Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (SFA) Season 1 Guest Reviews
Season 1
Rubincon
Synopsis
Stardate not given: Synopsis in main SFA listing
Review
I've watched every Star Trek movie and television show and paid attention to the beta canon, among others. SFA was something I approached hesitantly after my disappointments with STD. I can understand they were trying to tap into the youth market; they had better success with PRO and Lower Decks. I can say that confidently as someone in their target audience-I'm nineteen.
My problems with "Rubincon" are: 1) the predictability of its ending, and 2) the nonsensical nature of how it saved the day. The Doctor just somehow knew how to stabilise Omega? The Athena's shields were somehow able to survive a barrage from Venari Ral ships when the USS Sargasso was crippled in a single volley? Why was the Athena unable to establish contact with the Federation through the barrier, then suddenly able to make holographic contact? What happened to the starbases and outposts outside the mined area? In the maps displayed, there were several Federation marks outside the affected area. Did they have no ships to respond? Why didn't the Athena go through them? Why are they fixing the warp core in the airlock? Why are there glass monitor screens consistent with what Discovery had in the 23rd century when this was supposed to be a brand-new 32nd-century Academy-class starship?
I do defend the "Federation fire for the last few hundred years has always been blue or green," as by "fire," I assume they mean phaser fire, which, from what we've seen, appears to be true. I saw others pulling up examples of red-coloured projectiles that appear to be some form of torpedoes fired by Discovery to contradict Caleb's statement.
Why did they have to use the Doctor's holographic matrix to project their destruction? They should've been able to do it with or without his matrix, regardless of his mobile emitter. Just throw up some programmable matter and pull a pattern on file.
Overall, "Rubincon" and the buildup to "Rubincon" seem to suffer dramatically from a rushed plot and hand-waving that breaks the suspension of disbelief. It's poorly justified and inconsistent. At least, the galaxy didn't explode for once but I am sick and tired of all the stakes in each season of every new show acting more like Star Wars than Star Trek.
Rating: 4 (Anton)
