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Matt and Sean talk about the premiere of the newest Star Trek program: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 1, “Kids These Days”
Matt and Sean talk about the premiere of the newest Star Trek program: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 1, “Kids These Days”
- (00:00) - - Intro
- (02:41) - - Viewer feedback
- (04:51) - - Today's episode
- (06:04) - - This time in history
- (08:34) - - Episode discussion
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Creators and Guests
What is Trek In Time?
Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.
Sean Ferrell: In today's episode of Trek In Time, we're calling it audible! Scramble. Scramble. Red alert. We're not talking about what we said we were going to talk about. We told you all the last time you were here that we would be talking about is there no truth in beauty? And we will eventually talk about that. But a funny thing happened on the way to that episode. Another Star Trek program premiered. Yes. In the back and forth, the zigging, the zagging, the ups and downs of the end of 2025 and the entry into 2026. Matt and I somehow both missed that a new program was on the way that we should have just built into our last recording and saying, like, oh, by the way, everybody, we're gonna jump on that show while it's new. We're taking the Strange New Worlds approach. We're hitting pause on our rewatch of the original series. We're going to visit Starfleet Academy as the new episodes premiere. And then when the first season is over, we'll return to and the children, nope, it's Is there no truth in beauty? We'll return to that episode after we've completed our run of of Starfleet Academy. So today, in case you haven't watched it yet and you wish to, we're checking out the episode, Kids these days, the first of the two episodes that were used at the launch of this new series. So we hope you'll be checking that out. It is available at the time of recording for free on YouTube. It is also, of course, available on Paramount Plus. So, before we get into that, who are we? That was a lot of talking about us without saying who us is. Well, us is Sean Ferrell. I am a writer. I write some sci fi and I write some horror. And with me, as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt Behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you doing today?
Matt Ferrell: I'm doing great. I'm excited to talk about this. It's a show I was looking forward to and did not realize when it was actually starting.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, it felt like it came out of nowhere when just a couple of days, I spotted a Reddit thread talking about the trailer for it and I was like, the trailer for it? When is it premiering? Oh, Thursday. Matt and I should probably have a conversation about that. Well, before we get into our conversation about it, we always like to take a look at what you've had to say about our previous episode. So, Matt, what did you find in the comments for us this week.
Matt Ferrell: Well, from the last episode we did, which was And the Children Shall Lead, we had some funny comments. People didn't like this episode, Sean, didn't like this episode. AJ Chan wrote, and the Children Shall Lead makes me miss a previous low point, Catspaw.
Sean Ferrell: Oh boy.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, yeah. Then there was a comment from Stevecphotos who wrote I appreciate what you guys said early on about the themes attempted by this episode, but I find this one unwatchable. I think the stunt casting of Melvin Beli, who was a famous attorney, fell extremely flat. I think he was reading off cue cards in his scenes. I do think the third season is very underrated as far as good episodes go. And Spock Brain is on my regular rewatch schedule. Happy New Year. To which Watchman on the Wall wrote, I have ranked this episode as third worst out of 79 episodes. It's dreadful. So there was a lot of I.
Sean Ferrell: Do agree with the cue card comment. It does come across a bit like Jor El from the first Superman movie when Marlon Brando famously was following a man with a cue card with all his lines written on it because he couldn't be bothered to memorize them. So.
Matt Ferrell: And then we had a wrong answers only from Paleghost69 who wrote Spock's Brain upon interacting with a crashed satellite, Spock is transported to a secluded mountaintop where he is experimented on by five robots being controlled by the brains of scientists. He has several organs removed and most importantly, his brain. His mission is to get them all back, but ends up having to argue with and seduce his own brain into escaping.
Sean Ferrell: I kind of like that as a premise.
Matt Ferrell: I know, me too.
Sean Ferrell: That's a good one. Thank you for that. That noise you hear, those lights you see flashing. It's not the premiere of Starfleet Academy, it's the Read Alert. It's time for Matt to tackle the. Well, we won't say Wikipedia description, we'll just say one sentence summary of this new show. Take it away, Matt.
Matt Ferrell: Star Trek Starfleet Academy. 32nd century street survivor Caleb Mir is coerced into joining the newly reopened Academy by Chancellor Nahla Ake in exchange for information regarding his long lost mother.
