Mon’s Stereo Geeks Log: I’ve had a tough time with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. As excited as I was to get a new Star Trek TV show, I was concerned about one set among younger characters; especially young students. When the series began, I thought there would be a balance between the older generation and the young students; but this show is very much about the youngsters. Not that that’s a problem. But some of the choices made in the first five—I would go as far as to say the first six—episodes left me disappointed.

My apathy towards the series is quite evident from our mid-season review. I was dreading getting back into the show. Honestly, I felt like the creative team just missed the point of Star Trek. Trek is supposed to be new; unique. That’s what Nu-Trek, especially, had done. Starfleet Academy seemed to steer away from all that we’d loved about Discovery. I didn’t think there’d be any way to win us back.

So, how do I feel now that the season is over? Read on to find out in this spoiler-filled review of the last four episodes of Starfleet Academy.

Episode 6 of Starfleet Academy, “Come, Let's Away”, started to show a change in the series. The plot-heavy episode focused on a test—a training mission aboard an abandoned ship, the Miyazaki. It took the characters, and the viewers, away from the confines of the Academy. The stakes were high. The consequences, even higher. It was the first time I felt the series tried to do something bold.

Granted, the antagonist Vulcan student, B’avi (Alexander Eling), from the War College was hardly somebody we were invested in enough to miss. But they gave the character enough time during that episode to build up a sense of loss. And more than that, the episode raised the stakes of what the characters were now part of.

This episode, now that I think back on it, really was the starting point for an upward trajectory for the show. The next episode put the brakes on proceedings. “Ko'Zeine” gave us a minute to explore new character dynamics. Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) was hanging out with Genesis Lythe (Bella Shepard), and it was the first time we got to learn a little bit more about Genesis, who still hasn’t really got a spotlight episode. We also got a much-needed break from Caleb’s irritating relationship with Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner). A win all-around.

It also gave us the time to spend more time with Jay-Den Kraag (Karim Diané)—undoubtedly everybody’s favorite character in this series—and resident annoyance Darem Reymi (George Hawkins). We were slowly beginning to understand these characters. Even though we had had endless episodes of romance and strife and ridiculous college antics (which were really just American college antics that made little sense to the rest of us), the show seemed unable to humanize the majority of the characters enough for me to care. “Ko'Zeine” changed that. Jay-Den and Darem’s unlikely bond was really sweet. The two characters have amazing chemistry as well, so I’m really wondering if the creators are trying to do something with that. In any case, this episode was very Star Trek, and a lot of fun.

Episode 8 has two plot lines. One plot line is that the students who were on the Miyazaki, or related to what happened on the Miyazaki, are shunted into a special class led by guest faculty Sylvia Tilly (played by Mary Weissman, who reprises her role from Star Trek: Discovery). Tilly, at the end of Discovery, had become a teacher at the Academy in the future. She’s obviously a very well-loved teacher, definitely by the faculty, and she’s brought in to deal with a sensitive group of children who really can’t find the words for what they’re struggling with.

The B plot is about SAM (Kerrice Brooks), our resident holographic student, who is glitching and must go back to her world, Kasq, to be checked out and hopefully fixed. She is taken to her world by Captain Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter), of course. But dragged along despite his protestations, is the Doctor (Robert Picardo).

Now, one thing we’ve noticed from the very start of the show has been that the Doctor, despite being a hologram himself—and probably one of the first sentient holograms after The Next Generation’s Moriarty—has been very cold towards SAM. I mean downright rude. Look, the Doctor’s always had a bad bedside manner, but he’s warm and kind towards everyone else, and the faculty like him. But he just seems very uncomfortable every time SAM comes around. We finally find out why, and there’s layers to it.

This episode, “The Life of the Stars”, really tugs at your heartstrings. Somehow both the A plot and the B plot are such strong emotional drivers of the story. Honestly, I was gobsmacked.

I want to focus first on the B plot a little bit. Yeah, granted, it’s about the Doctor, so obviously I’m a little bit more invested. If you don’t know, Voyager is Ron and my favorite thing. Not just our favourite show, our favourite thing that exists in this universe. We love Voyager, and to tell you how much we love Voyager, here’s our appreciation episode that genuinely just skims the surface of our deep love for the show.

