A few notes on the animated sequence near the beginning:
It has the first appearance of an Aquan since TAS: "The Ambergris Element". She is notably not underwater. (Or the Andorian next to her is notably underwater.)
It also features an Edosian, though that's becoming less and less notable.
The Vulcan on the harp strongly resembles Sarek as he appears in TAS: "Yesteryear" down to the jagged eyebrows.
The woman on the couch holding the drink is dressed like Andrea from TOS: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
the audience ends up being (I’ll allow myself this just once) men rather than women
I know Trek has a rep here for the fans all being guys—specifically guys who can't get a date—but I don't know if it holds up to much scrutiny. The campaigns to rescue TOS were spearheaded by Bjo Trimble and I believe the participants were a pretty mixed crowd, including a lot of women who appreciated good sci-fi in addition to those who thought that—in the immortal words of Isaac Asimov's daughter—"Mr. Spock is dreamy." I haven't been to a lot of cons, but the ones I've seen felt like pretty mixed crowds as well.
the average viewer is, well, just that—the average person in the country where it’s broadcast
Isn't the average in most countries a roughly equal split of men and women?
The Switch version is arguably a step down from the PC version (not sure about other consoles), but both have their distinct charms. Well worth grabbing while you can.
Did they just re-release the 50th Anniversary issue and change the cover? That would track content-wise.
Entertainment Weekly's "The Ultimate Guide to Star Trek" 60th anniversary issue is largely a reprint of their 50th and 55th anniversary issues if the copyright dates in the indicia are any indication, though they definitely made some updates to keep it current by including more recent shows.
Basically. I have a spreadsheet with 1,300 watch items. Here are the first 10:
All Our Yesterdays
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow
Time's Arrow, Part II
The City on the Edge of Forever
Storm Front
Storm Front, Part II
Little Green Men
Far Beyond the Stars
Carbon Creek
It's been a lot of research and adjusting as I go along. Plus a lot of semi-arbitrary choices between Memory Alpha order, Star Trek Chronology order, etc.
If there's no new Trek, that means watching old Trek, right?
Trying to finish my full in-universe chronological franchise re-watch for the 60th anniversary, which means an average of maybe 75 minutes of watching Trek per day through September 8 if I want to get it to line up. I started back in April 2024, but there's a lot of Trek out there, and I'm already falling behind. (Ideally it would've been 58 minutes per day. This includes watching some episodes multiple times if they take place in multiple time periods.)
For what it's worth, we'll arguably get some new Trek soon whenever the "season finale" of Scouts comes out. 😂 Only one episode left if they don't get renewed.
If memory serves it started great with season 1, got gradually worse through early season 4, made a shocking comeback in terms of quality for the rest of the season, and then took a nose-dive with season 5. I'm curious how that ends up matching up with your viewing.
"All this seems to say that Starfleet Academy is a global hit for Paramount, reaching new demographics and new markets, but not a fit for the Sheridanverse Pro sports streamer Paramount+ was narrowed towards."
If that's true, I guess it's UPN all over again. Starts with Star Trek as the lead only to have it slowly sidelined by a focus on a different audience, including a focus on professional fighting. The only way it could be more like UPN is if it was getting ready to merge with a similar-sized service owned by Warner Bros.
I was mainly using season 3 as an example, but fair point that they were referencing other shows from episode 1.
Heck, one of the first characters to speak on the show was Gul Evek, who had appeared in several episodes of DS9 and TNG starting with "Playing God" when he refused to help O'Brien with the voles.
It's become more fun and less repetitive with the new Holodeck Rescues. I don't know that it really does its job of teaching STEM or much of any lessons, but it's relatively harmless.
That said, if I had kids I have no idea if this would hold their attention, and I'd much rather the hypothetical kids just watch Bluey instead.
But I'll probably continue to at least check out the new episodes just out of curiosity based almost entirely on it having the name Star Trek.
Voyager referenced or included TOS and TNG characters in at least eight episodes of season 3.
