Great episode, great finale, really strong first season. I had issues with some episodes trying to do too much in too little time, but for the last two episodes the writers focused on one story and did a damn good job tying up the season arc. Can’t wait to see where the show goes next season.

The one criticism I have of the finale, and literally everywhere else it comes up in new era Trek is: Stop moving the camera so fucking much! It’s unnecessary and really takes me out of it when the camera is wiggling back and forth, or spinning around in an arc, or acting like an unstable drone during the trial portion (particularly at the end). I want to drink in what’s going on, not be trying to puzzle out WTF I’m looking at, especially when stream compression turns a lot of motion into blurry pixels.

A little shaky cam when things are intense or exploding, sure, but overall I wish it was shot in a more conventional style.

I don’t have any issue with seeing young adults growing and dealing with trauma. This episode has a lot of pieces working together in the overall storyline, I just don’t think it was that compelling within the episode.

The drama class half of the episode didn’t really go off. Maybe because I only know the play from what the episode told me about it, but I think it’s more like the actual growth part got cut off. We spend time with drunk Tarima (yawn) and then short cut the cadets actually performing the play with each other. That would have been the climax of that story, them getting into character, relating to it, working through it and reaching some sort of understanding or catharsis but that scene gets hand waved. Probably needed a full 45 minutes to do right too.

Or the Sam story, which was closer to the mark but still failed to create tension or consequences and ended up getting resolved neatly with a happy ending. Give Sam half an episode to be dead, for people to be sad, and the Doctor half an episode to reflect on it, resolving to do better before tying it up with a bow and it could have been great.

I love that the show isn’t constantly balls to the wall action and we’re getting a lot of character focus but the story juggling bit this episode in the ass and it isn’t the first to be trying to do too much and fumble the execution.

Yeah, I think this one didn’t come together as well as it could have. Should have focused on the Sam story more and done more to make it feel like she was in real danger. When she was dead I involuntarily yelled “yeah right!”. Lo and behold a minute later it’s resolved happily. The drama class and Caleb/Tarima story could have more easily been cut short without losing anything.

Probably one of the worst eps, but I’m happy to say that’s actually a pretty high bar for this show so far and this is more meh than truly bad (here I’m flashing back to like 20 different Discovery episodes where the episode ended and I was tearing my hair out over how stupid they were - that’s the real trauma here)

Also happy to speculate that, with two episodes left, the pendulum seems likely to swing back to excitement next week and I’m here for it.

The hero roster will list everyone you’ve unlocked in a run, including the dead / left behind to help you figure it out. Characters can cycle off the bridge if they are injured or otherwise busy with story too, so double check Chakotay and Tom are actually gone and not just at the bottom of a list of 30 injured crewmen waiting to be treated or something.

I’m pretty sure when you get Klingon B’ellana the original is put back to normal in dialogue so that model/portrait makes sense.

But like for heroes disappearing between sectors, were they on quests? You can definitely leave people behind if you don’t fully resolve events.

Anyway, bad luck with the bugs. I’ve had it crash a couple of times or occasionally show an empty pop-up (which looks like it may be fixed now) but nothing really game breaking. Never lost more than a few cycles for reloading.

It’s a narrative game. The graphics are intended to be more functional than pretty.

I also wish there was more voice acting, but the problem there is likely that you’d need the entire Voyager cast to chime in to sound right and there is a lot of dialogue. Not to mention, even the voiced logs with Tim Russ / RDM sound off because they’re 30 years older…

As for 6GB of VRAM, I blame the engine if that’s a real number and not one from the recommended specs (which are probably more about GPU power than memory). This game runs on Steam Deck and it technically doesn’t have any VRAM.

I think it’s pretty fun. Even knowing the story beats, things go way different than on the show.

In my current (still first) run Tom and B’ellana got sucked into a black hole and died, but B’ellana’s full Klingon half is on phasers, Tuvix runs the mess and the Doctor runs the sick bay in tandem with a Malon. Voyager is armed to the teeth and just stomped the shit out of the Borg. I’m still missing a lot of heroes so I must have missed some opportunities too even though I’ve been hitting almost every mission.

Anyway, I enjoy narrative games and ones like Ixion or Fallout Shelter so this was aimed right at me.

However, I hated the suggested romantic tension between Caleb and Genesis, fortunately it didn’t went further than that.

