Starfleet Academy's Best Decision Allows The Series To Be A Traditional Star Trek Show

Spoilers for "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" episodes 1-2 to follow.

It's longstanding "Star Trek" canon that Starfleet, including Starfleet Academy, are based on Earth, specifically in the city of San Francisco, California. The new series "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy," set in the 32nd century, centers on the first Starfleet Academy class in more than a century. Just as the Federation is trying to repair its galactic standing after the cataclysmic Burn, "Starfleet Academy" is trying to spin a more successful series out of story details introduced in "Star Trek: Discovery," a show that never quite worked.

But wait, isn't "Star Trek" supposed to be about exploring space? How will "Starfleet Academy" feature, to quote the title of its mostly successful sister show, any strange new worlds if it's following students studying in San Francisco? The series addresses that concern in its very first episode. You see, the Starfleet Academy campus isn't only located in San Francisco. Rather, the campus itself is a starship known as the USS Athena. The vessel can dock in San Francisco, but it can also head out into the galaxy for exploring. 

Academy Chancellor Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) is also the captain of the Athena; as she notes to her students, the ship is named for the Greek goddess of wisdom. That makes "Athena" a perfect name for a ship dedicated to in-the-field education since, as Ake notes, "all of the galaxy can become our classroom."

In addition, the Athena frees up the show's setting; rather than having to manufacture conflict at a stationary school, "Starfleet Academy" can be as mobile as any "Star Trek" series should be. "Starfleet Academy" is not the first "Star Trek" project to play around with the franchise's exploration themes, either.

At one point, the first season of the prequel series "Star Trek: Enterprise" was set to take place entirely on Earth while the titular Enterprise was being built. Once Klingons attacked the planet, however, the Enterprise would launch, and the show would move to space. Ultimately, that plan was rejected as being too big of a departure from the "Star Trek" formula, so the Enterprise's launch happened in the pilot "Broken Bow" instead.

Many consider "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" the greatest "Star Trek" series of them all, even though that show was set on a space station (orbiting the planet Bajor) rather than a starship. Eventually, "Deep Space Nine" got a starship — the USS Defiant — assigned to the station in season 3, allowing its crew to venture out for stories beyond Bajor more easily. "Starfleet Academy" is shooting for a similar compromise with the Athena.

However, one has to consider the safety risks of putting mere cadets on an active starship, even one crewed by experienced officers. As Q (John de Lancie) once told Captain Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart), "[The galaxy] is wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it's not for the timid."

The "Starfleet Academy" pilot seems to underline this point, with the Athena being attacked and hijacked by pirates led by Nus Braka (played by true Trekkie Paul Giamatti). Then again, it's the cadets — specifically Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) — who find a way to overcome Braka. The point of the Athena is to give Starfleet cadets on the ground (so to speak) education, and this class passes their first pop quiz in a true trial by fire.

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" is streaming on Paramount+, with new episodes dropping on Thursdays.