Starfleet Academy: Vitus Reflux

[kathleen_dailey]

I'm sticking with the series, although so far it seems less like its Star Trek predecessors and more like a generic YA-ish dramedy featuring attractive and/or quirky characters who just happen to live in a complex futuristic setting.



-- For me, a serious conceptual stumbling block is that so far the 32nd century doesn't seem very much advanced from what we saw of the 23rd and 24th. One might expect 800 years to make a difference in some shockingly dramatic ways (as, for example, the difference between 1226 and 2026). I guess we're meant to believe that post-Burn isolation and deprivation brought all aspects of development in all sectors to a halt?

-- The prank-war plotline didn't do much for me, but I liked most of the scenes that featured the adults. My viewing partner was greatly disappointed by the idea that Starfleet would condone that type of hostile competitiveness among students (as opposed, I guess, to more conventional war games, battle simulations, Kobayashi Maru tests, etc.).

-- Some people are complaining that the dialogue incorporates 21st century slang and idioms (for example,"on your six.") This tells me that the complainers aren't true SFal suspenders of disbelief. If they were, they'd know that the characters are speaking 32nd-century Federation Standard, and we're just hearing the idiomatic equivalent in 21st-century English.

-- KRAD says that the plant was inspired by Little Shop of Horrors, but I was sure that it was (somehow) a descendant of Rand and Sulu's Beauregard/Gertrude.

-- Lura and Reno are a couple, which makes me happy.

-- I've been a fan of Raoul Bhaneja since the days of Train 48, and I liked the way he was directed here. Bhaneja is doing a great job in this role, and it's clear that there's more depth to Kelrec than we've seen.

-- The characters still seem like high-schoolers rather than undergraduate or graduate students, but there are some in-universe explanations for their immaturity (and Chancellor Ake gives the prank war her imprimatur, so whatevs).

-- I am really annoyed by Caleb, but maybe that's the point--more room for redemption and maturation?

-- This business of instantaneous on-the-spot transport seems fraught with unjustifiable hazard.

-- Hmm, a young Vulcan in the War College. Tell me more ...


It's early days, so I'll be keeping an open mind, although I don't expect to develop any deep fannish connection to this iteration of Trek. May TPTB prove me wrong.

Comments

[athaia]

-- For me, a serious conceptual stumbling block is that so far the 32nd century doesn't seem very much advanced from what we saw of the 23rd and 24th. One might expect 800 years to make a difference in some shockingly dramatic ways (as, for example, the difference between 1226 and 2026). I guess we're meant to believe that post-Burn isolation and deprivation brought all aspects of development in all sectors to a halt?

It's because AI is grinding any cultural evolution to a halt. I mean, look around you - anything new in the past ten years? 🤡

For me personally, Star Trek ended with Deep Space 9.

[kathleen_dailey]

For me personally, Star Trek ended with Deep Space 9

Me too, emotionally, although I've watched all the later series one time through. I was quite hopeful about Strange New Worlds during its first season, but my optimism didn't last. The only contemporary Trek that's seemed recognizably Trekkish to me in themes and plots and characterizations is, oddly, Lower Decks.

[athaia]

I tried but DNF Voyager and Enterprise, watched the reboot movies (and even enjoyed them for the trashy fun they were), and tried Picard, but gave up in disgust when they turned the Romulans into Chinese drama ripoffs (I have nothing against the genre, but it's not the Romulans, and it felt like they were trying to jump onto the latest fad train), which meant I was lucky and missed the later action-cringefest of turning Picard into an SF version of John McClane...

At this point, I've given up hope, and ST isn't getting another chance from me. I may play around with fanfic for TOS (like the Romulanverse or Mirrorverse stuff I wrote), but I'll stay with the old series and ignore the modern mutation that lives in some sort of uncanny valley of Trek.

[kathleen_dailey]

I'll stay with the old series and ignore the modern mutation that lives in some sort of uncanny valley of Trek.

Someone on TrekBBS mentioned that they "think of each series as an alternate universe of its own. It helps make sense of the fundamental tonal and other differences, aside from simple historical events and the like."

That's how I've decided to view SNW, but this comment made me think that (to avoid driving myself nuts with endless questions and quibbles) I should adopt the same approach to every series post-DS9--that is, I should imagine an overarching Star Trek ur-universe that contains numberless similar but not identical timestreams.

I know that when I go looking for Trek fic, I head directly for TOS, TNG, and/or DS9. If a trusted reader or critic recommends a story set in the context of one of the other series, I'll probably read it, but those three series constitute the true Trek universe for me.

Thank goodness we can still rewatch them. :)

[gingicat]

My comment to the husband was "but I keep telling you not to recommend anime set in high school and junior college! Why do I like this show?!"

[kathleen_dailey]

LOL! We may well ask! The other day I saw a Bluesky post from Diane Duane in which she said that she'd "be delighted to write for this [show] if they'd have me in the room." That got my attention. Thus my resolve to keep an open mind. :)

[dewline]

If Diane wants to join the writers' room for SFA, then I hope they make a place for her.