Star Trek Starfleet Academy Review, Season 1 On Paramount Plus

The “Star Trek” franchise could use a fresh start. It’s been eight years now since Paramount+ relaunched “Trek” TV with “Star Trek: Discovery,” and while we’ve enjoyed a few highlights along the way (like the triumphant final season of “Star Trek: Picard”), the streaming “Trek” series have fallen into a bit of a rut lately, following predictable patterns and relying too heavily on past “Trek” lore. The latest offering, “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” — premiering Thursday, Jan. 15 on Paramount+; I’ve seen the first six episodes — charts a new course with an eager crop of fresh-faced recruits, and it deserves credit for trying to forge its own path. Unfortunately, though, it also hits some of the same stumbling blocks that have dogged recent “Trek” outings.

“Starfleet Academy” takes place after the end of “Discovery” in the far-off 32nd century, in the aftermath of the devastatingly destructive event known as The Burn. Starfleet wants to reopen its training school Starfleet Academy, with Nahla Ake (played by Holly Hunter) tapped to be the school’s new chancellor. She has a personal tie to one of the cadets, too: Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta), a sullen loner who was separated from his mother at a young age. Ake and her faculty work to build a fertile environment for Starfleet’s great young minds to grow — but that’s threatened by Paul Giamatti’s cackling space pirate Nus Braka, who is nursing a long-held grudge against Ake.

For “Trek” fans, Starfleet Academy seems like a natural setting for a TV show; we’ve heard about it for decades, but it’s never really been delved into before to this degree in a “Trek” project. “Academy” does a good job of introducing a young cast filled with colorful characters, from Karim Diané’s surprisingly shy Klingon Kraag to Kerrice Brooks’ cheerful hologram SAM. Hunter and Giamatti get top billing, but it’s really the young students who carry the bulk of the show, and the early episodes weave in a few YA-friendly romantic elements — complete with actual sex scenes!

There’s a melancholy tint to all of this, too, watching the first class of cadets enroll after The Burn, that feels timely in our post-COVID world. But “Star Trek” is all about interstellar travel, and “Academy” can feel a little earthbound at times, stuck inside the classroom rather than reaching for the stars. “Trek” TV veteran Alex Kurtzman serves as co-showrunner with Noga Landau (“Nancy Drew”), and the tone here will be familiar to anyone who’s watched a recent “Trek” series. It’s a mix of corny jokes, a breathless reverence for Starfleet, and a heavy dose of lens flare — the kind of traits that made “Discovery” a self-righteous slog by the end.

It’s nice to see Robert Picardo back as The Doctor from “Star Trek: Voyager” — his holographic image may have been updated, but he hasn’t lost a step — and Gina Yashere has fun as stern cadet master Lura. Giamatti is clearly a die-hard “Trek” fan, and he relishes the chance to chew scenery as a deliciously evil villain. But he’s really more of a glorified guest star, showing up in the premiere and then disappearing entirely until Episode 6. Hunter, meanwhile, is a strange fit as a “Star Trek” captain. Her Nahla Ake is goofy and eccentric, draping herself sideways over the captain’s chair like a tipsy partygoer. In her scenes with Caleb, Hunter brings an affecting tenderness, but the sight of her barking orders on a starship bridge never quite computes.

Getting two excellent actors like Hunter and Giamatti to headline a “Trek” series is a major coup, of course, but their scenes feel like they’re from a different show than the YA school antics. I almost think “Starfleet Academy” would work better if they had just jettisoned the big-name actors and relied on the young cadets to carry the main thrust of the drama. After all, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were fresh faces once, too.

“Star Wars” has found a way to open up its universe in fresh and challenging ways with shows like “The Mandalorian” and “Andor” — but we’re still waiting for the new wave of “Star Trek” to deliver a thoughtful game-changer of that caliber. As it is, “Starfleet Academy” is a noble experiment with some promising aspects… and others that need a little remedial work.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: “Star Trek” tries to get a fresh start with “Starfleet Academy,” but it’s dogged by the same pitfalls that have hampered recent “Trek.”