Sean Ferrell: Not fully accurate. So it's in the spirit of Wikipedia. We are of course talking about a brand new show, Starfleet Academy. This is created by Gaia Violo, based on Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. Its showrunners are Noga Landau and Alex Kurtzman, and it stars Holly Hunter, Sandro Rosta, Karim Diane, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepherd and Zoe Steiner. This episode, the first of season one Kids these Days was directed by Alex Kurtzman, as was the second one and written by Gaia Violo, who is, as I mentioned before, the creator of the show. And when did this drop? Why? Funny you should ask. Today, January 15, 2026. And what is the world like right now? Well Matt, I don't need to tell you that you're singing along to Djo Decide the number one streamed song today on Spotify. Take it away, Matt. I normally don't criticize Matt's singing, but it's almost as if he hasn't heard this song before. You'll have to work on that, Matt. The number one movie well, January is a weird time for films. It's kind of the dead zone of the new films in theaters. So what you end up with is sometimes those movies that are from the pre holiday season that just hold on and continue to hold the audience. Like this movie, Avatar Fire and Ash which dropped December 19. It remains at the time of recording the top film in theaters right now and on television people are streaming. Two shows in particular stood out, both of them from Netflix. His and hers is currently the number one show on Netflix. It is a limited series featuring Tessa Thompson and it is a thriller which also includes the Jon Bernthal as a major star in the program. Also in the top viewed shows on television right now, Stranger Things Season 5 continues to hold a top slot. This was wildly popular when it dropped and is the final season of that runaway program.
And in the news from the New York Times, the top story that they led with today, January 15, 2026, an article about China announcing record trade surplus as its exports flood world markets. The article goes on to explain how China had after the Trump tariffs were announced, leaned into self reliance and increasing its own market share within its country as opposed to trying to placate external countries. And so they've seen an actual economic boon to their to their economy as opposed to other which have struggled. Also in the news at this time, the continuing of the protests in Iran, debates about the Trump administration's overreach in areas like Venezuela and Greenland. On now to our discussion about this whole new program, Matt. We try to trade back and forth about who's going to talk about what and when and all of that I've lost track of who's talking about what when and why. So let's flip a coin. I'm flipping a coin in my head. I'm flipping a coin in my head.
You want me to start it off?
Matt Ferrell: Go Ahead. Okay.
Sean Ferrell: I went into this episode having seen the only trailers I saw go back several months at this point. And they were very clearly fan servicey in a way that was meant to be like, this is going to appeal to the, the, the Trekkies who have that long memory. The, the part that stood out that I was looking forward to in the program. And it was there when they talk about the history of people who have been the greatest of Starfleet and they show that wall and you see the names on the wall and you can't help but on the one hand you're a viewer and you're like, well, of course I can do that. And on the other hand I couldn't help but think, that's pretty cool. I found myself thinking that's pretty cool. Through a good portion of this I found myself. Somebody asked me just a little bit earlier today, did you watch it and what did you think about it? And to give a very cursory initial impression, I found myself thinking this looked and felt like a pilot because it had tons of exposition and really weird awkward introductions to people. Like when the captain goes to the bridge and names every member of the bridge in turn so that they can be on camera for three seconds and we'd be like, oh, we know who these people are now. And felt a little, a little weird. That's not typically how ham fisted we are when we have a moment like that. But I also felt like, okay, it's understandable why they're doing that. They got to get some of this stuff out of the way. And I found myself settling in and really finding myself just enjoying the story at times, which felt like a little more superhero story than Star Trek story. But ultimately I found myself thinking this is working for me in ways that I appreciated. So that's my very cursory high level response. What did you think about it?
Matt Ferrell: So I've been looking forward to this show, but I think Alex Kurtzman's time with Trek from the rumors I've heard, are at an end.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. His relationship to the program is the mythology and all of that is coming to an end. Yes.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah. I have a kind of love hate relationship with what he's done with Star Trek. But on the whole, I think he's done okay. I know there's a lot of people out there that can't stand anything he's done with Star Trek and hate all these new shows. I'm not in that camp. There's some of these shows I adore, Strange New Worlds I think is spectacular I actually enjoyed the Prodigy TV show, the animated show, I actually enjoyed that. And this one I was worried because I was excited about the concept. And then I started seeing the teaser trailers and thought, uh, oh, that's not what I was hoping for. This doesn't feel good. And then I watched it and my reaction was very similar to yours where it felt very pilot. So I'm very excited to watch the second episode to see if it gets past that pilot feel. But when you take the pilot y awkwardness out of it, I thought it was a good story. I thought the characters they set up were very interesting. The dynamics between some of the characters were a little awkward because they're getting to know each other and there was a little bit of that high school, here comes the popular bro. And it's like it came out of nowhere and it felt very inorganic, it felt very forced. But again, pilot-y. But I like the dynamics that they're setting up with these different characters. At the end of the day, I thought there was some really good humor. There were some scenes that were genuinely funny. And for the best Trek, it needs to balance between those actiony, dramatic, tense moments and then be able to pivot quickly into release the tension with some good humor. And this show was doing that and it had some really good humor with the Doctor and that new holographic student, which I thought was a very clever concept. Man, that was like I did not see. It's like it feels like Star Trek has to have that character that's the not human that can.
