Sam is pressed by the leaders of her world to make faster progress in her evaluation of organic life-forms. She is their emissary, and they need her to find out if organics can be trusted. She finds herself drawn to history and another emissary, Benjamin Sisko. Solving the mystery of his fate, she reasons, will help her better understand her own role. Meanwhile, Commander Kelrec will soon host a group of alien dignitaries with their own elaborate rituals, and Chancellor Ake sets out to help him prepare.
I want to come to this episode by way of Star Trek: Lower Decks, for a few reasons. For one, it was co-written by Tawny Newsome, who starred on that series as Mariner and appears in this episode as Illa. But more importantly, I think Lower Decks worked because even though it was an animated comedy, it came from a place of love. Everyone involved with the show clearly loved Star Trek, and so it never felt mean when it would point out when the franchise had figurative food stains on its shirt.
For me, that same love of Star Trek manifests in a different way in this Starfleet Academy episode. I didn't feel they were here simply to trade on goodwill for Deep Space Nine. The story worked hard to honor the ambiguity of that show's finale, while also addressing a real-life concern actor Avery Brooks had previously expressed: that regardless of narrative fit, it didn't feel great for a black father on 90s television to be abandoning his children. Bringing Cirroc Lofton back to play an adult Jake Sisko let this episode speak to all of that, while the revelation of Ilia's true nature was a delightful surprise.
Interestingly, this story subverted much of what I said here in the beginning. Yes... on paper, Sam is very much the Spock/Data/etc. type of character, there to say: "you are all so perplexing" and make the audience reflect on the human condition. But then this episode said actually, Sam is also in a very large way like this other Star Trek character you probably weren't thinking about: a reluctant emissary on a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
But... Sam does come on pretty strong, doesn't she? Kerrice Brooks admirably performs the role as written, complete with this episode's direct camera address, bouncy personality, and complete lack of social awareness -- though it can seem at times like this is trying to bottle all of television's most wacky character traits in one package. This hybrid Sheldon Cooper / Patrick Star / Phoebe Buffay character is out here Fleabagging / Clarissa Explains It All-ing / Ferris Bueller-ing her way through this episode like a force of nature. And I'm not sure the broad swings between that tone and the more serious "fate of the Emissary" material always worked.
Though the episode does try to add still more comedic elements to support the big swings. The Kelrec subplot is there basically just to get four actors around a dinner table for some broad comedy. And it doesn't hurt that two of them happen to be Robert Picardo (reliable comedy go-to from Star Trek: Voyager) and Tig Notaro.
Sam may not be my favorite character on this series, but I found enough to like even in an episode that centered on her. I give "Series Acclimation Mil" a B.
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