Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x02 – “Beta Test”

[Bad Thoughts]

After two episodes, I like the series. I'm not in love, but it's solidly in the will watch if on category.

Biggest plus: direction. Wonderfully complex. The negotiations taking place with the backdrop of the Doctor doing opera was amazing. I hope they keep this up.

Biggest minus: Caleb. Yes, disliking the main character might wear me down over time. He's a walking cliche.

Needs more Lura Thok.

 

[Romulan_spy]

Biggest plus: direction. Wonderfully complex. The negotiations taking place with the backdrop of the Doctor doing opera was amazing. I hope they keep this up.

Agreed. The cinematography was beautiful and the direction was great. Yes, having the Doc sing as a backdrop to the negotiations made the scene so much more engaging.

 

[eschaton]

Agreed. The cinematography was beautiful and the direction was great. Yes, having the Doc sing as a backdrop to the negotiations made the scene so much more engaging.

The funny thing is Kurtzman directed the opening two episodes, and I've not liked his direction in the past.

Let's just hope that whoever kept hiring Olatunde Osunsanmi to direct Discovery episodes doesn't return again. I'm so happy not having pointless shakycam and dutch angles.

 

[Elaise]

Lura Thok's blood looked white. In DS9 Jem'Hadar blood was amber in color, but we can probably chalk the changes up to her being half-Klingon.

My guess is that they thought that it was blood going through those tubes back in DS9.

 

[Rahul]

Spiritual beliefs in Star Trek only run into problems if the fan watching has problems.

... or if god asks for a starship. Or get's argued to into destroying itself.

 

[Verteron]

You know the worst thing about this story?

The same plot could have taken place open seas in the 1600s.

Imagine it as British Fleet vs Privateers. You'd barely need any changes.

This not a sci-fi show, it's just in a sci-fi setting.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

You know the worst thing about this story?

The same plot could have taken place open seas in the 1600s.

Imagine it as British Fleet vs Privateers. You'd barely need any changes.

This not a sci-fi show, it's just in a sci-fi setting.

Some great moments in Star Trek have been stories that could be anywhere at any time but happen in that universe.

In the reverse, the Master and Commander movie could have been easily set as a Star Trek movie or episode.

 

[eschaton]

You know the worst thing about this story?

The same plot could have taken place open seas in the 1600s.

Imagine it as British Fleet vs Privateers. You'd barely need any changes.

This not a sci-fi show, it's just in a sci-fi setting.

You can make exactly the same argument about TWOK. It's a story of vengeance and cat and mouse, where the sci-fi trappings are unneeded.

I've read sci-fi since I was a kid. Most "real sci-fi" just isn't made into TV or movies. There are exceptions, like Contact or Arrival, but they're few and far between, because general audiences aren't interested in plots that rely upon that level of geeky knowledge.

 

[Turtletrekker]

How many times has "Hell in the Pacific" been adapted for science fiction?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

You know the worst thing about this story?

The same plot could have taken place open seas in the 1600s.

Imagine it as British Fleet vs Privateers. You'd barely need any changes.

This not a sci-fi show, it's just in a sci-fi setting.

Perhaps the base story is nothing particularly science fiction. However, it uses the established science fiction conventions of Star Trek and arguably expands a perspective of what a society living in a space-faring future might look like.

 

[Rahul]

The enemy below
How many times has "Hell in the Pacific" been adapted for science fiction?

Oh look, The enemy below, my favourite TOS episode!

 

[eschaton]

IMHO, the purest sci-fi tends to include one of the two scenarios:

• Extrapolating from something like a technological advance (i.e., biological immortality, strong AI, etc.) or an implausible but physically possible future event (first contact, threatened asteroid impact, etc.) and drawing the story forward.
• Using the alien to explore something beyond what a mundane story can accomplish, like say the sentient spider race in Children of Time.

Star Trek does neither of these, really. The worldbuilding is kind of stuck in a retrofuturist point due to when the series crystalized, meaning it can't interrogate things like transhumanism or super-intelligent AI (which would be more the concern of present-day sci-fi). And both the limitations of budgets and the inability of filmed media to get across internal thoughts well means it doesn't explore the alien much, with 95% of aliens just humans with one weird thing making them different.

What Trek can do quite well still is allegory, and I think this episode used it to great advantage. It would be easy to see this story - about trying to bring a conservative, isolationist president who built a wall around his state - as being explicitly about contemporary politics. But adding the level of a sci-fi setting means it doesn't directly reference any real-world countries, people, or personalities, and thus is way less divisive.

 

[Lucky]

7/10. I liked it. I think it was wise to set the series in this time period as the cadets all have baggage from the burn. Most of this episode was setting up Tarima and to a lesser extent Ocam. I like Tarima and am curious about her abilities and how sensitive she is.

