Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Come, Let’s Away [S1E6] – TV Review

TL;DR – While I am not normally a fan of bait-and-switch episodes, if you are going to pull it off, it helps when you have Holly Hunter, Paul Giamatti & Oded Fehr lighting up the screen. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that airs this series.

Caleb and Tarima sitting on a bench looking at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Come, Let’s Away Review

Ooo, this is an odd episode, in that it is tonally very different from anything else the show has done, and look, it goes places. Places I was not expecting this early in the series. However, as big swings go, you’d better have a cast ready to pull it off, and thankfully, it looks like Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has that.

So, to set the scene, after spending all season in several stages of flirtation, Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) and Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner) have finally taken their relationship to the next level. But things hit a rock when Tarima’s accident captures something in Caleb’s mind, and he sees into his past. The USS Athena is on a joint mission between Starfleet Academy and the War College on the wreck of the USS Miyazaki. But when The Furies intercept the cadets and take them hostage, Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) might have to make a deal with a devil to get the cadets back. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Continue reading

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Series Acclimation Mil [S1E5] – TV Review

TL;DR – There were many things I was expecting when I sat down to watch this episode today, but I did not expect to find myself openly weeping, and I am just as surprised about that as you are, dear reader.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that airs this series.

A doctored CBS Productions Logo.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Series Acclimation Mil Review

Oh … wow … I was not ready for this episode when I pressed play. I was not prepared for it to show the strength of the Starfleet Academy premise with a sheer gumption that is commendable. I was also not ready for it to show such love to Deep Space Nine that it evoked an emotional response so profound that it caught me off guard. Well, with that in mind, let’s dive into the episode to see what it holds.  

So, to set the scene, Series Acclimation Mil or SAM (Kerrice Brooks) is the only photonic member of the Academy, as her home planet, Kasq, has sent her to learn about organic beings and potentially be a bridge between those two worlds, an emissary. When her Makers (Chiwetel Ejiofor) insisted she take the class “Confronting the Unexplainable” or they would remove her from the Academy, SAM was stuck. The professor, Illa (Tawny Newsome), would not let her join this late into the semester, but she will be taken away from everything she loves if she doesn’t get in, which is when SAM stumbles upon the legend of The Sisko (Avery Brooks). No one knows for sure what happened to him after the incident in the Fire Caves, but SAM will find out; she has to. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Continue reading

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Beta Test [S1E2] – TV Review

TL;DR – I think this episode shows the potential best and also the possible worst for the series moving forward.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that airs this series.

The Cadets in a line.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Beta Test Review

Apparently, it is tradition in the year of the Lord 2026, when you drop a weekly series order, you need to drop two episodes, which usually feel like they could have been one movie-length episode, but weren’t because of weird Hollywood economy reasons. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is no stranger to this phenomenon, but to give it its credit, this did feel like a whole new episode in its own right.  

So, to set the scene, Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) is trying to acclimatise to a world defined by rules, order, and, strangely for him, safety. Meanwhile, Captain Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) is championing student learning wherever she can. One opportunity is being given to Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) because, for the first time since The Burn, the Betazed delegation is coming out of their psionic barrier that was put up around their territory. This could be a big win for the Federation to get Betazed to return to the fold, but it was the Federation that abandoned them during The Burn, and memories can be long. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Continue reading