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Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x03 – “Vitus Reflux”

Rate the episode...

  • 10 - Excellent!

    Votes: 5 4.5%
  • 9

    Votes: 8 7.3%
  • 8

    Votes: 14 12.7%
  • 7

    Votes: 28 25.5%
  • 6

    Votes: 18 16.4%
  • 5

    Votes: 11 10.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 10 9.1%
  • 3

    Votes: 6 5.5%
  • 2

    Votes: 6 5.5%
  • 1 - Terrible.

    Votes: 4 3.6%

  • Total voters
    110
My biggest issue with this episode is probably the unearned ending.
I'll take minor issue with this issue, because I think your characterization of the ending is off.
Basically, the show is all about the prank war that is straight from Revenge of the Nerds or Animal House and it ends just like those other college movies where the jocks get horribly pranked in return. Audrey the Venus Flytrap has ruined their frathouse.
They don't get "horribly" pranked. The prank is actually very mild.

This may seem like nitpicking, but we're not just talking about a difference in the degree of horribleness here. Animal House "pranks" involved massive property destruction and/or outright assault causing bodily harm; it's anvil-to-the-head comedy. In Revenge of the Nerds, "pranking the jocks" was literally about raping their leader's girlfriend when it wasn't about distributing non-consensual porn of their girlfriends; it's questionable as to whether comedy even came into it.

The spirit involved in pranking the War College kids is nothing like that. Mercifully. And that does matter.
No, instead, Chancellor Ake talks about how they won the conflict by empathy and understanding which ABSOLUTELY THEY DID NOT DO.
What Ake actually says is that she prompted the Starfleet kids to practice patience, develop a real strategy and practice the empathy needed to understand an opponent "so that you can disarm them."

What she's talking about is understanding the culture of the War College*: only playing back at them in the prank war would get them to stand down. The spirit of this is in line with Riker in a Klingon exchange program, learning that part of getting along with Klingons is knowing when to throw a punch (or take one). Of course, part of that is also about her figuring out what would "disarm" Kelrec; it's not a lesson just for the students.

Now it's up to you whether that all passes muster for you as "empathy" related, but it isn't correct to call it "absolutely" unearned. The angle of her comments was certainly clear enough to at least some of the audience (assuming I'm not entirely a lone lunatic).

[* That the Vitus reflux prank also compels the War College cadets to behave with empathy is just a side bonus, I think. Not the main point.]
They ended the conflict by destroying a massive amount of Starfleet propery.
This also did not happen. There is no indication that the plant destroys anything or is dangerous in any other way. It's just inconvenient.

[EDIT: They actually need to hit a difficult mark here. The prank needs to be funny and reasonably harmless instead of violent and destructive (in the style of Animal House) or outright vicious and hateful (in the style of Revenge of the Nerds) for the upbeat ending to land; but it also needs to be convincingly infuriating. I think they struck that balance quite well.]

On the whole, I think the episode's portrayal of Ake's motivations, methods and pedagogical purpose actually hangs together really well. She's clearly having fun with this -- and has good and clear reasons for wanting her cadets to find the fun in it, too, since Kelrec and his charges give them no choice but to engage -- and I feel like I'm sharing in that fun. When we get that belly laugh from her in that final conversation with Lura Thok, I'm laughing with her. For my money that's the best measure of the success of an episode like this one.

(Really, the only hiccup for me is her baffling method of giving the kids the "eyeball" clue. That still has me scratching my head. Minor nitpick, though.)
 
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To be fair, the comics are filling in world building that the writers of the show didn't fill in themselves. Or alternatively, the comic writer is using a show bible for reference I suppose.
Sure they are... And that's why the comic writer thinks Transwarp has years of time dilation...


This also did not happen. There is no indication that the plant destroys anything or is dangerous in any other way. It's just inconvenient.
No indication other then it slamming people up against walls you mean.
 
No indication other then it slamming people up against walls you mean.
I think we can profitably restrain our level of fuss-budgetry over the one kid who experiences a minor pratfall, yes. Literally every other indicator is that the plants are not dangerous or harmful, just inconvenient.

