‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Review: Paramount’s Teen ‘Trek’ Series Isn’t Nearly Bold Enough

Co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau's franchise expansion is too enamored with "Star Trek" nostalgia and too detached from its teen drama subgenre. At least Holly Hunter is having fun.

September will mark the sixtieth anniversary of “Star Trek,” and Paramount is pulling out all the stops to celebrate — including an unwelcome takeover of its latest series launch, “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.”

No, I’m not talking about the animated pre-title sequence showing off the franchise’s favorite starships. I’m not even bothered by nostalgia-casting characters from previous shows — including Tig Notaro’s Jett Reno (from “Star Trek: Discovery”) and Robert Picardo’s “The Doctor” (an Emergency Medical Hologram introduced in “Star Trek: Voyager”) — or fan-casting famous Trekkies like Paul Giamatti (who makes for a memorably teeth-gnashing villain).

No, what’s unpalatable about the new “Star Trek” series is that it mainly cares about the franchise’s past, not the audience’s, and that imbalance makes for a bland, cautious adventure. “Starfleet Academy” is a genre hybrid: half science-fiction, half teen-drama. But only one of those halves is developed well enough to please its viewers, and it’s not the half that’s new to “Star Trek.”

Co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau seem like a balanced pairing on paper, with the former overseeing “Star Trek’s” TV franchise since “Discovery” and the latter in charge of The CW’s 2019 “Nancy Drew” reboot. Joined by writer/creator Gaia Violo (“Absentia”), the team may have taken on too much from the jump, juggling a cliché-ridden origin story for its two leads and rushing through the introduction of its primary setting.

Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) is just a kid when the Federation takes his mother (Tatiana Maslany) away from him. Rather than become a ward of the state, he goes on the run — just as his power-wary mama taught him. Years later, after The Burn (a cataclysmic event introduced in “Discovery”), he’s caught and brought before the same Federation officer who sentenced his mom: Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter), a compassionate captain whose Lanthanite heritage has kept her 422 years young. Now, she wants to send Caleb to the newly reopened Starfleet Academy, where’s she’ll be chancellor, and despite his distrust of authority figures, he agrees… mainly so he can keep searching for his lost parent.

Once onboard the USS Athena, Caleb rooms with Jay-Den (Karim Diané), a Klingon cadet who’s grown used to not fitting in. They soon befriend Sam (Kerrice Brooks), a sentient hologram who’s only a few months old but gets sent to the Academy to observe “organics” on behalf of her fellow “photonics.” There’s also Darem (George Hawkins), an arrogant rich-kid who immediately rubs Caleb the wrong way, and Genesis (Bella Shepard), a high-achieving nepo baby/admiral’s daughter who’s composed but competitive.

Early episodes deploy standard teen drama plots like a prank war (against a competing academy) and a party night (with the same competing academy). Caleb meets and falls for Tarima (Zoë Sadal), a president’s daughter, but even their “orphaned lonely boy and privileged daddy’s girl” dynamic goes under-explored. Caleb’s rebellious bad-boy archetype (he’s been to prison) comes and goes depending on what the story wants from him, and the other students — despite entire episodes dedicated to Jay-Den and Sam — rarely feel like real kids. They don’t even feel like new cadets, as they jump to the controls like they’ve been operating starships their whole lives.

Maybe they have, but treating them like adults doesn’t do “Starfleet Academy” any favors. Almost every aspect of the series’ YA side falls flat, from negligible cast chemistry to a lifeless central romance, but what really stings is the show’s disinterest in its young characters’ perspectives. In nearly every episode (of the six screened for review), the relatable teen concerns — getting a good grade, feeling homesick, establishing individuality, making new friends — are rendered insignificant by adult storylines that suck up all the oxygen.

Rather than relegate the chancellor’s problems into a B-plot (like teen dramas tend to do with their adult characters), “Starfleet Academy” combines its distinct groups into a single, streamlined unit, which too often negates the students’ emotional reality and ruins the show’s attempts to grow alongside them. Caleb & Co. are just serving the adults (and their plots) instead of living their own lives (which, in theory, would be where “Starfleet” could find some much-needed fun).

It doesn’t help that teachers’ arcs aren’t that much more fleshed out, with Nahle’s No. 1, Lura (Gina Yashere), stuck in shouting Klingon mode and her partner, Jett (Notaro), popping in less for comic relief than dry observations. Picardo’s Doctor is still solid support, and Hunter is like a floodlight of personality compared to the dimmed bulbs around her, but they’re fleeting bright spots. (In addition to the genre disparity, the first season feels stranded between serialized and episodic storytelling, and its hesitancy to commit may doom them both.)

Granted, there’s time left for the series to fix its focus, but with Season 2 already in the can, it’s hard to imagine how much of a pivot “Starfleet Academy” can make before anyone but Trekkies tune out. Nostalgia for a brand is one thing. Nostalgia for time of life everyone shares, well, there’s an art to making teen dramas that shouldn’t be taken for granted. It’s not just plugging in genre staples and letting them run in the background; it’s investing in their priorities and remembering that they’re ours, too, no matter how old we get.

“Starfleet Academy” is unmistakably a “Star Trek” show. What’s less clear is whether it can boldly go where it hasn’t gone before — or even wants to.

Grade: C-

“Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” premieres Thursday, January 15 on Paramount+ with two episodes. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale on March 12.