After a strong start, this episode didn’t quite land for me. The cast remains excellent and really elevates the material, but the story felt weighed down by some experimental choices mixed with fairly generic teen‑drama elements. It’s not bad by any means, just a noticeable step down from the first episode. I’m hoping these are early “finding‑its‑feet” moments that the show can learn from as it figures out the right balance. The Betazed‑as‑a‑fortress analogy was about as subtle as a hammer, but it still worked for me.
That said, I’m still pleasantly surprised by the first two episodes overall. For a series I wasn’t especially eager for, I’m enjoying it enough to stay engaged! It almost feels like a live‑action successor to Prodigy, with some genuinely excellent casting that brings real texture to the characters. The lesser elements of Disco have been refined and toned down, and I feel like this is gonna help flesh out the 31st century era.
Some of the ways the cadets are inserted into major situations do feel a bit convoluted - solving the entire crisis while the Athena crew stood around doing sweet FA in Episode 1, and then being central to high‑stakes negotiations with Betazed in Episode 2 for... reasons. But I can forgive that, given the premise of Starfleet Academy. They do need to tread carefully, though. I’d like to see the cadets genuinely out of their depth at times, learning from failure rather than consistently rising to every challenge.
I understand the metaphor: today’s young people are resourceful, informed, and shaped by difficult times — they are the future. But they’re also often jaded, anxious, and overwhelmed. Showing the full spectrum of that would make the analogy richer and far more honest/relatable without losing the optimism.
Further shallow observations: The show continues to look absolutely stunning, the production on this is outstanding. This series is not cheap, and seems production has gone up a notch from even SNW or Disco. Men's uniforms continue the skin-tight legacy of 90s ST that Women endured for years. Those zippers are distracting, honestly thought Caleb was gonna burst out his trousers hopping the fence.
