‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Review: Paramount’s Teen ‘Trek’ Series Isn’t Nearly Bold Enough

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. September will mark the sixtieth anniversary of “Star Trek,” and Paramount is pulling out all the stops to celebrate - including an unwelcome takeover of its latest series launch, “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.” No, I’m not talking about the animated pre-title sequence showing off the franchise’s favorite starships. I’m not even bothered by nostalgia-casting characters from previous shows - including Tig Notaro’s Jett Reno (from “Star Trek: Discovery” ) and Robert Picardo’s “The Doctor” (an Emergency Medical Hologram introduced in “ Star Trek : Voyager”) - or fan-casting famous Trekkies like Paul Giamatti (who makes for a memorably teeth-gnashing villain). No, what’s unpalatable about the new “Star Trek” series is that it mainly cares about the franchise’s past, not the audience’s, and that imbalance makes for a bland, cautious adventure. “Starfleet Academy” is a genre hybrid: half science-fiction, half teen-drama. But only one of those halves is developed well enough to please its viewers, and it’s not the half that’s new to “Star Trek.” Co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau seem like a balanced pairing on paper, with the former overseeing “Star Trek’s” TV franchise since “Discovery” and the latter in charge of The CW’s 2019 “Nancy Drew” reboot. Joined by writer/creator Gaia Violo (“Absentia”), the team may have taken on too much from the jump, juggling a cliché-ridden origin story for its two leads and rushing through the introduction of its primary setting. Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) is just a kid when the Federation takes his mother (Tatiana Maslany) away from him. Rather than become a ward of the state, he goes on the run - just as his power-wary mama taught him. Years later, after The Burn (a cataclysmic event introduced in “Discovery”), he’s caught and brought before the same Federation officer who sentenced his mom: Nahla Ake ( Holly Hunter ), a compassionate captain whose Lanthanite heritage has kept her 422 years young. Now, she wants to send Caleb to the newly reopened Starfleet Academy, where’s she’ll be chancellor, and despite his distrust of authority figures, he agrees... mainly so he can keep searching for his lost parent. Once onboard the USS Athena, Caleb rooms with Jay-Den (Karim Diané), a Klingon cadet who’s grown used to not fitting in. They soon befriend Sam (Kerrice Brooks), a sentient hologram who’s only a few months old but gets sent to the Academy to observe “organics” on behalf of her fellow “photonics.” There’s also Darem (George Hawkins), an arrogant rich-kid who immediately rubs Caleb the wrong way, and Genesis (Bella Shepard), a high-achieving nepo baby/admiral’s daughter who’s composed but competitive. Early episodes deploy standard teen drama plots like a prank war (against a competing academy) and a party night (with the same competing...

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