flying ghoti

Admiral Charles Vance, a Human male, stands in his grey and red Starfleet uniform. I have drawn hearts on the image to convey my feelings.

For the first time in a very long while, and presumably the last time in chronological order, we get a Self-Stolen Ship – the seventeenth, by my count – though you could argue it doesn't technically count, thanks to Starfleet's only good admiral ever. Can we get an Admiral Vance Appreciation Moment?

SFA S1E9, “300th Night”: As Starfleet braces for a Venari Ral attack, Caleb finally gets a line on his mom. Not the joyful episode I was hoping for, but a very good one – excellently paced, with a steadily mounting threat that leaves us on a hell of a cliffhanger going into the last episode.

I just went and checked and the Voyager episode in question is from the THIRD SEASON. So we spent four years watching the Doctor not be visibly affected by the events of that episode and continue to seek out new relationships, only to be told now that it's been weighing on his mind for 800 years?

My big complaint is with the Doctor's motivations, which stem from a not particularly good Voyager episode. I thought they were going to talk about how he'd watched all his friends die around him, with him helpless against the inevitability of death. But a fictional kid he knew for like a week?

I found the setup of Tarima's story very believable; she really felt like a teen who'd gone through trauma and was shutting down every effort to help her. The resolution, though, felt a bit abrupt, and like it mostly happened off-screen. SAM's plotline also wrapped quickly, but worked better for me.

As a former theater kid, I'm embarrassed to say I'm not as familiar with “Our Town” as I should be, so its thematic role as the play the kids are using to work through their damage is not as powerful as it probably would be if I knew it better. But I do like the use of theater for healing. It works.

SFA S1E8, “The Life of the Stars”: Tarima returns, and SAM's glitches are back. This episode centers on the characters healing from the trauma of two episodes ago, so it's unsurprisingly another downer. I think it's better than the last one, but I really hope they bring some joy back in episode 9.

Above all, it's just kind of a downer episode about teens making bad decisions and suffering the fallout. I'm left feeling drained and very, very old. There are good character moments – Jay-Den gets the best of them, despite not being the central character of his plotline – but it's still not great.

SFA S1E7, “Ko'Zeine”: The Academy cadets go on break, and Darem and Genesis confront their futures. A much more understated episode, heavy on the interpersonal drama, which can be a good thing, but here it doesn't really work. Both main stories are ones we've heard before with no real surprises.

I saw some chatter when this first came out because some people thought the comic book pages looked like they might be AI generated, but the advantage of watching a few weeks late is that it's now come out that they weren't; they were all made in-house by Stuart Pearce. So that's good to know!

Is it a good episode? I think I'm going to say yes. The writers do a good job taking us on Ake's mental voyage as she tries to find a solution, the performances are great across the board, and I appreciate that they're willing to shake up the status quo a bit. But it's definitely not a fun time.

SFA S1E6, “Come, Let's Away”: A team of cadets is trapped on board a derelict ship with a bunch of Reavers and Ake considers a deal with the devil to get them home. A very dark episode, especially after the pure Star Trek joy of the last one. I'm just glad I'm watching one a day rather than binging.

If I had to make a critique, it would be that the B-plot is pretty unsubstantial by contrast to the A-plot. There's just not much there, and the conclusion isn't very satisfying. But that's me stretching to find fault. Bottom line, if you haven't watched SFA yet, don't quit before this episode.

It's a beautiful love letter to DS9, to Ben Sisko, and to Avery Brooks, and unlike the cheap nostalgia bait of “Picard”, it manages to pay homage to the spirit of Trek past while telling a new Trek story that's worth telling in its own right. SAM is delightful, and this story is very much hers.

SFA S1E5, “Series Acclimation Mil”: SAM researches the life of Benjamin Sisko. Tawny “Beckett Mariner” Newsome cowrote and appears in this one, and they should clearly just let her do anything she fucking wants, because this is hands down the best episode of Star Trek I've seen in quite a while.

