I am overall positively surprised. First of all. I like the setting. The Burn was one of the greatest ideas in Star Trek history (at least its implications, not its reason. I hope we’ll forget about that lol), as it shows how fragile the Federation truly was. So raising a new generation, based on values from centuries ago but that has lived a very different life, is a very intriguing setup. There’s still some stuff I don’t like about the era (like instant teleportation and that memory nano stuff), but let’s see how it works out. I like that Starfleet continued with a “War Academy” which was super fitting, and I can already smell all the conflicts between the two institutions.

The first episode was kind of so so. I understand that you need all that setup and background info, but I think flashbacks would have worked better. Don’t start with showing us the injustice, but leave us a bit in the dark. I pretty much like all the characters, but again, the first episode was a bit too much exposition on “everybody gets one small scene to show what they got”, only for most of them to blend in the background in the second episode.

The second episode left me a bit confused, as the Betazoids were a bit different from what I remember, but ah well. I found it weird that these official negotiations were fully made in front of a school class, with only one person of each faction involved? Imagine on earth, two leaders in a conflict met, each gave a short speech in front of a school, declared their demands, and then ends the meeting? Feels a bit weird. Also, while I enjoy the shift away from a Earth-centric Starfleet, are Betazoids really so vain that the shift of Starfleet HQ is enough to mitigate all their concerns?

Overall, I like what I see. I hope not every episode will be about Caleb’s mom, or his search, and I really hope we’ll also get a bit of everyday school fun. Weird comparison, but in Harry Potter, I enjoyed the everyday school stuff always more than the actual plot. And give me more of that Klingon (even though his voice modulation sounds really bad).