 

[Verteron]

You can make exactly the same argument about TWOK. It's a story of vengeance and cat and mouse, where the sci-fi trappings are unneeded.

Hard disagree there. Although the Battle of Mutara Nebula was certainly based heavily on submarine combat, the overall story included many sci-fi elements that wouldn't translate to other time periods, such as the Ceti Eels and forced subversion of Chekov and Terell, the Genesis Device and its implications as a weapon of planetary destruction, I don't even see how the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI and what it did to the conditions for Khan and his acolytes would work in an Earth-based setting.

I don't want woo-woo/pew-pew sci-fi stories that don't mirror our own reality, but TWOK struck a good balance between something grounded and something that was out of this world.

TWOK uses familiar dramatic structures, but the causes, constraints, and consequences of the story only exist because of speculative science. That makes the sci-fi foundational, not decorative.

Academy's story doesn't.

 

[Nerys Myk]

You know the worst thing about this story?

The same plot could have taken place open seas in the 1600s.

Imagine it as British Fleet vs Privateers. You'd barely need any changes.

This not a sci-fi show, it's just in a sci-fi setting.

So, you're saying it's Star Trek?

 

[The Wormhole]

You know the worst thing about this story?

The same plot could have taken place open seas in the 1600s.

Imagine it as British Fleet vs Privateers. You'd barely need any changes.

This not a sci-fi show, it's just in a sci-fi setting.

I mean, the same can be said about anything in Star Trek.

 

[fireproof78]

Perhaps the base story is nothing particularly science fiction. However, it uses the established science fiction conventions of Star Trek and arguably expands a perspective of what a society living in a space-faring future might look like.

Exactly. The wrath of Khan could easily be a submarine story about a Russian vs. US with a drugged up officer being turn coated.

 

[Rahul]

IMHO, the purest sci-fi tends to include one of the two scenarios:

• Extrapolating from something like a technological advance (i.e., biological immortality, strong AI, etc.) or an implausible but physically possible future event (first contact, threatened asteroid impact, etc.) and drawing the story forward.
• Using the alien to explore something beyond what a mundane story can accomplish, like say the sentient spider race in Children of Time.

Star Trek does neither of these, really. The worldbuilding is kind of stuck in a retrofuturist point due to when the series crystalized, meaning it can't interrogate things like transhumanism or super-intelligent AI (which would be more the concern of present-day sci-fi). And both the limitations of budgets and the inability of filmed media to get across internal thoughts well means it doesn't explore the alien much, with 95% of aliens just humans with one weird thing making them different.

What Trek can do quite well still is allegory, and I think this episode used it to great advantage. It would be easy to see this story - about trying to bring a conservative, isolationist president who built a wall around his state - as being explicitly about contemporary politics. But adding the level of a sci-fi setting means it doesn't directly reference any real-world countries, people, or personalities, and thus is way less divisive.

Erm, unusual strong disagree here. Star Trek can do and did a lot of "real sci-fi", in TOS & TNG the most. From TNG's time-travel episodes which are really more "puzzles" dissecting specific scenarios, to TOS' civilisations being taken over by computers, from M5 to a taste of Armageddon, and things like Prof Moriarty, the Borg, parallel universe and holodecks are not really "allegory" material, but genuine sci-fi concepts.

What Star Trek can't do any more is "hard SF". Human-like aliens, half-aliens, force-field shields were realistic at the time of their inception, but not really up to date anymore. Trek is now more like a superhero universe in this regard, with it's own lore, different from reality - which also vary wildly from character-based to conceptual.

 

[Mudd]

Hard disagree there. Although the Battle of Mutara Nebula was certainly based heavily on submarine combat, the overall story included many sci-fi elements that wouldn't translate to other time periods, such as the Ceti Eels and forced subversion of Chekov and Terell, the Genesis Device and its implications as a weapon of planetary destruction, I don't even see how the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI and what it did to the conditions for Khan and his acolytes would work in an Earth-based setting.

I don't want woo-woo/pew-pew sci-fi stories that don't mirror our own reality, but TWOK struck a good balance between something grounded and something that was out of this world.

TWOK uses familiar dramatic structures, but the causes, constraints, and consequences of the story only exist because of speculative science. That makes the sci-fi foundational, not decorative.

Academy's story doesn't.

No, it absolutely could. None of the gimmicks you list are story elements as such. They're plot devices. Otherwise, it's fair to put "programmable matter" on the same level to claim the show as uniquely science fictional.

 

[Nyotarules]

Yes I did and the second episode was horrible.
I'll say what a lot are saying on Reddit - "To Boldly Go Where No One Asked You To"
Cringe AF writing.

No one asked for The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager.....