Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-10: Rubincon (Quick Review)

Episode:

10

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Writer:

Alex Kurtzman & Kirsten Beyer

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Director:

Olatunde Osunsanmi

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Air Date:

12-Mar-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Starfleet Academy's season one finale, Rubincon!

When I heard that this had the same title as Discovery season 4 episode Rubicon I was a little surprised, but only a little. We got Prodigy's Kobayashi less than two months after Disco's Kobayashi Maru (also from season 4). Plus Disco season 4 stole the title Anomaly from Enterprise, which is the only time two Trek episodes have ever 100% shared a title.

It turns out however that it's actually called Rubincon, with a second 'n'. Maybe it's the name of a planet, I don't know.

But I do know that the director this time is Discovery's Olatunde Osunsanmi! He's the guy who brought flame throwers to Discovery's bridge and to that planet in Section 31, so if I had to make a guess at what I'll be seeing in this episode it'd probably be flame throwers.

The episode was written by Kirsten Beyer again, along with Star Trek overlord Alex Kurtzman. This was his first time writing for the series, but he's had a big influence on it from the start. He even directed the first episode himself and established the show's style. All of his episodes have had co-writers so I'm not sure what I think of him as a writer, but I've typically enjoyed stories with his name on them so I'm cautiously optimistic.

There will be SPOILERS below.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-09: 300th Night (Quick Review)

Episode:

9

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Writer:

Kirsten Beyer

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Director:

Jonathan Frakes

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Air Date:

05-Mar-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the penultimate episode of Starfleet Academy's first season. It's called 300th Night, it's written by Kirsten Beyer (writer of all my least favourite stories) and it's directed by Jonathan Frakes (who's done some good stuff in the past).

There's only one episode left after this and I've been thinking about things I could write about in my season one review. One complaint I've had is that the series hasn't done a great job of showing the passage of time, but they've been doing better at that recently and now this episode's literally called 300th Night. We've never had a Star Trek episode pin down when it takes place so specifically in the title before. To my recollection.

The Original Series had The Naked Time and Amok Time, but you won't find those events on your calendar and The Deadly Years actually only lasted a few days. Tomorrow is Yesterday presumably takes place the day before tomorrow, which is today, so that doesn't help narrow it down. And the Day of the Dove presumably didn't become a Klingon holiday.

The Next Generation was even less specific. Parallels took place on Worf's birthday, which comes right before Captain Picard day in The Pegasus, but neither were in the title. Voyager did better with 11:59, but it doesn't say if that's AM or PM. Though we also got Day of Honor, which is a Klingon holiday! So I think Voyager actually wins this time.

Warning: there will be SPOILERS below. For this, Discovery and Picard.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-08: The Life of the Stars (Quick Review)

Episode:

8

|

Writer:

Gaia Violo & Jane Maggs

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Director:

Andi Armaganian

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Air Date:

26-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching The Life of the Stars, the 8th episode of Starfleet Academy. A TV series that I'm not really enjoying much.

There are some familiar names in the credits for this one. It's got the same director as the previous episode, Ko'Zeine, and the two writers have both worked on episodes already. That's all the trivia I've got, sorry.

This is going to have SPOILERS for the episode, so if you haven't watched it yet maybe consider doing that first. Or not, if you're not really enjoying the series much either.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-07: Ko'Zeine (Quick Review)

Episode:

7

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Writer:

Alex Taub & Eric Anthony Glover

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Director:

Andi Armaganian

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Air Date:

19-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Ko'Zeine. Isn't that a type of drug?

Both the writers have written for Starfleet Academy already, as Alex Taub co-wrote prank war story Vitus Reflux and Eric Anthony Glover co-wrote Klingon debate contest story Vox in Excelso. At the very least they'll have a good grasp of who the characters are.

I'm a bit surprised that this wasn't directed by main Discovery (and Section 31) director Olatunde Osunsanmi, as I know he's working on this series, but it doesn't seem like there are enough episodes left. Each director has been given a pair of episodes so far, so that means there are five directors. I've heard that Jonathan Frakes is the fifth and it turns out that Andi Armaganian is the fourth, so I guess Osunsanmi won't be directing this season after all?

Andi Armaganian is also a Trek veteran, having directed Rubicon and Jinaal for Discovery and Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach and Through the Lens of Time for Strange New Worlds. Damn, there's no chance of mixing up which series those episode titles belong to. I don't recall her episodes standing out due to the visuals or performances, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Alright, I'm going to try to give this episode a bit of a review and there will be SPOILERS below.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-06: Come, Let's Away (Quick Review)

Episode:

6

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Writer:

Kenneth Lin & Kiley Rossetter

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Director:

Larry Teng

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Air Date:

12-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Come, Let's Away, the sixth episode of Starfleet Academy.