Sean Ferrell: The one and only human. Yeah, yeah, right, the one.
Matt Ferrell: So that is kind of a. We've had that with Spock, we've had that with Data. We've had that like again and again. And here it is here. But it's a very fun, quirky take on it.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: And I love the fact that the Doctor is there to be the mentor. Yeah, this one hologram is going to be the mentor. This other hologram, I thought that was very clever and fun. There can be a lot of humor that comes out of that. And I thought that Holly Hunter as the Captain like had such a command for that character and a unique spin on that character. I don't know about you, but I loved her from the very get go, especially by the end of the episode because it's like I remember when we watched Enterprise, Scott Bakula took a few episodes for me to kind of warm up to his character because it was like, can this guy not act? I thought he was a good actor. He's so stiff and weird. It's like, oh, no, that's the character. The character is stiff and weird and awkward. Doesn't outhold himself. And so once you kind of get into the thing of like, oh, no, that's what this is. Then I started to warm up to him where Holly Hunter. It's like, you know how, like, some of the captains all have their own, like, engage or like, whatever they say, their catchphrases. I loved how she curls up in the chairs.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Like, she is so unprofessional in how she sits. Like she's at home sitting in front of the fireplace, reading a good book. And yet she's on the bridge of the. On the bridge of her ship. You know, I thought that speaks volumes of who she is at her core. And yet when she's in captain mode, she's a fully in command doing her job. She'd be like Riker or Picard or any of the other good captains on the bridge. So I thought she has a lot of depth and interest to her portrayal of this captain that I find very compelling. And I'm really excited to see where she takes this. So great casting, I think kind of across the board in general and how they've set up this show. I'm very excited to see where it goes. It did not give me any kind of qualms of, like, oh, this show's going to be a rough watch. I feel like this show is still on the fence for me, but it's leaning into, oh, they might actually have something very special here. Was kind of like my feeling by the end. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Real quickly. I think you've started off with Holly Hunter. Let's just go back and forth really quickly through the cast of characters and give our initial impressions of how we felt about what we saw in this first episode. And some of the characters who are listed online did not appear in this episode. So we won't talk about them if they didn't actually appear in this one. But I agree Holly Hunter brings her as an actress. I felt like this looked to me like they gave her a lot of freedom in crafting how she wanted to bring this character to the screen. And casting is such a huge component of how a captain is presented in these series. Like you mentioned Scott Bakula at one point in Next Generation, one of the people they were considering was Yaphet Kotto to be Picard. Imagine how wildly different that character would have been with Yaphet Kotto as Picard as opposed to Patrick Stewart. So I feel like I agree with you. This looks like giving her that level of comfort.
She's described as half lanthanite, and so she has a longer lifespan. And I think that's part of what's on display in her attitude, where she's so old that all the pomp and circumstance is basically just doesn't mean anything. Worn out. It doesn't mean anything to her anymore. So she's just, you know, more casual in her presentation. Yeah, I think it was comparing her to, like, Janeway. Janeway came across with like, Janeway's hair demonstrated who she was. It was pulled back tight. It was a tight bun that didn't shift. And she ran the ship that way. And here we have Holly Hunter curling her feet up underneath her and saying, like, let's go, let's go for a ride. Let's go to San Francisco. And she's got that Holly Hunter charm, so I enjoyed that. There's also here we have ostensibly the main character. It felt like it wasn't Holly Hunter, but it was in fact Caleb Mir, played by Sandro Rosta. We see his mother on trial with the villain of this episode, Paul Giamatti, as Nus Braka. We'll talk about Paul Giamatti in a minute. Right out of the gate, I felt like this was one of the most piloty, shortcutty elements of the show. He's raised on the street, he's a street guy, so he's not going to bend. He's not going to be willing to listen to those rules. He's a bad boy who's showing up, but he's going to find his home in Starfleet. Surprise, surprise. I'm fine with that. I had no problem with that. I found his performance. I found it really well rendered and I liked what they did with that character as pilot, as he. As pilot-y as it felt. I felt like if you're going to have that character, these are the notes you're going to hit. And he hit them. And he demonstrated a kind of. I found him charming, despite the fact that he's so guarded.
