Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1.07
Feb. 19th, 2026 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we get what is clearly supposed to be the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy equivalent of the TNG episode Family - but is it?
To get that out right at the start, I enjoyed the episode, a lot, and I’m completely behind a breather episode after a dark one. This said, let’s compare and contrast: “Family” had three plot lines - Picard’s, Worf’s and Wesley Crusher’s. Of these three, Wesley seeing a holo of his Dad was the least consequential. Worf’s had mainly a comic relief tone (embarrassing parents) but a serious emotional subtext (said parents reveal their main goal is to talk with Worf about a longer term emotional arc plot point - his then relatively recent “disgrace” on the Klingon homeworld), and we also got to explore a new perspective (that of Worf’s parents) on a key part of his backstory (an orphaned Klingon child being raised by humans). Picard’s storyline was the one directly connected to the previous two episodes, the big “Best of Both Worlds” two parter, in which he became Locutus, and showed how he was (not) dealing with the fallout (until he was). (This back then was the first time a Star Trek episode which wasn’t the second part of a two parter directly addressed something crucial that had happened to a main character in the episode before.) While the audience had not seen his family in France before, they had been referenced occasionally in dialogue. By combining their on screen introduction (and the introduction of Picard’s original home) with Picard’s Borg trauma, we got some serious character drama with a few light touches (Picard’s nephew, and the muddy, singing fallout of the climactic scene with his brother) - basically the reverse tonal mix of the Worf scenes. Both storylines offered (regular) character exploration combined with the introduction of new-to-the-screen (but not to the lore) characters connected to the regular characters whose perspective on our regulars was important and greatly added to what we knew about them.
Starfleet Academy’s most recent episode has two main plot lines, which do, however, manage to use more of the regulars (TNG’s Family also uses regular characters other than the three main ones, of course, but mostly to provide cues, like Riker and Guinan in Worf’s plot lines; I would argue that Darem and Jay-Den on the one hand and Genesis and Caleb on the other basically share their respective plot lines on a more or less equal basis). While as expected the general tone is lighter, fitting the “breather” idea, we do get the emotional reveal(s) after funny shenanigans in the Caleb & Genesis plot line (as with Worf and his parents), while the Darem & Jay-Den storyline moves their relationship forward (as in, Jay-Den sees it now as a friendship, while it’s incredibly obvious Darem has romantic feelings) and has Darem change his homeworld expected trajectory and commit to Starfleet. So far, so good.
But. Note what we didn’t get. Darem having parent issues and his parents having incredibly high expectations of him while not being there for him if he doesn’t 100% fulfill them has been brought up every single time Darem’s family was as much as mentioned in the season. Yet the parents (while referenced in dialogue as being there) are nowhere to be seen. Instead, we meet Darem’s arranged marriage fiancee, who is a perfectly nice character, but not the one whose existence had been built up through the season. What’s worse, she’s the one who solves Darem’s dilemma while realising - through Jay-Den’s toast - that he’s now seeing their arranged marriage as a duty to fulfill, no longer something he wants to do. I.e. his story is concluded not by something he does, but what she does. (By contrast, the emotional climax in Picard’s storyline is reached when he finally breaks down mid fight with his brother and has his outburst about what being Locutus did to him.) We do get some new information on Darem through this plotline (i.e. the existence of the arranged marriage, that it would make him royalty on his home planet), but not really character wise (we knew before that he takes being his people’s sole representative at the Academy and being good there very seriously, and that he has feelings for Jay-Den).
Genesis and Caleb didn’t have scenes with just the two of them since I guess the pilot or second episode, and I enjoyed their dynamic here. We did get some new to us information through this storyline (Genesis having changed some of her references when applying to the academy, Caleb not having talked or written to Tarima since the last episode due to deleting every attempted message before sending, with the emotional cause going back to their post coital telepathic connection and her seeing some of his memories he really did not want to share then (btw, in the last week, I have seen debates as to whether or not this counts as accidental on Tarima’s part; my own impression had been that it was accidental, though no less upsetting to Caleb because of that). But Genesis had been the student character the least explored since the pilot, and what we learn here - again, her being driven and under a lot of pressure to live up to her father’s reputation - is not something we didn’t know before, just the details of her anxiety and what it caused her to do are new. And Caleb’s reaction to Tarima’s seeing of his backstory had been already shown last episode, essentially. While, again, I enjoyed these two characters connecting, I also wanted to learn more about Genesis (by showing us her parents or otherwise) which I hadn’t known before, and of all the issues Caleb is dealing with to focus on, this wouldn’t have been the one I’d have picked. (And if you do want him to deal with the telepathic sharing, why not let Nahla send him to visit Tarima and Ocam on Betazed for these four days? This also would have offered us more on Betazed in the 31st century, and the contrast between the way Tarima, Ocam and their father relate to each other and Caleb’s semi orphan status could have been instructive.) (Now I do expect Tarima having to deal with her power reveal coming up in future episodes, so I don’t list that here.)
