So, we finally got some new Trek. And we probably complained it to death. Starfleet Academy, we probably didn’t deserve you.

I’ve watched all things Trek forever–since my mom introduced me to the original series back when I was a kid. I’ve watched every series that followed: from meeting the enigmatic Q at Far Point Station to singing along to an actual musical in Strange New Worlds. I’ve seen every movie, even the ones we should never talk about again. I love me some Trek. Now, I gotta admit, I have had my complaints. JJ Abrams Trek 2.0 in the Kelvin Timeline mostly bounced off me. And, all you have to do is browse this blog to see my thoughts on those flicks. I couldn’t really get into the alternate timeline, and it seemed odd to just duplicate older films…but badly. Looking at you Benedict Cumberbatch in that Wrath of Khan redux.

So, I was thrilled to hear that a new Trek was gracing our lives–and this time on TV (where Trek truly belongs), in the form of Starfeet Academy. It seemed fitting. We’d been on numerous exploratory vessels. A space station. Why not that core bit of Trek we only hear about or visit when Species 8472 drops in. You mean we might get to hear more about Boothby? My favorite Martian? (IYKYK) I watched the trailer. And it was admittedly…different. The cast was young. Makes sense–this is Starfleet Academy. Duh. And it looked like it was going to be something more experimental. But you know what was great about it? No more nostalgia Trek! I love Strange New Worlds, but it does seem that for a concept dedicated to moving forward, the shows love to keep taking us back. Finally, we were going to have a show that firmly rooted us in the Trek future! Star Trek: Discovery had made some bold steps with “the Burn.” Okay. Let’s see the aftermath! I’m in!

I settled in and watched the first few episodes. And they were okay. Not great and knock em’ out the park. But okay. Had my attention and I could keep going. How could I not learn to boo Paul Giammati’s character? A villain you love to hate. It was good to see some old faces, including my favorite sarcastic engineer Jett Reno. And wow, The Doctor is back! “Please state your medical emergency!” What a way to try to connect the old and new worlds. Great idea. They also had some pretty interesting new faces and some bold movies. A queer Klingon rocking a pleated skirt? Why not–I’m here for it! A Jem’Hadar-Klingon hybrid? F*ck yes! It’s been 800 years since the Dominion War. Let that imagination fly! That’s what I’m talking about. And the most interesting character of al–filling that Spock, Data, Seven of Nine type niche so common to Trek–SAM. Everything about this character was purely infectious, down to that smile.

I kept watching and after a while, I saw some great episodes–like one where they actually tried to settle the fate of Benjamin Sisko! What a treat. If you were a fan of DS9… if you were a BLACK fan of DS9, this one was emotional on another level. Were there some episodes that didn’t stick with me? Sure. Cadets fighting each other in contests in a Percy Jackson at camp type rivalry, I could take or leave it. Were there some things that made me grit my teeth? Yeah. Captain Nahle Ake, wasn’t my favorite at first. Her style as a Starfleet captain was definitely…ac choice. I found myself frowning every time I saw her lounge in that captain’s chair. But…over time, her character grew on me. I even go to understand the lounging. Which is possible. Riker? Couldn’t stand that guy for whole seasons till he grew a beard. Then he became a favorite. Par the course for me and a Trek show. And I as watched the season, I thought lots of things got better. The episodes held more meaning. The danger became more real. The characters themselves started to grow. And in the final episode, I thought they really stuck the landing. I walked away nodding and saying, okay. I’m a fan. Bring on the next season!

Only this week we find out that the show won’t be renewed past season 2, which has already been filmed. It was a wonderful experiment while it lasted. But now it’s over. And honestly, the show was hardly ever given a chance.

From the jump, Starfleet Academy got the usual treatment. First there were the fake fans. The Elon Musks and Stephen Millers. I’m sorry, I don’t think those losers have every watched much Trek in their lives–if ever. Them complaining about too many women or what have you in Trek, makes them sound like the fakest fans alive. Absolute posers. I bet you tell them “It’s a good day to die…” and they couldn’t finish the sentence. You tell their fake asses “Never turn your back on a Breen” and they ain’t got a clue. There were lots of folk like that, review bombing the show and complaining when they’re not even part of the actual fanbase. They’re the folk still upset that the Little Mermaid was Black, once. And they plan on making the rest of our lives miserable. Can’t wait for them to journey to Sto’Vo’Kor and meet Fek’lhr. Ya’ll posers don’t understand Roddenberry’s vision, and you never will. Go back to the Mirror Mirror verse where you belong. Nah, I’m not linking to any of what I’m talking about here. IYKYK. Period. Dot.

But then there were the others. The actual Trek fans, Trekkies if you will, who did their best to complain and nitpick the show to death. “A Jem’Hadar-Klingon hybrid? But that can’t happen because…” Hey, ye of little imagination, it’s been 800 years! It was 100 years between Kirk and Picard and all kinds of stuff changed. You think 800 years isn’t going to bring changes either? I mean, the Great Crystalline Entity you can rock with, but Lura Thok’s mixed-species heritage is a bridge too far? Gimmee a break. According to the fan complaints, this was the worst Trek of all times. It wasn’t enough to just say, you know I don’t like how that captain sits in that chair–it had to become a full on red alert, with clear doses of outright misogyny, racism, queerphobia and whatnot. And there was lots of memory addled nostalgia going on.

