Logline
As a cadet sets out to solve an ancient Starfleet mystery, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns the value of forging her own path. Meanwhile, Nahla agrees to help a fellow chancellor with an elaborate alien ritual.
Written by: Kirsten Beyer & Tawny Newsome
Directed by: Larry Teng
An excellent episode and would easily have been my favorite for the season if not for “Vox in Excelso”.
I’m currently rewatching DS9 so I enjoyed this episode thoroughly. The show’s really growing on me.
I’d love to know if it actually resonates with audiences in the age group our cadets are in.
And Tawny Newsome as Professor Illa (last name redacted) was a treat!
That episode is my favorite one so far. It was such a great homage to DS9 and I loved seeing adult Jake.
I also super love that they are bringing back the skirt uniform. Jay-Den rocked that outfit! 💚
It’s funny - I knew he would be wearing it at some point, sort of had my eye out for it…and didn’t notice it at all when I actually watched the episode.
I’ve been intentionally avoiding spoilers and previews, so I had no idea it was coming. It was a really happy surprise for me and that episode was so great.
I absolutely adore Sam’s smile, just beautiful!
Does anyone else have any lingering questions or hypotheses around two nonsequiturs in the episode?
- The Bajoran who welcomed Sam said that her “pagh is strong;”
- Jake’s holographic reconstruction called Sam ‘sis’.
I’m wondering why and how the photonics chose the form for Sam - and whether her form is based on a real person - such as Sisko and Cassidy’s daughter Rebecca.
I’m also really wondering how a photonic being can have a pagh…
These definitely seem like things that might be followed up on later.
Tawny Newsome was a guest on the Greatest Trek podcast and talked about the parallel nature of having Jake Sisko in character talking to Sam the character, but also having it be a meta conversation of Cirroc Lofton the actor taking on a kind of mentorship role to Kerrice Brooks the actor, in the way that Avery Brooks was a mentor to him on DS9. This plot is why Sam was cast as a Black woman, to make the relationship between two Black characters be more meaningful to the audience, because the show isn’t just a story between two fictional space characters but also a dialogue and conversation with the Black fans watching it right now. The ‘sis’ thing was part of that.
If I were to extrapolate an in-universe reason, it’s because Sam is developing this bond with her idea of Sisko the Emissary and how he is becoming a father figure to her, as opposed to her overbearing actual-parents The Makers, that she mentally treats Jake Sisko as the brother she never had. And so her vision of Jake addresses her as ‘sis’. He does note that she’s the one in control of how this whole dialogue is playing out.
I think of pagh as something like Prana or Chi. I imagine Sam’s program gives off vital signs, so someone sensitive to those vital signs would be able to “read” her.
The Pagh thing to me just looked like it was a traditional form of a greeting with no real meaning behind it.
That’s how Sam interpreted it, and it’s why she imitated it / mirrored it back.
But what if it wasn’t pro forma?
I’ve never been convinced that the ear-grabbing actually did anything. Bareil certainly had no patience for it.
The B-plot with the ambassadorial dinner thing felt a bit incomplete, and too comic-relief without quite landing. I guess it might keep going with the next episode, but overall this one was a decent exploration about the expectations of life and bearing being thrust into a role.
That was my one gripe with the episode. I enjoyed the B-plot, but it felt disconnected to the rest. And with this episode otherwise serving as such a lovely coda to DS9, I wish they’d have kept it a bit more focused on that.
I wonder if there was more to it that got cut for time. I think it’s…fine as it is, if only because Holly Hunter’s physicality in the role is a sight to behold. But it doesn’t have much to offer besides the further development of the relationship between Ake and Kelrec.
Those two have a Rimmer + Lister feel to them.
So, as someone who is watching the entirety of DS9 for the first time… Spoilers? Lol. But actually, that made me appreciate the episode more.
I really like how this series evolves. The last three episodes were all really good. This DS9 homage felt great in a franchise which is very much TOS/TNG focused.
I did not quite get the “Thank you, Avery” in the end and had to check whether Brooks died? Is it because he retired?
Presumably it’s a combination of “thank you for what you contributed to Star Trek” and maybe a way to acknowledge him letting them license the final scene narration off of an album he did some 20 years ago.
