Fascinating

It's really cheesy but fun.

You must deactivate your brain because it's also very silly. No, real space school 900 years in the future won't have American high school tropes. But this one does. Just roll with it.

Starfleet Academy be 'roiding their boys up good and proper. Sleeveless uniforms are probably imminent.

They're giving them phasers for their little game before training them in the use of phasers.

MILF-loving footbois are eating well.

Nice to see gays exist again after Strange New Worlds' refusal to acknowledge them.

Sadly disappointed to see regular lift shafts instead of infinite wonderlands hidden between floors.

It really is Smallville Trek and I am so happy.

Mixed gender changing rooms! Starship Troopers (and Lower Decks) says hi.

You know how little old ladies in their 80's say and do whatever the hell they want with absolutely No fucks to give?

Well, Ake is well into her fourth century. She's more than given up pointless societal standards while maintaining the important ones that actually Do matter.

She quite clearly has a very firm grasp on the internal politics of groups of people, groups of kids specifically, and in hierarchies as well. She demonstrated in episode 3 a very adept ability to micro-manipulate situations And people and how to turn it into a teaching moment. She knew exactly how the starfleet academy kids had to shut down the posturing from the war college kids and she didn't delude herself into thinking any amount of 'ignore the bullies' would work.

You don't get to be that old without learning something about psychology and she deftly worked around everyone in this episode. She's smart and acutely aware of normal behaviour and what will and will not raise eyebrows, and how to use that in everyday life.

Which is to say, she knows what she's doing and how she acts is weird as hell to everyone around her, and she both doesn't care And is willing and capable of weaponizing that to her benefit.

She clearly uses her posture and love of just flopping down on the nearest piece of furniture as a weapon to disarm everyone around her. She obviously does just like being comfy and doesn't see the point in sitting in a 'dignified' manner because she curls up in her captain's chair to read and lays down on her chaise to talk to her number one just because she wants to, but when she's trying to put off somebody who's being obtuse or whatever, she flops down even Weirder. The way she laid down on tea guy's sofa was So wild and So much of an example of an old lady not giving a damn that i'm still laughing. She doesn't care about your weird tea fetish and will actively mess with you by identifying it as a weak point.

She knows people find it weird that she doesn't like shoes, but that's another one of those pointless societal ones, not the important ones. She's doing that for her own comfort, and that's the important part.

You see this also in Pelia in SNW, too.

my mind to your mind,

TNG has an infamously racist episode but when it wants to discuss courtroom injustice around race it makes you sit there and discuss it. No cut aways to cargo bay brawls. No escaping the law and running away to deep space. You will sit through the entire court case and every character's reaction and opinion on it. You will hear a character you know and like say something uncomfortable.

In Starfleet Academy, it starts with courtroom injustice and frames it as #bad, but the discussion is never uncomfortable. There is no one leveraging their authority to make a subordinate act against their morals. You're supposed to believe Holly Hunter is acting against her natural morals but you don't get any discussion of how that happens other than 'starfleet wasn't at its best then.' It wants to let you know the characters are uncomfortable but doesn't want to let the audience be uncomfortable.

Holly Hunter as NAHLA AKE star trek: starfleet academy (2026–)

+bonus gif