- Directed by Larry Teng
- Written by Kirsten Beyer and Tawny Newsome
- Based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy created by Gaia Violo
- February 5, 2026
- Paramount+
Episode Cast
- Chancellor Nahla Ake-Holly Hunter
- Caleb Mir-Sandro Rosta
- Jay-Den Kraag-Karim Diané
- SAM (Series Acclimation Mil)-Kerrice Brooks
- Darem Reymi-George Hawkins
- Genesis Lythe-Bella Shepard
- Tarima Sadal-Zoë Steiner
- Digital Dean of Students-Stephen Colbert voice
- Jett Reno-Tig Notaro
- Commander Kelrec-Raoul Bhaneja
- Ocam Sadal-Romeo Carere
- The Doctor-Robert Picardo
- Professor Illa Dax-Tawny Newsome
- Jake Sisko-Cirroc Lofton
- Maker-Chiwetel Ejiofor
- B’avi-Alexander Eiling
- Dzolo-Cecilia Lee
SAM must prove she is up to her mission for her species by solving the mystery of The Sisko while Nahla works on getting the trust of Commander Kelrec.
Shows once added B Stories when they felt the main one was not enough to sustain their normal runtime. Here the second story of Series Acclimation Mil involves a loss of power to the Academy because Commander Kelrec (Raoul Bhaneja) is prepping for a meeting with a species called the Alpherat by heating some of the ocean because casually doing that makes sense even though it seems like something you might need to get clearance on. With the War College head cracking under pressure Chancellor Ake (Holly Hunter) offers to help in an effort to smooth over their previous animosity. What is more high pressure than war and the guy is cracking under what is essentially a business meeting. This leads to wacky alien ritual scenes and culminates in a dinner with the adult characters that is all silly stuff. It felt like they were mocking cultural differences rather than exploring how to handle them. At least Holly Hunter does less flopping around on the furniture in this episode. This is the most I can say about that story because it is devoid of substance-good or bad-in reference to that story.
The latest episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy titled Series Acclimation Mil mostly centers on SAM (Kerrice Brooks) despite the filler plot to stretch things out. The episode itself begins like any number of teen comedies that you and honestly I felt depressed. Star Trek was once a serious franchise about serious people that contemplated serious things. I know this is aimed at young adults, but such a cringe worthy opening does not belong in any Star Trek. It’s all fourth wall breaking with SAM directly addressing the audience. She has not been an engaging character and this does nothing to help.
In break from tradition (or perhaps the beginning of a new one), the speaking to the audience occurs without a personal log of some sort. In older shows a log entry by a character served to narrate the episode in certain moments or to bridge scenes by adding in some details or to cover things that would otherwise need to be acted out. DS9 and other Trek shows used it effectively to give an audience a look into the mind of the general cast or a specific character. If you wish to connect to the larger fictional world, it is an element that is easy enough to do that now that I think about it has never happened in this show.
Normally an episode of Starfleet Academy opens with the text ‘A CBS Studio Production.’ This time in a style that would punctuate the opening moments of the episode a line is drawn through those words and written above it is ‘A Story About Me’ accompanied by a stick figure. Somehow this feels very accurate yet wrong for a franchise that tried to look at big picture things but has dived into the unimportant.
We get an in-depth look at SAM and her mission which is to study organic beings in a seemingly random way as part of preparation for her species of holograms being more open to them. The people that manufactured, er, created her people did so to make some slaves before eventually up and leaving the planet for reasons leading to generational mistrust.
The big deal of this plot was the DS9 connection with the tease of solving the mystery of Benjamin Sisko. That comes into play as part of a class project SAM is doing. Spoiler alert: nothing viewers of DS9 do not already know is revealed beyond Jake (Cirroc Lofton) having an unpublished book about his father who is present only in a voiceover taken from a spoken word jazz album unrelated to Trek done with the involvement of Avery Brooks. Sorry about the awful sentence.
Some have said this was to give DS9 resolution. DS9 head resolution. I agree with Avery Brooks who said at the time that Sisko should not have gone off with the Prophets but returned to Jake and Kasidy but it still had resolution. Resolution would have been the tease of his return having happened which he did is by IDW which because of THIS episode are no longer canonical.
