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The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 3.
After a two-episode premiere that had to work overtime introducing the series’ characters and larger narrative set-up, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s third episode feels a lot more like the show many of us likely expected this franchise installment to be. Whether or not you find an hour focused on what is essentially an interschool game of laser tag and a not-so-secret prank war to be particularly compelling television is a choice viewers will have to make for themselves. But it’s certainly a vibe that fits the series’ subject matter a bit more cleanly than what’s come before.
“Vitus Reflux” puts the Academy cadets at odds with their fellow students in the Starfleet War College, the organization that essentially replaced the OG institution during the century of the Burn and still trains and learn alongside them today. The War College students, save for new addition Tarima, are all pretty much interchangeable jerks, smug in the way that is both vaguely unlikable and kind of dull. None of them — including their director — seem to believe the Academy will survive, let alone turn into anything useful, and they’re determined to prove their superiority by… repeatedly humiliating the Academy kids in various public ways. (Personally, I’ve got questions: Why did they keep both institutions? What is the War College meant to be and/or do now that the Academy exists again? Train soldiers? Be rude?)
In addition to the escalating prank war, the two schools are being set against each other in some sort of field day competition where they have to play an advanced laser tag-style game called “callica,” in which the objective is to shoot a target being protected by the other school’s mascot. Tryouts involve everything from explosions to attack drones to phasers that transport opponents into a penalty box.
It all seems extremely extra, but at least it gives us the opportunity for a training montage in which various students snipe and shoot at one another, most notably Genesis and Darem, the show’s pair of overachieving legacy kids who live under the shadow of their parents’ expectations. After using Genesis’s self-admitted daddy issues to win the position of team captain, Darem must ultimately learn some valuable lessons about strategy and planning when the kids find themselves in a covert after-hours game against their fellow students/mortal enemies. Everything about this is fairly predictable, and you won’t remember much of it after the final credits roll, but at least it makes more sense as a story for these particular characters than Jay-Den operating on someone last week.
Caleb, mercifully, takes something of a backseat in this episode, outside of turning out to be some sort of generational talent at callica, a game that he has seemingly never played before! Because he hates organized sports, don’t you know, but is so good at them anyway! At this point, you sort of have to wonder if this supreme Gary Stu schtick is meant as some kind of joke, because it’s already becoming laughable that he’s so darn good at literally everything. Unfortunately, Starfleet Academy is simply not the sort of show that will ever be that self-aware. At least Darem manages to experience something that actually looks like growth over the course of the hour, and his apology to Genesis — even if it comes complete with a sob story about how much his mom and dad suck — is surprisingly genuine. Take some notes, Caleb.
There are also some interesting, smaller moments throughout the episode — Darem’s desperation to please the parents who categorically ignore him, the surprising revelation of Jett Reno and Cadet Master Thok’s romantic relationship, and Caleb’s run-in with Tarima, who has seemingly inured herself against much of his nonsense. Sure, the show couldn’t possibly be telegraphing any harder that these two are getting together romantically at some point in the not-too-distant future, but it’s interesting to see her push back against his speedy assumptions about what kind of relationship they share. Yes, they’re clearly into each other, but she’s right — they’re still essentially strangers! (Or maybe I’m just programmed to like anyone who makes Caleb have to do anything approaching self-reflection, who can say.)
Speaking of learning, although the gang’s highly coordinated final heist plan is fun to watch play out, it really, really doesn’t make any sense. They force the other students out of their dorms by way of filling them with endangered plants? That’s… great? What? Other things that don’t make sense include: Almost everything about Ake’s behavior. Yes, her determination to let her kids be kids and not squash their light or whatever after growing up in the shadow of the Burn is admirable, and it’s probably a good idea to both let the kids blow off some steam and bond over a common adversary. But arguing that this ridiculousness is somehow meant to really be teaching them about the patience and empathy needed to stop wars is… kind of laughable, particularly since it’s Ake who hand-feeds them most of their strategy in the first place. It’s not a leadership style that seems particularly…helpful, to be sure, but hey, at least she’s staying true to her whole freewheeling chancellor vibe.
At the end of the day, though the hour’s larger arc is fairly ridiculous, it’s nice to see Starfleet Academy’s core group get the chance to bond as an ensemble in ways that go beyond their various connections to and relationships with Caleb. And that’s a promising enough development to overlook some of the… let’s just say stupidly youthful antics we have to sit through to get there.
New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere Thursdays on Paramount+, culminating with the finale on March 12.
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