Starfleet Academy Review: Vitus Reflux

Spoilers below

Well, this is encouraging. The headline result is that "Vitus Reflux" is my least favourite of the three Starfleet Academy episodes we've seen so far. Much of this review, then, is going to be spent thinking about why that is, and why I'm not actually worried about each installment having gripped me less than the one before, but I'm actually more convinced about the future of this show's vision of the future than I was this time last week.

A little while back, as the show was approaching its release to the world but before there was much in the way of actual reviews of advance screenings, there was a suggestion going round that this show was going to "CW" the franchise. Different people will have both meant and understood different things about what that label implied, but I think I can get away with saying that, broadly, the concern being raised (and it was being raised as as concern) was that the show would be packed with teenage/twenty-something soap opera melodrama, with a broken heart a more serious problem than a broken warp core.

My response to this possibility as I said at the time, was a) such a show probably wouldn't be for me, and b) that would be disappointing to me personally, but also a very healthy development for the franchise overall. Trek needs to keep trying new things if it's to continue to be actually worth watching. It's not just inevitable that some of those new approaches aren't going to fall within my preferred modes of storytelling, it is necessary.

"Beta Test" demonstrated this, to some extent, with a tale of young love that I feel rather too old, too and exasperated by college student hormones during my day job, to really appreciate. "Vitus Reflux" takes us all the way into territory I don't particularly care about. There's the obvious issue that I'm not one for sports, and transport-phaser tag isn't an interesting idea to overcome that general disinterest. Less trivially, it's just hard to really engage with any of these kids' motivations here. It's not just that it's been almost a quarter of a century since my own graduation, either. Even as a dumbass youngling, I despised the idea of practical jokes and prank wars. Indeed, perhaps the drive that's done more to shape me as a person more than any other is the hatred of deriving enjoyment from the discomfort of others. Ditto any "rival school" bollocks, even if I can see how the historical and political aspects of how the War College and Starfleet Academy interact make the rivalry more understandable than most. Combined with the comparative paucity of time spent around the faculty this week (I'm almost certain this is the least we've seen of Chancellor Ake so far, and Roberto Picardo doesn't feature at all), and the signs do not read well for me. Throw in a subplot about whether a royal with an English accent deserves sympathy because his parents don't love him, and this might as well a episode grown in a lab specifically for the purposes of annoying me.

And yet I still enjoyed it. Even when its telling a story I could not have less interest in, Starfleet Academy is still charming, and fun, and regularly makes me laugh. Structurally, it mostly reads as just cromulent, even cliched, but everyone involved is sufficiently on their game that it carries you through to the closing minutes, where you learn that actually there's more going on than met the (tea-loving) eye.

Even before we learn the full details of what Ake is up to, though, there are clear advantages to telling a fairly uncomplicated, familiar story. It gives the show the chance to linger on the "how" of its approach, rather than the "what". "Vitus Reflux" is packed with lovely moments and touches to demonstrate why it's worth seeing the show take on stock material. Ake might not be around as much this episode, but Holly Hunter continues to shine through the screen with every second she appears. Ake's double act with Lura Thot is quickly becoming a Trek pairing for the ages. The cadets have come together as characters extremely quickly, and the show is working hard to make sure they all get at least one memorable beat each episode. We also seem to be moving away from the failure state I identified of constantly having to watch Ake come up with reasons to not expel Caleb; indeed, this is given a nice twist when we learn Mir's rule-breaking was part of Ake's plan all along.

We also get an explicit answer to the question of how much the show is going to worry about the evermore hostile atmosphere in the US for anyone identifiably clear. That answer is: not at all. We learn here both that Reyim is bi/pan, and that Lura is in a relationship with Reno. We also learn the locker rooms of Starfleet Academy are co-ed; screw you, transphobes, the future belongs to us.

More than anything, though, I'm buzzing with the idea the show is putting "the e-word" front and centre, and that that word most certainly isn't "Enterprise". I'll forgive far, far more than this episode asks me to in order to see a teacher teach the lesson that empathy isn't a weakness, or a concession. It is, instead, how we will win, both by being more able to learn about our enemies than they can about us, but also by recognising who our enemies aren't. This is perhaps slightly muddled by Ake working to ensure her students come out on top of a bullshit prank war with people they may depend on for their lives some day, but ending the war by filling dorm rooms with rare plant life that no-one can then harm is another one of those beats by which the show shows how fully it understands what it means to be Trek.

We'll end here on two more moments from the episode that I delighted in. One is Caleb's conversation with Tamira, in which she shoots down his attempts at amateur psychology about her decision to join the War College. This plays into the broader themes of the episode - Caleb isn't actually interested in hearing Tamira explain her reasons, he wants to prove he can intuit them for himself, which obviously goes wrong. You can't build models of people inside your own head and expect them to be reliable - that isn't empathy.

The other moment is Reyim's apology to Genesis, where he acknowledges the fact that just because the outside world isn't going to play fair, he still has a responsibility to play fair within the academy. This too is about empathy, but it's also about the commitment to build a better world. That process has to start somewhere, and if that isn't when you're learning the skills you'll need to change things, then when exactly can it possibly be? Watching this recognised here made me think of every one of the seemingly endless parade of pompous assholes who have told me over my academic career that my approach will make it harder for them to survive the "real world", It also made me remember why I am right.

Empathy is how we change the world, including and especially ourselves, for the better. It is not just how we win, it's how we make sure what we're fighting for is worth winning. I might not particularly dig the way "Vitus Reflux" goes about offering that message, but it's still one I'm delighted to see delivered.

We don't have to enjoy every lesson to know the importance of education. Class remains in session, and I remain very happy about that indeed.

Ordering

1. Kids These Days

2. Beta Test 3. Vitus Reflux