But beyond that, what I really enjoyed about the Doctor’s storyline is that not only does it make his actions and reactions make sense, but it ties in Voyager to this brand new Trek. And it does so in a deeply affecting way.

SAM comes from a world which is out of sync with the rest of the universe. It rotates faster than the rest of the universe, so years can go by when only days or weeks go by in the normal timeline. The Doctor, of course, is well aware of such a world because in “Blink of an Eye” in Voyager, the Doctor had spent decades on such a planet. He built a family. He had a child. He feels that loss, and you can tell as much from a very short interaction and confession from him on Academy.

When we get to Kasq, we find out that SAM is deteriorating to the point where her holographic matrix cannot survive. We think we’re at the point where we’re losing this character—a character we’ve all come to enjoy for her quirkiness. But then Nahla comes up with a great idea, which is, SAM simply needs the tools, the emotional tools, to actually process what is happening to her, what her feelings are. It comes back to the Miyazaki again—the peril, the death, it was a shock to the system for all the cadets. To the point where SAM’s system is breaking down because she doesn’t have the tools to build resilience and regulate how she feels; she doesn’t even understand how she feels.

Her people created SAM and put her out there in the world. They didn’t give her a childhood which would allow her to understand how to grow up. So Nahla suggests the Doctor mentors her—mentors her through her childhood. Which is when the Doctor reveals why he’s been so isolated and cut off from the world.

Way back in Season 3 of Voyager, the Doctor made a holographic family. And in that holographic family world, his daughter died in a sports accident. Just deeply horrible. He turned off the program before she could actually die, but then found out the hard way (aka, Tom Paris told him off for not facing his reality head-on) that he can’t just turn off life because something bad is happening, you have to live through it. It was a hard lesson for him to learn. But it was one of many major steps he needed to learn empathy, and to become human.  

I was surprised that this was the reason why the Doctor had grown so isolated and cold towards SAM. And then I realized it wasn’t just one really terrible death; it’s a lifetime of these losses for him. All the people he knew on Voyager, his friends, his family. He must have seen them all die. One by one. At different times. No wonder he’s closed himself off. Goodness knows when was the last time he actually allowed himself to be close to anyone. We can see that he’s still able to enjoy life. But we don’t see him with other people that much. It was so heartening to then see him accept his role as a dad yet again. It was honestly really sweet and I am so looking forward to seeing SAM and her dad hang out together on this show.

And then on the flip side. We have the students in Tilly’s class. They are doing a play called Our Town. Now, I haven’t seen this play, but I enjoyed how they incorporated elements of the play and the themes of the play into the main story.

What Tilly’s trying to do is use art to help her students cope. This is an obvious message from the show’s creators. Some of what is happening in the world right now can be pinned on how we have denigrated the importance of art, the message of art, and how much art can do. This episode doubles-down on the importance of art, especially as a way to give us a voice and a place for our feelings. The cadets putting on this play gives them the chance to accept that terrible things have and do happen, such as B’avi’s death, Tarima going berserker fury to kill the bads, and now the possibility of SAM dying as well.

More than that, this episode is about accepting who you are. If something has happened to you, you have changed. You have to accept that you have changed. You can’t go back. But that one thing, and that change, does not define you. That whole ‘Ghost Girl’ speech by Tarima? Wow, that got me. I genuinely can’t believe that a speech by Tarima, of all people, would have moved me. I have really struggled with this character so much.

But she was voicing something that so many young people feel, and us not-so-young people remember feeling. Especially young people who are different in some fashion—which we all are, but some people are too obviously different to fit in. To hear her voice those struggles, and to hear Tilly back her up and really walk her through her feelings was mind-blowing. I really hope that there is a generation out there now who get to watch this show, listen to that ‘Ghost Girl’ speech and feel better about the fact that things change, they change, and neither does that define them nor does it mean that things are bad because they’ve changed. “The Life of the Stars” made me sit up and take notice of Starfleet Academy.

And then we come to the last two episodes. Back in the mix is Caleb’s mission to find his mother, Anisha Mir (Tatiana Maslany). With the help of New-SAM, he makes a breakthrough. But the Federation is up against a diabolical plan which could put the whole Federation at risk.

Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti) and his marauders, the Venari Ral, have set up Omega particle mines in seemingly random locations around Federation systems. Whatever Braka’s end goal is, Federation head Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) looks worse for wear figuring it out. All everyone knows is that this could, potentially, send the Federation back to when the Burn happened. It would destroy the Federation—just when they’re coming back up thanks to the exploits of Discovery.

While Caleb and a few of the cadets are off in search of Caleb’s mom, we have the B-plot, where Nahla is running a skeleton crew—of three people, including herself—aboard the USS Athena, trying to figure out what Braka is up to and to stop him.

“300^th Night” was great. It was intense, but also moved the plot forward swiftly. We got a lot of stakes, and a lot of layers. Ron and I agree that this was the best episode of the season. Partly (mostly?) because it was directed by Jonathan Frakes. Frakes, if you ask Ron and me, is definitely the Star Trek director. He just knows Star Trek so well. This was so good.

I realized, while watching this episode, what I’d been missing in the first half of this season. All this while, I didn’t quite understand these characters. I mean, I got the gist of them, but they seemed like archetypes of characters that you would see in any TV show or movie about young Americans. They didn’t make sense as people beyond that specific cliche.

But then there’s this moment in Episode 9 when Caleb is lashing out at all his friends. He’s saying things that are obviously their greatest fears. And I was like, he’s not lashing out at them, he’s lashing out at himself. Because he’s trying to convince himself that going off with his mom, which has been his only mission since he was six years old, is the only decision he can make. He has to try and convince himself that he never cared for these people, otherwise how can he willingly want to leave them behind to be with his mom. And when that scene was happening, I understood Caleb and the others. They were acting like real people, even while they were in these unbelievable situations and settings. They made sense, and that’s what Star Trek is all about. It doesn’t matter how much prosthetic makeup is on the characters; Star Trek has always dealt with the human condition. Starfleet Academy finally got there.

However, it wasn’t just that one scene in a fantastic episode. “300^th Night” was brilliantly paced—exciting, scary, with wonderful production design. We went to a brand new setting that looked more Star Wars than Trek, but I am not complaining.

But let’s talk about that ending. Right at the end, Braka is back. He captures Nahla and Anisha. Tig Notaro’s character Jett Reno is now in charge of the cadets aboard the Athena. And they’re out there in space. On the wrong side of an Omega minefield that’s surrounded all of the Federation. It’s just these few people stuck in space. And the way that Jonathan Frakes shoots that entire scene. The script. The way Tig Notaro delivers those mayday lines—she’s so good. You have to listen to the way she does it. As soon as I finished that episode, I just thought to myself, “This is an episode.” That’s the first thing I told Ron after I finished watching the episode. She agrees with my statement. Absolutely brilliant.

But we asked ourselves, will they stick the landing?

The final episode is interesting because it’s a little bit slower, a little bit more intimate and at the same time there’s a lot at stake.

The season finale does something that Star Trek loves doing—it puts some people on trial. In this case it is Anisha against Nahla Ake. Headed by judge, jury and executioner Braka. I won’t go into the nitty gritties of this episode, but there are so many allusions to previous Star Trek episodes and storylines. And it’s one of those episodes where almost everyone has something to do.

I really, really enjoyed “Rubincon”. Two major things in this episode really stood out to me. One was Caleb’s speech to his mom about why he wants to stay with Starfleet, the institution that separated the pair. I was not expecting to be moved by this speech. But Star Trek is all about the emotions of people, which is why the franchise has endured for as long as it has.

Caleb was talking about finding community. He is someone who has been on the run since he was six years old. And then he found people. People who listen to him, who believe in him. People who care about him—his friends, Nahla. He also found a purpose. All this while, his only purpose was finding his mom. What was he going to do after? Now he’s found something which is bigger than himself. Where he can make a mark on the universe. He’s found home. I was blown away by that speech. Not only was it performed with restraint, no hamminess, no going overboard. It was gentle, but forceful. And the words were so striking. This is how we’ve kept falling back in love with Star Trek every time.

But the emotions aside, the finale was also trying to tell us something. It was hitting us on the head with the fact that the real world is currently being dictated to by a man with toddler-mentality—who only wants rewards and will strike everything and everyone down to get his way. I almost feel a little bit bad that Braka got compared to the orange president in the US. Braka is almost not that bad. But without even saying that much, the show was telling all the sycophants out there, “Stop. Think about who you’re taking your orders from. Think about who you’re following and why. Why are you doing that?” Of course, those sycophants aren’t watching Starfleet Academy, because… reasons.  