I read more than one post or watched videos from more than one fan bemoaning this wasn’t Trek, that it didn’t live up to the standards of past Trek shows. Yeah, it’s the first season. Do we want to go through the first season of past Trek series and see how they stand up? The first season of TNG was hit or miss. There were some good episodes, mediocre ones, and some BAD ones. Oh? Your memory failing you? Do you not remember Code of Honor? The fourth episode in the season? The one with the fake looking African world that came off like something from a Tarzan flick? Complete with a buffoonish African king lusting after a very blonde Tasha Yar? It was the ANTI-Wakanda. To this day, many of the cast and crew call the episode embarrassing and outright racist.

And that wasn’t the only one. There were numerous episodes from that first season that I’d as soon forget. Data was overused. Worf was underused–and they couldn’t seem to get his face right so he mostly just looked greasy with a conk. The final episode of the season was Conspiracy, which looked like it was trying to be a rip-off of Alien–and which the series just *never followed up on again.* The inconsistency was glaring. But you know what? I still liked the series. In fact, Wil Wheaton has even said that the first episode was so hit or miss, that the only reason the series wasn’t cancelled was because the fans stuck by it. We saw some bad episodes but we kept on watching. Part of the reason was, what the hell else were we going to watch? We weren’t spoiled like we are today with an abundance of options. But also, it seemed like we were willing to give the show more grace. Probably because it was led by a bunch of white guys.

Patrick Stewart has gone on record to say that most fans didn’t even consider the show had a truly great episode until Measure of Man, in Season 2. And perhaps that was because it embodied so much of what is important in Trek: dealing with issues of difference and new boundaries and frontiers of what it means to be human. There’s a sense at times that fans remember only the nostalgic episodes of series like TNG that they want to remember. Let them tell it, every episode was Yesterday’s Enterprise–still a favorite of mine–which didn’t air until Season 3. I could duplicate this with DS9 or Voyager. Shows need be allowed the time to breathe. To get better. The characters and writers need the time to hit their stride. Instead, today they’re review bombed and hounded by fans who are reliving the past with rose tinted glasses. Comparing Starfleet Academy to many of the old series isn’t even fair in a numerical sense. Starfleet Academy, coming out in streaming and competing with the plethora of SFF shows out there, has a whopping 10 episodes in one season. How many did TNG have its first season? A guess? 25 episodes–in one season! TWENTY-FIVE.

I get it. Sometimes you just don’t like stuff. That’s fair. But this? This went waaay beyond that. This went into levels of childish nitpicking and tearing apart every little perceived flaw. This is so-called Trekkies HOPING the show would be cancelled and then dancing with glee when it was. That ain’t normal. And it’s a glaring indication and this wasn’t about the show on its merits. This was about something else, when the Trekkies want to admit it or not.

Let’s keep it a buck. The reason this show rubbed lots of fans the wrong way wasn’t because it was bad Trek. We’ve already seen that some of our most beloved nostalgic shows had bad Trek, so that’s not gonna fly. It rubbed a certain segment of fans the wrong way because it wasn’t just made for us. The self-proclaimed gatekeepers. This was a show seeking to bring in a new fan base. A more diverse fanbase. It was marketed heavily to a younger demographic, while inviting a more established older demo to get on board. It was experimental and took risks. And as much as Trek fans believe we’re cutting edge, we want to see the same type of show over and over again–preferably that remind us of our glory days. We want new people watching Trek, but just our Trek–with squeaky clean cadets who always follow orders on ships run predominantly by guys, and white ones.

Here’s where someone says, well you didn’t see DS9 or Voyager get backlash. Aht! Aht! I beg your finest pardon?

There wasn’t social media and a ready made grievance industry eager to echo white fan guy tears about diversity in Trek back in the day. But I was there Gandalf. And I can tell you it existed. The complaints about Tuvok as a Black Vulcan? The sexist rumblings about Janeway from inside the house? The cry of political correctness about both DS9 and Voyager? The way they were always seen as incapable of meeting the TNG standard of holy grail?. It was there. It was present. It was the same lame ass complaints by the same lame ass people.

So here we are, present day. We’ll have one more season of Starfleet Academy. Then that’s that. Back to the the last season of Strange New Worlds. After that, it’s all up in the air. Since Discovery aired in 2017, we will be back to a time of no Trek actively in production. There’s been a pitch for Stark Trek: Year One, yet another prequel, where we go back to follow Kirk during his initial year as captain. I’m sure all the complaining fans will show up to see their favorite white captain in charge. But they won’t have solved the glaring problem. Star Trek, a show about the future, is obsessed with going backwards. Since Voyager ended, it can’t seem to stop itself from going backwards. Fans only seem to be able to relate to shows that remind them of what they loved. But the question is, how does that ever bring in new fans? We’re all gonna die you know. One day we’re outta here. Trek needs to bring in fresh new viewers, because we’re not going to be around forever to keep reliving the stuff that remind us of our childhoods. If we keep shooting down every new Trek we’re offered, Trek is doomed. I love Strange New Worlds, and I’d likely tune into Year One. But as a blueprint for the survival of the genre, this strategy’s hustling backwards. We had a chance to truly boldly go where no one has gone before… and we blew it.

None other that William Shatner shared his disappointment in Starfleet Academy being cancelled. “It’s with sorrow that I hear about the cancellation of the new ‘Star Trek’ series,” he wrote, going on to lambast those who criticized the show as too “woke.” He reminded fans that the much celebrated interracial kiss between himself and Uhura (the first of its kind on television) was also criticized in 1968. “During the first airing of my ‘Star Trek’ series where a kiss was objectionable; many southern stations pulled the episode & condemned the show,” he wrote. “Using today’s vernacular it would absolutely be called ‘woke DEI crap’ because it went against ‘norms’ of society for its time. Not a lot seems to have changed.”

And that might be biggest tragedy of all.