TL;DR – While I am not normally a fan of bait-and-switch episodes, if you are going to pull it off, it helps when you have Holly Hunter, Paul Giamatti & Oded Fehr lighting up the screen. 

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that airs this series.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Come, Let’s Away Review –

Ooo, this is an odd episode, in that it is tonally very different from anything else the show has done, and look, it goes places. Places I was not expecting this early in the series. However, as big swings go, you’d better have a cast ready to pull it off, and thankfully, it looks like Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has that.

So, to set the scene, after spending all season in several stages of flirtation, Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) and Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner) have finally taken their relationship to the next level. But things hit a rock when Tarima’s accident captures something in Caleb’s mind, and he sees into his past. The USS Athena is on a joint mission between Starfleet Academy and the War College on the wreck of the USS Miyazaki. But when The Furies intercept the cadets and take them hostage, Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) might have to make a deal with a devil to get the cadets back. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Bait-and-Switch

I have to admit that I rolled my eyes a bit at the start of the episode when we got introduced to a whirlwind romance that was almost saccharine, though that just might be my elderly crabbiness showing through. Then there was the mission where crews from the Starfleet Academy and the War College had to work together, and at that point, I charted out how the episode was going to run from start to finish. It was at that point that the episode grabbed the rug I was standing on and ripped it out under my feet in such a violent manner that it felt almost personal.

I generally don’t like bait-and-switch style episodes because they generally feel that the writers didn’t have the full commitment to the idea they wanted to present, so they use the surprise of a dramatic tone change to smother over some of the cracks. However, here I did not get that feeling, but the central premise of the episode, “you need to be prepared for anything”, is still the message we get. The switch up is that it is the adults who must learn that lesson the hardest, thus the bait-and-switch is not the tone, but who is learning the lesson. Though did the Furies give anyone else the same vibes as the Drakh from Babylon 5?       

Holly Hunter, Paul Giamatti & Oded Fehr, Oh My

To be honest, I get some of the reluctance that people have for this series because teenage drama can be so trite at times. Indeed, some of those warnings manifested themselves quite clearly in episodes such as Beta Test, where all the conflict feels forced in a way that is just not entertaining. However, you could see with Vox in Excelso & Series Acclimation Mil that the writers were cooking with something, and this episode shows that they are willing and able to go to some dark places if needs be, like dead cadets dark.

However, I don’t understand dismissing a show outright [just remember that TNG and DS9, etc., also had rough first seasons] when you get to see actors like Holly Hunter, Paul Giamatti & Oded Fehr riffing off each other with pure delight. Paul Giamatti is playing one of the most unhinged characters in Star Trek, and he is delighting in every, single, moment. That joy is infectious to watch, even though he is rubbing the death of a child in a mother’s face. You have Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti verbally sparring like it is an MMA octagon, and you are just going to dismiss that.

Narrative

I will say that I loved the blow-by-blow moments of the episode more than the overarching narrative that was holding it together. There are a lot of questions that you could ask, such as, why did they make such a big deal about the plasma shields if they were useless throughout the episode, or what was the point of luring the USS Sargasso when they could clearly dispatch it easily? However, this is an episode that is better than the sum of its parts, letting those emotional beats shine because the actors are so committed to them. It also worked because there were real consequences at the end of the episode rather than it being just a puff piece.

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Come, Let’s Away? Yes, we do. It does feel like this was a fulcrum episode of the season and that things will now turn as we head towards the end. But time will tell if I am right on that or not. Have you watched Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Come, Let’s Away? Let us know what you thought of the new series in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Directed by – Larry Teng
Written by –Kenneth Lin & Kiley Rossetter
Created by – Gaia Violo
Based On – Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – Secret Hideout, Warm Blood Sunday, Roddenberry Entertainment, CBS Studios & Paramount+
Starring – Holly Hunter, Sandro Rosta, Karim Diané, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepard, Zoë Steiner, Oded Fehr, Gina Yashere, Brit Marling, Stephen Colbert, & Robert Picardo
With – Paul Giamatti, Raoul Bhaneja, Romeo Carere, Alexander Eling, & Dale Whibley
And –Raffa Virago, Jeff Taravainen, Stephen Adekolu, & Stephanie Komure