'Starfleet Academy' Puts Itself on Trial, and Finds Its Old Generations Wanting

Starfleet Academy‘s first season has been all about teaching its young cadets the lessons needed to navigate through life: sometimes joyous, sometimes harsh, sometimes in the moment, sometimes stretching across generations of Star Trek‘s legacy. Its final episode has one more lesson: it’s up to them to save the day, because their forebears kind of suck. “Rubincon” is a surprisingly subdued end to Starfleet Academy‘s debut season, especially given the legacy of its predecessor, Discovery, often splitting its two-part conclusions into one part feelings, one part explosive action. And sure, there were a few explosions (mostly bad ones for the poor Athena, but don’t worry, it gets better), but if you thought all the feelings were done with last week, think again. After the Venari Ral almost immediately finds the Athena so Braka can give it a pummeling after kidnapping both Anisha Mir and Chancellor Ake, “Rubincon” is not a ship-disaster episode, it’s another beloved Trek trope: it’s really a trial episode. Lugging Ake and Anisha back to the Athena‘s abandoned nacelle structure after it was captured last week (and in the meantime has promptly been vandalized by the raiders with plenty o