- Directed by Olatunde ‘Section 31’ Osunsanmi
- Teleplay by Alex Kurtzman and Kirsten Beyer
- Story by Noga Landau and Gaia Violo
- March 12, 2026
- Allegedly based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry. The blame for the idea of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy rests upon Gaia Violo as aided by Alex Kurtzman
- 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
- Digital Dean of Students-Stephen Colbert voice
- Jett Reno-Tig Notaro
- The Doctor-Robert Picardo
- Tarima Sadal-Zoë Steiner
- Starfleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral Charles Vance-Oded Fehr
- Anisha Mir-Tatiana Maslany
- Lura Thok-Gina Yashere
With the Federation completely encircled by Omega 47 mines, only a group of Starfleet cadets with attitude can save the day!
When I first saw the title of Rubincon in articles or social media posts before the premiere I really thought it was a misspelling but here we are at the season finale and it’s not. One post said it sounded like a convention for deli sandwiches. Unless it’s a word that doesn’t generally come up on a Google search, it appears to reference something The Doctor (Robert Picardo) says that helps solve the problem.
One thing that struck me between watching 300th Night and this episode: couldn’t the Athena in theory generate a small crew of holographic personnel? Seems like something they could do with massively advanced computing power. It was a probable advancement hinted at in Voyager with the episode Message in a Bottle.
Having been significantly sidelined for a few episodes, Lura (Gina Yashere) makes a return briefly as a hologram along with Starfleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) who appears to be consulting just her and Chancellor Ake (Holly Hunter) leaving Kelrec and the War College and the rest of Starfleet Command out. He should be issuing orders with maybe pushback from those on the frontlines. Makes no sense.
Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti) finally gets involved by personally attacking the Athena. Nothing wrong with an involved leader but it would have made more sense for his troops to bring the crew to him. Shorten the battle scene or something along those lines. Then again, Star Trek is a very small universe now.
Of course there are a few battles in Rubincon. One involves us finally getting to see The Doctor’s mobile emitter in a ruse first used in the Voyager episodes Basics I & II where his holomatrix is changed. Here it is designed to look like the Athena exploding. What gets me is that the attacking Venari Ral leave the moment of the boom rather than take a quick look to confirm. Star Trek has shown several ways over the decades to fake a ship explosion. You would think they would be aware of some and want to check. Not saying they need to figure out the situation, but it would add tension and realism.
This causes damage to The Doctor’s programming leading to use a nonsense language that is conveying some important info. Not sure how he came to the realization that solves the problem. What makes less sense is why a medical student-Jay-Den (Karim Diané)-was tasked with checking him out than maybe another like Darem (George Hawkins) who gets very little to do in the episode. Maybe even SAM (Kerrice Brooks) since she might be of some technical help.
We do get a look at the students in action with several doing something that implies a discipline/career path in Starfleet Academy. Not all though. Much like Darem, Tarima (Zoë Steiner) just lingers around in the background with the random relationship convo with Caleb (Sandro Rosta) when the writers are not trying to show how much he loves and misses mommy Anisha (Tatiana Maslany).
Tatiana Maslany has her fans due to some well received genre work. Baffled on why. In several scenes the character of Anisha gets angry and to convey that Maslany gets hilariously bug-eyed like a kid about to erupt in their best tantrum. Rather than looking serious it is comedy gold!
Tarima has an implant that gets damaged so she can conveniently use her powers in a more controlled way to find Caleb’s mom. How does she do this? She takes the damaged implant off. Words have meaning. You just can’t take an implant off.
Genesis (Bella Shepard) gets command while Jett (Tig Notaro) goes to fix the warp core and I still don’t like her as having authority. She wanted command to get command. That seems very antithetical to Starfleet to seek power for the sake of getting power. In a series with connecting plotlines one over what makes a good leader with this being her learning her lesson would have been perfect.
There’s a lot of present-day terminologies used that would make absolutely no sense to anyone in the future such as ‘televised’. It would be confusing to someone of the TNG era, but absolutely unknown to someone of this era because television is a dead form of entertainment. All they have to do is tweak this or that and it would be identifiable to modern audiences yet make sense in the future setting. ‘Broadcast’ for example is more appropriate than ‘televised’.
Along with ill-fitting terminology, there are the Academy trademark moments of quippy dialogue that completely undermines the excitement and drama. This had the potential to be the most thrilling, dramatic, and exciting episode of the series (as season enders should be) but it continually needed to cap its own knees by making jokes.
I also find it weird they take time out during a crisis situation to have deep and personal conversations. Characters are trying to save the galaxy and suddenly need to work out personal problems. Why stop the story? They can’t interweave some of this with the story? That bothers me when any movie or series episode does it.
The scene that stops Rubincon in its tracks in order to have a discussion that does not involve the fate of the Federation or the galaxy is between Genesis and SAM. I thought we’d already cleared up their issues in the last episode. And that issue is that SAM looks like the old SAM and has the memories of the old SAM but is not the old SAM because she had a childhood. It’s just an ill placed moment. Having it is not the problem. Having it in the midst of a dangerous situation is.
A good chunk of this is a trial in a kangaroo court where everybody impugns everybody. Truthfully, Ake (Holly Hunter) is probably the worst of the group since she sent a mom up the river in a post scarcity society for trying to get food for her kid. Finally they let the audience know somebody died in the heist to mitigate the questions over a her harsh sentence. Then again, everything has forgiven enough to make her the head of a college.
A lot of this is borders on being a therapy session with Braka voicing his anger over the Federation and Ake voicing her anger at him and her regret over what happened with Caleb and mommy voicing her anger at the Federation and Ake until everybody comes to some kind of understanding.
I appreciate how they resolve the problem. Rather than a big battle and blowing up the baddie they show that Nus Braka’s perception of events that angered him was incorrect. He proceeded erroneously but after learning the truth still held onto his desire to screw everything up. A bit more creative than I would have expected in the current crop of Star Trek. I do have an issue with all of Braka’s supporters giving up so easily.
There’s also the indication that Caleb’s mom, who has held onto Federation hate for years, has made a wild swing to the side of the Federation. She seems very comfortable with roaming around Starfleet Academy in the closing credits. A closing sensitive moment outside the galaxy’s first warp capable college would have worked better. Such a change of heart brings into question her motivations and reactions in the last episode.
Of course Caleb and Tarima patch things up by the end of our story and they’re shown to be truly in love and holding hands and all that good stuff. At least until next season, though I am still trying to figure out how she’s different than she was before or what story purpose she serves beyond ‘love interest’ for the male.
From an action and drama standpoint Rubincon is much better than anything the show has produced in the previous nine episodes. That doesn’t say too much by itself, but the stakes felt high and the episode climactic.
The closing credits run a series of pictures of the cast when they were young with their character names next to them. Come on! It’s just too cute and undermines all the good work they did in the present preceding 60 or so minutes. That mixed with some very modern music. Several central or significant characters do little or fail to even be participants in the episode bringing into question why they are even in the series.
As season finales go this is not the greatest, but Rubincon is a stronger than expected ending for season one of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Despite some flaws, they ended better than they started.
Warren Watched A Movie 