Starfleet Academy Review

Star Trek Starfleet Academy juust posted its last episode of the first season, and my take on the series overall has been: meh. I was never crazy about The Burn, which was a hoary plot device that was introduced in Star Trek: Discovery where the Federation lost the ability to warp around the galaxy. It felt like the writers were trying to blend Trek with Mad Max, and it didn't work. SA, being a sequel series, just leaned into the failures of Discovery. This is a place where people must stop and talk about their feelings, even if they have to be tricked into doing it through performing a play. Ugh.

The fact that the lead character, played by the always great Holly Hunter, goes barefoot is very nice. But it's not enough to make this one of my favorite Trek series. Everything else about it just never jelled for me, because SA is so eager to just borrow too much from Discovery that it ultimately falls flat. While SA is not the worse of the Treks, it's still not the best, either. And, for the record, that list (for me) would look like this:

The Best Treks:

Star Trek: The Classic Series.

Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Star Trek: Picard (the third season).

Star Trek: Lower Decks.

The Fun Treks

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Star Trek: Enterprise.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Star Trek: The Animated Series.

The Really Bad Treks

Star Trek: Voyager.

Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek: Picard (seasons one & two).

Star Trek: Prodigy.

Section 31

Reconsidering Starfleet Academy

Remember that post back in January when I first mentioned Star Trek Starfleet Academy? Remember how I thought this might be stinky, and how I would avoid it at all cost?

Um, yeah...well, about that....

It turns out that Captain Nahla Ake, played by Holly Hunter, likes to go barefoot in her downtime. And she has multiple BF scenes throughout STSA's episodes so far.

Imagine that, a Starfleet captain who's a barefooter in her private life (she wears boots while on duty). So now I'm not avoiding this series. And neither should you, if you're a BF fan. Plus, overall, STSA is not as horrible as I originally feared. While it's not my all-time favorite Trek, even with the BF scenes, I'm still liking it so far.

Space Hippies

The Way To Eden (aka the Space Hippies episode) wasn't one of the better third season episodes of Star Trek, but it was enjoyable in another way.

The Enterprise rescues a group of space hippies from an exploding shuttle (which they stole). One of them is the son of a prominent ambassador, which prevents Kirk from throwing all of them into the brig.

Seeing that they're hippies, this means that all of the women are barefoot, including Irina Galliulin (Mary Linda Rapelye), a former flame of Chekov's from his Academy days.

Deborah Downey and Phyllis Douglas play the other two space hippie girls, whose names are not mentioned in the show (although Phyllis Douglas has been ID-ed as having the name Mavig on some sites).

For us, it's a great BF episode, but as an episode of Star Trek, it's pretty bad. It offers a real cringey look at the then-present day hippie culture (it originally aired in 1969, right at the height of the counter-culture movement).

And add to all of this the incessant singing--ugh! At least Charles Napier, who did all the singing here, went onto better things. He was the lead villain in the first Lethal Weapon film.

Star Trek: Picard

Isa Briones would go barefoot once again in the first season of Star Trek: Picard.

In the back to back episodes The Impossible Box and Nepenthe, she's now playing Dahj, the twin sister of Soji--who was killed at the end of the first episode.

In a plot point that's too silly to detail here, Dahj is made to walk down some sort of mystical Romulan pathway (one that's set up on a captured Borg cube) in order to conjure up some memories that she had as a child.

But before she can do the recall walk, Dahj is required to remove her shoes, first. She does so, and she then walks around barefoot. I wasn't crazy about this mystical element that the Picard writers tried to interject here. Thankfully the third season of Picard was so much better than its first two seasons.

However, despite the silliness, I really don't mind seeing the result: a very nice BF scene that's almost worthy of a barefoot moment from a Tarantino movie.

Later, she and Picard get magically teleported off the Borg cube thanks to a super duper transporter that shoots them across the universe to the planet Nepenthe, where a still-barefoot Dahj can at least enjoy a nice shower.

Star Trek Day

Happy Star Trek Day. Star Trek is 59 years old today, on this anniversary of the airing of the very first episode of the Original Series.

I'm picking Star Trek: Picard to celebrate, not only because it's a Star Trek show, but it's a ST show with a barefoot scene. Isa Briones stars in the first season of Star Trek: Picard as Soji Asha, an advanced android who is based on Data, thus making her Data's daughter.

At the beginning of the first episode, Remembrance, Soji is relaxing with her boyfriend when Romulan commandos abruptly beam into her apartment. Soji, who is barefoot throughout this scene, is about to be abducted when she suddenly "wakes up."

A latent defensive program activates within her, turning the usually mild-mannered Soji into a super ninja warrior.

She makes swift work of the commandos, even while blindfolded by them with a black hood the whole time.

