Some thoughts on the first two episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as I curl up in the captain's chair with a good book...
Alan Sepinwall
I went into Starfleet Academy with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism about the plan to do a teen drama set in the Federation. These initial episodes, "Kids These Days" and "Beta Test," left me more skeptical than before. It's a bumpy beginning to a show I found myself liking a fair amount — and at times loving — in its later installments. I understand on one level why Alex Kurtzman and company wanted to launch the series with these two episodes together. "Kids These Days" has so much set up, and doesn't even get to San Francisco(*) until the closing minutes. So it makes sense to give viewers a more representative episode on premiere day.
(*) If you were still wondering what the needle drop was that I was complaining so much about in my review, it was the sad cover of "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" that accompanied the cadets' arrival in the city by the bay. Subtlety can be overrated, but this is way the hell too far in the other direction.