Obviously, Starfleet Academy is still early in its run, but despite the oftentimes disingenuous discourse that's blaming it for killing Star Trek as a franchise, I've enjoyed most of its first season so far (up to episode 4), which already puts it ahead of virtually every other series in the history of the show. (I've been saying that Lower Decks has easily been my favorite of the streaming era, but even that series took me longer to fully embrace than I have with SFA.) The only real dud for me has been episode 2, but on the whole, I've either had a great time laughing at the goofy teenage hijinks of the cadets or been genuinely moved to tears by the story of the odd-duck Klingon, Jay-Den Kraag. (Light spoilers ahead up to episode 4.)
Ignoring the grifterverse complaints (which seem to amount to little "look there's a black woman onscreen isn't that funny" -- see Jessie Gender's excellent video on this topic if you have 70 minutes and enough emotional reserves to wade into the swamp of idiot takes from idiot fascists), what some of the good-faith criticisms have centered on are its bias towards institutionalism (i.e. SFA isn't radical enough) and its focus on teenagers, with special attention on the dialogue.
The first point -- the bias towards institutionalism -- is the most trenchant, and is put forth by Second Wind here. Its argument is that throughout Trek's run, Starfleet has been a stand-in for the US (pretty inarguable), and the streaming-era shows reflect the failure of existing political institutions to prevent the rise of Trumpism. SFA specifically dramatizes this institutional failure in its first episode, where Nahla Ake sentences a single mom to prison, thus separating her from her young son, Caleb, now effectively an orphan. Ake quits Starfleet after Caleb immediately escapes custody; fast-forward 15 years, and Ake decides to return to Starfleet in an attempt to redress her past mistakes.
Second Wind argues that this very attempt to fix Starfleet, rather than replace it, amounts to the Democratic spinelessness in the face of fascism, that the system isn't irrevocably broken, and that if we just weather the storm, the system will correct itself (never mind the suffering inflicted in the meanwhile). I don't disagree, but I also don't have much faith in Star Trek as a corporate product to ever advocate for the wholesale abolition of a system of governance and economy that produced it; in this light, Starfleet will always be reconstituted, not replaced. That said, we are possibly seeing a different flavor of Starfleet -- episodes 2 and 4 both culminate with actual policy decisions being made or influenced by the cadets (which doesn't make too much in-universe sense, but I'm putting a pin in this for now), and maybe the argument SFA is putting forth is that effective change will be driven by the new guard and not the entrenched power structure. After only 4 episodes, it's too soon to say one way or the other, which is another reason why I questioned the Second Wind video.
(I have another theory about the "SFA = death of Trek" bandwagon: a perfect storm of circumstances -- the ascendancy of American fascism, and the algorithmic rewarding of outrage and right-wing grifter content -- has made SFA dog-piling lucrative, which is why even good-faith creators are ready to put the final nail in the Trek coffin after 3 episodes (which was when the Second Wind video game out). A simple "starfleet academy" search on Youtube will give you a greatest hits of the worst grifters before you see any results to the left of Nazism.)
The second point -- the YA tone of the show -- is a little more complicated, and leads me to put forth a reader response theory. In any work of fiction -- especially speculative fiction -- the audience negotiates with the text over where to draw the line for suspending their disbelief, i.e. how much latitude they will give certain plot elements or storytelling techniques before they stop enjoying the work. If the text has excellent dialogue or psychologically rich characters, maybe the audience will overlook plot holes or thin world-building; conversely, a lack of appealing elements will lead the audience to have less patience with the work. Obviously, the exact parameters that define that suspension of disbelief varies wildly from person to person (and even within a person, it'll change over time or between different texts -- e.g. I find TOS's production values hokey, but for various incarnations of Doctor Who, I actually find the cheap costumes and sets charming). For me, the humor on display in SFA (everything that Lura Thok has said, especially "shenan again") has bought a lot of wiggle room for me, and let's me ignore how unlikely an established organization like Starfleet is so open to letting teenagers dictate policy.
DS9 remains my favorite Trek, but not every subsequent series needs to emulate it (and I'd argue a lot of nu-Trek has taken the wrong lessons from it), and I try to evaluate every new show I watch on its own terms. Yes, SFA isn't afraid to embrace "nerds vs. jocks" tropes (episode 3), yes its characters call each other "dicks" and "assholes" and use slang that's already cheugy, but I see its heart and I see its indelible characters. As mentioned earlier, Thok has been a scene-stealer, Holly Hunter as Ake has been unafraid at letting out her inner Shatner, and I love the decision to foreground a Klingon that isn't into violence and the inherent queerness therein -- and I don't care one whit that the dialogue sometimes borders on "Greetings, fellow kids." At the very least, the show has been excellent comfort food in a dark time; at its best, it's starting to point towards a path out of the darkness.
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