And so I think that the character has a lot of growth ahead of him and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with that because especially between him and the. The nemesis that they set up in front of him, which is SAM, the bully played by Kerrice Brooks. And I'll talk about him really quickly and then you can jump in the whole, I'm the popular jock, you're the bad boy, and we don't like each other just because of that. Again, very Very quick shortcut, one dimensional writing. But it's the pilot. They just wanted to get into the action so that episodes two and beyond can develop those relationships. I did find some of the back and forth between them and dialogue funny. I found myself when they're all working together and he's like, one of them says, bite me to the other one as they're basically trying to save the ship. But one of them's like, bite me. So I thought, okay, the humor here is working. And I think that is in part because Tawny Newsome had a hand in writing the pilot. So she's one of the producers on the show.
So I think you can hear the comedy coming from probably largely her.
Matt Ferrell: That's why I was excited about this show was I thought, oh, there's gonna be a good comic flair to this. And there is. You can feel it. There's not as much as I thought there was gonna be. I was actually hoping there'd be more. But those two characters, the way it shorthanded, it was so goofy and stupid. It's just like, I'm gonna hate you because I'm gonna hate you. Where they could have very easily done something where Holly Hunter's character is in front of the two of them, she's running the Starfleet and she might show some preferential treatment to this kid who's this schlub. Like this, what the hell? And then this kid that says, I'm gonna be a captain, be like, he gets a chip on his shoulder, like, why are you getting special treatment? And it would have given him a little motivation to be a little more confrontational and set up that dynamic between the two of them. But instead it was just that it's high school. That's supposed to be enough of a.
Sean Ferrell: It's like, no, yeah, it's a stand in for actual development. So it was a little disappointing in that regard, but I was willing to give it a hand wave. Do you want to talk a little bit about the Klingon cadet which is played by Karim Diane and his character name is Jay-Den Kraag.
Matt Ferrell: Okay, I'm going to like this. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to like this character long term. But man, why are they having him do that thing with his voice? It doesn't sound natural. It sounds so artificial. It sounds like he's having trouble saying his lines because he's trying to make his voice deeper and more gruff than it actually is. It's like, you don't have to worfify everything here, it's like, you don't have to be Michael Dorn, just be yourself. That's the only thing about the character I don't like. I like the fact it's a Klingon. It doesn't want to be a fighter. He wants to be a microbiologist. He wants to be a doctor. He wants to be help people. And it's like we've seen Klingons like this in other shows, which I find fascinating how like the scientist Klingons are like the lesser Klingons.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: And he's one of those. And yet you can still tell he's a tough guy. Like, you don't want to mess with this guy. But at the same time, he's got this softness about him for a Klingon I find very compelling. I don't know how you felt about him.
Sean Ferrell: I liked him as well. And I agree with you. I like the fact that he was portrayed as full Klingon as well, instead of. Very often what Star Trek defaults to is like, oh, here's a species who's known for being aggressive but will give them half human background and therefore they'll be softer. Like, that's. I mean, come on.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Having a full Klingon who wants to be a doctor and he seems a little gun shy is interesting. And I liked the portrayal that they had here and I thought some of the elements that were around his Klingoness are. We know that storytelling around the Klingon so well at this point, we've seen so much of it that seeing this side of it is really the only new territory. So I'm looking forward to that. We've already mentioned SAM, played by Kerrice Brooks, and he is portrayed as the first Kasqian in Starfleet Academy, which. There's always a group of firsts, but this is a first that was referenced as I'm the first this. And it was a little bit like a shoulder shrug. And then we see what it means is that, oh, it's this whole thing around shape shifting and his body not actually being human so he can withstand more pressure and more damage. And they. I found the action sequences around that compelling, but not as engaging as some of the rest of the show. So it felt a little bit like, oh, they were demonstrating something, but it really didn't rise to the level of like, oh, my God, I can't believe they did that.
Matt Ferrell: Can I call it one character? I don't know if you're going to bring it up.
Sean Ferrell: Yep.
Matt Ferrell: The Jem’Hadar.
