You can't save the universe every week. Sure, the Enterprise-D’s daring mission to rescue Jean-Luc Picard from the Borg, and Michael Burnham leading Discovery to the 32nd century are the kind of Alpha Quadrant-changing events that grab headlines, but even 60-year-old multimedia franchises need to take it easy from time to time.
"Starfleet Academy" is set in a school and, therefore, unlikely to put its students in situations of extreme peril every week — such educational negligence is more commonly found at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even so, it's hard to think of an episode in "Trek"'s long history that lowers the stakes quite as much as "Vitus Reflux", the new show's third outing.
Ignore the transporters, futuristic sports, and extra-terrestrial classmates, and this episode could be set in any present-day educational establishment — even the sports hall where the students train will feel familiar to pretty much anyone who's attended school in the last four decades. And yes, it does have a squeaky wooden floor.
With her motivational speeches — "No blood will be shed on my court without my express permission!" — half-Klingon/half-Jem'Hadar first officer/drill sergeant Lura Thok descends from a long line of disciplinarian PE teachers on screen. Meanwhile, the Academy cadets' rivalry with the War College next door is the sort of petty feud that's easy for most of us to relate to. Forget the evolved ideals of Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise-D gang — this is much closer to real life, albeit filtered through the prism of fluffy mascots and the US high school movie. (That said, the radical notion of a "nerd/jock hybrid" like "Coach" Jett Reno is one innovation that particular genre has traditionally been reluctant to embrace.)
From the outset, it's clear that this Starfleet Academy v War College game of "Calica" — essentially futuristic laser tag with added transporter beams — is little more than a battle for inter-faculty bragging rights, and an ode to a training sequence in "Starship Troopers". Winners and losers won't be remembered for long, while the only thing in any danger is the participants' pride.
And it turns out that there really are no rules when it comes to making your enemies look stupid. Fancy beaming your barely clothed opponents from the shower room to other locations on campus, or reworking the Starfleet Academy promo video to make the current class look as stupid as possible? Pretty much anything is fair game here.
Especially when unconventional school principal Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) decides to reinvent this trivial student feud as a cross between an educational experience and an opportunity to get one over on her War College opposite number, Chancellor Kelrec (Raoul Bhaneja). Whether she's supplying her charges with fast-growing fungi with Furby-like voice-imitation properties (the "Vitus Reflux" of the title) or simply encouraging them to employ some out-of-the-box thinking — not too far removed from the questionable tactics that led to James T Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test — she has little interest in being impartial.
Nonetheless, with cadets Darem Reymi (George Hawkins), Genesis Lythe (Bella Shepard) and Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) all learning a little bit about teamwork making the dream work by the end of the episode — as well as realizing that their holographic classmate, SAM (Kerrice Brooks), is permeable (but not porous) to laser fire — this can surely go down as a successful class.
Of course, when the final credits roll, little has actually changed. Like an episode of "The Simpsons", " Vitus Reflux" could suddenly disappear from Paramount+ and have little bearing on the future of the show and its characters — the stakes really are that low.
And in that regard, it definitely isn't alone in the "Star Trek" universe. Numerous holodeck/holosuite episodes have simply been diversions from day-to-day Starfleet life, perhaps the most extreme example being the "Deep Space Nine" crew battling Vulcans in a baseball match spawned by Benjamin Sisko's decades-old rivalry with Captain Solok in "Take Me Out to the Holosuite". There have also been numerous shore leave adventures and unashamed comedy outings where the protagonists' actions have little bearing on the universe beyond their starship hull.
But bearing in mind that even comedy series "Lower Decks" usually featured some kind of antagonist or threat to the USS Cerritos, it's hard to think of too many "Trek" missions quite as trivial as this frothy concoction. And that's absolutely fine for a show that's attempting to reveal another side of Starfleet, whose heroes' biggest adventures are almost definitely several years ahead of them.
These cadets may be seeking out some 32nd century adventure and excitement, but that doesn't mean all their missions have to be life-or-death. After all, sometimes being a student is more about having fun than making your mark on the wider universe.
New episodes of "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.
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