What began as a pair of damning reviews by Nerdrotic and The Critical Drinker quickly turned into a full-scale embarrassment for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy — and a powerful demonstration of how decisively New Media now outperforms legacy Hollywood.
Within the same 24-hour window, The Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic both trounced Paramount’s latest Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy, on YouTube, massively outperforming the show’s free premiere and exposing just how little interest remains in Hollywood’s modern take on an established IP.
This wasn’t coordinated. It wasn’t planned. It was organic — and that makes it far worse for Paramount.
Starfleet Academy Bombs on YouTube
After releasing the series premiere for free on YouTube, Paramount’s official video accumulated the following engagement over five full days:
- 176,000 views over five full days
- 7,000 likes
- 22,000 dislikes
Official premiere video for Starfleet Academy as of January 20, 2026 at 7:50 a.m. EST – YouTube, Paramount Plus
That’s not a slow burn. That’s not audience confusion. That’s outright rejection.
A legacy franchise episode, backed by a major studio, released at no cost to the viewer, failed to attract even modest interest while generating more than three times as many dislikes as likes.
The Critical Drinker Strikes First — and the Audience Follows
The first major blow landed when The Critical Drinker released his review of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, hours before Nerdrotic’s video went live.
The Critical Drinker Review of Starfleet Academy with view count and likes vs dislikes as of June 20, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. EST – YouTube, The Critical Drinker
As of this writing — roughly 20 hours after upload — The Critical Drinker’s review has amassed:
- 850,556 views
- 75,000 likes
- 180 dislikes
That engagement is catastrophic when placed beside Paramount’s numbers. The Starfleet Academy premiere, released for free on YouTube, has struggled to generate interest over multiple days, while being overwhelmingly rejected by viewers.
The contrast is stark: audiences didn’t sample the show and reject it later — they skipped it entirely and went straight to criticism they trust.
Nerdrotic Escalates the Embarrassment
Approximately six hours after The Critical Drinker’s video dropped, Nerdrotic released his own scathing review — and the results were no less devastating.
Nerdrotic Review of Starfleet Academy as of January 20, 2026 at 7:50 a.m. EST – YouTube, Nerdrotic
In just 14 hours, Nerdrotic’s review pulled:
- 403,066 views
- 33,000 likes
- 214 dislikes
That alone was enough to more than double the viewership of Starfleet Academy’s YouTube premiere in a fraction of the time.
But Nerdrotic had already humiliated the show once before.
During Paramount’s live YouTube premiere, Nerdrotic ran a livestream featuring nothing more than a plastic Spock action figure sitting motionless in a chair — a gag that nevertheless more than tripled the live concurrent viewers of Paramount’s official broadcast.
A toy Spock drew more attention than a multi-million-dollar franchise launch.
This Wasn’t Coordinated — and That’s the Point
The most damaging aspect for Paramount is that none of this was orchestrated.
The Critical Drinker didn’t respond to Nerdrotic. Nerdrotic didn’t chase The Drinker.
A screenshot from the trailer to Star Trek Starfleet Academy – YouTube, Paramount Pictures
Two independent creators, with different styles and audiences, reached the same conclusion — and their viewers overwhelmingly agreed.
That convergence is devastating for a studio narrative that relies on dismissing critics as “outliers” or “bad-faith actors.”
This Isn’t Hate-Watching — It’s Audience Replacement
Hollywood often claims these moments are driven by “rage engagement.” The data says otherwise.
Audiences are not watching Starfleet Academy to complain about it. They’re not watching it at all.
A screenshot from the trailer to Star Trek Starfleet Academy – YouTube, Paramount Pictures
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Instead, they are:
- Waiting for trusted voices
- Engaging positively with criticism
- Letting New Media replace the product itself
When commentary becomes more valuable than content, the franchise is no longer culturally relevant — it’s functionally obsolete.
New Media vs. Hollywood: The Scoreboard Is Public
Starfleet Academy had:
- A legacy IP with nearly 60 years of history
- A massive studio budget
- A built-in fanbase
- A free YouTube premiere meant to hook new viewers
And it still lost.
A screenshot from the trailer to Star Trek Starfleet Academy – YouTube, Paramount Pictures
Not to another studio. Not to another sci-fi series. But to two YouTubers with microphones and credibility.
That is the power shift Hollywood refuses to acknowledge — even as it happens in public, in real time.
Final Verdict
The Critical Drinker struck first. Nerdrotic hit shortly thereafter.
And together, they demonstrated a reality Paramount can’t market its way out of.
