Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Holly Hunter, Sandro Rosta, Robert Picardo, Paul Giamatti, Tatiana Maslany, Karim Diane, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepard, Gina Yashere, Zoë Steiner, Raoul Bhaneja, Tig Nataro, Oded Fehr, Stephen Colbert, Brit Marling.
In its 60th year, one that is filled with huge past highs, and some fairly despondent lows, moments that preached beyond the capacity of the viewer to admire, let alone respect, the many worlds of Star Trek finds itself following from the lamentable final series of Discovery with a way to restart the whole idea of Starfleet being formed once again whilst building a structure to imagine just how the premise of the programme, its history and its future can combat fatigue.
It is that sense of possible fatigue in a time when the progress and unity of the Human race is as far from achievable as it can possibly be, with terrible wars, injustices, despots, maniacs, and clashes of ideologies narrating the times we live in, such a hope that is offered in Star Trek is nothing more than a far off dream tempered by our own inevitable annihilation…it is no wonder then that the cycle of the show can be frustrating; and yet it is also filled with temptation, a pulse of heart-warming enticement to witness a pathway for us all to overcome what ails us, what will kill us.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy kicks off almost at the point where Discovery left off, a universe in disarray but with the promise that what was once held so tightly, prized beyond almost anything that human society and those that founded the United Federation of Planets ever dared conceive, could once more be reestablished, and to do so it takes the youth, the young, to be given a reason where they dare to dream that the past that bought the likes of Kirk, Janeway, Sisko, and Piccard to the point of near immortality, could also see their lives mean something, that they could themselves bring peace to a system once again ravaged by war and fear,
It is a daring premise, one fraught with instances where the ideology of the future is very much dictated by the realms of the writers today, one sometimes driven by modern philosophy and not by the complex needs of constant improving narrative, and yet in its first series it has the ability to cross the threshold of enjoyment and desired fan needs, a trick often missed by Discovery.
The sense of continuation is also paramount to the future, and by the grace of Robert Picardo reprising his role as holographic Doctor from Voyager, the sense of enormous grit needed to portray a villain with an ego of epic proportions finds its host in the excellent Paul Giamatti, and a shadowy heroine with a past that is compelling, played by Tatiana Maslany with insight and depth, so the future looks as though it does hold a decent shout of addition to the show’s lore as the 60th anniversary looms large.
A good start to a new member of the Star Trek family, one that a future can be built upon.
Ian D. Hall