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Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x01 – “Kids These Days”

Give it up for Robert Picardo folks!

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Wow, it's here!

A friend of mine has a screener, and I watched it yesterday, managing to get through episode 1.

Without spoilers, I will say that it's a very good premiere with several notable Easter eggs I'm sure most fans will like, but I don't think it's for everybody. If you've already made your mind up about this era then Academy won't change it.

It's also a long episode, and it needs all the time to get through the story. From a fantastic opening, and good personal story it is very well rounded, despite being heavier in action than I'd have liked.

I'll give it a solid 8 out of 10 score. I'll withhold rating until tomorrow.
 
I'm sure it is, but I hope it's a slightly longer sequence than usual. Going from the TOS Enterprise to the A to the D to the Defiant to Voyager to the NX-01 to Discovery to the Discoprise, then to land on the 60th Anniversary logo seems like a lot, visually, in such a quick amount of time. Though I'm sure somehow they'll make it work.
It is longer, giving each ship a few seconds or so
 
Oh wow, they switched from doing episode premiers on midnight pacific time to midnight eastern time.

I'm still not gonna stay up for it tonight (since it's over an hour and I have work tomorrow), but it's actually feasible for normal people not on the west coast to watch it as soon as it drops.
 
(Blurring out each separate spoiler until it comes out, so you can unblur just those you wanna know)

The good:
The scene with Vance on Bajor was beautiful, great location, writing and acting.
Family separation is addressed, and people resigning in protest (contemporary issues in the best Trek tradition). My favorite scene was Athena flying to San Francisco with that song! Absolutely beautiful, it moved me to tears.

The bad:
That cringey school bullying scene about binoculars, but at least it ended with a humorous climax.

And the ugly:
Another ear ringing moment, but at least not as long as in SNW and just once.

Characters:
Jay-Den is our fist Klingon birdwatcher, who is all about life, which is great! I also somehow didn't expect such a deep voice, and he looks beautiful with that hair and those eyes.
Caleb has more depth than I expected, again great writing and acting.
SAM is only a little annoying, much less than I feared, and it fits her character.
Darem being a transforming blue alien that can live for 8 min in the cold vacuum of space is a nice new concept. Could he be one of the known shapeshifting species (Allasomorph, Chameloid?)
Genesis was also not as superficial as I worried she might be, another good actor so far.
Thok is great, she considers herself a Klingon as much as a Jem'Hadar, and she has white blood (does it have ketracel in it?). She shouts a little too much, I don't like drill instructing that's just yelling for pushups etc, but when she's funny, she's funny.
Ake is fine, her introductory speech to the crew is good, but I'll have to see more to figure out if I like her or not.
Braka is not too bad, only the tongue wiggling was too much for me. He's a villain with a seemingly good cause, or at least not totally irrationally bad just for badness sake :D
The EMH is of course hilarious, especially in that fangirl scene with SAM.
The bridge crew is introduced by name, one by one, similar to Pike's roll call in Disco S2.

Eastereggs:
Dal and Gwyn are mentioned, there's a female Cheron, a red exocomp, fish that might be the ones from Trill in Disco S3. The Disco Ferengi only appeared briefly on the side, other Disco aliens show up (a reddish Saurian, an Osnullus type, and one that could be right out of MiB)

Funniest moment:
Thok throws Jay-Den across the room as she thanks him, then SAM says no need to thank her. :D

Future tech:
The coolest new tech feature is snapping from disheveled in rags to groomed in uniform with a flash - I need that every morning!

Storytelling, cinematography, direction:
The one thing that I didn't like that much was that some of the quiet dialogs were too slow and drawn out. But things made sense, fit together nicely, and the eastereggs are nice to see for those who are looking for them, and just as easy to ignore in most cases for those who don't care about them. As in most of today's Trek, everything looks great, often quite beautiful, and the music stood out to me more than in other shows. No distracting camera tricks, wild shaking, etc., and good acting all across. This is a version of the Academy I would like to attend :D
 
Oh wow, they switched from doing episode premiers on midnight pacific time to midnight eastern time.
That's good to know. I'm not going to be home at midnight tonight, but nice to know that, in general, I won't have to wait until Crazy O'Clock to watch SFA like I did with DSC and PIC.
 
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