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

[Fateor]

So far Genesis is my favorite character on the show. She does seem fun and I'm excited to see how she develops.

She's certainly the most traditional "Starfleet" cadet in the show.

But she also has some "Red Squad" type warning signs that could backfire on her really badly without the right bit of character growth.

 

[Starflight]

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.

This didn't bother me; I'm guessing in the future that this takes place, it's less of a big deal (same as how Tim Russ said that he tried to play Tuvok being accidentally naked on the bridge in "Waking Moments" as shame over failure to follow uniform protocol, rather than humiliation).

There was a line a little later where one of the characters, I forget which, said "people were looking at us like we were insane"; the intent of the prank is more just about making them briefly look bizarre for swimming around half-naked in the atrium pool, then the culprits popping up on the big screen to brag about the fact they were able to access the transporters unimpeded.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Genesis is beautiful AND fun, though, and goes on the already extensive list of Star Trek gals I love.

They are playing up Caleb as being the "main" character of the group, but I think Genesis is the one to keep an eye on.

 

[Greg Cox]

Better characterization on the War College characters would have helped a lot. Tarima aside, the other cadets were just so purely vile.

Don't forget the blond guy, Kyle. He seemed decent enough, chatting amiably (flirting?) with the Klingon student during the awkward Klingon joke scene. And they made a point of showing that, unlike the other War College cadets, Kyle was more amused than angry at the giant plant invasion. He was positively grinning as he paused to take it all in.

 

[firehawk12]

Random thought. If the War College is presumably the best and brightest tacticians or whatever, why did they keep shooting at SAM when they knew it wouldn't work. lol

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

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.

Maybe there's a "2nd Growth Spurt" that differentiates Klingon/Vulcans later on in their biological development from regular Humans?

But with a tricorder & a phaser in hand ina spacesuit, or behind the steering console of a mighty starship, they could equally reach greatness.

That's equipment & vehicle proficiency, a completely different skill set.

Not in laser tag though.

Gun Handling & Fire Fights are a seperate skill set IRL.
Laser Tag is just adjacent to modern handling of FireArms.
Many skill sets between the two can easily transition.

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.

True, we did get the 2x Klingon Lawyers in previous shows.

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.

Do you get distracted by the mountains of muscle on Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or Dave Bautistia, or John Cena?
All former WWE guys known for having "Mountains of Muscles".
All who appear nearly naked for a god chunk of their career in-ring, or on screen.

When did we get there that actors look like that? Especially young ones?

When you open up casting to the widest possible base.
Many Polynesian / Samoan / Pacific Islanders can be HUGE at that age.
When Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was about Sandro Rosta's age, he was equally huge & jacked.

Interesting fact, Sandro Rosta, this is his 2nd acting Gig, ever according to IMBD.
Talk about landing a sweet role as your 2nd acting Gig & first major Gig to begin with.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the physical performance in the show was Tarima shooting hoops.

I noticed they were using Wilson's new "Air-Less Basketball".
Talk about taking the cutting edge of BasketBall technology and making it seem like every-day tech.

Random thought. If the War College is presumably the best and brightest tacticians or whatever, why did they keep shooting at SAM when they knew it wouldn't work. lol

They're fresh cadets, not veterans of Ground Combat.

You got to give them a pass against things like that.

Also, SAM was technically cheating by using her Holographic Permeability within the game, but since it wasn't in the rule-books, it's hard to blame them for pulling the stunt.

It was a brilliant tactical move.

 

[thribs]

They are playing up Caleb as being the "main" character of the group, but I think Genesis is the one to keep an eye on.

I bet we all did in the locker room scene.

 

[Michael]

They are playing up Caleb as being the "main" character of the group, but I think Genesis is the one to keep an eye on.

I dunno, I think their storylines / character arcs just have different goals. Genesis’ story is how she becomes a leader, whereas Calebs story seems to be to learn that he’s not alone in the universe and that he excels when he works together with people he trusts. And I don’t feel the leader arc necessarily means Genesis is morphing into the main character. Caleb very much seems to be our “POV character” through which we experience the Academy.

