We are told Starfleet isn’t military, but what we are told and how it (often) acts and is structured like always meant an interesting conflict.
Also, I don’t mind that it looks more like higher edication than military. I mind that it looks too much like what we have nowadays. Star Trek fashion was, though memeable, it’s own distinct thing. Like we don’t do fashion today as people in the 18th or 19th century, why should 23rd or 24th century fashion look like ours?
ENT played that nicely, those costumes bridged the gap almost perfectly (especially Starfleet uniforms), looking enough like later (in the timeline) stuff but reminiscend of what we have today, like a natural evolution.
Bur Academy is to be set in 32nd century, it should be as distant to us as the 10th century.
Well, imagine releasing an episode depicting how biological essentialism expresses in vulcans while the world revels in fascism and racists trying to tell us how people are hardwired based on perceived ‘race’ and ethnicity.
Or while civil societies struggle and fight back against lobbyists, radical capitalists, all kinds of power grabbing individuals, releasing an episode literally saying “good systems are good because good people are in charge”.
Oh, and there’s the speciesist episode.
Then there’s even more and overt memberberries.
That’s six of ten episodes. Another episode is the second part of the last episode of season two. The remaining three episodes are okay.