Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x08 – “The Life of the Stars”

[Mudd]

In general, American tv series don't seem to be comfortable writing about college (as opposed to high school), at least once they work through the three stock plots: not getting along with your roommate in the dorms, an evil fraternity/sorority, an ill-advised affair with a professor.

Note that Buffy and Smallville only got one season out of their heroes' college years, and that Veronica Mars planned to skip over the rest of her college experience had the show been renewed for another season.

Off the top of my head, only Felicity was expressly about going to college for its entire run. Can't remember how much time she actually spent in classes. *

(I dimly remember reading somewhere that TV networks are leery of shows about college because, unlike high school, it's not a universal rite of passage shared by pretty much every tv viewer.)

* There also The Paper Chase, but that was about law school.

Plus, puberty. The good drama is in high school.

 

[Commander Troi]

I dunno. My college years were far more dramatic than my high school ones.

 

[tenmei]

Oh, I shennaned much more in University

 

[fireproof78]

I dunno. My college years were far more dramatic than my high school ones.

Same.

 

[Greg Cox]

I dunno. My college years were far more dramatic than my high school ones.

Likewise.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It’s a chance to come out of your shell and really do stupid things.




Or so I’ve heard.

 

[The Wormhole]

I never went to college.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I never went to college.

 

[Ceridwen]

I never went to college.

It's never too late.

 

[Greg Cox]

It’s a chance to come out of your shell and really do stupid things.




Or so I’ve heard.

Bingo.

Honestly, I barely remember high school. I cruised through school with my nose in a book, oblivious to my surroundings.

It wasn't until college that I discovered organized SFF fandom and life really started . . . .

 

[cooleddie74]

For me college was worse and tougher academically but quieter socially. I had more stress come from doing the actual studying and work in my college classes than I did in high school, where my GPA was higher.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's never too late.

Meh, I never had a desire to go and still don't.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Going to uni is actually one of my biggest regrets, I only went to escape the pressures of the dreadful job centre but was not exactly spoilt for choice with which courses would accept me.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It seemed to be expected when I was growing up. Though of the four kids in my family, I was the only to graduate.

 

[firehawk12]

I disagree. “How long the classes last”? Why would I care about that? I’m not watching this to know how exactly a 32nd century space academy works or analyze if it’s portrayed like I would expect from a school a thousand years in the future. “They barely show them being students”? They only ever show them as students. They are not only students when they are shown in classes. They are also shown as students when they fraternize with other students, make friends, learn about different perspectives, learn to share rooms with people they don’t like, get in trouble for being late or untidy … all that stuff that’s part of the experience of being a student. I will agree with you that it would be nice to put a bit more focus on showing them take interesting classes that tie into the episode’s storylines, but at the same time I feel they’ve shown plenty of different classes and the focus is pretty clearly on the life of students and all that entails.


Well, no. If you rewatch the episode you’ll notice that SAM, you know, dies. That’s what changes him.

There are so many high school and college TV shows where going to school and class is at least part of the point. Even something like Young Sheldon alone has him be at the university doing things related to being a student at the university. To me this is like making Cheers but never setting the show in a bar or making MASH but never showing any surgeries or medical emergencies. Sure, you don't have to do that to tell a compelling story about the Korean War, but you also don't have to set it in a MASH either.

I think the bulk of the episodes have had some "schooling" in them. Even a field trip.

Sure, they're very obvious character development episodes, but we don't see them learn things that would actually help them in future episodes that could be interesting to pay off. There are some glaring examples in episode 10, but I won't mention them here in the episode 8 thread.

In general, American tv series don't seem to be comfortable writing about college (as opposed to high school), at least once they work through the three stock plots: not getting along with your roommate in the dorms, an evil fraternity/sorority, an ill-advised affair with a professor.

Note that Buffy and Smallville only got one season out of their heroes' college years, and that Veronica Mars planned to skip over the rest of her college experience had the show been renewed for another season.

Off the top of my head, only Felicity was expressly about going to college for its entire run. Can't remember how much time she actually spent in classes. *

(I dimly remember reading somewhere that TV networks are leery of shows about college because, unlike high school, it's not a universal rite of passage shared by pretty much every tv viewer.)

* There also The Paper Chase, but that was about law school.

There are shows set in College and have actually done the 4 year "arc", like Grown-ish or A Different World. Yes the focus is not in the academics, but they also don't pretend they don't exist.

Watching the new Scrubs sequel, it's basically interns learning on the job and 90% of the show is jokes and hijinks, but the writers still remember that the interns are supposed to learn something at the end of the episode. I'd say Starfleet Academy (both the show and the fictional institution I suppose) is more like that in my mind, especially if they are training for specific jobs and not just studying for the sake of studying (in which case presumably there are still civilian universities to study literature or botany or whatever).

 

[Greg Cox]

There are shows set in College and have actually done the 4 year "arc", like Grown-ish or A Different World. Yes the focus is not in the academics, but they also don't pretend they don't exist.

Not pretending they didn't exist. They just flew beneath my radar, probably because there was no SFF element like Buffy or Smallville or Roswell or whatever.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[firehawk12]

Not pretending they didn't exist. They just flew beneath my radar, probably because there was no SFF element like Buffy or Smallville or Roswell or whatever.

Thanks for the correction.

Yeah that's fair. I suppose Harry Potter is the only fantasy school thing that comes to mind where they basically spend all their time at school. I've never seen the movies but I assume they learn magic at some point during all their adventures anyway. lol

Maybe the Sabrina the Teenage Witch shows?

 

[fireproof78]

Not pretending they didn't exist. They just flew beneath my radar, probably because there was no SFF element like Buffy or Smallville or Roswell or whatever.

Thanks for the correction.

Which is something to bear in mind with ACADEMY. It's not college but college and military training. Field training is a part of that.

Or they could just do to SPACE CAMP. The kid characters were never in danger there.

 

[Mudd]

Watching the new Scrubs sequel, it's basically interns learning on the job and 90% of the show is jokes and hijinks, but the writers still remember that the interns are supposed to learn something at the end of the episode.

It's usually not the interns who learn something.

 

[firehawk12]

It's usually not the interns who learn something.

The characters for better or for worse act pretty much the same, but they are theoretically teachers now. lol