Director Larry Teng is back after directing last week's Series Acclimation Mil, but co-writer Kenneth Lin is new to the show. He's not new to Star Trek however, as he did several episodes of Discovery, including The Sanctuary and Whistlespeak, while the other writer, Kiley Rossetter, worked on Picard episodes Assimilation and Võx. 

Disco writers teaming up with Picard writers is interesting, but I'm more curious about what happens when Lower Decks writers team up with Prodigy writers. What does an episode co-written by Mike McMahan and Aaron Waltke look like? Or failing that, they could just write episodes separately again! I'd be okay with that.

Anyway, this review is going to have SPOILERS for the episode.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-05: Series Acclimation Mil (Quick Review)

Episode:

5

|

Writer:

Kirsten Beyer & Tawny Newsome

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Director:

Larry Teng

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Air Date:

05-Feb-2026

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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!

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-04: Vox in Excelso (Quick Review)

Episode:

4

|

Writer:

Gaia Violo & Eric Anthony Glover

|

Director:

Doug Aarniokoski

|

Air Date:

29-Jan-2026

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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.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-03: Vitus Reflux (Quick Review)

Episode:

3

|

Writer:

Alex Taub & Kiley Rossetter

|

Director:

Doug Aarniokoski

|

Air Date:

22-Jan-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Starfleet Academy episode 3, Vitus Reflex.

The previous episode was co-written by Picard writer Jane Maggs, this episode was co-written by Picard writer Kiley Rossetter, I'm spotting a bit of a pattern forming. Though co-writer Alex Taub hasn't written for anything. Nothing Star Trek-related I mean.

On the other hand, director Doug Aarniokoski has worked on everything, directing episodes in four seasons of Discovery and three seasons of Picard, plus he even did a Short Trek. They were often pretty good episodes too, stories like Lethe and Nepenthe. I'm assuming that Picard's producers must have been impressed, as he was the one they chose to direct the season openers.

I'm not going to be going through the whole episode scene by scene this time, but there will be SPOILERS beyond this point.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-02: Beta Test (Quick Review)

Episode:

2

|

Writer:

Noga Landau & Jane Maggs

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Director:

Alex Kurtzman

|

Air Date:

15-Jan-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching another episode of the 12th Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy. I think that's the right number.

Here's some trivia for you, the series has had three writers so far and they've all been women. Encounter at Farpoint was mostly written by D.C. Fontana, Voyager's Caretaker was co-written by Jeri Taylor, and so on, but this is the first Trek series to be established by female writers exclusively.

The first episode was written by creator Gaia Violo, but I've no idea if she had any involvement with this one. Typically the creator will go on to run the series, at least for its first season, but in this case the showrunners are Trek overlord Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. They also worked on the episode in other roles, with Kurtzman directing and Landau co-writing.

Landau has never written for Star Trek, but she has had some experience running Nancy Drew, which seems to have been successful enough. On the other hand, co-writer Jane Maggs has had plenty of Trek writing experience, as she worked on Star Trek: Picard's second and third seasons. They weren't the most acclaimed stories, in fact some are considered the absolute nadir of modern Trek, but if you start at the bottom then the only way to go is up.

Warning: SPOILERS

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-01: Kids These Days (Quick Review)

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Gaia Violo

|

Director:

Alex Kurtzman

|

Air Date:

15-Jan-2026

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Well this went and ruined all my plans.

I was going to focus my attention on my Super Adventures video game site for a few more months, while secretly stockpiling a few sci-fi reviews. Then in April I'd be like 'Surprise! You thought sitting through years of RTD2 Doctor Who and Garth Marenghi's Strange New Worlds had permanently destroyed my interest in science fiction, along with my faith in humanity, but I'm back'. 

But nope, they had to suddenly drop Starfleet Academy on us in January! They've given it the Section 31 slot, reserved for projects they have the utmost confidence in. So now I'm watching this, because it has 'Star Trek' in the title. If they didn't want me to share my opinion of it, they should've called it Space Academy: Future Cadets. I would not watch that show.

I have to be honest, I've been dreading this series forever. As a tiny baby I knew I didn't want a Young Kirk and Young Spock movie, in the same way I had zero interest in the Young Sherlock Holmes movie. I did try the Starfleet Academy game but its cutscenes made me cringe. Though the funny thing is, at this point I'm actually more bored of the idea. We saw cadets becoming officers in Star Trek '09, then ensigns growing up in Lower Decks, then children becoming cadets in Prodigy, it has been done.

Anyway, I'm going to go into this with optimism and an open mind, I HOPE IT'S REALLY GOOD!!

(Warning SPOILERS, for episode 1 and bits of earlier Star Trek shows.)