Thankfully, everything does end happily. This is Star Trek, so there’s definitely some optimism over there.

Something else struck me about the finale, and Starfleet Academy in general. What Braka has been so angry about all his life is that he feels that not only did the Federation abandon his people, but they actually went as far as to attack his people. This all happened when he was a child and Braka has been defined by that moment in his childhood. Hence, toddler-behaviour.

During her trial, Nahla tries to explain that the Federation’s mission is to do good. But to help, they have to decide who needs it more than others. They would go to the planets which were even worse off than Braka’s people were. That’s not something Braka, or any desperate person, wants to hear. But as Nahla says, leadership is not for the faint of heart. There are tough choices to be made and this is something that Star Trek has dealt with on a number of occasions. And no, the Federation didn’t attack Braka’s people, it was an unfortunate accident caused by Braka’s own father.

I appreciated what Nahla said about leadership being hard. Her introduction to us in this series was her separating a mother from her child. And we’re left to wonder how does she redeem herself from that? Well, here’s the thing, she doesn’t. And Nahla doesn’t try to redeem herself, either. But—and I thought this was really clever in the finale—Nahla reminds Anisha, and thereby informs the viewers, that Anisha and Braka were going to jail for a very specific reason. During their hi-jinks, they ended up causing the death of a Starfleet officer. He’d left children and family behind. Worse, it was his final rotation; he was going to retire. Instead, his family were left devastated. And this was a really, really clever way for the writers to remind us that everyone has layers, everyone is desperate, and everyone in this show is better than their worst day. And this extends to Starfleet and the Federation. They have not always made the right decisions. But they do make decisions, for good reason.

I bring this up for a reason. The most recent season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds elicited some conversation around how Starfleet and the Federation are put on a pedestal of greatness. I almost fell into the same trap, questioning why Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy, kept proposing the idea that Starfleet is the best. Should we believe Starfleet is doing everything right, or for the right reasons? Starfleet isn’t that good, surely. Why are they constantly telling us that?

Star Trek has never pretended that Starfleet and the Federation are perfect and beyond reproach. But, Gene Roddenberry’s vision, which has continued in some fashion, is that Star Trek is based in a utopian society. It is a franchise about hoping for the best in humankind. It is supposed to be aspirational by making the characters so human and by making the institutions in Star Trek so human, but with a highly moral core.

We can’t forget that our real world’s systems should be for the good of all kind. Just because the world we live in currently is a complete and utter dumpster-fire where you can’t trust or believe in anything or anyone, doesn’t mean we should let all our media go down the same, dark, pessimistic view. We just can’t.

I want us, especially the young viewers who this show is catered for, to watch something and say, “Yeah, we should have something to believe in. We don’t. That sucks. We gotta change that. Someone’s gotta change that.” If they never get to escape into something which tells them that there are people who believe in doing good work, then they’re never going to believe that good can be done. Empathy, humanity, believing in something more than yourself, these are the pillars of Star Trek, and of Starfleet Academy.

Maybe Star Trek feels out of sync with our current reality. But Star Trek has always felt out of sync with our current reality. That’s the whole point of Star Trek.

Despite my complete and utter apathy towards Starfleet Academy following the first six episodes, I can say that I quite enjoyed this show in the end. I wouldn’t watch the first six episodes again, though. But every show needs some time to find its footing. Some are faster at it than others. Some are just better at it than others. Starfleet Academy brings new life into the franchise, gives us a different setting, combines layered characters who have deep flaws with intense stories, and ends with a message of hope and community. What more can you ask for from Star Trek?

If Starfleet Academy continues to remember that the characters need to be human and people first, and the show remembers to somehow hang onto a little bit of optimism, even in this dark, dark world, then I think we’ve got something really fantastic to watch. And I really hope that enough people watch this show and they stick around to allow this show to actually breathe and grow, because that’s the only way we can have many more seasons. Because you know what, we need some optimism in our lives and Starfleet Academy has got to be one of them.

Having overcome my initial annoyance, I now highly recommend everyone go and watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Power through those first few episodes, and you’ll get something really great at the other end of it.