I failed to mention in my review how powerful I thought that sweet moment towards the end between Ake and Caleb was. Superbly written and acted. They seem very natural and warm and it’s interesting to see how quickly Caleb seems to have accepted her in a motherly role. It’s great to see how a younger actor’s performance can be transformed by a more mature and experienced actor. Even if this show ends after only two seasons, I feel like this will forever be an excellent gig on Sandro Rosta’s resume.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

No theoretically about it, there was an entire baseball themed episode of DS9 based around the premise.

But does RAW Strength help with batting averages?
If it was American Football, Rugby, Professional Wrestling, or Regular FootBall (Soccer), I can see the usefulness of your species enhanced strength.

But Baseball, you need a minimum amount of strength, but wouldn't hand eye coordination be far more important?

 

[Noname Given]

A 3.

And this one was it for me. I'm done watching SFA after 3 episodes.

The first episode was okay and I thought it showed the series might not be what I expected; let the subsequent 2 episodes have shown me it's exactly what I thought it would be:

Star Trek High School Academy 90210

And Holly Hunter's character walking around barefoot and attending meetings in her pajamas didn't help.

For those of you who still enjoy this type of Star Trek, I hope you at least get a third season; but for me, I'll wait for the final two seasons of Star Trek Strange New Worlds: for my current Star Trek fix, and maybe I'll look at what they they do post Starfleet Academy, but yeah, at this point I'm done with watching SFA. YMMV.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

But she also has some "Red Squad" type warning signs that could backfire on her really badly without the right bit of character growth.

Darem seems to be the perfect "Red Squad" material in terms of getting himself & his team killed so far.

 

[Greg Cox]

Random thought. If the War College is presumably the best and brightest tacticians or whatever, why did they keep shooting at SAM when they knew it wouldn't work. lol

They're being trained to be brilliant tacticans, but they're still just beginners at this point. They're not supposed to be the best of the best yet. That's why they need to attend the college.

And I guess they haven't had much experience with photonic beings yet.

 

[Fateor]

When Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was about Sandro Rosta's age, he was equally huge & jacked.

Because he was on steroids.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Random thought. If the War College is presumably the best and brightest tacticians or whatever, why did they keep shooting at SAM when they knew it wouldn't work. lol

Give your enemy cause to underestimate you? Create a distraction?

As for exercising a hologram to train, maybe it works like leveling up a video game character - they're programmed to learn/develop by doing, not just downloading.

 

[thribs]

Next time they’ll learn to say, “computer, deactivate hologram”.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Because he was on steroids.

Not everybody was on Steroids, "The Rock" might've been more recently, but definitely not at that age when he first joined WWE.

He was definitely less jacked when he first showed up on WWE TV all those years ago as "Rocky Maivia" back then.
When he was portraying "The Final Boss" recently, he was EXTRA JACKED to the gills for a man in his late 50's early 60's.

Also John Cena was equally jacked when he first joined WWE, Vince McMahon didn't believe that he was "All Natural", so he made him take the Drug Tests for Steroids and Cena passed with flying colors.

Some kids are just blessed with the "Right Genetics".

 

[Greg Cox]

Look, I understand - fun-loving, rule-breaking jocks are probably more popular with general audiences then mega-nerds, but this is Star Trek, and frankly the kids showed less maturity here than what I remember from when I was a college freshmen. Felt more high-school coded than anything.

I don't know. I remember my nerdy SFF college club getting into hijinks (as well as messy romantic quadrangles) back in the day, which, as it happened, coincided with the early 1980s vogue for real-life “assassination” games. That was more than forty years ago and I still remember diving off a back porch to avoid being “killed” by a sneak water-balloon attack.

And as for Starfleet cadets . . . well, let’s see. Finnigan hazed Kirk relentlessly, Kirk hacked into the school computers to tamper with the Kobyashi Maru test, and even the sainted Jean-Luc Picard got stabbed in a bar fight when he was a cocky young cadet.

College kids are going to act like college kids, no matter what century it is.

 

[thribs]

Everyone seemed to have fun at uni. My time there was incredibly uneventful.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It was a seven.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm surprised they haven't started sleeping with each other yet and pairing off temporarily before switching partners.