Sean Ferrell: Oh, yeah, we were going to talk about. Let's talk about the Jem’Hadar here. This is. She's going to be a recurring character, apparently. So it is the Gina Yashere as Lura Thok, part Klingon, part Jem’Hadar. The First Officer of the Athena and the cadet master of Starfleet Academy. I was eating up Jem’Hadar and like the idea, of course, what are you end up with? Peace with the Jem’Hadar. Where are the Jem’Hadar going to go? They're going to go to the Klingon homeworld, of course, because they're going to look around and be like, these are the only people who get it. They're going to go live with the Klingons and then they're going to breed with Klingons and then you're going to end up with a half Jem’Hadar, half Klingon. And I found myself thinking like, of course this is perfect. Like, it's a Klingon without being Klingon. It is somebody who can stand there and say, like, this isn't about duty and honor. This is just you. You fight because that's what you do. I love the difference there. It's going to be a slightly different flavor, but it's going to be one that I think will be fun.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, I liked her character. I liked how they introduced her. Just getting in the face of the students saying, you're gonna give me push ups right now. And like telling this other guy, like, now put your bag on his back. She's just barking orders and just being this drill sergeant, like, that's so Jem’Hadar from Deep Space Nine. I was eating it up and I was like, oh, it's so nice to see them give us a little fan service in a new, unique way. You know, it's fan service, but at the same time, it's a really cool use of a species where we have not seen reused since Deep Space Nine. So hats off to that.
Sean Ferrell: I wanted to talk too about. We end up with the Doctor showing up and they build in the fact that Robert Picardo is of course older now than when Voyager ended. So how do you explain that? And he's like, to ease humans responses to me, I added an algorithm so I would age. Wink, wink, who cares?
Matt Ferrell: He's older.
Sean Ferrell: I didn't need an explanation. They could have done anything with him. I loved the Doctor on Voyager. I'm happy to see the character return. My entire take on his presence in the program is like, if they were gonna have anybody show up because this is supposed to now be hundreds of years. This is hundreds of years past all the characters that we would know from other programs and they're all gone. So here we are with this one character showing up and I was like, that's great. If it's not going to be Data. If it's not going to be. There are a number of characters who could theoretically still be around. If it's not going to be one of those, it makes sense that it's the Doctor. And so I was thrilled to have him in this. Quick correction. I've been saying SAMwas the character who was the bully who went out on the edge of the ship. That wasn't true. I made a mistake.
Matt Ferrell: SAM’s the hologram, Right?
Sean Ferrell: SAM is the hologram. So let's talk about the hologram quickly. George Hawkins as Darem Raymi is the Khionian who is the one who was the bully. So let's talk briefly about SAM, whom you already mentioned, briefly, but I am fully on board with you. So you want to talk a bit about what's on display there.
Matt Ferrell: Well, it's like when that character showed up, she looks totally human and she's acting like a completely strange, doesn't know how to shake hands and is just like trying to speak random languages to people as they walk by, hoping that one of them will be her friend. And the first conversation she has is they say one sentence to each other and she goes, are we friends now? It's like, it's like this weird. What is up with this? And then it turns out she's a hologram. Because if we remember from Voyager, there's holograms that become self aware, like the Doctor, and they kind of spin off on their own. And they hate humanity and humans because humans want to shut them down and get rid of them. And so there's this like, they spin off. And so it's like, here we are hundreds of years in the future and they're trying to reintegrate. They're kind of coming back into the fold. And here's the first hologram being brought into the Starfleet. And I love the fact that she's like, what is it, like 14 months old, but she's been programmed to be like a teenager. It was just like, so basically it is kind of created. She's basically a newborn that they've dropped into this. And I find it fascinating because she's going to be a character that they could advance very quickly over the course of the show to evolve. And I'm really curious to see how they evolve her. But it gives us that Data character that can comment on humanity in unique ways where also brings a lot of humor. And it's going to be like the Doctor, where she'll be in it all the time, where the Doctor, I'm guessing, will only be in occasionally. But you get that holographic newborn to comment on humanity. I think it's a very clever character like we've never seen before.
Sean Ferrell: There's also in this first episode, Bella Shepherd as Genesis Lythe. She is a cadet who's the daughter of an admiral. And so she's looking to make her own way in Starfleet Academy. She is largely not backstory, she is personality. She feels like she's been put here more to be a kind of dynamic glue between everybody else. I have a. I have a theory than anybody else. So do you want to talk about your theory?
Matt Ferrell: My theory is, I think you know how there was that sparring between the two dudes, like, I'm going to be a captain. I'm the first. This and Caleb, who's got this innate ability that is going to make some people jealous. I have a feeling that she is going to be the commander. She's going to be the glue that keeps people together. She's able to bark out orders, get people to do different things. It came across to me in the pilot of oh oh, she's like a natural born leader. She's like Riker and Picard. She's going to be the person that can be friends with different groups easily and she can shift modes and understand how to talk to different people, where the guy who says, I'm going to be the, you know, captain, it's like he may not end up going that path. I wouldn't be surprised if we see him evolve into finding his own strength. And it's not going to be going to be a captain, it's going to be doing something else. So it's like, I have a feeling that's what she is, is that she's going to be this kind of like. I think glue is the best word. She's going to be kind of like everybody's going to kind of circle around her. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Especially in the way that she had so much dialogue and everybody else got that moment of like, well, I'm a Klingon who doesn't want to Klingon and I'm a bad boy and I'm going to be a captain someday. And she didn't have any kind of self statements like that. She was just verbally sparring with everybody in a way that was disarming and. And charming. So I felt like somebody did say, though.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, somebody said, you seem very natural at, like, barking out these orders. She goes, my father's a.