I think they did that well. Spent one moment of “is this…?” and then moved on. Felt very young adult to me, but I also hope that’s the last of it.

Yeah, I liked the episode, nothing felt out of place in individual scenes, but you’re right it does feel like they were trying to fit too much story into too little time. There’s like four B-plots in there.

I have played the first 4 or 5 sectors now and it does hit a lot of the highlights but not every episode (although there may be some randomness to what shows up). I fucked up and entirely skipped Tuvix though.

Wesley (the boy?!)

True to your username, I heard the clip haha

the director thinking Geordie was an alien

Ugh. How did Stuart Baird end up directing this when you have a huge bullpen of Trek actor/directors that could’ve done so much better? Frakes is right there and did fine on First Contact / Insurrection. LeVar Burton himself, or even Roxann Dawson or Robert Duncan McNeill would have been available by then (although most of their directing credits come later).

I could understand if they went outside for someone that had a track record of decent movies, but Baird had little experience directing before Nemesis and apparently none afterwards.

Hi Karim, big fan of your work in Academy! Jay-Den’s backstory is already an all time great Trek episode.

My hard hitting question is personal: Coffee or tea? More generally, favorite drink?

It’s thoroughly mediocre. I will watch it if I’m watching the TNG movies, but probably not standalone. There is definitely some cool stuff in it, and I also like Tom Hardy and Ron Perlman, but as you note I don’t think it really pulls it all together. And then there are things I hate, like dune buggies, B4, and the fact they fucking killed Data.

It is especially bad as the last TNG movie. The TNG era crew should have got their Undiscovered Country epic last ride but Nemesis isn’t nearly conclusive enough. At least we’ll always have “All Good Things”.

I encourage you to watch it and form your own opinion (just make sure to get past the first ten minutes of the pilot, the tone shifts dramatically).

Captain Ake runs the Academy and commands the Academy ship, the Athena, which is used to do more hands on training but isn’t the flagship by any stretch. She’s more like a principal than a professor. The other main characters are cadets, with some strong supporting characters too.

IMO it’s the first live action Trek show in the new era to come out firing on all cylinders and it’s great to see.

Yes, but in context it’s not a big deal. A lot of it is contrasting her with her peer, the chancellor of the war college, who is uptight. Ultimately, she’s less military commander, or even explorer, and more chancellor of a school full of students and in that capacity it makes more sense to generate a relaxed atmosphere. When the situation calls for it, she can be serious as well.

She just has her own style, but people want to be negative because she’s not Picard-ing hard enough or some dumb shit.

I’m a little late to the party, but this episode is everything I wanted from modern Trek.

I’m loving that the cadets are competitive but ultimately supportive of each other. I love that we spent an entire episode focused on Jay’den’s backstory and the Klingons, without any tedious martial arts or (real) space battles but the stakes were still plenty high. I found the resolution, and the message (not letting go of the past, but letting the present in) to be excellent Trek.

Caleb is also proving to be a bit more of an academy-era-Picard style character (great at a lot of stuff, but arrogant) rather than the sort of troubled genius vibe in the first bit of the show. I am looking forward to seeing him, and the other cadets, developed further.

Holly Hunter is doing great, bringing her own style. Loved she had a history with the Klingon guy and advocated for her student. I get why she’s rubbing some the wrong way, but she is masterfully handling the people around her, leading with empathy, and has been very effective.

Also love we got some classic Klingon music from the movies, it was a nice nod.

Overall, I think this show is finally taking real advantage of the far future timeline. It is a little silly that major diplomacy is being effected at the Academy but because the Federation is still finding its feet again and the fact that the world has been mixed up from 90s Trek, it makes the Academy a much more interesting lens on the world than it would have been if it was set in the TNG-VOY timeframe.

I had no idea that this was coming out, and it sort of makes me want a PS5… And then I check the price and I think I can wait a couple of years until it’s on PC.

I wonder how many in game days a speedrun would be while still destroying the Caretaker’s Array? I want to dunk on Janeway’s time to the alpha quadrant… Unless I have to run my engines on nucleogenic aliens like the Equinox.

Seriously. I want a personal HUD for navigation and reminders that also corrects my vision (like normal glasses), not to become a walking surveillance device / info mine.

Yeah, I also have this question. I loved playing 1 and 2 co-op but 3 and pre-sequel didn’t hold my attention at all. I’m happy to see good reviews but I’d like to hear a review from someone that doesn’t lose their access if they pan it…