Starfleet Academy, the latest Star Trek series, it is a satisfying, fresh take on the formula that does what Trek has always done – challenge our biases. However, while I was writing this review, Paramount cancelled Starfleet Academy (SA). It will still air its completed 2nd season sometime next year, but nothing after that.

This is unfortunate, because SA is sexy good fun.

It is a worn-out cliché to say Trek has challenged conventional norms. Whether it is brains in a jar playing with us like pawns, androids that yearn to be human, starships that fly on mushrooms, or gay Klingons, Trek has always demanded that the audience actually think about the story. It is why most of us like Trek.

Unfortunately for the new Paramount execs, this was a bridge too far for them.

I admit, I was one of the fans fired up and ready to hate this series. The teasers released last year made the show look stupid. I did not want a “90210 in space” set 1,000 years from now. Moreover, the last Trek outing, the Star Trek: Section 31 movie, was terrible and Starfleet Academy (SA) had the same people behind it.

Then I watched it and was pleasantly surprised at how good it is! It is certainly better than Discovery’s first season, and dare I say better than The Next Generation’s (TNG) awkward, tonally malformed first outing.

Let’s start with the acting. The show hired a trio of seasoned pros to guide this season: Holly Hunter, Paul Giamatti, and Tatiana Maslany. While none of them will win any awards from SA, they all took their roles seriously.

Giamatti and Hunter are both legends in the acting world. Both of them could have phoned their roles in and pocketed a nice paycheck without impacting their respective careers. Giamatti chews through each scene with every ounce of intensity he can give, even though his “space pirate” role was mediocre at best. Hunter is about as relaxed as you can get, wandering around the ship in bare feet and curling up in the captain’s chair like it was a sofa at a coffee house. This is what great actors do; they make their characters more than what is on paper.

There are lot of other familiar faces as well. Robert Picardo revives his Doctor character from Voyager, although he’s a bit stale. Mary Wiseman, from Discovery, shows up in one episode and does a competent job. However, if I had to pick the real rockstar of the returning cast, it would be Tig Notaro. Notaro has a notoriously dry wit and blank delivery that is an acquired taste. Throughout the season she stayed mostly on the sidelines. However, in the finale, Notaro assumes command and really shines. She managed to keep her character’s dry delivery in place while driving the entire episode forward.

The “new” actors, Sandro Rosta, Karim Diane, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepard, and Zoë Steiner, are all imminently watchable as well. They are young, good-looking, and are smart. I appreciate that all of them have detailed backstories. These stories are solid, albeit a bit plain at times. Also there is sex.

The episodes are mostly origin stories about each of the characters. Some are exciting, like an away mission to a junked ship that ends with a hefty body count. Some are familiar, like Hawkins’ wedding, which threatens to wipe out a character but brings him back into the fold at the last moment. And some are weird, like Sam the Hologram’s origin as spyware for Starfleet. A Klingon-centric story early in the season ends in a goofy, unrealistic manner, but was still entertaining. Not every episode is great, but none of them are bad. Did I mention there is sex in some episodes too? Yes I did. Ah, sex.

Okay, let’s talk about gay Klingons, since it has Trek fandom frothing at the mouth. I think playing a Klingon against type was a daring thing for the show to do. A gay, pacifist Klingon is the exact opposite of what we all expect. This is one of Trek’s core themes: infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Moreover, Karim Diane’s performance as Jay-Den Kraag is captivating. He has a powerful voice and strong screen presence. Yes, prancing him around in a skirt may be a bit much for the MAGA crowd. However, if you cannot accept gay Klingons in a skirt, then Trek passed you up a long time ago.

The show also gives us some other prickly concepts to think about. An episode about what happened to Deep Space Nine’s Captain Sisko puts a hologram into a faith-versus-reason debate. The conclusion to that episode is not entirely satisfying, but it has a lot of heart for one of Trek’s lesser appreciated shows. The aforementioned Klingon episode debates what the Federation should do to assist a species that is struggling. The episode’s answer is compelling, if a bit unrealistic. The entire setup for Rosta’s character is how the Federation took his mother away, which feels like a storyline from our world today. He also has sex.

I think the finale was the best episode of the season. It brought back Giamatti’s villain and put him into a populist troublemaker role. The politics of the episode are about as subtle as a tribble-Klingon reunion, but Giamatti raised the quality of the whole delivery several notches. I also appreciated how the crew came together, used their brains, and saved the day, which is about as classic Trek as it gets.

This is not to say SA is perfect. It is overly polished at times. Some sequences feel way too staged, such as Maslany’s return in the finale, or a stiff debate with the president of Betazed early in the season. The music score is serviceable but unremarkable. Production design is too plasticky. Everything feels like it was 3-D printed and sprayed with extra glossy clear-coat. Still, this does not detract from the sex.

I recently rewatched the first season of TNG. Wow. I forgot how awful it was. The acting is awkward, put it mildly. Patrick Stewart was clearly not comfortable with the role. None of the actors seemed to be fully on board. The stories range from mediocre to cringe-worthy, including an infamously racist episode that almost every actor has disavowed. The finale was a lame Romulan-centric episode that lacked energy. Here is a quick comparison for you old-timers:

In comparison to TNG S1, Starfleet Academy S1 is a masterpiece. It gets a lot more right than wrong. Also, it has sex. And it is the attractive characters, not the woman who looks like a lizard.

Starfleet Academy was never going to please everybody. It was different, and in the world of Trek, different is often conflated with bad. I am looking forward to the final season. However, the word is that it ends on an unresolved cliffhanger. Which is even more depressing.

I am worried about where Trek is headed now. There are no shows under development or greenlit at this time. Trek chief Alex Kurtzman seems to be on the way out at Paramount. Based on rumors, the MAGA-friendly management at Paramount has called for a “hard-reset” of Trek, erasing everything from the Kurtzman era.

None of this sounds good. However, Starfleet Academy did not sound good either. I will withhold judgement on whatever comes next, until it arrives.