Sean Ferrell: My father was an admiral. Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: It's like, oh, okay. She's steeped in this. She feels very comfortable with it. And she's not putting on a show. She's just being her. And that's why I was like, she's going to be the commander of the group.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. So real quickly, we have basically three guest stars to talk about. Tatiana Maslany, great actress. I like her in everything she's in. She brings a lot, a lot of humanity to a character very quickly in this one. And it is in the form of a woman who will do anything to protect her child, including apparently putting that child in danger by working closely with nefarious people. And I thought that the program did a really great job. I mean, I. I found myself kind of like, hey, slow clap. You pulled one over on me with the whole, she will do anything for her child. And then she's being pulled out of the room and she yells at her son, don't trust them about Starfleet. And by the end of the episode, it's clear we don't actually know where she is, what her motivations are. Is she still alive? Is she not? A lot of questions left in the air. Is she a bad guy? Was everything that was being done in the courtroom actually just part of a. I'm trying to create space where I can so I can get a lighter sentence and maybe break you out. Like, there's all that sort of stuff going on. I found myself pleasantly surprised that what looked like, oh, she's here to add depth to a relationship. But why did they get such an accomplished actress for what seems like it's a small part? And then about three quarters of the way through it, I was like, oh, I see what they did here. Okay, good job. So, yeah. Do you want to talk about one Paul Giamatti?
Matt Ferrell: Oh, yes, Sean. I've been waiting to get to Paul Giamatti. Oh, I watched him on the Late show with Stephen Colbert talking about this, and he said a sentence that made me go, oh. He said he loved this character. He's a huge Star Trek fan, and he would talk about Ricardo Montaban as that. And he talked about one of his favorite villains from Deep Space Nine, and he name checked Gul Dcott as one of his favorites. And I was like, okay, you're a Star Trek nerd. Because it's like he called that out as one of his favorites. I'm like, that's a deep cut, dude. Most people, Deep Space Nine, they go to Wrath of Khan. They don't go to that. So it's like, he definitely knows his stuff. But he said as. As he was forming what he wanted this character to be, and he was doing it and they were filming stuff, he said, they let me just go all out. And then he saw it and said. And he said, maybe they shouldn't have. And after watching. Watching it, it's like, yeah, they should have dialed him back. He is chewing scenery, Sean.
Sean Ferrell: He is.
Matt Ferrell: He's chewing scenery. Spitting it back out and chewing it again. Yeah, he has. He is.
Sean Ferrell: He.
Matt Ferrell: He is full Giamatti in this. And it's kind of like I look at him as. Oh, I'm blanking on his name. The beekeeper.
Sean Ferrell: Jason Statham?
Matt Ferrell: No, no, Con Air.
Sean Ferrell: Oh, Nick Cage.
Matt Ferrell: Nick Cage, Nick Cage, amazing actor, but he's like, on a Fine Line, you can either get great actor Nick Cage, or you can get the. Oh, I'm going full Nick Cage. Where it is hammy chewing scenery. And Paul Giamatti is the same thing. He's a great actor, but very easily flips over into, oh, boy. And he is going, oh, boy in this episode. I don't know if I'm here for it, Sean. He's a good actor. What he does, he's very over the top. But one of the things I love about his character is he's a Klingon Tellarite, or what does he call himself? A Klingerite. That's what he calls himself. Like, so you've got a Tellarite who are very belligerent and very in your face and yelling, which is what he's doing. And he's a Klingon, which means he's tough, strong, just like the fight sequence.
Sean Ferrell: I did not anticipate you would see him in a fight sequence where he's fighting our arguably main character.
Matt Ferrell: Tossing him around, Caleb Mir grabs a.
