| Episode: |
5 |
| |
Writer: |
Kirsten Beyer & Tawny Newsome |
| |
Director: |
Larry Teng |
| |
Air Date: |
05-Feb-2026 |
This week on
Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching episode 5 of
Starfleet Academy, called
Series Acclimation Mil. People who got to see the first five stories in advance have been saying that this is the best of the set, the one worth waiting for. So I hope I end up loving it, or else I'm really out of sync with the show's fans.
The episode was co-written by Tawny Newsome, who played Mariner on
Lower Decks. There have been lots of actors-turned-directors on
Star Trek over the years, but the list of actors who've written a episode is way shorter. Walter Koenig wrote
The Infinite Vulcan for
The Animated Series, Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones in
The Trouble with Tribbles) co-wrote
The Mark of Gideon... I've got nothing else. I suppose there's Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the
Star Trek Beyond movie. Anyway, I like Tawny's performance as Mariner but I've got no opinion on anything she's written as I haven't seen any of it. She knows her
Star Trek though, so I'm cautiously optimistic.
The other co-writer was Kirsten Beyer, the
woman who wrote my least favourite episode of
Discovery (Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum), my least
favourite episode of
Picard (Stardust City Rag), and my least favourite episode of
Strange New Worlds (Wedding Bell Blues). I've got nothing against her, but it's starting to seem like she's got something against me!
Though I've been thinking about two other
Trek writers who made a habit of writing stories I hated: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky. Separately they wrote
Threshold and
Masks, but when they got together they came up with great episodes like
Year of Hell and
Timeless. So maybe this team-up is going to come up with something spectacular! Actually, it's probably best that I don't get my hopes up.
There are going to be
SPOILERS below for this episode and for
Deep Space Nine. In fact they should've put a spoiler warning on the episode as well!
