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

Rate the episode...

  • 10 - Excellent!

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 9

    Votes: 4 9.5%
  • 8

    Votes: 3 7.1%
  • 7

    Votes: 11 26.2%
  • 6

    Votes: 9 21.4%
  • 5

    Votes: 3 7.1%
  • 4

    Votes: 6 14.3%
  • 3

    Votes: 3 7.1%
  • 2

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • 1 - Terrible.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    42
Going against the stream here - I didn't find this episode any way worse than the previous two.
In fact, it might be the best "fitting" one, purely focusing on the YA stuff, where's the first two shoved two very traditional, clichéd Trek plots into their runtime.

Couple of opinions:
1) They try to make Caleb into a kind of a Han Solo. Like Jack Sparrow, Spike, I think this archetype works better as a supporting character. Imo the actor fits much better a "nice" hero character.
2) This episode needed it's own Quidditch, a "gamey" competition. Laser-Tag is boring
3) They wasted a perfect opportunity for the team rivalry: The different Starfleet divisions. Red Jocks vs blue nerds vs yellow Hufflepuffs. The "war college" is a boring catch-all rival
4) Starship Troopers shower scene. Love it.

In the end, I went in this show without expectations, and so far I'm not disappointed. In fact it's somewhat fun to watch, but I won't call me a fan either. The cute characters, the production and the vibe are the highlights. The plots & general worldbuilding is the big weakness.
 
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Theoretically, Vulcans & Klingons should be stronger than Humans on average, but from what we're seeing, they don't seem to be showing much meaningful biological performance differences from the cadets shown.
Yeah. In a more well thought out show they would make a point that a Klingon male and a human woman would never be equal in a boxing match or a racetrack.
But with a tricorder & a phaser in hand ina spacesuit, or behind the steering console of a mighty starship, they could equally reach greatness.
Not in laser tag though.

Heck, Jay-Den Kraag is the least intimidating Klingon this side of Alexander Rozhenko.
I like the soft Klingon. Klingon culture might be built around honour & strengths, but it's still a technological society, they also need doctors, engineers, cooks, garbage man. Helps a lot of not every Klingon ever shown is a biker-Viking parody.

Caleb Mir is the most jacked out of the boys by a good margin.
To the point it becomes distracting to be honest. The guy oozes charisma. But whenever they show him shirtless, I don't watch his performance anymore, our can't take him seriously as an actor - I get distracted by mountains of muscles. When did we get there that actors look like that? Especially young ones?
 
Honestly, my biggest issue with the physical performance in the show was Tarima shooting hoops. Someone needs to get that girl a sandwich, because she looks like she's about to fall over. Honestly, borderline worry the show might be accused as promoting ED.

This is actually one of those "female gaze" type things about the show. Both the male and female characters feel like they're picked based upon what a young woman would think was the ideal body type.
 
This is actually one of those "female gaze" type things about the show. Both the male and female characters feel like they're picked based upon what a young woman would think was the ideal body type.

Bad choice of words there, perhaps. Young women, young men etc.
 
Bad choice of words there, perhaps. Young women, young men etc.

I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe I should have specified straight young women though.

Caleb and Darem are both very handsome guys with big muscles, and the camera lingers on their bodies at times. Tarima (and to a lesser extent, Genesis) are very thin and pretty, but the direction is not ogling them at all.
 
Theoretically, Vulcans & Klingons should be stronger than Humans on average, but from what we're seeing, they don't seem to be showing much meaningful biological performance differences from the cadets shown.

Heck, Jay-Den Kraag is the least intimidating Klingon this side of Alexander Rozhenko.

Caleb Mir is the most jacked out of the boys by a good margin.
No theoretically about it, there was an entire baseball themed episode of DS9 based around the premise.


2) This episode needed it's own Quidditch, a "gamey" competition. Laser-Tag is boring
The true irony is that Star Trek already has one, it's called Parrises Squares.
 
I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe I should have specified straight young women though.

Caleb and Darem are both very handsome guys with big muscles, and the camera lingers on their bodies at times. Tarima (and to a lesser extent, Genesis) are very thin and pretty, but the direction is not ogling them at all.

Or gay men?
 
This is actually one of those "female gaze" type things about the show. Both the male and female characters feel like they're picked based upon what a young woman would think was the ideal body type.

Caleb and Darem are both very handsome guys with big muscles, and the camera lingers on their bodies at times. Tarima (and to a lesser extent, Genesis) are very thin and pretty, but the direction is not ogling them at all.
That is also male gaze.
 
