Thoughts on Fan Reaction to Starfleet Academy

Thoughts on Fan Reaction to Starfleet Academy

WARNING: Strong, Frank Language

I need to talk about this.  The fan reaction to Starfleet Academy is totally ridiculous.  Not liking a show is fine.  Don't watch it.  Way too often of late so-called fans post online on social media, Youtube videos, etc. their disdain for the series, the direction the franchise is going, Alex Kurtzman and so on.  Guess what: NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO WATCH THE SHOW.  If you really don't like it, do what I did: don't watch it and wait for the fourth season of SNW.  In the meantime shut up about the show, it's "wokeness" (when has Star Trek ever not been "woke' or had a progressive, so-called "woke" agenda?), its teens in school storyline and characters (what were you expecting from a Starfleet Academy show?) and its LGBT, unconventional characters.  So what if the Klingon character is gay?  Garak the Cardassian was obviously gay, Lura Thok, the half Jem'hadar half Klingon is gay.  So what if the Klingon is a healer and not a warrior.  Who cares?  Star Trek Enterprise showed a Klingon doctor in a fourth season episode.  TNG showed Klingon scientists in at least two episodes (The Drumhead, Suspicions).  This is not something new.  I myself am ambivalent about the show.  I could care less about the gay Klingon student training to be a healer being in a same-sex relationship with a male War College student, or Lura Thok and Jett Reno being in a committed relationship (that one is actually some good character growth for Reno).  And then there are the people who say "nu trek and Starfleet Academy are preaching, pushing an agenda".  And TOS and the Berman-era shows weren't?  Seriously??  Wake the fuck up.  TOS Let That Be Your Last Battlefield pretty point-blank pointed out the pointlessness of race prejudice.  ENT Cogenitor commented pretty bluntly on AIDs-like diseases and the prejudice toward the cogenitor gender was a pretty on the nose allegory for 1980's AIDs Reagan era anti-LGBT sentiment.  TNGs Symbiosis and ENT Impulse both tackled the topic of drug addiction head on.  DS9s Rejoined had the franchise's first same-sex kiss.  For God's sake, TOS Plato's Stepchildren famously showed the first black-white interracial kiss on American TV.  Many of the common complaints from the fans about the series are honestly specious and pedantic.  The bitching about honestly non-issues like Captain Ake going barefoot and lounging in the captain's chair (would you rather her be stiff and stuck up like Voyager season 1 Janeway?), the gay Klingon Jay-Den wearing a skirt (whatever).  The show being heavy on teen melodrama (uhhh...it's a series called Starfleet Academy, following cadets at Starfleet Academy).  And as for the gay characters, same sex relationships thing (Jayden and Kyle, Lura Thok and Jett Reno: that boat totally sailed with Discovery.  So get over it!

Is the series divisive?  Yes.  Every bit as much as Discovery.  Is it bad?  Not necessarily.  There are in fact good elements.  Robert Picardo reprising his role from Voyager (and Prodigy) as The Doctor, Tig Notaro as Jet Reno, Holly Hunter as the quirky Academy Chancellor Captain Nahla Ake, Paul Giamatti as the baddie Nus Braka.  Yes there are issues with the series, and I'm not defending its shortcomings.  The dialog is not the best Trek has given us (the "zoomer slang" is  cringe at some times), the Federation ending threat trope is way overused at this point, the romance is frankly unnecessary, the "kids save the day" trope is beyond tired at this point", and the "school rivalry" between Starfleet Academy and War College gets old fast.  These writing shortcomings are the issues that bring the show down, far more than a gay Klingon or Nahla Ake barefoot or a random cadet in the pilot having swallowed their combadge.  If fans are going to continue to bitch and moan about the series being "bad", "killing the franchise" (which is has not), these are the things that we should be focusing on.  As for the "it's not real Star Trek" argument: wrong.  It's every bit Star Trek, as much as any other Trek Series.  Don't like it: tough shit.

One more thing: the whole "Kurtzman killed Star Trek, Kurtzman destroyed the franchise" line: uhhh no.  Granted he has presided over some of the franchises lowest points (Section 31, Picard season 2, the mess that was early Discovery), but lest we forget that without Kurtzman we would not have any of modern Trek, including Lower Decks or Strange New Worlds.  If Skydance-owned Paramount keeps him on then they keep him on, if not then someone else will run the franchise.  As fans there is nothing we can do about that.  So shut up about Kurtzman already.

Rant over.