Starfleet Academy review: Star Trek kicks off 60th anniversary by connecting its past and future

The show embraces YA tropes but provides real stakes for the cadets and Federation

Star Trek: Discovery began as a Star Trek prequel set in the 23rd century, but in season 3, the crew time-traveled 900 years into the future. That series ended in 2024, and Starfleet Academy is a direct follow-up with a few crossover characters. In the 32nd century, the United Federation of Planets is still rebuilding a century after being shattered by The Burn, a disaster that cut off warp travel and destroyed most of the Federation fleet. Restarting the Federation’s mission of exploration and diplomacy is key to its recovery. That involves reopening Starfleet Academy after more than 100 years, with classes taught both on Earth in San Francisco and aboard a new starship, the USS Athena.

All that setup makes for a ponderous pilot, which also has to introduce a deep cast of students and faculty, as well as the season’s primary villain. Paul Giamatti seems to be really enjoying taking a break from his trademark sympathetic curmudgeons to chew scenery as the gaudy space pirate Nus Braka, who has it out for Starfleet captain turned academy chancellor Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter). Ake is part of the same extremely long-lived species as Chief Engineer Pelia (Carol Kane) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and mirrors her good-natured, eccentric hippie energy, slyly dispensing wisdom while also ensuring students have the freedom to learn from their mistakes.

Kurtzman and Landau have absolutely packed their show with YA tropes, starting with the closest thing the series has to a protagonist. Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) is a bad boy with street smarts who doesn’t trust Starfleet and is searching for his missing mother. He’s also a brilliant engineer, an excellent orator, and sexy enough to charm Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner), the daughter of Betazed’s president. Tarima is so powerfully psychic that she has to wear an inhibitor to keep her abilities in check, and it blinks red whenever things get heated with Caleb. Episode 3 introduces an Animal House-style rivalry between Starfleet Academy and the War Academy, a post-Burn program to train defenders of the Federation. Their enmity manifests in a prank war and varsity laser tag. The clichés can be cheesy, but the cast’s earnestness helps sell the silliness.

Like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy is mostly episodic, but highly focused on developing its characters and their relationships. While Strange New Worlds got too mired in gimmicks in season 3, Starfleet Academy’s first six episodes demonstrate compelling character growth while also stressing the real stakes for individuals and the institution.

Starfleet Academy’s far-future setting means the showrunners aren’t nearly as limited by existing series continuity, which puts them ahead of prequels like Strange New Worlds. Still, the academy’s lesson plans provide ample ammunition for plots that touch on earlier Star Trek shows while focusing on new characters.

Star Trek: Voyager’s holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo), now serving as a Starfleet Academy teacher, emphasizes the importance of learning debate skills by explaining how he used his to earn his freedom, a reference to a Voyager episode that was part of Star Trek’s long history of putting personhood on trial. But the class primarily serves as a rich arc for Klingon medical student Jay-Den Kraag (Karim Diané), who winds up representing his people’s values.

Similarly, a class on historic mysteries introduced in episode 5, “Series Acclimation Mil,” is an extended tribute to Deep Space Nine. But the episode also dives into high-concept science fiction while providing a showcase for absurdly perky alien hologram SAM (Kerrice Brooks).

Sometimes the fan service gets a bit too thick — it feels like every protagonist in Star Trek history has a place on the school’s memorial wall. But Starfleet Academy also has some highly effective subtler references. For instance, it’s clear the fruits of the diplomacy Spock (Leonard Nimoy) undertook to bring Vulcans and Romulans together in The Next Generation two-parter “Unification” has paid off: The War College includes representatives of both species, who are absolutely simpatico when it comes to making fun of their Starfleet counterparts. Discovery’s 900-year time jump gives Starfleet Academy a lot of room to fill in Trek history, and Kurtzman and Landau are slowly revealing the fragile state of the galaxy and how much is riding on Starfleet being able to reconcile with old allies and fend off new enemies.

The biggest problem with Starfleet Academy’s vision of the future is its use of CGI. Visual effects have never been Star Trek’s strong suit, and while the USS Athena looks impressive from the outside, the little service robots floating around the ship feel like they’d be more at home in the Star Wars prequels. A CGI humpback whale in the second episode looks like a bad screensaver — the robotics used to portray a whale in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home provided a far more realistic effect. By contrast, the prosthetics work is excellent, particularly shining in part-Klingon, part-Jem’Hadar cadet master Lura Thok (Gina Yashere).

The United States is becoming more racially diverse and young Americans are more likely to identify as queer than in previous generations; Starfleet Academy reflects that with an emphasis on characters who have mixed heritage and are in LGBTQ relationships. That dynamic is sure to irk the subset of fans who don’t recognize that Star Trek has always been “woke,” but it provides rich material for plots exploring the complex ways young people come to terms with their identities, and offers a huge range of potential relationship plots among the horny students.

Star Trek has lasted 60 years as a franchise because creators have been willing to boldly go in new directions while building on the series’ rich history. Starfleet Academy is a worthy entry in that legacy, using established characters to connect it to previous shows while being free to push the Federation’s story far beyond Kirk and Picard’s adventures. At a time when the future of humanity feels deeply uncertain, Star Trek continues to shine as a reminder that it’s worth fighting for a better tomorrow.

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The first two episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere on Paramount Plus on Jan. 15. Future episodes will release Thursdays through March 12.