"Flashback" was the big Sulu/Rand/Kang 30th anniversary tribute
"Death Wish" had Q and Riker
In "Alliances" Tuvok talks about Spock and recaps the events of Undiscovered Country
McCoy was mentioned in "Lifesigns"
Data was mentioned in "Prototype"
Sulu was mentioned in "Tattoo"
Picard and Moriarty were mentioned in "Alter Ego"
Picard was mentioned again in "Scorpion"
That's basically a third of the season, assuming I didn't forget any. And that's not even counting things like the mention of Wolf 359 in "Unity" or the koon-ut-kal-if-fee in "Blood Fever".
And that's from the show that went out of their way to make it hard to use existing concepts.
I like to think that the pepperoni pizza was a tribute to the 30th anniversary of "Threshold" on the same day, but the true tribute to "Threshold" was depicting parents stranding their offspring on a planet and then justifying that it was fine.
I've been doing a rewatch and making notes of things that are referenced later. Considering most classic Trek has a reputation for being episodic, you'd be surprised just how much gets referenced later, whether in a passing comment or an in-joke or something. The only episodes of TNG season 1 where I didn't spot at least a passing reference later was "Too Short a Season", "Home Soil", and "When the Bough Breaks". (The references to a few of the others are vague and/or arguable though, and admittedly "Knowing where that clip in 'Shades of Gray' is from" qualifies a few of them.)
So it kind of depends on how strictly you define "important." Most people could probably skip almost the entirety of TNG season 1 and not be that confused, but for example:
"All Good Things..." loses a lot without "Encounter at Farpoint"
"The Naked Now" is important to "The Measure of a Man"
"Haven" introduces Lwaxana Troi, Mr. Homn, naked Betazoid weddings, and the running gag of data being too precise. "In the Cradle of Vexilon" loses something without it too.
"Where No One Has Gone Before" is crucial in introducing the Traveler, and that plot continues into "Remember Me" and "Journey's End" and beyond.
"The Last Outpost" has first contact with the Ferengi, though you could argue that future Ferengi episodes make more sense without it? Though it's important to the game Star Trek: Resurgence.
"Justice" doesn't seem important, but if you skip it you won't know what Remmick's talking about in "Conspiracy".
"The Battle" isn't referenced often, but "Bloodlines" depends on it. Remmick mentions this one too.
"Hide and Q" introduces concepts like the Q Continuum, and the events of it lead to Q's status in "Q Who", which introduces the Borg.
"The Big Goodbye" introduces Dixon Hill and explains holodeck matter. The Jarada are mentioned again later too.
"Datalore" introduces Lore and the Crystalline Entity and explains Data's past, somewhat.
"11001001" is important to understanding "Future Imperfect"... though that episode isn't really referenced again other than that it introduces a fictionalized version of Nurse Ogawa. So is it still important if you skip both of them?
"Coming of Age" introduces a lot of the characters and concepts that will be in "Conspiracy". Fun fact: This is the first episode to name Murf's species from Prodigy.
"Heart of Glory" introduces Khitomer and gives Worf's backstory and sort-of sets up "The Neutral Zone".
"The Arsenal of Freedom" is the first mention of Crusher's grandmother from "Sub Rosa", but arguably more important for relationship-building between Crusher and Picard.
"Symbiosis" becomes very relevant in Lower Decks in the episode "Trusted Sources".
"Skin of Evil" features the death of Tasha Yar. Armus also returns in Lower Decks.
Even though the cliffhanger isn't followed up on, "Conspiracy" becomes important again in "The Drumhead".
"The Neutral Zone" pays off the hints that the Romulans were gone, though if you skipped "Heart of Glory" you didn't catch this in the first place, and "Angel One" arguably contradicted it. But this is the first hint of the Borg, as confirmed in "Q Who" and "The Best of Both Worlds".
I could add other subtler things, but those are some of the bigger ones just from that highly-episodic season.
I'm probably stretching, but as soon as I realized Jay-Den was a birdwatcher I wondered if that was a subtle tribute to Chris Cooper, writer of the Marvel Starfleet Academy series and host of Extraordinary Birder. (Cooper became briefly very well-known in 2020 when a woman called the police on him while he was birdwatching.)
I haven't spotted it myself, but multiple reviews have mentioned the wall includes a mention of Peter David, creator of the Brikar, who first appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation—Starfleet Academy: Worf's First Adventure, the first licensed novel (or YA novella really) based around Starfleet Academy. That was probably visible in episode #2, but I'll note it here because
It's a standing set.
