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| Episode: | 4 | | | Writer: | Gaia Violo & Eric Anthony Glover | | | Director: | Doug Aarniokoski | | | Air Date: | 29-Jan-2026 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the fourth episode of Starfleet Academy - Vox in Excelso. They love their weird titles on this show, it's like I'm watching The X-Files again. Or Voyager (I never did learn what a Cathexis was.)
Though it's not the first Star Trek episode to have 'vox' in the title, as Picard gave us one three years ago. In fact it was just called Võx. Before that there was the season one Enterprise story Vox Sola, which probably translates into 'sleeping drug' or 'lullaby' or something like that, considering the effect it had on me.
According to Wikipedia, Vox in Excelso translates into "A voice on high" and was a directive from the Pope to formally dissolve the Order of the Knights Templar in 1312. So that sounds cool, we haven't had a Star Trek episode about the Knights Templar before. Probably because the franchise was off TV when The DaVinci Code became popular.
The episode was directed by Doug Aarniokoski, same as the last episode, and it was written by Gaia Violo & Eric Anthony Glover. I don't know who that last guy is, he's never written for Star Trek, but Gaia Violo is the series creator. She also wrote the action packed episode one, so maybe I'll be lucky and get another space battle.
There will be SPOILERS below, but if you're watching the series for the first time and you've watched this far you'll be fine.
RECAP
Jay-Den's social anxiety causes him to freeze during a debate and his day gets worse when he learns that his parents' ship may have been destroyed. He has a flashback to the time his brother was killed while trying get Federation dermal regenerator at a market, and the time his family flew away and left him behind on a planet when he refused to complete a hunt and become a warrior.
The Federation has been trying to save the Klingon refugees after Kronos was destroyed, and Ake invites the leader Obel Wochak over for some heavy drinking, but he refuses to take a new homeworld from them as charity. Jay-Den says the same thing in a debate competition against Caleb, and is disqualified after getting angry. But a talk from Lura makes him realise his dad may have abandoned him to give him a chance to be his own person, and he returns to give a speech at the debate about solving a Klingon problem in a Klingon way.
He inspires Ake and Vance to come up with a new plan: they will take a fleet to prevent the Klingon refugees from settling a new homeworld! Obel commands his fleet to fight them and claim the planet, and Ake surrenders... with minimal damage and zero casualties on either side. After the battle Jay-Den is rewarded with the bow that shows he has become a warrior, and he gets to enjoy his warrior stew with debate champion Caleb.
Oh, plus his parents are fine.
REVIEW
It's a bit of a shame he mangled the Aaron Satie quote from Star Trek: The Next Generation before talking about getting your facts straight, but I appreciate what the episode is trying to say. The Starfleet cadets are encouraged to debate, discussion is a core Starfleet skill, but they have to know what they're talking about before they start making claims. And they definitely shouldn't be compounding tragedy with ignorance.
Though the moral seems to be 'the person who knows the most facts wins', as Caleb aces every debate by memorising the Memory Alpha Wiki. If only that worked for Star Trek arguments in real life.
I liked his line about how if the Federation pushed the Klingons to be something different they wouldn't be the Federation any more either. This has come up over and over in past series, how Starfleet is reluctant to help people if it may end up having an effect on their culture. That's basically what the Prime Directive is all about. The episodes Homeworld (TNG) and Time and Again (Voy) took it to ridiculous extremes, with the heroes being willing to let a planet go extinct rather than risk any contamination, but generally the Prime Directive forces them to stop and question if trying to help is only going to make things worse.
I'm not entirely sure why Jay-Den is up there on his own at the end, debating against no one, but hey if a character wants to make a speech, then I'm not going to complain. I like a bit of Star Trek in my Star Trek.
They shot the flashback scenes in the forest differently to the rest of the episode to give them a bit of a dreamlike feel and I really wasn't keen on it. In fact I didn't like the flashbacks at all, and seeing as they're key to the whole story that's a bit of a problem.
Though, it's only the cinematography I had an issue with, the Klingons were fine, and that's always a relief for a series on the Discovery side of the Trek family. Discovery did a lot of work to reimagine their makeup and their culture, taking inspiration from previous Trek while reinventing them for the 21st century. Starfleet Academy has skipped all that and just given us proper Klingons, same as they were in the '80s and '90s.
This is especially important here, as the episode's all about understanding Klingons, and it's actually Jay-Den and his dad who struggle the most with that. Though the Federation's got a bit of a Klingons refugee crisis to solve too.
Once again there's a Klingon fleet facing off against a Federation fleet. The Klingons are driven by a need to remain Klingon in the face of Federation culture, the Federation's attempts to find a peaceful outcome are only making things worse. And once again it all ends in a battle.
It turns out we haven't been seeing much of the Klingons in this time period because their homeworld exploded (just like the Romulan homeworld did), and the surviving houses have been travelling in refugee ships. Well at least they don't have to worry about Georgiou's bomb any more.
The Federation has found an ideal planet for them, like they always do, and the Klingons stubbornly turned them down, like everyone always does in episodes like this.
This way the official record will state that the Klingons won their home in battle, and it'll be part of their mythology. It's a much more epic and inspiring tale to tell their children than 'we were weak and the Federation took pity on us', and chapter two can still say 'but the Federation became our allies once again'. The leaders know that their Federation allies respected them enough to deliberately miss the shot, just like Jay-Den's dad did for him.
Well, it's actually a bit ambiguous whether Lura's right and Jay-Den's dad actually missed the shot on purpose. Maybe he really did get pissed off and abandoned his son for choosing not to hunt. And maybe it was a terrible thing to do to his kid either way.
Fortunately the ambiguity doesn't hurt the episode one bit, and neither does the fact that Lura isn't treated like comic relief for once! I know the actress is a comedian but I prefer to take my Star Trek seriously. Except for when it's Lower Decks.
There were some nice space shots in this I thought. I still don't like the way ships zip out of warp in Kurtzman Trek and I don't like these ships either, but the shots were nice.
(Even if the exterior hull is a bit out of place for Star Trek, with its modern day warning signs.)
Though I was kind of expecting Jay-Den's family to all be pacifists like he is, and for it to be something he was taught. Like the Romulan in Picard who always tells the truth. Nope, he was just born with social anxiety and more passion for life than he has for death.
This is the episode that Jay-Den really needed at this point. It doesn't tell us much about him we didn't already know, but now we literally know where he's coming from. At this point it's only Genesis and SAM who need an episode, as we already know what the deal with Caleb and Darem is.
It's nice to see him helping out his friends though, reminding Jay-Den to breathe later during the debate.
They didn't have to put that light shining in our eyes either, but J.J. Abrams' influence remains even after all this time.
RATING
Overall I can respect any episode that knows what it's talking about and I certainly got that impression from this one. Which is good, because it's all about people debating issues and understanding who they are.
It's an episode about talking, with no pranks or jeopardy or villain! Well okay they get into a space battle, and the survival of the Klingon race is at stake, and it's kind of strange how the students have influenced major political events twice in four episodes now that I think about it... but I appreciated how the writers took a chance with a more thoughtful story that takes itself and its world seriously.
The flashback scenes really dragged it down for me however, so that leaves the episode at...
7/10
NEXT EPISODE
It might also be the first episode in the history of television to have 'series' in its title. I mean, can you think of another one? Not counting the ones called 'Series Finale'. Also, what did you think about Vox in Excelso?
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