By 
The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 8.
Since Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set during the years immediately following the events of Star Trek: Discovery, it’s natural that the former should reference the latter fairly regularly. Admiral Vance makes frequent appearances, Commander Jett Reno is an instructor, and there are frequent references to the U.S.S. Discovery helping out on various missions and rescues. In “The Light of the Stars”, another familiar face returns: Sylvia Tilly, the sunny former Discovery crew member turned Academy instructor, whose infectiously bright personality was such a highlight of that series.
Tilly’s return is just one piece in the larger puzzle of this episode, an hour that explores grief and healing through the lens of communal experience, all filtered through Thornton Wilder’s classic play, Our Town. But while we may not spend as much time with her as some of us (read: me) might like, “The Light of the Stars” offers fans a lovely glimpse at how much Tilly has grown since we last saw her.
“I felt like she’s really settled into herself,” Mary Wiseman, who plays Tilly, tells Den of Geek. “In Discovery, I thought she was always battling some level of imposter syndrome being on the ship, and I didn’t detect that in the writing of this. And I love it that she really did find her place here and has found a deep comfort and confidence in being a teacher. It’s satisfying that she really has landed somewhere where she can feel like she belongs and use her skills effectively.”
Invited to campus to help the struggling cadets try to process their lingering grief and trauma in the wake of a classmate’s death during a training mission (as well as the fact that several of them were attacked and held hostage by a vicious gang of aliens at the same time), Tilly turns to the unifying and emotional power of performing theater. An unorthodox method to be sure, but one that turns out to be surprisingly effective.
‘There is something about engaging with theater, acting in it, and buying into it that is allergic to having walls up,” Wiseman says. “You really have to open yourself and be vulnerable and give in to the text and the world that’s created there. The sense Tilly has when presented with the issue the cadets are facing right now is that they need to move through this experience, but they’re already [building] walls to try to batten down the hatches and move through it. But what needs to happen for them to experience real growth and for them to develop resiliency against these kinds of events is to [face] them openly and with vulnerability. In Tilly’s mind, this is the perfect challenge to get them through this. And I think she models a kind of anti-coolness, an anti-toughness approach to processing really difficult emotions.”
Tarima, particularly, is struggling with the aftermath of everything that happened on the wreck of the U.S.S. Miyazaki, which saw her not only unleash the full extent of her heightened empathic abilities, but also wipe out a squad of alien enemies in the process. Forced to transfer from the War College into Starfleet Academy, she’s not adjusting well, and although everyone is doing their best to be supportive and caring, it’s not helping her to process what’s happened and Tilly susses that out almost immediately.
“I think it’s interesting because the way she gets through to Tarima is by not being a doormat, it’s by pushing her a little bit, which is not always Tilly’s way,” Wiseman says. “Tilly tends to lead with a lot of softness. She does not mind making herself the fool, but I think she’s got a strong emotional intelligence and can sense that Tarima wants to shut down. So what Tilly senses in that moment is that she has to push and needle her to elicit these big feelings so that Tarima can actually deal with them. And once those feelings are up and out, then the softness comes and the empathy and the shared vulnerability.”
Tilly, perhaps better than most, is very aware that this won’t be the first tragic event or personal loss these students will have to navigate over the course of their Starfleet careers. And, for Wiseman, part of her time with the cadets is about helping them learn to survive them.
“I think the way you move forward is by letting things move through you,” she continues. “You have to process the emotion so it’s not still clamped down in you. You have to move with it, not against it, to really develop the grit necessary to keep encountering difficult situations again and again.”
While Wiseman can’t tell us whether we’re likely to see Tilly reappear in Starfleet Academy’s second season. “You’re allowed to hope,” she says with a laugh. But, for the moment, the actress sounds pleased with her character’s emotional and professional journey.
“What I really wanted for her was that she find a place where her skills and what she loves can really sing. She’s settled into being a teacher in a way that makes her really happy, she has a real talent, and it’s given her confidence,” she says. “That’s what I was trying to bring to it, that she’s been out in the Beta Quadrant with the third years working hard, making friends, and having fun, and feeling real good about Starfleet Academy.”
New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere Thursdays on Paramount+, culminating with the finale on March 12.
The post Starfleet Academy: Mary Wiseman Breaks Down Sylvia Tilly’s Stark Trek Return appeared first on Den of Geek.