But I do like that the episode confronts an issue that hasn't really been properly explored since DS9, which is that the Federation thinking it knows what's best for everyone else is just softer, gentler, root beer flavored colonialism. They could have gone a lot harder on that point, frankly.

The resolution to the main conflict is pretty trite, and it's kind of silly it didn't occur to anyone before that point. And it's a bit ridiculous that Caleb, who's already good at an absurd number of things for an uneducated street urchin, should also be the best public speaker of the bunch.

SFA S1E4, “Vox in Excelso”: During a debate class, Kraag must make peace with his fear of public speaking – among other things. This is our first view of the fate of the post-Burn Klingons, and it's a pretty grim one. Overall, the character study of Kraag is great; the rest of the episode less so.

Despite the plot skippability, there is some good character development here for both Caleb and especially Darem, who is our current asshole on a redemption arc. We also learn a lot more about what makes Genesis tick. And we confirm, if it was in any doubt, that Chancellor Ake is an absolute savage.

SFA S1E3, “Vitus Reflux”: Starfleet Academy and the War College get into a prank war. This is the first episode since maybe Lower Decks that's pretty much entirely skippable, not really relevant to any larger plot – and I love that. I missed skippable episodes. It helps that it's also extremely fun.

A minor thing, but am I the only one who thought all Betazoids had dark eyes? I always thought that was their one thing that distinguished them from Humans. And okay, yeah, I looked it up and Memory Alpha backs me up, I wasn't imagining it. I guess maybe the guest stars didn't want to wear contacts?

The episode was mostly built around Caleb and his damage, which makes sense – both we and Caleb start the episode wondering what he's still doing there, and this episode is basically him figuring that out. He doesn't know how to trust anyone but himself, and here's him starting to learn. It works.

SFA S1E2, “Beta Test”: Starfleet Academy hosts a delegation from Betazed in an effort to convince them to rejoin the Federation. I really like that they made the Betazoid president Deaf and cast a Deaf actor to play him. It had nothing to do with the plot and was just… a normal element of the world.

You know I'm all about my utopianism, but I think it's worth reflecting on the fact that the utopia of the Federation isn't something that's simply achieved. It's something that has to be continually fought for. Showing them failing to do so in the past makes their current struggle more compelling.

I like that the core conflict of the episode is built on a deep moral error by both Captain Ake and the Federation itself, one which Ake recognizes and struggles with. Disco established that the post-Burn Federation did forget some of its own ideals in its struggle to survive; this is one example.

Captain Nahla Ake, a fair skinned half-Lanthanite woman wearing black rimmed reading glasses and a command red uniform, sits reading a book in her captain's chair on the bridge of the USS Athena. She's curled up in the chair like a cat, her feet pulled up and her torso wedged up against the armrest.

The plot of this pilot is arguably a bit contrived to set up protagonists and villain, but it works. All our cadets feel like distinct individuals with strengths and flaws, which is impressive given how many characters there were to introduce here. And I'm obsessed with Captain Ake's sitting game.

SFA S1E1, “Kids These Days”: In which we meet the first class of Starfleet Academy cadets to return to San Francisco. I've been told by people I trust that I'm really going to enjoy this series, but even if I hadn't, I think I would have walked away from this episode feeling decidedly optimistic.

And with the end of Discovery season 5, that's the end of the last complete season in the entire Trek canon. But fortunately, due both to luck and to me rationing myself to one Disco episode a day, I've managed to time it so that the first season of Starfleet Academy is 70% finished already!

One odd thing about Discovery that I noticed: although its ethos is VERY Star Trek (especially post time skip), it doesn't engage with a lot of evergreen Trek tropes. There's not a single holodeck episode, for one thing! Again, maybe just an artifact of trying to tell a particular story each season.

Part of it might be that it's only ten episodes. These short seasons that have become the norm for Trek now really just don't have enough room to do more than tell the central story, and don't leave much space for character building, or even just the occasional silly episode to lighten the mood.