Sean Ferrell: Hold of some kind of metal pipe and he's clocking him across the face. And you can hear that Nus Braka is laughing as this is happening, because the Klingon in him is just like, oh, yeah, like, bring it on. This is great.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: And the Tellarite, I agree with you. There's a lot of scene chewing here. But I really. When he said, don't mess with a Klingerite, and I was just like, that's where the hamminess is coming from. Because Tellarites are just so. I was, I actually was there for it. I felt like there were just a couple of moments I was like, oh, they could edit that one out. Like him making the tongue motions to the camera in the engineering section. I was like, all right, that's like, that's a little step into weirdness. That didn't work. But for the most part, him as a hologram projected onto the. The bridge and walking around with her, the. With the captain and going through all these things with the. Like he's playing with the things on his fingers. He's making little noises with them. He's doing all these hand gestures that are. He's constantly pushing into her face to see if he can get a reaction out of her because he wants to see what she's made of. And I was just like, this is fine. I'm there for all of this. And it's been a while since we had a villain in Star Trek that felt as much Star Wars as Star Trek and have it work. Because when they blur that line a little bit, like when we watched Section 31, where that did not feel like Star Trek and this does to me. So it was like his entire, his entire, his entire shtick, I thought landed for me in a way that I was appreciative of.
Matt Ferrell: The only thing I'm hoping is they give him some depth and allow him to have a multi layered performance here. Because if he's just on that surface just crazy like that all the time, it's going to get. It's going to wear thin. And for me, the more scary villains are the ones that are quiet and are more sedate, but then they show that they will go brutal in a heartbeat where you could flip it on its head for this, where he's just this boisterous, laughing at everything and being very kind of sparring verbally with people and getting people's face. But maybe he's insanely smart and so he's. Maybe he's playing a game of chess where he's like five moves ahead, but he comes across as somebody that doesn't feel like that, but he is that. I'm hoping they can do something like that with him and allow Giamatti to have a little more depth, the performance. Yeah, but I didn't feel that in the pilot at all. It just felt like he was just chewing scenery.
Sean Ferrell: There were two moments for me that, that I think did for me what you're describing you're hoping for. The first was when he realizes his ship is being destroyed. The pretense drops the thing, everything drops. And he immediately goes, no, in a way that's just like, I've been doing everything I'm doing to keep people off their balance. And the moment he realizes he's lost this particular fight, it all drops away. And then he gets in the escape pod and he does the whole fake Vulcan salute on his way out. Just like, he puts his hand on there. He's just like. It's the equivalent of him giving the middle finger. He is just like. He puts his hand up there and he makes his face and he's just like. And then he ejects. And then once he's away from the ship, that all drops again. You see him calculated, staring at the ship and he is just like. You can see wheels within wheels are already spinning. And he's just like, I am going to get back there and I'm going to get that ship, but more importantly, I'm going to get that kid. And it's just like, you can see the wheel spinning. So for me, that was touching on what you're talking about because I completely agree. Like, unless, you know, having somebody show up and be like, yahar, I'm a pirate and I'm the villain, I'm like, that can't be it. And I felt like, okay, that's not just it. There's something else there. Last guest star. I want to talk about the voice of Starfleet Academy's digital dean of students who gives daily announcements and alerts to the cadets played by one Stephen Colbert. Colbert. I loved hearing his voice and having that moment of like, is that. Could that. Yeah, is that. I think it is, yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Like, when I told you when Paul Giamatti was on being interviewed, Stephen Colbert said, well, I. They showed a photo from the red carpet premiere of the show that they had and Stephen Colbert was there with Paul Giamatti. And he was like, I am in the show. And he turned to the camera, was like, but for. I'm not going to say who I am. You'll have to discover if you can find who I am. And when I'm in the show, you'll have to find out for your own. And when he said that, it was kind of like, oh, he's probably just some kind of voiceover artist that doing some kind of 3D character or kind of voiceover. I didn't think he was going to be kind of the voiceover dean of students, but I think it's fantastic.
Sean Ferrell: I think it's great. I think it's funny. To think that somewhere there is an office and Stephen Colbert as a person is. So the potential of eventually somebody goes and opens up a door, and just like, it's Stephen Colbert in a Starfleet uniform. I'm there for that. Give me that. So we've talked about the cast of characters that appeared in this first episode. We'll have additional characters who will be added in the second episode. I'm sure or later that we'll have similar discussions around those. But for right now, beyond the pilotish nature of this episode, where you have to have the moment of, like, introducing John Smith, talk about John Smith enough that you get a sense of who John Smith is, and then move on to Jane and then move on to Marcy, and then move on from there, down the list. That all feels like the main thrust of this episode. But you do get some nice action elements in the form of the pirates showing up. They want to steal the warp core out of this ship. They are there because the signal went out from Caleb looking for his mother. I really liked that element that he was the one who just like. And it's not even like, all he's saying is, mom, are you getting these messages? Like, it's kind of a heartbreaking moment of him saying, like, mom, are you out there? Like, I've just heard that you are no longer in prison, but I didn't hear from you what's going on. And all the confusion that he has around all of that, breaking through the facade of I'm, I don't need anybody, because that's. That's that character trope. I don't need anybody, but I actually want my mom. And I like that that turned into the lure that brought the pirates to this moment. And then we get all this stuff that I felt a lot of it was pretty original with the stuff on the outside of the ship, the way it grew over and into everything.
