By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 35 seconds ago

Originally, the preview for the latest episode of Starfleet Academy had me quite nervous because it was clear the story would focus on Benjamin Sisko, the legendary captain of Deep Space Nine. DS9 remains my favorite Trek, but SFA’s writing has been so wildly inconsistent that I was scared the writers would do something to tarnish the legacy of this amazing show and its most powerful performer: Avery Brooks. To my surprise, Starfleet Academy offered a surprisingly sweet tribute to Sisko, though its nostalgic triumphs were nearly undermined by the show’s forced whimsy and clunky humor.

The framing device for this Starfleet Academy episode is that holographic character Series Acclimation Mil (SAM) is told by her people to enroll in a course about understanding the unknown. They figure this will help SAM with her mission, which is to understand humanity and ultimately decide whether they are ready to co-exist with a whole race of holograms. To get into this course so long after it’s started, though, SAM must impress its teacher by answering a centuries-old, seemingly impossible question: what happened to Benjamin Sisko, a man who either died in the fire caves of Bajor or is still living outside of corporeal time with the godlike prophets.

Sisko Did It For More Than The Uniform

While the presentation of SAM’s story is overwhelmingly, distractingly twee (more on this soon), the central question is a great hook for longtime fans. We’ve spent decades wanting to know more about Sisko’s fate, so it’s easy to get invested in this plucky hologram’s Quixotic quest to learn more about him. When it comes to delivering the goods (and beware some major spoilers from here on out!), Starfleet Academy finally shows that it knows the meaning of restraint.

You see, SAM doesn’t get any kind of definitive answer, which really relieved me. I was really scared the show would have Sisko return as some kind of AI monstrosity, or maybe awkwardly insert him into franchise lore by saying he left the Celestial Temple to end the Temporal Cold War or something equally contrived. Instead, SAM’s investigation mostly uncovers what Star Trek fans already knew: that Sisko was an amazing Starfleet officer, world-class father, and killer cook on top of reluctantly becoming space Jesus to an entire planet full of strange aliens.

More Than Jake

In this way, Starfleet Academy pulls off a fairly successful bait and switch, teasing an investigation into a beloved franchise character before settling into a nostalgic tribute. The tribute goes to some truly unexpected places, like having Lower Decks icon Tawny Newsome play the latest alien host of the Dax symbiote. The real show-stopping cameo, though, came from Cirroc Lofton returning as Jake Sisko, one who talks to SAM via an interactive hologram (or perhaps a Prophet-like vision) in Anslem, his first novel that he secretly completed but never published.

Lofton is as great as ever, and his presence helped cement that this was a sweet, loving tribute to a character made famous by Avery Brooks, who will never be coming back to the franchise. Brooks gets the last word via an older recording that the show passes off as narration from Benjamin Sisko. While that’s admittedly a little weird (hey, at least they got Brooks’ permission… probably), it served as a sentimental capper to a surprisingly deft, often-moving tribute to the coolest captain in Star Trek history.

When Star Trek Talks Down To Its Audience

While it gets the Sisko tribute just right, everything else about this Starfleet Academy episode remains a hot mess. The episode is all about SAM, and they lean into this with a prolonged opening where she talks to the camera while cartoony pop-ups helpfully label things (like “me” and “my makers”) for viewers. That might have been cute on paper, but by the time the show monosyllabically defined “emissary” as “big job,” I realized this was definitive proof (definitive=big deal!) that the writers think everyone watching is a complete idiot.

Speaking of complete idiocy, this Starfleet Academy episode is held back by a terrible subplot in which Chancellor Ake is helping Commander Kelrec prepare to host a visiting dignitary. They end up having a rehearsal dinner attended by the Doctor and Jett Reno, but things immediately go off the rails, with characters doing goofy banter and using table implements as ersatz loudspeakers. The 800-year-old Doctor inexplicably gives everyone spoons with holes in them, and all of this builds to everyone but Kelrec laughing at a deflating fish making farting noises (no, really).  

Open Wide, Here Come The “Jokes”

This is part of Starfleet Academy’s overly broad humor that never really lands. It’s not like the show can’t do comedic writing: Caleb’s one-liners are often funny, and if you can get over all the vulgarity and 21st-century slang, the cadets’ constant teasing of each other will make you laugh more often than not. But the show often tries way too hard at comedy, as evidenced by the show’s digital dean (voiced by Stephen Colbert) using the term “morning wood” before laughing in delight at his own boner joke.

The broad humor reminded me of a grim irony: over a decade ago, the Star Trek podcast The Greatest Generation became a success because its hosts (Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica) embraced low-brow humor to talk about a franchise that other podcasters took deadly seriously. In their own words, they were the “d*ck and fart joke” Trek podcast, one made for fans who just wanted a few laughs rather than an in-depth discussion. For franchise fans looking for a consistent chuckle, this remains the best podcast in the entire quadrant.

Now, though, this latest Starfleet Academy episode has proven that this is the d*ck and fart Star Trek show, but these writers can never really land lowbrow humor the way Ben and Adam do. Plus, the constant influx of dirty jokes and foul language constantly cheapens the show’s attempts to discuss anything more serious. Like, ask yourself: is this Sisko episode stronger or weaker for having an awkward boner joke straight out of a Judd Apatow movie?

Go Home, Star Trek, You’re Drunk

It doesn’t help that Starfleet Academy is still trying to straddle the line between being a show concerned with Trek’s legacy (look, they just did a whole episode on The Sisko!) and a show that wants to channel every teen movie ever made. Like, SAM’s revelations about Sisko occur partially while she is blackout drunk at a bar, and her antics lead to a barfight between the Academy types and their rival cadets at the War College. This doesn’t really move the story forward (with the exception of accelerating Caleb and Tarima’s inevitable relationship), and it felt like the writers just wanted to check a few more tropes off a list.

Overall, this latest episode of Starfleet Academy is good, but not great: it lands almost shockingly well as a tribute to Sisko, and as a lifelong Deep Space Nine superfan, I found much of this (especially the cameo from Cirroc Lofton) genuinely moving. The episode also works well as an extended introduction to SAM, but her character development is held back by writers trying to make her a photonic pixie dream girl with the personal log aesthetic of a direct-to-video Nickelodeon film. Throw in the d*ck and fart jokes, and you’re left with a Star Trek show that still can’t figure out if its core audience is old-school fans or modern teens who inexplicably watch nothing but ‘80s boner comedies.