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Just watched the full episode and am honestly a little underwhelmed. It was okay I guess and there surely were a ton of fun ideas and moments, but some parts just didn’t really work for me. I like that at the core of it there was a nice story about Darem realizing Genesis is the better leader and that he can’t and doesn’t want to be the best at absolutely everything just because that’s what his parents taught him. One of my favorite moments in that regard was Jett Reno becoming increasingly more explicit that she’s talking about Genesis. :lol:

Funniest bits for me were Reno calling Lura Thok “kitten”, Darem hugging it out with Commander Kelric (I think Raoul Bhaneja is perfectly cast, by the way) and Caleb going undercover as a costumed Mugato. But at the same time there were a lot of moments that didn’t land for me or were downright cringe. This is the first episode where I didn’t exactly love Ake.

But I also think there are some structural issues with the episode and I wonder if it’s something that could (should?) have been fixed in the editing. The way the episode starts out with the pranking conflict with the War College, then forgets all about that and dedicates an entire section to introducing Calica, only to then remember the pranking war storyline felt all a little disjointed to me. I appreciate the longer running times that they are able to use, but maybe this one could have been streamlined?

In universe, Caleb was fully exposed, against his will, to the wider public. We might not have seen it on screen but in-universe that's what happened. That is a horrific thing to do.
I agree that he was fully exposed, but that said, this doesn’t seem to have been the intention of the pranksters. The idea seems to be that they transported them to different parts of the campus in their underwear or (as in the case of Caleb) wearing a towel. That his towel slipped during the prank was an unfortunate (for him) accident but likely not what they planned. At least that’s how I read the situation.

But yeah, even if the plan was just to expose them in their underwear, in reality this was very much not an okay thing to do and a weird choice for a prank. I suppose as viewers we’re just meant to go with the along with it and not overthink it. But I agree with you that it’s weird to have them do this kind of a prank and then not be disciplined for it.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the physical performance in the show was Tarima shooting hoops. Someone needs to get that girl a sandwich, because she looks like she's about to fall over. Honestly, borderline worry the show might be accused as promoting ED.
Quick word with my mod hat on: Come one, that sort of stuff is really not necessary. Let’s just not judge the actors’ and actresses bodies that way, okay? We don’t accept fat shaming here, and by that same token we don’t accept skinny shaming. “Give that girl a sandwich” is a really tired — and I’m sure for many people hurtful — trope. And it doesn’t hurt us to not talk about people that way. Thank you.
 
I'm reminded of the Giligan's Island reunion when they asked the Professor to take off his shirt so they could see if they could market to women.

"And you thought they cast me for my brain."

:)

Genesis is beautiful AND fun, though, and goes on the already extensive list of Star Trek gals I love.
 
That was probably the most enjoyable episode so far, good for a laugh. The War College assholes changing the recruitment video was probably the hardest I've laughed at any Kurtzman Trek. Usual issues with the plot meandering a bit but there was at least a concrete throughline this time of the Starfleet kids fighting the War College.

I was inordinately amused by Thok being pissed that her dinner could literally not exist tonight too.

Only real criticism of the episode is that the plant prank wasn't as good as the War College ones, and the War College yielding to it felt a bit forced. Yeah the plant thing was impressive and required Mission: Impossible type team coordination, but sorry, the altered recruitment video was genuinely hilarious. Starfleet got owned.

7/10
 
Very disappointed to see a reasonable turbolift shaft and not an infinite dimension of wonder.
willy-wonka-gene-wilder.gif
 
Some random thoughts. During Kelrec's conversation with Ake, he mentions she has three hundred years on him, to which she responds "three hundred and fifty-two, if you want to be exact." Which would mean Kelrec is supposed to be seventy years old.

Also, given the transporter prank pulled in the 28th century is revealed at the end of the episode to be Ake's own doing when she was a cadet, that means she's been with Starfleet for over four hundred years, minus the most recent fifteen years. And she's only made Captain. Guess Starfleet still doesn't have an Up or Out policy.
There's no need for such a policy certainlu not if you're a captain. A good leader out there is probably much more valuable than another admiral flying a desk.
Don't forget about the fat Klingon that ran that restaurant on the Promenade in DS9!
Played by bleeding gums murphy if I recall
 
While I understand the real-world, casting-related reasons for not doing this, photonic beings are effectively shapeshifters, aren't they? I mean, what's stopping Sam from changing her projection (and its capabilities) at any time?
I assume programming. Someone decided to make her a 17 year old too so that she'd have to go to the academy instead of just a fully formed adult ready to serve in Starfleet. I also assume they'll go into her backstory at some point and it'll turn out she's based on someone who died in the Burn or something? That's my ass pull guess anyway.
 
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