As I said SAM like the rest of the cast is far from an appealing character. Some of it is due to the silliness of the show. For example here we learn Darem (George Hawkins) cannot eat bananas and vomits glitter when sick. How can anything vomit glitter? While vomiting gets an unnecessarily specific explanation on the how and why, the glitter not so much.
I might be showing my age, but SAM speaks directly to the leader of her people in a style like Mork did with Orson in the series Mork & Mindy. At least that was the vibe I got. Her leader Maker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) orders her to take a whole knew class mid semester in a clear indication her species did zero prep work to make things go well.
So she jumps into ‘Confronting the Unexplainable’ which sounds like a philosophy class and latches onto the ‘mystery’ of Benjamin Sisko at a school that has a Bajoran club and one of the Sacred Orbs of the Prophets though no idea which. Going back to DS9, the Orbs were sacred items to the people of Bajor dispensed by the prophets with each having a unique purpose. At the time of the show a few were taken by the Cardassians for study though mentions of eventual returns were made. These were important objects so having one so far from the planet seems unlikely unless Bajorans are much less religious in this show.
SAM states she wants to be a great emissary like Benjamin Sisko in one of the more forced plot ideas and lines I have seen so far in current Star Trek. She is often saying how she needs to find out what happened to him but conversely states what exactly happened to him. He went to the Fire Caves which were home to the Pagh Wraiths where he fought one and was assumed into the Celestial Temple to watch over Bajor as its protector. What was the exact mystery again?
They push trying to make her mission similar to Sisko’s but they are not. She is basically a probe. He was the savior of a planet in peril. While he facilitated understanding with a nonlinear species, she is sent out to study organics for a xenophobic group of light jellyfish who have some experience (or should) with their topic. The parallels are forced and the unearned emotional climax of the episode does nothing to help.
Tawny Newsome of Lower Decks fame shows up as Professor Illa Dax in another member berry pluck for this show to use. Her character either mimics the appearance the first Trill we saw in the TNG episode The Host or as indicated with the spots that were used from Terry Farrell onward is a Cardassian/Trill hybrid because we do not have enough hybrids appearing on this show.
My problem is that the symbiote of Dax like all of its species has an 800-year lifespan. That wasx made pretty clear. At the time of DS9 it was around 300 years old having had several adult hosts. Star Trek is a fictional universe where there is little to debate. Worse they make it obvious on who the professor is before the second name drop by her giving SAM seriously detailed information that would be easily recalled by someone that was there making the reveal only a surprise to those that never saw DS9.
This might be nitpicking, but it was revealed on DS9 that despite earlier statements of only a very small number of Trill being able to support a Symbiote it was actually much higher and that the limitation story was to prevent them from becoming a commodity. They were as important to the Trill as the Tears of the Prophets (Orbs) were to the Bajorans. They sought to protect them. This hybrid makes it appear the prohibition is no longer exercised. But there is more.
In The Host Riker had some clear issues while supporting the creature in his body until a replacement trill could show. His condition implied a level of biological compatibility was lacking. I would think a hybrid might screw that up a bit more. Unless Illa was modeled after the first version.
Today’s hero keeps referring to herself as a photonic, but Caleb (Sandro Rosta) accesses her program and does a few things before figuring out an adjustment that allows her to get drunk. Great for a street kid with no formal education until recently which leads to a scene at a club which she is too stupid to realize is just a excuse for her Scooby Gang to party rather than her to study organics. This episode not only casually tosses around lore with no idea how to use it but also terminology as well.
Newsome aside, Cirroc Lofton makes a cameo as Jake Sisko since Avery Brooks would not step out of retirement for a few minutes to whore out his legacy for this. It only drove home a feeling of this episode/show unwilling to stand on its own mixed with a push of franchise synergy. It should have been a narrative treat.
Robert Picardo (who consistently elevates his turd dialogue) aside, the acting is mediocre with a cast that has no sense of performance. It shoehorns in developments with characters not central to the episode while doing very little for SAM’s story or general situation. It begins like she was constrained and controlled in her mission but her final status is no different than the preceding four episodes. Like a clueless parasite it attempts to get a bit of life from something better written and acted than it could ever hope.
While fans of YA shows may like this, Series Acclimation Mil fails on the Trek front largely with the forced use of Benjamin Sisko, the acting, the plot, and the shallow as well as superficial nature of it all. I can see fans who have only joined Trek recently being confused at points with older Trek fans noting so many other issues.
Warren Watched A Movie 