It pairs well with the possible Chris Cooper allusion.
And good to distinguish between someone just not liking something and someone who's just determined to hate something regardless of the content. Easy to overshoot and just start weeding out all "negativity," which can stifle healthy conversation almost as much as dealing with the hate-posters can. I don't envy the responsibility you mods have trying to strike a good balance on that.
I've been editing the above comment to include more as I've been finding them.
There are several YouTube reviews too (in addition to the TrekCulture video above and the Jessie Gender one linked elsewhere), mostly from people who at a glance don't seem like they've seen it or who have been pre-hating it for months (Dave Cullen, Critical Drinker, and downhill from there.)
Just to not exclude them entirely, here's one from a guy I'm not familiar with who didn't like it much but at least doesn't seem to broadly hate modern Star Trek:
But for most of the channels that are just screaming blind outrage in their thumbnails, I've been blocking them as I spot them, so I'll leave that as an exercise to someone else should they care to round them up for some reason.
A few notes on the animated sequence near the beginning:
It has the first appearance of an Aquan since TAS: "The Ambergris Element". She is notably not underwater. (Or the Andorian next to her is notably underwater.)
It also features an Edosian, though that's becoming less and less notable.
The Vulcan on the harp strongly resembles Sarek as he appears in TAS: "Yesteryear" down to the jagged eyebrows.
The woman on the couch holding the drink is dressed like Andrea from TOS: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
To be fair, the list was made for the 57th anniversary of Trek three years ago.
As far as the question goes, "The Game" has aged surprisingly well and is a pretty good introduction.
bit.ly link appears to be a scam direct.
I know Trek has a rep here for the fans all being guys—specifically guys who can't get a date—but I don't know if it holds up to much scrutiny. The campaigns to rescue TOS were spearheaded by Bjo Trimble and I believe the participants were a pretty mixed crowd, including a lot of women who appreciated good sci-fi in addition to those who thought that—in the immortal words of Isaac Asimov's daughter—"Mr. Spock is dreamy." I haven't been to a lot of cons, but the ones I've seen felt like pretty mixed crowds as well.
Isn't the average in most countries a roughly equal split of men and women?
I really liked it.
The Switch version is arguably a step down from the PC version (not sure about other consoles), but both have their distinct charms. Well worth grabbing while you can.
Did they just re-release the 50th Anniversary issue and change the cover? That would track content-wise.
Entertainment Weekly's "The Ultimate Guide to Star Trek" 60th anniversary issue is largely a reprint of their 50th and 55th anniversary issues if the copyright dates in the indicia are any indication, though they definitely made some updates to keep it current by including more recent shows.
Basically. I have a spreadsheet with 1,300 watch items. Here are the first 10:
All Our Yesterdays The Inner Light Time's Arrow Time's Arrow, Part II The City on the Edge of Forever Storm Front Storm Front, Part II Little Green Men Far Beyond the Stars Carbon Creek
It's been a lot of research and adjusting as I go along. Plus a lot of semi-arbitrary choices between Memory Alpha order, Star Trek Chronology order, etc.
If there's no new Trek, that means watching old Trek, right?
Trying to finish my full in-universe chronological franchise re-watch for the 60th anniversary, which means an average of maybe 75 minutes of watching Trek per day through September 8 if I want to get it to line up. I started back in April 2024, but there's a lot of Trek out there, and I'm already falling behind. (Ideally it would've been 58 minutes per day. This includes watching some episodes multiple times if they take place in multiple time periods.)
For what it's worth, we'll arguably get some new Trek soon whenever the "season finale" of Scouts comes out. 😂 Only one episode left if they don't get renewed.
If memory serves it started great with season 1, got gradually worse through early season 4, made a shocking comeback in terms of quality for the rest of the season, and then took a nose-dive with season 5. I'm curious how that ends up matching up with your viewing.
"All this seems to say that Starfleet Academy is a global hit for Paramount, reaching new demographics and new markets, but not a fit for the Sheridanverse Pro sports streamer Paramount+ was narrowed towards."