Makes sense. Apparently he was also creatively involved in the episode to a certain degree.
I hadn’t heard that, other than they got his blessing basically (and the licensing) and he was given a copy of the script to read. Cirroc Lofton seems to be the one that was as close to hands-on involved as you can get when you’re not a writer of the script.
It’s just something I read on reddit. maybe the “certain degree” was “he read the script and did not object”. Maybe they meant this: https://screenrant.com/star-trek-starfleet-academy-avery-brooks-sisko-voice-cameo/
Lofton: … And so throughout the step-by-step process of this episode developing, he was aware of it. I had his blessing, and I was happy to get the opportunity to do this love story for Sisko.
Newton: … Ciroc got a phone call, and it was Mr. Brooks, and it was out of the blue. And he was able to put me and Kerrice both on the phone with them, and I won’t share the details of the conversation, but what I got to witness was Mr. Brooks unequivocally handing the reins over to Kerrice, to this younger generation.
I got emotional listening to Jake speak about his father
I was very moved at how Jake was a truly adult version of the youth we saw in DS9 but that he also had the posture and dignity that Avery Brooks brought to Sisko.
Cirroc Lofton really can act and it’s outrageous if he’s not been getting work if he wants it.
If you’ve seen him as himself in his podcast, there’s no doubt about his performance in this episode.
It makes me very much want to see him cast in something else.
wew! I though I was the only one… and the music at the end…
Yeah, tears wouldn’t stop flowing once they started. It was a good episode.
Cried when Jake appeared the 1st time but at the end it was too much.
Thank you, Avery and all the crew and cast of DS9.
I’ve been pretty excited for this one ever since it was highlighted as a “love letter” to DS9…but I was pretty nervous about a couple of things.
I wasn’t sure how the hell they would make it relevant to the cast of this show, and keep them rightly front-and-centre. There was no obvious connection for them to do so, and it wouldn’t serve them well to just do a full-on nostalgia fest.
I also wasn’t sure how to explore Sisko’s fate in a way that felt substantial. It seems like any story about his return would have to be pretty significant (or, alternatively, so insignificant that it would be hard to make an episode about it).
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. They threaded the needle pretty perfectly. SAM was the central character from beginning to end, and her “connection” to Sisko was uniquely intertwined with the character’s motivations. And they sidestepped my second issue entirely, but in a way that I still found satisfying.
I feel bad for Ben and Kasidy’s kid, though - apparently completely insignificant to the history books.
And I do hope he was able to visit them from time to time.
I think they left it open for the interpretation that Sisko could have visited Jake, Kasidy and maybe even Dax and others, in ways that are lost to time.
Jake’s holorecording and his book could have all been completed before Sisko returned. Or he did return prior to those being done, but Jake left those out of the record on purpose. In either case, Sam’s recreation of Jake from the record could not have been privy to what the real Jake experienced.
Perhaps Sisko even returned and finished living out a full and complete life with his family, but out of the public eye. It couldn’t be recorded it would have disrupted the Bajoran religious mythos too much. I would not put it past Dax to actually know what happened, but make it a point that for the sake of history and culture and religion, that the facts be forever shrouded in mystery. Dancing around the question of Sisko’s fate could be a deflection, not an admission of defeat.
“Solving the mystery isn’t why we study him.” “I did warn you it wasn’t solvable.” How would you know that for sure, Dax? Unless you’re part of it?
Damn, I’ve been enjoying the series more than I ever expected to, but this episode really got me.
Oh man, it started a little… extra shall we say, but that was really something special! I did not expect this series to be this good.
Omg, that was incredible. I was moved to tears from the overwhelming joy of each moment. 🥹
Annotations for 1x05 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/35172991
I’m just replaying the last 30 seconds over and over again and punching my feels into oblivion.
I’ll be honest with you, I’m by no means a fan of “nu-trek”. couldn’t stand Discovery, SNW I enjoyed but then it kinda went belly up, and I only really enjoyed Picard season 3.
So I went into Starfleet Academy and I wasn’t optimistic. Utilizing plot points from Discovery made me groan. but I must say this last episode has won me over. It’s about time Star Trek does a decent homage to DS9. it’s been a long time coming.
