The worst Star Trek ever

[xuanji86]

First off, to be clear: I've watched basically every live-action Star Trek TV series except TOS. I made it about halfway through DIS before I just couldn't continue; it was that bad. But I have to say this plainly: Starfleet Academy is the worst Star Trek TV series I've ever seen, even worse than DIS. Kurtzman needs to be fired immediately, and the second season should be canceled.

Picard was bad, but at least the actors were competent enough to barely hold it together. DIS only got worse over time. Starfleet Academy inherits every single flaw of DIS and then amplifies them to an extreme, well beyond my tolerance level.

Here are the main problems as I see them:

1. The writing is full of plot holes. The writers clearly have no understanding of Star Trek and treat the audience like idiots. A perfect example is in the first episode, where the villain escapes in an escape pod and no one even tries to stop them; they just let it happen. Completely absurd.
2. Terrible casting and character design. Forget acting ability for a moment，none of the characters give me any reason to keep watching. Compared to classic Star Trek, this is a straight-up aesthetic regression. And it gets even worse: one of the characters is a hologram, which in theory should be able to freely control its physical appearance. Yet it chooses to look like an obese person, with two ridiculous spheres on its head like Mickey Mouse. It looks absurd and ugly, completely breaks immersion, and honestly feels like a bad joke rather than Star Trek. (BTW, why did the hologram come to the Academy become a cadet? They can download everything in seconds)
3. Who is this show even for? I was born in the late 1990s, and this series has zero appeal to me. I seriously doubt it resonates with Gen Z either. Everyone I know feels exactly the same way. An IMDb score as low as 4.2 speaks for itself.

In short, I believe all Star Trek series produced under Kurtzman should be removed from canon. While there's still time, the franchise needs a full reboot—handed over to people who actually understand Star Trek and have a functional sense of aesthetics.

If David Mack's Destiny trilogy had been successfully adapted to replace Picard and DIS, modern Star Trek television would likely be in a far better place. In my view, the Litverse stories are far more coherent, compelling, and genuinely “Star Trek” than what's currently being sold as canon.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Haha. No.

 

[Mudd]

First off, to be clear: I've watched basically every live-action Star Trek TV series except TOS. I made it about halfway through DIS before I just couldn't continue; it was that bad. But I have to say this plainly: Starfleet Academy is the worst Star Trek TV series I've ever seen, even worse than DIS. Kurtzman needs to be fired immediately, and the second season should be canceled.

Picard was bad, but at least the actors were competent enough to barely hold it together. DIS only got worse over time. Starfleet Academy inherits every single flaw of DIS and then amplifies them to an extreme, well beyond my tolerance level.

Here are the main problems as I see them:

1. The writing is full of plot holes. The writers clearly have no understanding of Star Trek and treat the audience like idiots. A perfect example is in the first episode, where the villain escapes in an escape pod and no one even tries to stop them; they just let it happen. Completely absurd.
2. Terrible casting and character design. Forget acting ability for a moment，none of the characters give me any reason to keep watching. Compared to classic Star Trek, this is a straight-up aesthetic regression. And it gets even worse: one of the characters is a hologram, which in theory should be able to freely control its physical appearance. Yet it chooses to look like an obese person, with two ridiculous spheres on its head like Mickey Mouse. It looks absurd and ugly, completely breaks immersion, and honestly feels like a bad joke rather than Star Trek. (BTW, why did the hologram come to the Academy become a cadet? They can download everything in seconds)
3. Who is this show even for? I was born in the late 1990s, and this series has zero appeal to me. I seriously doubt it resonates with Gen Z either. Everyone I know feels exactly the same way. An IMDb score as low as 4.2 speaks for itself.

In short, I believe all Star Trek series produced under Kurtzman should be removed from canon. While there's still time, the franchise needs a full reboot—handed over to people who actually understand Star Trek and have a functional sense of aesthetics.

If David Mack's Destiny trilogy had been successfully adapted to replace Picard and DIS, modern Star Trek television would likely be in a far better place. In my view, the Litverse stories are far more coherent, compelling, and genuinely “Star Trek” than what's currently being sold as canon.

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[xuanji86]

The portrayal of the academy head is completely unprofessional and immersion-breaking. The female chancellor is a Starfleet officer, effectively the equivalent of the superintendent of West Point. Yet she's constantly lounging around, never in proper uniform, acting like she's perpetually high. She's either slouched sideways, lying down, or even barefoot, striking these bizarre, almost creepy poses.
Is this really how the head of Starfleet Academy is supposed to carry herself? Try to imagine Picard or Janeway sprawled out on the bridge like that. It's unthinkable. This kind of characterization shows a total lack of understanding of Starfleet culture and basic military bearing.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Uh-huh.

 

[Turtletrekker]

If you really want to start a thread on worst Trek ever, the Picard forum is just four spaces up from this one.