If that's true, I guess it's UPN all over again. Starts with Star Trek as the lead only to have it slowly sidelined by a focus on a different audience, including a focus on professional fighting. The only way it could be more like UPN is if it was getting ready to merge with a similar-sized service owned by Warner Bros.
Oh dang.
Resurgence had voice acting for the whole game.
I was mainly using season 3 as an example, but fair point that they were referencing other shows from episode 1.
Heck, one of the first characters to speak on the show was Gul Evek, who had appeared in several episodes of DS9 and TNG starting with "Playing God" when he refused to help O'Brien with the voles.
Still watching, mainly out of curiosity.
It's become more fun and less repetitive with the new Holodeck Rescues. I don't know that it really does its job of teaching STEM or much of any lessons, but it's relatively harmless.
That said, if I had kids I have no idea if this would hold their attention, and I'd much rather the hypothetical kids just watch Bluey instead.
But I'll probably continue to at least check out the new episodes just out of curiosity based almost entirely on it having the name Star Trek.
Voyager referenced or included TOS and TNG characters in at least eight episodes of season 3.
That's basically a third of the season, assuming I didn't forget any. And that's not even counting things like the mention of Wolf 359 in "Unity" or the koon-ut-kal-if-fee in "Blood Fever".
And that's from the show that went out of their way to make it hard to use existing concepts.
I like to think that the pepperoni pizza was a tribute to the 30th anniversary of "Threshold" on the same day, but the true tribute to "Threshold" was depicting parents stranding their offspring on a planet and then justifying that it was fine.
I've been doing a rewatch and making notes of things that are referenced later. Considering most classic Trek has a reputation for being episodic, you'd be surprised just how much gets referenced later, whether in a passing comment or an in-joke or something. The only episodes of TNG season 1 where I didn't spot at least a passing reference later was "Too Short a Season", "Home Soil", and "When the Bough Breaks". (The references to a few of the others are vague and/or arguable though, and admittedly "Knowing where that clip in 'Shades of Gray' is from" qualifies a few of them.)
So it kind of depends on how strictly you define "important." Most people could probably skip almost the entirety of TNG season 1 and not be that confused, but for example:
I could add other subtler things, but those are some of the bigger ones just from that highly-episodic season.
I'm probably stretching, but as soon as I realized Jay-Den was a birdwatcher I wondered if that was a subtle tribute to Chris Cooper, writer of the Marvel Starfleet Academy series and host of Extraordinary Birder. (Cooper became briefly very well-known in 2020 when a woman called the police on him while he was birdwatching.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Cooper
I haven't spotted it myself, but multiple reviews have mentioned the wall includes a mention of Peter David, creator of the Brikar, who first appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation—Starfleet Academy: Worf's First Adventure, the first licensed novel (or YA novella really) based around Starfleet Academy. That was probably visible in episode #2, but I'll note it here because
David was mentioned as being on the wall at https://nerdist.com/article/starfleet-academy-wall-of-honor-star-trek-easter-eggs/ and https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/list/every-star-trek-easter-egg-reference-in-starfleet-academys-first-2-episodes/.
Yep. Sounds like a good policy.
And good to distinguish between someone just not liking something and someone who's just determined to hate something regardless of the content. Easy to overshoot and just start weeding out all "negativity," which can stifle healthy conversation almost as much as dealing with the hate-posters can. I don't envy the responsibility you mods have trying to strike a good balance on that.
I've been editing the above comment to include more as I've been finding them.
There are several YouTube reviews too (in addition to the TrekCulture video above and the Jessie Gender one linked elsewhere), mostly from people who at a glance don't seem like they've seen it or who have been pre-hating it for months (Dave Cullen, Critical Drinker, and downhill from there.)
Just to not exclude them entirely, here's one from a guy I'm not familiar with who didn't like it much but at least doesn't seem to broadly hate modern Star Trek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jssKA2oz3Lk (Nater Tot)
But for most of the channels that are just screaming blind outrage in their thumbnails, I've been blocking them as I spot them, so I'll leave that as an exercise to someone else should they care to round them up for some reason.
Have to admit I'm curious what would drive someone to downvote you for thanking someone for the links.