Star Trek: Starfleet Academy "Come, Let's Away"

[matt_zimmer]

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy "Come, Let's Away"

I have reservations. Fans are gonna go bananas, but me? I disliked as much of that as I liked.

The episode lost me in the opening scene and never won me back. That is the most explicit sex scene in Star Trek history. This is not remotely a good milestone. It's why I have always been leery of Star Trek on streaming. This is NOT Game Of Thrones, and I don't want it to turn into it. And considering how dark this episode was, it feels like an actual risk. Which is crazy.

The lion's share of the praise is going to be for Paul Giamatti as Braka. Giamatti is a huge Deep Space Nine fan, and says he wanted his performance to harken back to Gul Dukat, pretty much the greatest Star Trek villain of all time. Soft Trekkies remember Q and Khan, but Gul Dukat was the legit best and worst bad guy Trek ever gave us.

My opinion? Braka has ALREADY surpassed him. Why?

Okay, I'm not saying anything DS9 fans don't already know, but the truth is the next thing I speak, although being a common thing to think, wasn't actually expressed by the characters, or the fans, or the producers. When discussing Dukat's (numerous) personality flaws the go-to was always that he was super crazy. And he was.

Left unsaid is that Gul Dukat was actually pretty stupid. Especially for a guy in the position he was in, and for a guy who got as far as he did. The most subversive thing about Gul Dukat to me is that when Cardassia was sending out their best and brightest to terrorize Bajor and the Federation, the best they could do was a guy about as sane and smart as Donald Trump. Dukat wasn't just about the banality of evil. He was about the stupidity of evil as well.

Braka surpasses him for me already. He does the same grand bragging speeches Dukat did. He's a lech, just like Dukat. But he's better than Dukat because he's smart. And not just the move he pulled of being with the Furies the entire time. Dukat could have pulled that off himself because when it comes to organizations, Starfleet is pretty much the easiest to con. No, what's smart is how he gets into Ake's head, and the horrible shit he says about her son and how he fucking twists the knife.

Why? Because he genuinely hates her. I think the previous most alarming villain turn in the franchise had to have been Dukat at the end of the episode "Waltz". Just basically feeding into his inner Hitler, and promising death and misery to literally everything and everyone good. Sisko ends that episode vowing to fear no evil.

Us learning Braka is doing this shit for the sole reason that he HATES Ake is about as dark a turn as that, with the difference being Dukat's logic is stupid. Braka however believes his hatred has made him better at his job, and he's probably right. That's far more disturbing than Dukat forgetting not to say the quiet part out-loud in his genocidal madness.

The Furies are some of the scariest villains Star Trek ever did (only Voyager's the Clown freaked me out more). The thing is though, their scariness is too outside of Star Trek. I have similar complaints about the Gorn on Strange New Worlds, but in fairness to that show, they've put in some work to make it fit. I can't imagine the Furies ever feeling like Star Trek.

Do you know the fucked-up thing? When you get right down to it, they are a complete rip-off of the Reavers from Firefly. They have the exact same hook, and even if they aren't QUITE as bad as the Reavers (nobody mentions Furies raping people to death, and driving their victims insane enough to become Furies themselves, but I think that's probably only down to the fact that Joss Whedon happened to be an extremely shitty human being to come up with THAT specific backstory) but it's still the exact same shtick. But yeah, they scream warmed-over Reavers to me.

I imagine a TON of Neckbeards will be excited Star Trek is finally turning into Game Of Thrones. I'm not. Because unlike the Neckbeards who nitpick every other little thing, I'm actually a fan of Star Trek. ***.