Early Criticism: What’s Unfounded and What Isn’t

[trekfan_1]

I’m not a big fan of the series so far, but some of the early complaints I keep seeing are irritating and pretty unfounded. Here are my top ones:

1. “Captain Ake is too casual and lounges around in the captain’s chair.”

She’s part Lanthanite, a long-lived species. Much like Pelia in SNW, she’s clearly reached a point of boredom and comfort with her role. Her characterization is intentionally laid-back. She’s also not a typical Starfleet captain—she’s simultaneously a Chancellor. Not every captain needs to project the same stiff, authoritative demeanor.

2. “Why does SAM need to go to the Academy? She’s a hologram—why does getting wet even matter?”

People are missing the point here. Why did Data try to grow a beard in TNG? Androids don’t grow beards either. SAM is clearly this show’s equivalent of Data, and part of her journey is experiencing existence as if she were humanoid. Think Voyager’s “Real Life,” with the holographic family except this time the hologram is sentient/ fully aware she’s a hologram. The experience itself is the point.

3. “Starfleet is supposed to be the best of the best. Cadets should be more mature. This doesn’t feel like a realistic military academy or match what we’ve seen before.”

This is a post-Burn Starfleet Academy. This is ground zero. It makes sense that recruitment would have more of a “space orphans” vibe at this stage. Starfleet is unrefined, raw, and immature at this point in its rebuilding process, and that actually tracks.

That said, my issues with the show aren’t really about the character breakdowns or even the broad way Starfleet is being portrayed. I just don’t resonate with the characters, and there are too many overt plot contrivances that feel like they exist solely to manufacture teen angst. The personal storylines are very trope-heavy, and the writing doesn’t feel particularly complex to me.

It is possible to make a teen-focused show that is fun and includes angst while still surrounding it with more high-level, layered storytelling. It’s still early, but so far, this show just isn’t doing that for me. Its comes across as VERY cliche to me. Now, something can be cliche and still win me over. But since the YA vibe doesn't automatically resonate with me, the show would need to win me over in other ways . Which it hasn't so far.

However some of the blanket/"Wait a Sec??!" complaints Im seeing online are simply unfounded and are often coming from a position of ignorance.

 

[firehawk12]

Presumably they'd give everyone a backstory that explains things and whatnot, but if the idea if creating SAM as a child - she's programmed to be 17 (whatever that may mean in Kasq terms unless they also use Sol years) but she is also only 4 months old in terms of when she was activated - then it is an odd age to create someone.

Maybe they decided the Starfleet Academy experience would be a perfect compromise between some form of autonomy but also the constraints of being a child, but one might think that placing an actual child in the care of organics - like the school that we see Ake run on Bajor - would be a more full learning experience by literally having SAM grow up in real time with other children and go through things like puberty with other kids rather than program her with 17 years of artificial experience.

Heck, they could have made her character actually be 17 years old and have been raised by organics the whole time, but again I assume there's some reason that is explained for why she's so "new".

Most of my things are nitpicky with the writing though, which I kind of forget soon after the episode airs because it doesn't really matter. Like why did the Athena just let Paul Giamatti escape? Or at least why wasn't he given some clever way of escaping instead of just disappearing in an escape pod that may or may not have warp capability because we don't know what happens to him after he jettisons himself. Obviously he has to escape so that he can come back for more revenge later on, but they didn't bother including it. It's more of just a bad writing thing to me than some fundamental flaw though.

I do take issue with the show being intended for "young people" as an excuse for the dialog. Prodigy was meant for even younger audiences but the writing tried to treat that audience with respect without filling it with 6-7 Italian brainrot references.

 

[Fateor]

I do take issue with the show being intended for "young people" as an excuse for the dialog. Prodigy was meant for even younger audiences but the writing tried to treat that audience with respect without filling it with 6-7 Italian brainrot references.

Prodigy really does throw something of a wrench in a lot of the excuses given for the Academy characters behavior.

 

[Mudd]

None of that is unfounded. You just don't agree with it.

 

[Charles Phipps]

None of that is unfounded. You just don't agree with it.

Yes, but I actually have a much harsher critique of the opening post that I think a huge chunk of the criticism doesn't actually involve anyone engaging with the material AT ALL. The explanations in the show for the protagonist being super casual, the weight sizes of actresses, and the cadets being a bunch of oddballs are pretty much all from either summaries of the show or stills.

