I'm finding it odd that critics were saying these first run of episodes are great, because this really felt so clumsy.
I've gotten over the language and people calling each other bitches because it is what it is (although I can't imagine they'd have included a British character calling everyone the c-word), and I'll even accept people still calling out their "daddy issues" but even after a thousand years, haven't discovered therapy.
This was just so long, especially when they basically set up the solution at the beginning of the episode and it takes the characters 40 minutes of laser tag to figure out what they need to do. And then when they make an Oceans Eleven style montage sequence, it wasn't even clever when this is a universe with transporters if not time travel.
Otherwise it's fine I guess? The tropey characters are perfectly fine, broad solution of using brains over brawn is fine, even if I think the solution the writers came up with wasn't as clever as they thought it was in the writer's room, but put together it was just... not really interesting at all.
I've been re-reading the first Peter David Starfleet Academy book mostly out of curiosity and even though the series is anchored by Worf and his outsider status, similar to Caleb here, it still felt like it came together much better than what I've seen in these three episodes. And it's a pretty short book.
I dunno, as someone who actually thought a Starfleet Academy show could work when the CW was still a network and slot in with Supernatural, Riverdale, and Kung Fu and whatnot, I want this idea to succeed. So far it hasn't really impressed unfortunately.