I didn’t hit record when Starfleet Academy ended.

I waited a day. Not because I was angry, and not because I needed emotional distance, but because I finished Episode One with that feeling where I knew something wasn’t lining up and I didn’t trust myself yet to say what it was.

The show looked confident. It looked expensive. It looked very sure of itself.

Normally that doesn’t bother me. This time it did.

At first I thought I was reacting to the story, or the politics, or the setting. But the longer it sat with me, the clearer it got that what I was actually reacting to was the way the show was putting itself together.

What’s up, my know-it-alls. It’s that time again.

If this were just bad television, it wouldn’t have stayed with me. Bad shows disappear. You finish them, you complain for a minute, and then they’re gone. This one didn’t go away. It lingered in small places. In texture. In timing, probably, is the better word. In choices that didn’t feel wrong exactly, just slightly off, like the show was rushing past its own instincts before they had time to settle.

Episode One Has an Impossible Task

“Kids These Days” is carrying more than any pilot should have to carry. There’s a new era. The first Academy class in more than a century. A galaxy still rebuilding after the Burn. A full ensemble of cadets. A school that’s also a ship. Legacy characters. A season antagonist. All of that has to exist immediately.

And you can feel that pressure in the filmmaking. The episode moves fast, but it doesn’t feel relaxed. It feels like it’s trying to get ahead of your skepticism before you have time to form it.

There’s a small thing that tipped me off early, and I almost ignored it because it sounded petty.

The doors.

Star Trek doors have always sounded a certain way. Soft. Functional. They don’t ask for attention. They just exist as part of the world. Here the doors sound heavier, layered, designed. It’s the kind of sound that wants credit.

Once I noticed that, I started noticing the same instinct everywhere else. This is a very produced show. I’d argue an overproduced show. Sometimes it feels like it’s producing itself while you’re watching it. Moments don’t always land and move on. They get reinforced. The score steps in. The framing leans. The edit nudges you forward.

That’s where I start to resist a little, because I don’t like being handled unless the show really knows why it’s doing it.

Giamatti Arrives Finished, Everybody Else Is Still Forming

That resistance sharpens when Nus Braka enters the picture.

Paul Giamatti is doing exactly what he was hired to do. He’s loud, theatrical, completely committed, operating at a very specific temperature. I don’t dislike the performance. But it arrives in a pilot where almost nothing else has fully settled yet.

The cadets are still forming. Caleb Mir, played by Sandro Rosta, is still an outline more than a person. Jay-Den Kraag, played by Karim Diané, still feels like a question the show hasn’t answered.

Braka isn’t a question. He’s complete.

I kept feeling that imbalance even when I couldn’t put my finger on why it bothered me. The episode is already carrying a heavy load: the Academy concept, the USS Athena as a mobile campus, the ambush, the programmable matter attack, Chancellor Nahla Ake’s history with Braka, Caleb’s missing mother. Ideas keep arriving before the last one has any time to settle, and the show seems confident that the idea itself is enough to do the work.

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

Jay-Den’s moment is one that really slowed me down. He’s a Klingon cadet, and he calmly says he doesn’t seek honor in death but valor in life, and that he’s pursuing medicine. Asked why he doesn’t yearn for the honor of a valiant death in battle like the rest of his kind, he answers that he yearns for a valiant life.

That didn’t offend me, but it created friction. I’ve spent years immersed in Star Trek culture through Starfleet International, including building a Klingon persona there. Klingon honor isn’t abstract to me. It’s something I’ve lived with for a long time.

The line didn’t break anything. I just wanted the show to stay there longer than it did.

Episode One doesn’t stay anywhere for very long. It introduces ideas, keeps moving, and trusts momentum to carry the weight. So by the end of the hour I wasn’t confused exactly. I just didn’t feel anchored.

Judging Episode One on its own, it lands around a six out of ten for me, and that score is doing a lot of work on behalf of the cast, not the structure.

