Starfleet Academy Review: Come, Let's Away

Spoilers below

Craig Finn, lead singer of the Hold Steady, once talked about how, as the old school musician he is, he can't help but think of every album he does as consisting of two sides. We're so past the age of vinyl ubiquity that we've had a whole other era in-between (RIP, CDs), but he always tries to make sure each new album has a killer track as the halfway point arrives, to kick off the second side.

I assume it's obvious why "Come. Let's Away" made me think of Finn's approach. But "Come, Let's Away" isn't just a burst of adrenaline to take us into this season's back half. It very consciously parallels "Kids These Days"; a space-borne conflict with sinister pirates set to a soundtrack of explosions and Paul Giamatti crunching his way through the scenery (this time with a tequila aperitif). After four episodes exploring our characters under what counts for them as "normal circumstances", it's time to throw them into peril once more. I've heard there's been complaining in certain circles (and there's always complaining in certain circles) that Starfleet Academy is "low stakes". "Come, Let's Away" both blows that idea away like a wibbly-wobbly, dicky-wicky bat-merc, and demonstrates why action episodes like this only truly work when you've learned to understand who those under threat are, and who they want to be, when they're not in imminent threat of death.

It's because of this context that the episode is able to fully sell the tragedy of what happens here. Not a single person on the Athena lost their lives in the Venari Ral ambush in the Badlands. Indeed, outside of the flashback to how Jay-Den lost his brother, I'm not sure we've seen anyone die during this whole show up to now (though you've got to assume it was a very bad day for Braka's crew when Athena blasted his ship five episodes ago). A long list of casualties in that opening episode wouldn't have had any weight in itself, it would simply have been a worrying signal the show wanted to be seen as gritty or real or whatever the hell.

That's clearly the exact opposite of what the show wants to be, and that makes a dip into the scary place much more potent. I've talked about this before, but Trek can be really effective as TV sci-fi horror, so long as it presents it as a terrifying aberration. We certainly go all in on that here; the Furies are a wonderfully unsettling design both visually and sonically, reminiscent of the Wraiths from Stargate: Atlantis, but benefitting from two decades additional experience in how to make dudes in rubber masks look horrifying on your TV set.

The Furies set the tone for the rest of the episode. While "Kids These Days" was about seeing how our new friends could pull off an impossible victory, "Come, Let's Away" is about how to grind out some kind of win amid spiralling disaster - in this case, saving five cadets' lives while putting one in a coma, while losing who knows what weapon tech and who knows how many people. Right from the start, the vibe onboard ship is different - our five or so smiling bridge officers who buoyed up the premiere are entirely AWOL, leaving us instead with the broadly standard-hardass Tomov. Who dies, of course - everyone else might have been counting minutes to getting systems on line, I was placing bets on his remaining lifespan - but both his sacrifice and the impact of his death is given more weight than we're used to when a red shirt meets their fate.

The idea of sacrifice is woven throughout the episode. B'Avi notes the logical nature of Tomov choosing to die to protect his cadets by invoking Spock's classic axiom, but this is deliberately complicated throughout the episode. Tomov dies to prevent B'Avi from being thrown from an airlock, which ultimately only grants him a few minutes' of extra time breathing. B'Avi himself sacrifices himself for a single other person (though on a more meta level, it also allows the show to briefly flirt with before firmly rejecting a "kill your gays" moment). While it would be purblind to suggest this renders those sacrifices meaningless, the episode is very clearly shying away from presenting them as noble or glorious. There's no win condition here, just a serious of awful decisions you hope lessen the damage. As Braka notes - in two scenes which remind us Holly Hunter is one of the best actors the franchise has ever had the fortune to call upon, even while sitting silently in a chair - Ake has ended up having to try both Spock's approach and Kirk's inversion of it, and she's ended up feeling like shit each time.

Braka is the glue holding the episode together. In a show which is generally so light-hearted and filled with comedic beats, the extent to which he wins out this week is underscored by the fact that he's the only person having any fun. The reveal that he's been working with the Furies the whole time is extremely well done - Ake says herself there's clearly more going on here, but she's never granted the time she needs to figure that out. I'm not sure any decryption process ever has worked word by word, but the translation of "They took...." is an expertly-delivered horror beat - it's just enough to reveal/confirm to the audience what's happening, and it's just long enough ahead of our characters working it out that we get to fully register their reactions as they catch up. And that twist itself, for all that I'm sure plenty of people saw it coming, is a nice one. The question raised by the episode to that point is whether the Furies might be intended as the show's primary antagonist, as opposed to the Venari Ral, only for us to learn they're working together in any case. I've said elsewhere that I'm far from convinced the show needs a primary antagonist at all, but seeing Braka level up here in terms of tech, devious, and frankly the hissable love-to-hate stakes too, suggests I may have been wrong.

It all adds up to a solid demonstration of what the show has achieved so far, an indicator of where we're headed, and a solid action episode in its own right. There's also time for some character beats too; the death of Chancellor Ake's son is returned to again, as is Caleb's quest to find his mother.. That latter point is then given double-duty as the next stumbling bock in Caleb's blossoming-yet-careening relationship with Tamira, where he once again expresses a wholly understandable perspective in the most stupidly offensive way possible, alongside the standard teenage pathological inability to ever say "I'm sorry".. This then ties in with Braka's message to Ake at the end of the episode, and the broader later-Trek theme of human/Starfleet arrogance.

With all that said, "Come, Let's Away" is almost my least-favourite episode of the season so far. Partially that's because action mode just isn't really my preferred approach to Trek, for all that this is both a strong and a timely example of how to do it right. There's also just too much here that breaks down upon closer inspection. At the most nit-picky level this is there from the start; whose bedroom are Tamira and Caleb screwing in? More pertinently, is it not just a tiny bit of a coincidence that the Sargasso happens to have a sonic weapon installed (a sonic weapon on a spaceship, no less) and Tamira's superpower, rather than "feeling too much", turns out to be able to scream really loudly (I also don't like how this turns the decision to just have a character be deaf into a tragic backstory for someone else)? Why did the Venari Ral even need to get the Sargasso away from the station, given Braka's ship effortlessly disabled it within seconds? And don't even get me started on using a graveyard as a classroom, or using comic books (which work perfectly well as a way for Caleb and B'Avi to bond) to teach a computer that its crew is dead.

Ultimately, "Come, Let's Away" is juggling a lot of balls. It's far from unforgiveable that it lets a few of them drop. Better to let your reach extend your grasp than to never reach for anything at all. We're still in the delightful situation that sub-par Starfleet Academy is wholly watchable and enjoyable. And to the extent this is clearly an exercise to set up the season finale and hope like hell that Braka gets what's coming to him, job 100% done. As the guy said himself four weeks ago - payback's a bitch.

Ordering

1. Series Acclimation Mil

2. Kids These Days 3. Vox In Excelso 4. Beta Test 5. Come, Let's Away 6. Vitus Reflux