Again, this criticism doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the episode we did get. I’m really curious as to where the show will go with this Darem-Jay’den- Kyle triangle, and the conversations between Jay-Den and Darem are a good follow up to the “breathe” scene from Jay-Den’s episode. Also, Jay-Den’s commitment to wearing dresses (not just the legendary TNG pilot miniskirt for men) must drive the dudebros wild, and I love not a single character in universe comments on it. I also thought Genesis’ ultimate goal with the whole series of competitions was cleverly hidden yet definitely planted from the get go. It’s just - I have to deal with the premise of the episode raising expectations due to the legendary precedent, and these expectations were not met.
To get that out right at the start, I enjoyed the episode, a lot, and I’m completely behind a breather episode after a dark one. This said, let’s compare and contrast: “Family” had three plot lines - Picard’s, Worf’s and Wesley Crusher’s. Of these three, Wesley seeing a holo of his Dad was the least consequential. Worf’s had mainly a comic relief tone (embarrassing parents) but a serious emotional subtext (said parents reveal their main goal is to talk with Worf about a longer term emotional arc plot point - his then relatively recent “disgrace” on the Klingon homeworld), and we also got to explore a new perspective (that of Worf’s parents) on a key part of his backstory (an orphaned Klingon child being raised by humans). Picard’s storyline was the one directly connected to the previous two episodes, the big “Best of Both Worlds” two parter, in which he became Locutus, and showed how he was (not) dealing with the fallout (until he was). (This back then was the first time a Star Trek episode which wasn’t the second part of a two parter directly addressed something crucial that had happened to a main character in the episode before.) While the audience had not seen his family in France before, they had been referenced occasionally in dialogue. By combining their on screen introduction (and the introduction of Picard’s original home) with Picard’s Borg trauma, we got some serious character drama with a few light touches (Picard’s nephew, and the muddy, singing fallout of the climactic scene with his brother) - basically the reverse tonal mix of the Worf scenes. Both storylines offered (regular) character exploration combined with the introduction of new-to-the-screen (but not to the lore) characters connected to the regular characters whose perspective on our regulars was important and greatly added to what we knew about them.
Starfleet Academy’s most recent episode has two main plot lines, which do, however, manage to use more of the regulars (TNG’s Family also uses regular characters other than the three main ones, of course, but mostly to provide cues, like Riker and Guinan in Worf’s plot lines; I would argue that Darem and Jay-Den on the one hand and Genesis and Caleb on the other basically share their respective plot lines on a more or less equal basis). While as expected the general tone is lighter, fitting the “breather” idea, we do get the emotional reveal(s) after funny shenanigans in the Caleb & Genesis plot line (as with Worf and his parents), while the Darem & Jay-Den storyline moves their relationship forward (as in, Jay-Den sees it now as a friendship, while it’s incredibly obvious Darem has romantic feelings) and has Darem change his homeworld expected trajectory and commit to Starfleet. So far, so good.
But. Note what we didn’t get. Darem having parent issues and his parents having incredibly high expectations of him while not being there for him if he doesn’t 100% fulfill them has been brought up every single time Darem’s family was as much as mentioned in the season. Yet the parents (while referenced in dialogue as being there) are nowhere to be seen. Instead, we meet Darem’s arranged marriage fiancee, who is a perfectly nice character, but not the one whose existence had been built up through the season. What’s worse, she’s the one who solves Darem’s dilemma while realising - through Jay-Den’s toast - that he’s now seeing their arranged marriage as a duty to fulfill, no longer something he wants to do. I.e. his story is concluded not by something he does, but what she does. (By contrast, the emotional climax in Picard’s storyline is reached when he finally breaks down mid fight with his brother and has his outburst about what being Locutus did to him.) We do get some new information on Darem through this plotline (i.e. the existence of the arranged marriage, that it would make him royalty on his home planet), but not really character wise (we knew before that he takes being his people’s sole representative at the Academy and being good there very seriously, and that he has feelings for Jay-Den).
