Starfleet Academy and Fallout: Anatomy of a review bombing

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

On the surface, Fallout and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy couldn’t be much more different. The former is a post-apocalyptic wasteland romp with hard-MA violence and more gallows humor than an executioners’ convention. The latter is a sci-fi teen dramedy centered on a group of cadets and their mentors as they reestablish the eponymous academy on a sleek, super-advanced campus in 32nd-century San Francisco.

That said, the shows actually have more than a bit in common: they’re both set in a future fractured by strife and disaster; based on beloved, longtime media properties with dedicated fan bases; focused on young people finding community while navigating unfamiliar territory under the eye of more experienced elders; put extreme high technology at their center; and their protagonists are committed to improving the world (or universe) around them. They even share persistent themes of parental abandonment and/or betrayal.

Fallout concluded its second season on Feb. 3 and Starfleet Academy reached the halfway point of its debut season on Feb. 5; however, despite their basic similarities, the space between their respective reviews couldn’t be wider. 

While Fallout has an 8.3/10 on IMDb and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, Starfleet Academy still languishes with a 4.30/10 on IMDb and 88% on RT (though it should be noted that that last score only reflects the critics’ feelings; audiences give it 43%).

There has been little to no complaint even from Fallout superfans, but the vitriol poured on every aspect of Starfleet Academy is kind of stunning when you consider that the fandoms for each are video gamers and Trekkies, respectively, and both notorious for their persnickety zeal.

Scroll through the reviews on IMDb and you’d think Fallout was the greatest video game adaptation of all time (and it’s definitely up there), though Starfleet Academy’s user reviews read like an extended mourning wail from people who feel like Gene Roddenberry was their grandpa and someone just dug him up to desecrate his corpse.

Review bombing is nothing new, of course, and the concerted effort to drive down the stats on Starfleet Academy can be boiled down to a few essential elements: everyone’s too young, good-looking and they talk like Gen Zers; the episodes are too focused on interpersonal relationships or rooted in contemporary “issues”; and there are too many women in positions of high authority at Starfleet. 

Mostly, though, a lot of people really, really hate how Chancellor Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) walks around in bare feet and the way that she sits on chairs, with her feet curled up “like a toddler,” “like she’s on her couch at home,” “like she doesn’t respect the chair” or something like that.

Despite their protestations, those who write such reviews are simply saying Starfleet Academy is too “woke” or “DEI” or “pandering.” Fallout is not, apparently, though its female protagonist Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) would fit in with those 32nd-century do-gooders.

I suggest a core reason that the trolls have piled on Starfleet Academy while leaving Fallout alone is that the first presents a fundamentally optimistic vision of humanity’s future and the other shows one in which almost everyone and everything is corrupt, vicious or otherwise nasty.

Operating from that premise, it’s no surprise why far-right commentators — up to and including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — would despise Starfleet Academy. There’s too much hope, fellowship, and willingness to work through difficult differences with empathy and compromise to appeal to them. Better to imagine a future when only the few will survive through brute strength and the comfort (and license) to do extreme violence in service of individual survival.

This is not to say that Fallout is a right-wing fantasy — far from it, it’s a cutting satire on techno-fascism, tribalism and capitalist hubris — nor is it to say that one show is better than the other. I’ve happily anticipated, binged and appreciated both, because a person can like two things at once. (And Fallout is legitimately stellar.) 

Rather, don’t let the irritable mental contortions of bad-faith reviewers sway you from Starfleet Academy. It’s full of hope, humor and feeling, and more of that is needed throughout this universe.

Find both seasons of Fallout on Amazon Prime and Starfleet Academy on Paramount+, with new episodes every Thursday.