good thing at times) and to the messages given. I have no problem with messages, even false premises if both sides are explored but in this day and age, there seem to be no two sides that can at least hear the other side. And that is what good TREK and good sci fi did: hear out both sides of an issue and present the POV of both sides and why they think that.

 

I don’t think with all the arguing, blame, hatred and downright suspect motives, that’s possible today…at least maybe it will be tomorrow and that is what TREK should be focusing on. It’s not and so it’s getting flack. I think that stuff might be over but who knows as reviewers are hate reviewing every episode—some of them TWICE and getting what they want by using TREK: likes, views and high subscriber numbers.

 

 

 

5

 

  I am not sure even I can defend this episode. Where is the action, adventure, fight scenes, chases, wild encounters with alien beings, space travel, heck at this rate I would even accept time travel, real space battles and not fake ones, romances, and sufficient science fiction? This was ANOTHER character study. AND with by my count at least five more characters they can do this with or more, are we going to get nothing but character studies and no action adventure sci fi space travel exploration alien encounters and such? It wasn't bad but it wasn't very good either and while I feel Karim did great acting last week, what's happening this week? He was so bad and what is with his voice? And I'm so sorry, the skirt? No, no, and no. It looked ridiculous. Sam? I'm guessing she has a totally different background than the Doctor? I thought holograms were made by humans? Alien entities made this one and somehow got her into Starfleet? And it seems as if that's no secret? They all agreed to this? An emissary? WTF? No, no, and no. This was not great. If I cared one bit about DEEP SLEEP MINE, it would be nice to have seen Jake and Dax again but I could care less. Boring. And we get a voice over by Sisko rather than seeing him? Avery Brooks has apparently been blacklisted? Shrug. Meh. No.  And after all the prep between the adults for the meeting we don't see that meeting: sigh. That adult stuff was just another character study. Every episode is now a character study. No, no, and no. Some action is much needed. Oh and the Doctor is being made to be a huge annoying putz and Reno is most unlikable. I don't want to watch any of these "adults" at all. Horrid.

 

 

 

Here is the plot: Due to her own work as an emissary for the Makers, SAM becomes obsessed with the mystery of Benjamin Sisko, the Emissary of the Prophets who vanished at the end of the Dominion War. At the same time, Ake helps War College Chancellor Kelrec prepare for an important meeting with another chancellor with the help of the Doctor and Reno in an effort to make peace between them. Kelrec reveals that he feels that Ake abandoned Starfleet, leading to his animosity towards her. SAM's efforts are unsuccessful, but Professor Illa shares with her Jake Sisko's book Anslem,[a] and SAM has an interaction with Jake through it. Illa reveals that she's Illa Dax, the current host of the Dax symbiont who was friends with Sisko.