They're not WATCHING the show and if they are watching it, they are only doing it to perform monetized takedowns.

It's pointless to argue the show with people online because a lot of people are being paid money to say how much it's been ruined by wokeness or whatever the buzzword is today.

 

[Mudd]

Yes, but I actually have a much harsher critique of the opening post that I think a huge chunk of the criticism doesn't actually involve anyone engaging with the material AT ALL. The explanations in the show for the protagonist being super casual, the weight sizes of actresses, and the cadets being a bunch of oddballs are pretty much all from either summaries of the show or stills.

They're not WATCHING the show and if they are watching it, they are only doing it to perform monetized takedowns.

It's pointless to argue the show with people online because a lot of people are being paid money to say how much it's been ruined by wokeness or whatever the buzzword is today.

Exactly so.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Funny story,

I have my criticisms of Starfleet academy and they can range from the nitpicking to big time (I did not much care for the third episode's essential premise). However, I feel like the situation is that the criticism of the show from "outside" is so full of vitriol that you have to play defense so much that it prevents honest discussion of any honest flaws.

I had this basic experience with Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 before the Fallout TV show when I was a regular on No Mutants Allowed. The short version was it was very much Twitter before Twitter and I spent something like ten years being a huge defender of the artistic merits of both (and Fallout 2). It's not that I didn't have criticisms of both but when one side is, "they are utter garbage without any redeeming quality whatsoever and ate my targ", then you have the arguments skewed. If everything is awful, ironically, you can't do any criticism because there's no baseline for improvement.

So I ended up spending way too much time of my college years discussing what I liked about the games that I couldn't get too much into the things I wanted to change or didn't care for. The internet has pretty much become this as every critique starts at the eleven of negativity so there's no real substance to the critiques.

 

[Rahul]

My criticism & unfounded criticism (which I'm of course biased to think is totally valid ):

1) Wrong century:
Setting this show in the DIS season 3 far future fucks this show sideways. The Burn is a dead weight, the worldbuilding sucks because there are no rules, there shouldn't be so many references & visuals from a fucking 1000 years ago, and everyone who hasn't watched late DISc doesn't know what the fuck is going on.
It's a good thing the show mostly ignores everything about the 32nd century and focuses primarily on its academy setting.

2) Inconsistent story-rules:
How do holograms work now? Personal transporters? Which factions exist and are powerful? What's the difference between programmable matter and replicators?
It's like watching a crime show where people have mobile phones, but don't use them in critical situations. So many plot holes.


Completely unfounded criticism:

1) everything is too casual/YA/Beverly Hills 90210/language too cringe...:
Well, this is specifically an "Academy" show. With and for younger people. It even says so in the title. Not your cup of tea? No worries - there are 7 other live-again Trek shows about adults.

2) Everything is too woke, too fat, too barefoot:
Well fuck that noise.

 

[Charles Phipps]

My Burn thread and whether it was a good idea using it:

The Post-Burn Galaxy thread or "Post-Apocalypse or Slightly Used?"

"I am not a hater but I have criticisms." -My epitaph as a fan of Star Trek One of the biggest controversies of Starfleet Academy is an inherited one (and I mean among actual fans of Star Trek versus the hate money machine). Specifically, the show inherited the Post-Burn era as its premise and...

www.trekbbs.com

 

[The Wormhole]

The people who say things like "Starfleet cadets are supposed to be the Best of the Best" or "real military academies wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior" are the ones making unfounded claims.

The ridiculously difficult and high bar entry exam Wesley Crusher had to take in TNG S1 seems to be the exception in regards to Starfleet Academy's standards. We know people like Reg Barclay and Edward Larkin somehow made it through the Academy plus the entire premise of Lower Decks shows that there are normal every day folk all over Starfleet, there's even an entire division consisting exclusively of them. Starfleet wouldn't be able to meet basic staffing requirements if it relied solely on the Best of the Best and refused average ordinary people.

And does anyone really believe pranks, shenanigans or whatever hasn't gone on at actual military academies? I mean, really?

 

[Set Harth]

The ridiculously difficult and high bar entry exam Wesley Crusher had to take in TNG S1 seems to be the exception in regards to Starfleet Academy's standards. We know people like Reg Barclay and Edward Larkin somehow made it through the Academy plus the entire premise of Lower Decks shows that there are normal every day folk all over Starfleet, there's even an entire division consisting exclusively of them.