If they had been going for Animal House, the Vitus reflux should have hospitalized people. It obviously does not do this.
 
Sure they are... And that's why the comic writer thinks Transwarp has years of time dilation...

Issue #4 at least attempts to explain this in that Federation drives move ships through space and the vessels are protected from time dilation (presumably the concept that warp drive folds space), whereas the Borg drive is a literal FTL drive with the ensuing dilation.
 
Well, so far, I have really enjoyed this show. I think it is about building and rebuilding, and rebuilding the future is certainly something that resonates right now. There is so much turmoil in the world, and in this world of Star Trek's future, that having hope, finding comrades, and building a community matters. I also love the sets, the staging, the characters... so far, so good to me.
 
Issue #4 at least attempts to explain this in that Federation drives move ships through space and the vessels are protected from time dilation (presumably the concept that warp drive folds space), whereas the Borg drive is a literal FTL drive with the ensuing dilation.
Yes... But we know that's not true from the times we've been on Born ships while they were traveling via Transwarp...

Which means it's either the writer not doing even a minimal level of research, or the writer changing it so they can add more drama to their story.
 
The Romulan giving the fuck-off gesture made me laugh but at the same time it is a huge failure of imagination on the part of the writers to just have every character in their sci-fi comedy act like an American teenager from 2026 (or what a middle-aged writer assumes a teenager acts like in 2026, which ends up being an unholy amalgamation of 80s jock characters mixed with TikTok slang).
Again - writers are making this show for contemporary audiences, so they wrote a gesture that could be understandable for someone watching today.

Star Trek is a TV show just like any other. Characters should be relatable and/or understandable.
 
Again - writers are making this show for contemporary audiences, so they wrote a gesture that could be understandable for someone watching today.

Star Trek is a TV show just like any other. Characters should be relatable and/or understandable.

Effectively like Moulin Rouge using modern songs with the same intent so audiences could more directly relate.

What would be the point of creating a new gesture that they then have to take up valuable storytime to explain.
 
To be semi-series, and I know it's a TV show for Americans so it is what it is, but a human hegemonic future is kind of depressing because it means in a galaxy full of infinite cultures and artistic production, they chose 20th century American culture to consume.
Welcome to Star Trek. Most people aren't gonna get a reference from fictional "cultures and artistic productions." That's why we get Opera, Sherlock Holmes, Pulp Detectives and Shakespeare. OTH, we have Mariner's Sarcastic Vulcan Salute. But that's a bit "inside baseball".
I suppose xenophobic in terms of not wanting any outsiders approaching the planet, not necessarily racist.
Isolationist.
 
I gave it a 5. And that was generous.

So far, this is way worse than DISCO or PIC. Though LD & PRO did not start out great either. Nor TNG.

And the end brought it up a bit.
 
Again - writers are making this show for contemporary audiences, so they wrote a gesture that could be understandable for someone watching today.

Star Trek is a TV show just like any other. Characters should be relatable and/or understandable.
I think that's enormously underrating the ability of viewers to engage with sci-fi. The prank itself involved a completely fantastical concept (transporters), which obviously doesn't make it less comprehensible/relatable to viewers; there's no reason that character dialogue and gestures can't be similarly rooted in the show's fictional universe, and it'd probably be funnier if they were.

The episode even already succeeded at it with the Vulcan bully - the "attention cadets, we have done this because it is fun, and will continue to do it" taunt was genuinely funny in blending Vulcan stoicism with the high school bully persona the script was going for. Jay'dens reaction, similarly, relied on Klingon honour culture, and was more amusing for it. There's a lot of fun you could have with the idea of a Romulan jock.
 
Just started watching it. I see nithimg has changed for gyms in 1200 years. Even the construction looks like a 20th/21st century gym
Well, we know the Academy gyms in Prodigy were holodecks, so it wasn't really that nothing changed for 1200 years so much as that they went back to the 1200 year old design for reasons.
 
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