It would have been nice if she had been abducted while barefoot, but this is still a very nice little BF scene, anyway.

Blind Date

Did you know, that before she joined the Starship USS Enterprise-D, Counselor Deanna Troi was a sex worker?

Excuse me, I should say that back in 1984, actress Marina Sirtis had a small part in a slasher movie called Blind Date (not to be confused with the Bruce Willis/Kim Basinger flick from 1986).

In Blind Date '84, Sirtis played a sex worker who had a dangerous run-in with the killer.

A barefoot, topless Sirtis gets her wrists tied to the head of a bed by the killer. Of course, she doesn't know he's the killer; she thinks he's just another customer--until it's too late.

There's a nice on-screen moment as we watch her hands get tied together, and then above her head to the headboard.

While her character in this slasher film doesn't survive (BOO!), Marina would go on to worldwide fame as Troi. She would play Troi for the last time (maybe?) in the third season of Star Trek: Picard. If you're an ST:TNG fan, and haven't seen the third and last season of Picard, then you really need to see it because it's great.

Way Of The Warrior

I was re-watching Way of the Warrior, one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and came across this nice little scene.

With Worf joining the DS9 crew, and rising tensions between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, Dax tries to get Kira to relax in a holodeck re-creation of a spa. I believe Dax also goes barefoot, but we never see her feet in these shots.

Deep Space Nine

In the sixth season episode Rocks And Shoals, the crew of the space station Deep Space Nine crash land on an alien planet.

They crash land in the ocean, requiring them to swim to shore.

And the result is a rare BF scene in DS9, with the crew taking a break while letting their uniforms dry. I always had a minor crush on the cutie sitting up on the wall in back.

Star Trek: Picard pt 2

Isa Briones would go barefoot once again in the first season of Star Trek: Picard.

In the back to back episodes The Impossible Box and Nepenthe, she's now playing Dahj, the twin sister of Soji (who was killed at the end of the first episode--and, wow, Picard sure did a great job at helping her, didn't he?).

In a plot point that's really too stupid to detail here, Dahj is made to walk some sort of mystical Romulan pathway (one that's set up on a captured Borg cube) in order to conjure up some memories that she had as a child.

But before she can do the recall walk, Dahj is told to remove her shoes, and she then walks around barefoot.

However, as silly as this idea may be, I really don't mind seeing the result: a very nice BF scene that's worthy of a Tarantino movie.

Later, she and Picard get magically teleported off the Borg cube thanks to a super duper transporter that shoots them across the universe to the planet Nepenthe, where a still-barefoot Dahj can at least enjoy a nice shower.

Star Trek: Picard Pt 1

Isa Briones stars in the first season of Star Trek: Picard as Soji Asha, an advanced android who is based on Data, thus making her Data's daughter.

At the beginning of the first episode, Remembrance, Soji is relaxing with her boyfriend when Romulan commandos abruptly beam into her apartment.

Soji, who is barefoot throughout this scene, is about to be abducted when she suddenly "wakes up."

A latent defensive program activates within her, turning the usually mild-mannered Soji into a super ninja warrior.

She makes swift work of the commandos, even while blindfolded by them with a black hood the whole time.

A very nice little BF scene.

Lower Decks

Happy Labor Day! I hope you're enjoying the extended weekend. If you're a Star Trek fan, then this might help you to enjoy it some more. The third season of Star Trek: Lower Decks is up on YouTube right now, probably to promote the upcoming fourth season. This is a vastly entertaining and funny animated series that's made just for Trek fans.

Strange New Worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back with a new season on Paramount+, and they released the first episode of season two on Youtube.

It's called The Broken Circle, and the crew of the Enterprise, who're docked at Starbase One, receive a distress message from La'an (Christina Chong) who went off to find the parents of a child they rescured from the Gorn in the first season.

It's a very good episode, starting with a really nice view of the starships docked alongside Starbase One before it heads into an intriguing adventure. UPDATE: as expected, the episode has been taken down.

Blind Date

Everybody knows Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

But back in 1984, Sirtis had a small part in a slasher movie called Blind Date (not to be confused with the Bruce Willis/Kim Basinger flick from 1986).

In Blind Date '84, Sirtis played a sex worker who had a dangerous run-in with the killer.

A barefoot, topless Sirtis gets her wrists tied to the head of a bed by the killer. Of course, she doesn't know he's the killer; she thinks he's just another customer.

There's a nice on-screen moment as we watch her hands get tied together, and then to the headboard.

While her character in this slasher film doesn't survive, Marina would go on to worldwide fame as Troi, playing her once more in Star Trek: Picard. Speaking of which, I'm four episodes into the third season of Picard, and it's been fantastic so far.