And let's not forget Cupcake.

 

[Charles Phipps]

The people who say things like "Starfleet cadets are supposed to be the Best of the Best" or "real military academies wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior" are the ones making unfounded claims.

The ridiculously difficult and high bar entry exam Wesley Crusher had to take in TNG S1 seems to be the exception in regards to Starfleet Academy's standards. We know people like Reg Barclay and Edward Larkin somehow made it through the Academy plus the entire premise of Lower Decks shows that there are normal every day folk all over Starfleet, there's even an entire division consisting exclusively of them. Starfleet wouldn't be able to meet basic staffing requirements if it relied solely on the Best of the Best and refused average ordinary people.

And does anyone really believe pranks, shenanigans or whatever hasn't gone on at actual military academies? I mean, really?

I mean Reg Barclay was anxiety ridden but exceptionally gifted in his field. The man made multiple contributions to the field of hologram intelligence and subspace communication.

Starfleet Academy being an officers training academy.

The issue, of course, is the shows repeatedly ignore enlisted men that should make up most of them.

 

[The Wormhole]

I mean Reg Barclay was anxiety ridden but exceptionally gifted in his field. The man made multiple contributions to the field of hologram intelligence and subspace communication.

Later on in his career. Assuming the character is meant to be the same age as Dwight Schultz, that means he spent twenty years serving in Starfleet prior to being on the Enterprise D being a hot potato who kept getting transferred to different ships to be someone else's problem to deal with.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I think the "Star Trek 90210" argument is rather ridiculous. Why do people jump to the 90210 comparison instead of say, X-Men? Or My Hero Academia? Or Umbrella Academy? Or even Harry Potter?

 

[Charles Phipps]

Later on in his career. Assuming the character is meant to be the same age as Dwight Schultz, that means he spent twenty years serving in Starfleet prior to being on the Enterprise D being a hot potato who kept getting transferred to different ships to be someone else's problem to deal with.

Are we assuming he went to the academy at age 20? That's a thing that I feel is throwing me.

One presumes one can join the Academy at any time if you meet the requirements.

Mind you, we did see in "Tapestry" that a person can spend their entire life as a junior lieutenant.

 

[Mudd]

It's apparent that there's no longer much intersection between evaluating a show as "part of Star Trek" and judging it on the basis of essential qualities of the medium - story, performance, direction, visual design, etc.

 

[Set Harth]

Why do people jump to the 90210 comparison instead of say, X-Men?

With the X-Men you gotta have powers.

 

[Firebird]

And does anyone really believe pranks, shenanigans or whatever hasn't gone on at actual military academies? I mean, really?

“We are not here to have fun!”

 

[Charles Phipps]

My criticism of the show is the following:

1. Canon Barrier: You need to be familiar with DISCO season three to understand the situation and I feel like they could have done better for bringing people up onto what the situation is.

2. Repeated Story: Season one of Picard, DISCO, Into Darkness, and even DS9 have done, "The Federation has lost its way and must rediscover its values." I'm like we should probably just get back to having their values.

3. Translation convention doesn't cut it: Saying that we're translating modern slang and attitudes into the future is fine...to an extent. However, some effort should be made to show these people as different.

4. Casual nastiness: The destruction of the pirate ship versus getting it to surrender, the family separation, the bullying on display from Darem and the War College, and the prank war all just is ugly from future people.

I like the show but feel this is taking away from my enjoyment.

 

[Mudd]

"Showing these people as different" has made Star Trek less watchable and relevant as time has gone on. The people of TOS were not very different in speech, motivation or social behavior than their television contemporaries.

The protagonists upheld the values of a more humane world, for the most part, which is a different thing. Just as the heroes in TV westerns tended to act like Americans of the 1950s and 1960s while somehow making choices that audiences of the era expected of the moral code of the mythologized "Old West," such as the need to sometimes enforce justice by shooting people dead without trial.*

The ease with which Darem's arrogant, bullying introduction was transformed to a more sympathetic kind of bravado did vex me some. The hazing/bullying between the two colleges didn't bother me a bit.

*You saw this sometimes in contemporary police dramas, too, but in those naive days it was less frequent and occurred mainly in extremis. "Good cops" collared the bad guys and let juries do their jobs. In westerns, the sheriff or gunfighting protagonist was more often the court of last resort.