There was one moment that stuck with me more than I expected. The Athena settles into position and the show drops the San Francisco needle drop. But the ship is landing in Sausalito. It’s not about geography. It’s about instinct. Instead of trusting the image, the show tells you how to feel about it.

That impulse runs through the entire episode.

Episode Two Changes the Temperature

“Beta Test” changes things, though not all at once, and not enough that I noticed myself relaxing.

The difference is that the central problem isn’t an attack or a mystery. It’s a diplomatic decision. Betazed is considering rejoining the Federation, and immediately the episode has something solid to lean on. Conversation becomes tension. Misunderstanding becomes tension.

Caleb escorting Timma Sadal, played by Zoë Steiner, does more for his character than all the action in the pilot, because it forces him into a situation where listening matters more than reacting.

This is also where the relationship between Caleb and Chancellor Nahla Ake starts to shift. In Episode One it’s mostly positional authority, resistance, and history implied but untouched. In Episode Two it gets quieter. Holly Hunter’s Ake isn’t just eccentric leadership energy. She’s a former captain carrying institutional memory and institutional guilt at the same time, and that duality finally has room to breathe.

Caleb starts to see her. Not as forgiveness, not even as trust. More like recognition. And Ake starts to see Caleb as more than a problem recruit or something to make up for, noticing what’s underneath the defensiveness.

That growth feels real. It also feels fragile, like it could easily be rushed past if the show isn’t careful.

Moving Power Instead of Talking About Change

The biggest move Episode Two makes is structural: relocating Federation headquarters from Earth to Betazed.

I like it, and I didn’t immediately know why I liked it, which gave me pause.

It’s not boldness exactly. It’s concession. A willingness to move power instead of just talking about change. That feels very Star Trek.

At the same time, it raises a question the show hasn’t taken time to answer. If this is Starfleet Academy, the cadets have to stay at the center. Episode Two already shows how easily adult institutional storylines can pull focus away from them.

That’s where some of the nostalgia starts to feel distracting rather than enriching. Robert Picardo’s Doctor is fine, but he isn’t advancing the cadets. Tig Notaro’s Jett Reno shows up, throws shade, and leaves. Those moments don’t deepen the people the show is supposedly about.

Sam begins framed in very familiar territory, learning how to be a person, and only becomes interesting once the show lets her stop being a concept. Lura Thawk, played by Gina Yashere, is broad, and I can accept that early exaggeration as a speed choice, but that grace period is really short.

There’s also something else I’m still circling. A lot of these characters aren’t just culturally different. They’re functionally different. Abilities, traits, conditions. And the way those differences get introduced, often with visual emphasis and musical cues, starts to feel closer to a supernatural ensemble than classic Trek’s approach to difference. It’s more X-Men, maybe even more Hogwarts.

I’m not saying that’s wrong. I’m saying it changes the flavor, and I’m not convinced yet that the show knows where that leads.

The Verdict

So where I land right now is a little unsettled.

Episode One feels anxious, crowded, and overly eager to prove itself. Episode Two finally slows down enough to let Star Trek’s strengths surface, but it also opens doors that could pull the series away from its own premise. Across both episodes, the two-part premiere of Starfleet Academy gets a 7.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. Not because it’s great, but because I can see two different shows trying to coexist at the same time.

Episode Three is going to be the fork. One path is a series about cadets becoming Starfleet, learning how belief and diplomacy actually work. The other is an Academy backdrop for familiar Trek business.

The show has to choose. I’m still watching to see which one it does.

So there you go. Now you know, and if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.

I don’t think this series is inherently bad. I do think that if it isn’t careful, it can be mishandled. I don’t even know yet whether it’s really for me, but I’m willing to stick around and see whether it turns out to have something to say. Hopefully you’re around for the ride too.

Which of those two shows do you want this to become, and where did the premiere land for you? If it’s not your Star Trek, I genuinely appreciate that viewpoint too. Tell me in the comments on the video above, including whether you’d rather I keep going episode by episode or save it all up for one full-season breakdown.