Welcome to part 2 of a series of posts where I haphazardly ramble on about Star Trek Starfleet Academy. This week covers episodes 5 through 7. It was going to go through episode 8 but it turns out there are only 10 episodes in the season, and the numbers work out better if I chop them up this way.
Something something spoilers ahead.
S01E05 – Series Acclimation Mil
I ended up getting slightly spoiled by buzz around this episode, nothing major, just the basic nature. Mostly that Tawny Newsome was involved and going to be in it. I wondered a bit how they would reconcile her being Beckett Mariner in Lower Decks, especially since she has played Mariner in live action during Strange New Worlds. Turns out, it was easy, she is an alien, she had alien make up. Her character was also a lot more serious than Mariner as well.
The main focus character on this episode was SAM, also known as Series Acclimation Mil. A hologram from a planet of holograms. It seems she secretly keeps in touch with her masters back home, who are getting extremely impatient that she hasn’t been making more progress learning about humans. I mean, its been maybe a few weeks and its not real clear what they are expecting to learn exactly. They want her to join a certain class, even though its late in the semester, which is where Not-Mariner, aka Professor Illa comes in. The professor wants SAM to prove herself by doing a task first, to discover what happened to Benjamin Sisko.
But I’ll touch on that in a but. The Deep Space Nine Plot is the savior of this episode. Because it started out, a but off and a little weird. SAM as a character is interesting, but she can feel a little too much at times. It starts off with this weird sort of SAM’t inner thoughts and drawings on the screen and such. It felt weird. I have liked similar gimmicks in other show, it just didn’t really work for this show. She also feels a bit one dimensional as a character. She is always overly boisterous.
As the show went on it got better. Part of the plotline is her friends helping her sort of, better understand humans. Part of this involves Caleb hacking her code so make her drunk in a bar. It feels like maybe there should be some ethical issues there, but then Data had quite a few times where is programming was futzed with.
There was also a rather interesting scene between her and the Voyager Doctor, where he basically calls her young and naive still. And tells her she just needs to accept that everyone she knows and care about will die, long before she does, and attachment is pointless. Which she refuses to accept.
Then there is the Deep Space Nine plot. Its also a big spoiler for the end of DS9, not that the show didn’t have other things going on. At the end, Captain Sisko disappears into the wormhole, to presumably, join the Bajoran deities as the Emissary. While Avery Brooks (Sisko) doesn’t appear in this episode, Cirroc Loftin, who played Ben Sisko’s son Jake, does. As a sort of replayed memory a few times. Through him talking about his dad, SAM is able to basically conclude that it doesn’t really matter what happened to Sisko and part of what makes humans work is their free will. And with this empowerment she tells her keepers to leave her alone while she does her assigned task of learning in her own way.
Something like that.
Anyway, it ended up being such a moving tribute to Ben Sisko that I worried I had missed Avery Brooks dying.
S01E06 – Come, Let’s Away
Its that time of the season when we need to advance the meta-plot a bit apparently. Which is the whole Nus Braka, Caleb’s mom sub plot. Ok, its mostly just more Nus Braka, which is fine, because he isnreally great here, then we get a nice plot twist and he is even better.
The episode starts off as a standard issue training/test mission out on a derelict star ship, the USS Miyazaki. The Miyazaki was a ship with an experimental system where they line the hallways with trash bag tubes so the cadets can pretend they are members of the Caitian race and run through tubes like cats.
No wait, it was an experimental Singularity Drive that malfunctioned.
Things start out normal until an unexpected ambush by an actual threat in these sort of, phased out bat aliens who take the cadets hostage. This leads Starfleet to contact Nus Braka, who spends most of the episode taunting the shit out of Captain Ake while they try to negotiate the use of a secret weapon Nus used against these brutal aliens.
This leads to the summoning of a ship from a nearby star base equipped with a special sonic disruptor device. Which leads to the destruction of said ship because, SURPRISE! Nus was working with the aliens and was secretly plotting to attack the star base to steal, something, we don’t know what yet.
There is also a subplot of Caleb and Tamira getting closer eith their relationship. The end result is that Tamira is able to use her overpowered Betazoid abilities to communicate with Caleb while everyone plans a rescue. Simce the sonic ship didn’t work out, the Cadets are trapped on the Miyazaki until Tamira unleashes herself and basically, obliterates the aliens with a psychic burst, landing herself in a coma.
Also the aliens killed the War College Vulcan B’Avi, just as we was starting to become likeable. Speaking of deaths, there was also a senior officer killed who was with the cadets, he may have been one of the previously introduced bridge crew. The amusing part is, he gave this big comment about taking a vacation, which had very strong “I have two weeks from retirement” energy. As the trope goes he got killed over it.
Whoops.
S01E07 – Ko’Zeine
A fun little low stakes episode here, with some much appreciated exploration of Darem and Genesis. So far we basically just know they are overly competitive over achievers. Everyone leaves the school for “Totally Not Christmas Break”, except Caleb, who convinced Captain Ake to let him stay since he has no family to visit anyway.
And when I say everyone, it was everyone. Its actually a little weird since its essentially an intergalactic boarding school. No one else needed to stay behind? Oh wait, Reno was hanging around as a sort of guard, I guess. Which feels a bit extra weird since Reno actually has a girlfriend who is a character on the show. Did Thok not stay? They explicitly mention Reno staying but not Thok. Anyway, Caleb ends up surprised because Genesis turns up as well, having skipped her trip.
Turns out she had alternative motives. After the Miyazaki, Ake was going to recommend her for the Captain’s path, but it turns out Genesis has faked some of her recommendations and wanted to delete them before the command path reviewed them. Essentially, she is full of doubt about herself. They get caught and Ake revokes her offer.
Meanwhile, Jay’Den is getting ready to go to Ibiza with his War College boyfriend, when he sees Darem being kidnapped and chases through a portal. Despite that well, no one likes Darem. Turns oit, it wasn’t exactly a Kidnapping. They are on Khionia, and Darem is there for the “Sealing” ceremony. Aka, he is getting married, do the daughter of Khionia’s leaders.
Not expecting Jay’Den, he claims Jay’Den is his Ko’Zeine, aka “Best Man”. Its also clear that Darem is having doubts about this marriage but feels obligated to proceed. Jay’Den sees this, also realizing that this marriage means Darem leaving Starfleet. Ultimately, they do get married, and his new wife basically immediately asks to break up.
Jay’Den gave a speech about the great things Darem had done at Starfleet and basically, she didn’t want to keep him down because clearly he is happier at Starfleet.
Its a pretty good bit of character growth for Darem, a bit for Jay’Den. The main weirdness here is that this wedding was going to happen eventually, and Darem knew this. Which would mean dumping Starfleet at some point.
Which is not a very Starfleet thing to do.
