Topline
“Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” a new series set in the “Star Trek” universe, is getting review-bombed online after debuting its first two episodes Thursday night, with some anti-”woke” critics targeting the show, including Trump advisor Stephen Miller.
The first two episodes of “Starfleet Academy” premiered Thursday. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Paramount+)
Getty Images for Paramount+
Key Facts
The first two episodes of “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” premiered Thursday night on Paramount+, while the first episode is also streaming for free on YouTube.
The teen-focused show stars Holly Hunter as the chancellor of the titular “Starfleet Academy,” set centuries in the future but roughly around the time of the later seasons of “Star Trek: Discovery.”
Despite decent critic reviews and a “certified fresh” score of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score is much lower—a 35%—while it also has just a 4.9 user score out of a possible 10 on IMDB.
The show has garnered backlash from some “Star Trek” fans who found it a lackluster addition to the franchise, while other critics have accused the show of being “woke.”
Stephen Miller, an advisor to President Donald Trump, reposted a clip of Hunter and other women in “Starfleet Academy” and called it “tragic,” suggesting the 94-year-old William Shatner should come back and be given “total creative control” to “save the franchise.”
Chief Critics
Some right-wing X accounts, including “End Wokeness,” which has nearly 4 million followers, circulated a clip from “Starfleet Academy” in which Hunter and two other female characters have a brief conversation. Many of the comments included anti-”woke” criticisms, targeting their gender or body-shaming the women, with the top comment under the “End Wokeness” post joking about Ozempic being unavailable in the “Star Trek” futuristic universe. “Going woke is not logical,” another top comment says. The Babylon Bee, a conservative satire publication, tweeted a faux headline Thursday night, targeting the women in the widely circulated clip: “New Starfleet Vessel Unable To Reach Warp Speed Because Crew Is Too Fat.” Nerdrotic, a pop culture critic whose YouTube channel has more than 1.2 million subscribers, posted on X Thursday night criticizing the YouTube premiere of “Starfleet Academy” for only having 1,300 concurrent viewers. “RIP Star Trek,” the user posted, garnering more than 24,000 likes. Some users circulated memes of edited “Starfleet Academy” posters that read “Starfleet Learing Academy,” mimicking the misspelled sign of a Minnesota daycare center that has been the center of fraud allegations in recent weeks.
How Have The Cast And Crew Responded To Backlash?
Gina Yashere, an actress in “Starfleet Academy,” appeared on CNN on Wednesday and defended “Star Trek” as “woke from day one.” “Woke is a good word. It’s been given negative connotations. But woke just means you’re awake and aware of everything that’s going on in the world around you,” Yashere said. She uploaded a clip of her CNN interview to Instagram, and the official “Star Trek” account commented, stating Yashere spoke “nothing but facts.” Robert Picardo, a longtime “Star Trek” actor who appears in the new “Starfleet Academy” series, posted on X, “Star Trek’s heart was ‘woke’” long before the word was “hijacked & made a cudgel to insult, to ridicule & – at the toxic extremes of social media – to justify prejudice & racism.”
Key Background
Some critics have compared “Starfleet Academy” to “The Acolyte,” a series set in the “Star Wars” universe that premiered in the summer of 2024. The show was immediately subject to a review-bombing campaign and anti-”woke” criticism after series creator Leslye Headland and star Amandla Stenberg joked about making the “gayest” installment in the “Star Wars” universe. One scene, in which one character refers to another’s pronouns, drew particular anti-”woke” criticism, while some fans of the franchise felt the show clashed with long-accepted “Star Wars” lore. “The Acolyte” was canceled after one season, reportedly due to a high budget and low viewership.
Further Reading
‘The Acolyte’ Sparks Anti-‘Woke’ Criticism Over ‘Pronoun’ Scene — Drawing Rebuke From Writer (Forbes)