 

[xuanji86]

And the plot is painfully predictable. It's obvious where this is going: the villain from the first episode will inevitably return as the final boss, and the “mysterious” backstory involving the Black kid's mother will also resurface later. These are shallow, almost insultingly obvious setups. The foreshadowing is so crude it borders on stupidity. Honestly, even something written by ChatGPT would have more depth than this.

And beyond all of that, this show simply isn't Star Trek. You can call it Starship Troopers, or space Hogwarts, or a sci-fi teen drama fine. But it has nothing to do with Star Trek in tone, themes, or values. It lacks exploration, moral dilemmas, intellectual substance, and the sense of professionalism that defined the franchise. Slapping a Star Trek label on it doesn't make it Star Trek.

At the end of the day, this is a teen idol, woke show wrapped in a Star Trek skin (I don't like using that word, but here it's unavoidable). It's clearly made for a very specific audience.

If people don't criticize this show, what we're effectively telling Paramount is: “This kind of thing still has a market, so go ahead and keep making more of it.” That's a dangerous signal and this is how we get Academy after the DIS.

That's why people need to leave negative reviews. This is the only protective action the audience has left to defend the Star Trek IP. Investors have to feel that shows made in this direction don’t make money. Otherwise, this trend won't stop. Even if Starfleet Academy doesn't get a second season, something very similar will just take its place.

 

[xuanji86]

If you really want to start a thread on worst Trek ever, the Picard forum is just four spaces up from this one.

Why? I am new here, and the SFA is the worst Star Trek, not Picard.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Star Trek has been woke since September 8th, 1966. You lost what little credibility you still had left with that statement. When people start complaining about Star Trek as being "woke", not only do I realize that the person speaking knows nothing about Star Trek, but I also stop taking them seriously as an adult.

And Picard was trash.

 

[xuanji86]

Star Trek has been woke since September 8th, 1966. You lost what little credibility you still had left with that statement. When people start complaining about Star Trek as being "woke", not only do I realize that the person speaking knows nothing about Star Trek, but I also stop taking them seriously as an adult.

And Picard was trash.

It's true that Star Trek has been “woke” since 1966, but not in this way. It wasn't done through illogical, anti–common-sense elements like Starfleet officers not maintaining physical standards or discipline, or holograms casually attending school. And it certainly wasn't done through aesthetic degradation or by insulting the audience's intelligence.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Define "physical standards". Why shouldn't sentient holograms attend school? Data did. And who gives a f*** how the captain sits in her chair?

TOS was smash a chair into your face woke. Cherons, anyone?

 

[xuanji86]

Several of the actors are clearly overweight, and the hologram character is portrayed as if it lacks even basic intelligence. Data won't act like that. In episode three, it even participates in physical training. Why would a hologram need to attend a PE class at all? And then there's the scene where a hologram is transported into water and somehow starts blowing bubbles from her mouth. How does that make any sense?

The captain, supposedly a Starfleet officer, was just lying on a chair. Try to imagine photos of a modern naval destroyer's captain lying back on the captain's chair being posted online. That level of unprofessionalism would be unthinkable. If you have friends who've served in the Navy, ask them whether their commanding officer would ever behave like that.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Why shouldn't overweight people be allowed to serve in Starfleet? Scotty did.

 

[xuanji86]

I'll add one more thing. In the first episode, there's a character who swallows a comm badge, and her reaction already makes her seem not very bright. Later, when they're attacked by the antagonist, she runs around like an idiot, screaming things like “we're under attack” while panicking all over the place. What is that supposed to be?

Has Starfleet really fallen so far that this is the kind of person they’re recruiting now? And don’t give me the “think about what you were like at 18, come on, anyone with normal intelligence at 18 wouldn't behave like this.

 

[xuanji86]

Why shouldn't overweight people be allowed to serve in Starfleet? Scotty did.

The actors are already middle-aged, but that's exactly the point: this was entirely avoidable at the casting stage. SFA chose to cast them this way.

 

[Turtletrekker]

You still haven't explained why overweight people shouldn't be cast as Starfleet officers. Why should it be "avoided"?

 

[xuanji86]

You still haven't explained why overweight people shouldn't be cast as Starfleet officers. Why should it be "avoided"?

Because Starfleet is explicitly modeled on a military organization, and every real-world military enforces physical fitness standards.
Additionally, obesity itself isn't a healthy lifestyle, and in a technologically advanced future it should largely be preventable or treatable. That makes it even less believable to see it routinely represented within Starfleet.
If Starfleet is meant to be an elite, forward-looking organization, it stands to reason that basic health and fitness issues would have been addressed long before someone earns a commission.

 

[Firebird]

 

[Mudd]

God damn, all the complaining about people's looks is boring.

Not only is Ttek not real, it's rather ridiculous in many respects. We like it anyway.

We get it. There are people you don't like looking at. So what?

 

[xuanji86]

God damn, all the complaining about people's looks is boring.

Not only is Ttek not real, it's rather ridiculous in many respects. We like it anyway.

We get it. There are people you don't like looking at. So what?

I watch TV shows to enjoy myself. If the characters are visually painful to look at, why would I subject myself to that? I'm not watching TV to suffer.