Quickie Review: Star Trek - Starfleet Academy

[Kevin M.]

Do you want to know what they did? Here’s what they did: 

They created a universe where people can literally beam anywhere in seconds. They created a universe where people can replicate anything. 

So anyone can go anywhere and have anything, yet who are the bad guys? Pirates. Huh? 

Anyway, I concede there is an audience for this series. I further concede I am not their audience. Conceding all that and more, what a giant crock of flaming mooseturd. Yeah, yeah, decent actors. Yeah, yeah, pretty visuals. Too bad this was what they did with it.

It’ll probably last ten years, with the lead cadet characters having to hide their ages like 90210 actors. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Jim Ellwanger]

I suspect there will be a lot of episodes where the beaming and/or replication technology is not working, for Reasons (as in an extended portion of the first episode).

What I really want to know is whether the Golden Gate Bridge was rebuilt at some point, or if they're using some sort of advanced technology to preserve it. If I were writing this show, there would absolutely be an episode where the cadets go on a little tour of San Francisco and learn some history.

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[M-D November]

Kevin - honest question - did you watch "Star Trek: Discovery", particularly seasons 3-5?  If you did, then the tech changes spurred by the jump to the 32nd century (personal transporters, programmable matter, etc.) shouldn't be a surprise.  (Although you may be confusing the personal transporters - which are still range-limited - with Discovery's spore drive, which is decommissioned by the time ST:SA starts.)

As far as the "big bad" being pirates - it's more complicated than that. Again, later-season Disco fleshes this out, but here's the TL;dr:

• There was a catastrophic event called "the Burn" which caused all dilithium to go inert, and anything with an active warp core to go boom
• The Federation as we knew it largely fell apart, with many worlds (including Earth) going isolationist for their own protection
• Starfleet - what was left of it - largely went into hiding to lick its wounds
• Criminal elements, particularly those with access to FTL drives that weren't reliant on dilithium*, quickly rose to power and took control of former Federation territories
• Later-season Discovery shows the Federation pulling itself back together and getting back to business, but a number of rogue elements remain

* I had to qualify this because some ships - like Romulan vessels - use different energy sources to power their warp engines. The presumption was that these vessels, while not as numerous as ones equipped with traditional dilithium-powered engines, would have remained viable.

I watched the first two episodes, and while yeah, it has its cringy moments, I'm willing to give it a shot.  It has a number of things working in its favor - Robert Picardo is back as the Doctor, for one - but most of all, it's optimistic, and we can use a little optimism right about now.