Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 9, “300th Night,” which is available on Paramount Plus now.
I can’t believe the semester’s already over!
But that’s the problem with these 10-episode seasons in the streaming age, I guess. Whereas back in the old days, you’d get 26 episodes per season – which was probably too many, as there’d wind up being a fair amount of filler each year – 10 episodes, in the case of Starfleet Academy anyway, is proving to be just enough to scratch the surface but leave some plot and character elements a bit undercooked.
Sure, this is the penultimate episode of Season 1, so maybe everything will be fully fleshed out by the finale, but somehow I doubt it. And yes, I know I was recently complaining about episodes being too long these days, but that’s the trick – making a compelling episode of TV that works as an episode of TV is not the same as servicing your characters and story over the course of an entire season. As we get closer to the end of Starfleet Academy Season 1, I’m increasingly worried that we’re running out of runway.
Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy “300th Night,” which sees the return of Trek legend Jonathan Frakes to the director’s chair. The episode, which essentially functions as the first part of a two-part season finale, returns to the overarching plot of Sandro Rosta’s Caleb and the search for his mother, Tatiana Maslany’s Anisha, who were separated 16 years ago in part because of the actions of Holly Hunter’s Captain Ake.
“Where did you go?” Maslany asks her son over and over when they are finally reunited this week, in a performance that is quite effective, and doubly so when one considers that the actress and Rosta haven’t actually appeared onscreen together prior to this point (a child actor played Caleb in the pilot). Frakes shoots their reunion in tight close-ups which are fairly remarkable in their, and the actors’, ability to sell the emotion of the moment, especially considering that both characters’ faces are also covered for part of the scene.
But the mother-son reunion also means that Caleb’s whole reason for joining the Academy has now been fulfilled, which leads to another strong scene when he is compelled to go after his buddies in a series of takedowns that is clearly designed to put distance between them rather than allow Caleb to face down the reality of what he is doing – abandoning not just his friends, but also the life he had finally begun to build for himself. When Kerrice Brooks’ Sam calls bullshit on what Caleb is doing, hugging him tightly, it’s as if she’s trying with all her might to stop him from leaving. Bella Shepard’s Genesis is less forgiving, however, telling Caleb that while most guys his age are trying to make a life for themselves, he can’t because he’s “so committed to being a messed up little kid forever.”
The performances from this cast continue to do so much heavy lifting for Starfleet Academy, and the chemistry between them all doesn’t hurt either. In particular, Caleb and Zoë Steiner’s Tarima are pretty great together, as “300th Night” reminds us both in their turbolift scene as well as when Caleb visits her to say goodbye forever, even if she doesn’t realize it… “Your name sounds like music.”
By episode’s end, Anisha has been wounded while helping the cadets escape execution, and everyone is beamed up to the USS Athena, but I can’t help but wonder where things will go in the finale in terms of Anisha and Caleb. It seems unlikely that their reunion will be this neatly resolved, so the question then is, is she actually working for the Venari Ral, as Caleb asked her in this episode? Is she under the thrall of Paul Giamatti’s Nus Braka? One week left and there’s still a lot to resolve here…
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
- “We lack a lot of enzymes!”
- Why hasn’t Caleb tried his and his mom’s secret codeword to find her comm signals since she broke out of prison? Other than “we have to hold off until the season finale”?
- Admiral Vance grew his beard out? Looks good!
- The Omega-47 mines, we’re told, are a synthetic variant of the Omega molecule… which was first introduced on Star Trek: Voyager.
- I know Reno has an automated bridge controls set-up going, but the Athena has a non-cadet crew, right? At least on the bridge it does, so why isn’t that crew also going along for the ride to Ukeck?
- How does Sam’s tech work? I know we’re 800 years past the era of Voyager, but The Doctor needed his mobile emitter (which came from the 29th century) on that show in order to gallivant around. And yet here’s Sam just showing up wherever she wants to on this non-Federation planet.
- Speaking of which, The Doctor’s years (last episode!) raising Sam 2.0 have clearly changed him, as we see how worried he is about her now.
- I’d previously meant to mention the Kelpien cadet who we’ve seen in the background here or there. Saru’s people really have come quite a ways from the days of them being a prey species.
- Jay-Den’s Klingon ritual which he invites his friends to join him in here is the R’uustai, aka the bonding ritual from the TNG episode “The Bonding.”
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