His relationship to knowing how to get rid of that saying. You remember how you said you were impressed by me breaking out of prison? This is how he did it. His ability there on display. And then the teamwork aspect to create what you described earlier, where you get that one character who's like, okay, I'm going to start telling people what to do because I have better ideas than they do, including what was a fairly kind of limited involvement in the moment, where it's like, doesn't anybody have a flashlight? And then the hologram is able to be like, I do. Like, okay, everybody's chipping in. Hooray. But I felt like all of that worked for me. And I keep comparing this. Whether intentionally or not, I keep going back. Not to strange new worlds, but I keep going back to Section 31 and thinking about, really, Boy, did they squander. Oh, yeah, Section 31. Because everything they tried to do in that, and it was just like, this doesn't feel like Star Trek and some of it's just kind of dumb. And here I found myself thinking like, yeah, this was a fun sequence. I felt like once Giamatti showed up and it turned into the kind of the actiony Star Trek, I felt myself really pulled in and really rooting for the characters to work together.
The sequence with the Jem'Hadar in medical bay with a thing in her side, the reluctant Doctor, the holographic character walking around saying, like, well, it's important to keep up people's moods, so I.
Matt Ferrell: Think you're doing a great job.
Sean Ferrell: And.
Matt Ferrell: But move to the left.
Sean Ferrell: Don't do that, because that is where their heart is. And like, all of. All of that was, I thought, a nice blend. There's enough humor in there to keep it light. There's enough seriousness to really feel compelling. And I felt like it all did a great job of displaying the competence and also confusion among what are supposed to be cadets. I thought, here we have an interesting moment where we have the dynamic between the layers of the crew where normally almost all the shows are on the top surface. And if you have anybody who's less experienced, they're usually the side characters or they're usually guest characters, but by design, this one is, how do we teach these people how to aspire to the higher level? And I felt like this show did a pretty good job of getting that across in a way that was compelling and felt like Star Trek still. So I found myself thinking, like, well done. So was there anything about the actiony sequences or even just the special effects themselves about the show that really kind of stood out for you?
Matt Ferrell: The special effects are just great across the board.
Sean Ferrell: We've reached a point where I don't know how they get better.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, I know.
Sean Ferrell: It's just like, this is what TV looks like now, so.
Matt Ferrell: Exactly. My one concern about the action is that our Star Trek, the new Star Trek, and to old Star Trek fans, the new Star Trek feels like it's the J.J. Abrams Star Trek where action over substance. And I am a little concerned because there was a lot of action in this episode, but it's also a pilot. It's meant to pull you in. So for me, the thing is, I feel cautiously optimistic for the show, but for me it's going to be the next couple of episodes that will really kind of cement whether it's a good show or not. But it's like if they lean too far into that JJ Abrams, everything's going to be this over the top action sequence. I think it's gonna lose the thread of a Star Trek fan. Yeah, that's me. But if it does a balance between going between that and the more cerebral stuff, I think we'll have a good show on our hands.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, looking forward to seeing how that all plays out. And as I mentioned, we're going to be running into beta test as the second episode that is already available, but Matt and I were doing some quick calculations and cue the gif of somebody looking off into the nothingness and seeing numbers and equations fall in front of their faces. And we quickly realized these episodes were dropping at 3am this morning there was no way we were going to be able to watch two episodes and then be able to talk about them intelligently. So we will be coasting a little bit behind the program, but we hope you'll join us if you have the ability through Paramount or I don't know if the show is available for rent via like Apple TV via other streaming options, but I know Paramount plus and YouTube both have the first episode available, so we hope you'll be interested in checking it out with us. We hope you've enjoyed this conversation. Jump into the comments. Let us know. Have you seen this? What did you think? Do you think Matt and I are off our rocker for liking it so far? Or do you agree with us that it looks like it has potential and could be quite a bit of fun? Let us know in the comments. As always, commenting, liking, subscribing. Those are very easy ways for you to support the podcast. And if you want to support us more directly, you can go to trekintime show. Click the join button. It allows you to throw some coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts and and we also sign you up for Out of Time, which is our spin off program in which we talk about other things that don't fit within the context of this program. We hope you'll be interested in checking that out. We look forward to looking at the next episode next week. We hope you'll be interested in checking it out with us. Thank you so much everybody for taking the time to watch or listen and we'll talk to you next time.