A screenshot from Star Trek Starfleet Academy – YouTube, Paramount Plus
New Media now owns the audience — and Hollywood is just reacting.
How do you feel about Nerdrotic and the Critical Drinker destroying the Starfleet Academy premiere? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
All of these companies are going to have to go bankrupt. They can’t make entertainment for the majority demographic anymore. They’re too afraid of being labeled or the ones creating are the ones doing the labeling.
Not to mention that they also can’t come up with new ideas anymore. They just keep tacking their awful ideas to established IP’s, and ruining those in the process.
Correct, there is nothing “Star Trek” about this stuff and slapping the name on it doesn’t make it so. The original show was science fiction with a military setting, both of which Roddenberry knew. These writers for this show don’t know s.f. or military, being raised on Disney channel crap.
Don’t worry, Blackrock and their globalist mates will be along with hundreds of billions to make yet more anti-West propaganda next year.
The thing that annoys me about current Hwood is that they are neither going hard enough on ideologyto loose everything nor repenting and ending to preach using their movies and shows. We are stuck where we get an amazing movie, and then they continue with something so horrible that it makes people who liked the first one angry.
I wish they just picked a path. They are refusing to part with their cancerous ideology and they are refusing to go nuts and turn the industry into the church of woke.
This is like eating in a restaurant that occasionally makes great food, but you never know when a cake will have literal 💩 inside
I don’t recall which of the 2 creators said this, might even have been Ryan Kinnel or geeks+gamers, but i laughed so hard i got cola everywhere when they said “This show has got a blubber problem” in reference to all the “body positivity” on display in this show..
When paramount first revealed the trailer i was also howling with laughter, it was so bad i thought it was a parody show..
I never liked Star Trek, i always found it unimaginative, and every alien is just a human with alterations IE cheaply made, not like Star Wars were aliens really do look alien..
Oh and the weapons, they are very non-threatening and girly, like the phaser that looks like a womans razor.
I think the only star trek film i liked was the one with the borg cube mostly because the borg looked like cenobites from hellraiser..
But i do enjoy the new media tearing through these ridiculous “modern audience” crap shows they churn out..
Unfortunately i wish i could unsee and unhear “the power of one, the power of two, the power of manyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” and that bald black chick chanting “yas, yas, yas” at a star wars convention.
Just like this shitty show trailer which i can never unsee, but at least i can laugh at it..
Nice one, I was never into Star Trek much, either. Loved Lucas’ Star Wars, and even shows like Blakes Seven, which were camp as heck, were far more fun. Servelan was the original girl-boss and she was sexy AF!
“they skipped it entirely and went straight to criticism they trust“
And this perfectly illustrates the state of modern day entertainment. The people who criticize it are far more interesting and engaging than the thing they’re criticizing.
When a woke show is so bad that you cannot parody it without making it more entertaining and human, then all is lost.
It’s the big danger of streaming, none of these atrocities would’ve ever made it on the air otherwise. You subscribe for 1 show, but they use your money to bankroll 3 that are trash.
Just a reminder that Critical Drinker said the horrible Fallout TV Show was good. So it’s safe to say anything he says is irrelevant if he is blind to Wike Trash like that.
Not to mention that he praised the gay episode in the first season of The Last of Us. His woke detector is very weak. He only calls out obvious stuff like this.
Good to see it fail. More DEI, feminism, alphabet nonsense. Companies are either going to have to start making things the actual audience wants or go out of business / pivot to something else. The truth is that most of the audience for Star Trek are straight white guys that aren’t interested in any of the aforementioned nonsense. They either have to re-learn how to cater or watch their industry continue to shrink.
Originally, I thought this show might have a slow burn like other Treks during the Berman era but Kurtzman has squashed any of that hope. After over a decade of failure there’s not a chance in hell nuTrek gets the benefit of the doubt.
Thanks to Lens-flare and a charismatic cast for the reboot movie, Kurtzman was able to snag the top spot for the TV. Hmm, sort of like how James Gunn leveraged a couple wins into running DCU.
Anyway, Kurtzman and Co. have no reverence for the material, nor did they try to weave any spiritual Trek into their shows, except for Picard, a show which only (finally) succeeded thanks to the “member-berry” Season 3.
Any time a nuTrek show has had to survive outside the paywall of the (very limited) Paramount+, it has failed. I think Paramount just got into the habit of having Trek shows, no matter if they sucked or not, as long as they were “modernized” so Paramount could claim the virtue signaling points.