Genesis and Caleb didn’t have scenes with just the two of them since I guess the pilot or second episode, and I enjoyed their dynamic here. We did get some new to us information through this storyline (Genesis having changed some of her references when applying to the academy, Caleb not having talked or written to Tarima since the last episode due to deleting every attempted message before sending, with the emotional cause going back to their post coital telepathic connection and her seeing some of his memories he really did not want to share then (btw, in the last week, I have seen debates as to whether or not this counts as accidental on Tarima’s part; my own impression had been that it was accidental, though no less upsetting to Caleb because of that). But Genesis had been the student character the least explored since the pilot, and what we learn here - again, her being driven and under a lot of pressure to live up to her father’s reputation - is not something we didn’t know before, just the details of her anxiety and what it caused her to do are new. And Caleb’s reaction to Tarima’s seeing of his backstory had been already shown last episode, essentially. While, again, I enjoyed these two characters connecting, I also wanted to learn more about Genesis (by showing us her parents or otherwise) which I hadn’t known before, and of all the issues Caleb is dealing with to focus on, this wouldn’t have been the one I’d have picked. (And if you do want him to deal with the telepathic sharing, why not let Nahla send him to visit Tarima and Ocam on Betazed for these four days? This also would have offered us more on Betazed in the 31st century, and the contrast between the way Tarima, Ocam and their father relate to each other and Caleb’s semi orphan status could have been instructive.) (Now I do expect Tarima having to deal with her power reveal coming up in future episodes, so I don’t list that here.)
Again, this criticism doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the episode we did get. I’m really curious as to where the show will go with this Darem-Jay’den- Kyle triangle, and the conversations between Jay-Den and Darem are a good follow up to the “breathe” scene from Jay-Den’s episode. Also, Jay-Den’s commitment to wearing dresses (not just the legendary TNG pilot miniskirt for men) must drive the dudebros wild, and I love not a single character in universe comments on it. I also thought Genesis’ ultimate goal with the whole series of competitions was cleverly hidden yet definitely planted from the get go. It’s just - I have to deal with the premise of the episode raising expectations due to the legendary precedent, and these expectations were not met.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-20 06:13 pm (UTC)What you see as flaw is exactly why this episode rings so true to me!
IMO, Darem is not yet mature enough to step back from this particular marriage / responsibility. He strongly believes that doing his duty is the right course of action, that he has to sacrifice some part of his personality to live up to what's expected of him.
So yes, at this stage he does need the support of his more mature friend(s).
I'm convinced that we'll see him grow as a person over the course of the series and am very glad that he did not have a moment of "insta-maturity-and-wisdom" in this episode. Realistically, he's also still jealous of Kyle. ;-)
Genesis's story is a mirror to Darem's.
Like Darem, she has hidden her fears/uncertainties under a facade.
She, too, does not make the right decisions by herself and would totally go through with her plan to alter her records once more. Instead, she gets caught be Caleb and Reno and Nahla. That she's given a reprieve by all of them is a gift. I was glad that she had enough honor to make it clear that entering the bridge was her plan and not Caleb's.
In my opinion, we do learn something big about her, i.e. that her skill for tactics has a darker side - falsifying records, manipulating Caleb, ... For a second, I even thought she planned to steal the ship.
As for the focus of this show, I didn't see it as a version of "Family". I thought the focus was on taking decisions that harm us (and perhaps others) and that despite our flaws our friends can show up for us. For me the message is: Learn to be honest about your fears. And when your friends reach out and build you a bridge, accept their help and treasure the gift of their friendship.
Oh, and the Darem-part of the episode felt like a nod to "Amok Time":
Foreign desert planet, arranged marriage, beloved friend at the ceremony.
At the same time, all the known elements were subverted. Even the desert was a cold place. :-)
no subject
Date: 2026-02-20 11:38 pm (UTC)I fully agree about Genesis. I liked her and Jay-den's interactions up until the ending reveal on the bridge. I almost though she was going to have turned out to be lying about her dad being an admiral and he's really I don't know Starfleet's Arnold Rimmer but nothing doing but her actual deal didn't really ring true?
I hope this doesn't count as her focus episode for the season tbh.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-22 09:04 am (UTC)Point taken, though I would argue that Darem finding the courage to confess to his fears towards Kaira would not have been instant wisdom/maturity in all other regards; after all, the episode repeatedly tells us they've been best friends through all their lives, and thus him eventually coming clean to her would have been believable. Still, your argument about the episode's theme and how it connects both plots makes much sense to me, and I will rewatch with this in mind.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-22 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-22 04:47 pm (UTC)The reveal itself - So Genesis altered her record and it go through Academy acceptance? But she's worried it will show up on a re-review? I mean I'd expect the records to be less harshly reviewed the second time. The only way I can think of it making sense if some of the officer's that wrote her letters were on the Command Track review board and would have noticed the change. Or as someone pointed out to me, no-one would have actually noticed and Genesis panicked and overreacted out of guilt.