Starfleet Academy – featuring WWE Superstar Becky Lynch – has been cancelled. People will blame various things; I blame Becky. She’s the Baby Flair of Star Trek – everything that goes wrong is her fault.
Back in my day, you cancelled a series after its first season failed and it didn’t get a second. Nowadays, you cancel a series after its first season failed, but still air the second season because it’s already in the can and you need to recoup some of those funds… cue the snide grin of Kevin Nash on WCW Thunder commentary duties clearly not giving a fuck, which is what I’d imagine Paramount management must feel like at the moment, for better or worse.
Look, I haven’t seen the show, so I’m largely ambivalent in regards to its cancellation. I do know that it hasn’t garnered the viewership numbers and sometimes, yeah, it takes a while for a series to find its footing with an audience. More often than not, a series gets a season at most before higher ups decide to close up shop. It’s the sad reality of things. And I know that fans will see this as a victory for the grifters who were ragging on this thing for a lot of what I perceive to be “bad faith” reasons and wanted this off the air. Well, yeah, that could be the case… but those folks are never going to get what they want, which is a show that appeals to them because whatever they think Star Trek actually is, it is certainly not what they want, which is… I don’t know what they want.
As for me… like I said, haven’t seen the show. Had no real interest in the show due to its YA setting. Clips certainly didn’t inspire much confidence and was not enough of a push to say “Yes, I will subscribe to Paramount Plus and watch this series that doesn’t interest me despite the Star Trek brand.” Because I am one of those folks who does not slavishly consume all Star Trek. You’ll have those folks around who will watch everything and like everything because of their blind devotion to a brand and will support whatever hapless endeavor no matter what, which is every bit as toxic as raging hate boners of sitting through something you clearly do not like and feel the need to let the world know you hate this thing on a regular basis.
Really, you should be more like me; in that on the 31st day of every month, you let the world know that you haven’t watch the hit Section 31 streaming movie starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh because it amuses you, puts a smile on your face, and lets the world know that you HAVEN’T wasted your time with something you know you’re going to hate. More people need to NOT watch stuff in order to send the right message. People hate-watching stuff in droves? Pfft, who gives a shit? They’re still watching, they’re still giving you viewership. What do it matter if they’re calling this show the drizzling shits? I’ve seen worse show get extended for multiple years and when I sit down to watch some of these things, I often wonder why because this is just awful.
So while I’m neither thrilled nor saddened by Academy’s cancellation, there is a part of me that can’t help but feel a pan of disappointment whenever a Star Trek thing gets binned regardless of whether I like it or not. I’m also a bit concerned as to where this franchise is headed once all the remaining SNW and SFA episodes have aired – Strange New Worlds has one full ten-episode season as well as an abbreviated fifth season. There are different pitches that have been proposed; a Year One follow-up on Kirk and company, a sequel series to Enterprise (which would actually kinda, sorta intrigue me), and of course, an adaptation of the hit Xbox 360 game, Star Trek Legacy… oh wait.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it if Star Trek went on hibernation for a few years while the people in charge figure out where they want to go with it. Something about absence making the heart grow fonder or some sentimental crap like that. Truth be told, there’s a lot of legacy franchises that could be best served going into extended hibernation for the foreseeable future. Maybe fill the void with something else, some original IP that did what came before, but with a new spin that makes it unique.
We talk about these things taking big swings and yet none is able to take the biggest swing of all; creating something truly new and unique that speaks to the current generation and not just feeding off the rotting corpses of what came before. That’s the only real “big swing” I want to see Hollywood take. Otherwise, you may as well just give up and let AI do the scriptwriting for you. Considering the output that I’ve seen as of late, it might actually be a step up.
In any event, that’s the state of Star Trek as it is now. They’ve got stuff to put on the air, which fans should be grateful that they are when they could easily can everything and take a tax writeoff; similar to that Batgirl movie that was made and promptly shitcanned. Where it goes from here… who knows? I guess we’ll have to see what’s out there. Engage… or something.
Lap.
dtm666 