Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x04 – “Vox in Excelso”

[Lord Garth]

I just watched "Vitus Reflux" and "Vox In Excelso". Finally.

Like I thought, "Vitus Reflux" didn't do it for me. It wasn't bad, but it was too kiddie for me, and I'm not the audience for it. Since I rate based on how much I enjoyed it, I give it a 5.

"Vox In Excelso", OTOH, while I don't like how Qo'noS has ended up, what they did with the premise -- once you put that aside -- was executed very well. And a great episode for Jay-Den's character. I give it a 10.

Less like "Vitus Reflux", more like "Vox In Excelso".

EDIT: Keeping "Vitus Reflux" at a 5 but changing "Vox in Excelso" to a 9. But what I said still stands.

 

[Uncle Sock]

Or maybe he's actually Jay-Den, son of Kraag, and the show somehow got it wrong. Or Starfleet has this weird policy that all cadets have to have surnames. Maybe Cadet Worf was Worf Rozhenko back in the day.

 

[Slugboy]

Or Starfleet has this weird policy that all cadets have to have surnames.

It's not even that weird, given that most Western countries on today's Earth require that immigrants have surnames, even if they never did in their countries of origin.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Rewatching the episode with my wife last night I found it actually dragged a little compared to my first viewing. I felt whenever characters started speechifying, it didn’t really land and just seemed like empty phrases. And I can’t figure out why they wrote the debate portions the way they did. I’ve been watching a lot of formal debates over the years, mostly between atheists and Christians, and they almost never just throw Bible verses at each other, like the cadets did here with case law, paragraphs and law texts. In my mind debates are much more interesting when people are making arguments for why a proposition is moral or more convincing. It’s not about who can memorize the most paragraphs. This had the effect of not really showing Caleb as the skilled debater he was supposed to be. And I also couldn’t really figure out how the Doctor decided who won each round. Just on a whim?

One small thing that I found interesting from a world building perspective that I haven’t seen anyone touch on yet is the cadet Caleb calls a conspiracy theorist. He says: “Everyone knows they lost Qo’noS because they blew it up themselves.” To which Caleb responds: “No one needs your embarrassing conspiracy theories. That Klingon incursion into Hectaron? The [makes air quotes] “enslavement”? Total fiction. Read a book, moron.” I have no idea what any of that means and the episode doesn’t really go into more detail, but I find it fascinating how even in the 32nd century there would still be stuff like that. Makes the universe feel that little more believable.

I think exploring the backstory of the relationship between Ake and Obel would be interesting. Sounds like they have quite the history going back a century. Maybe something for a future comic or a novel?

And on a more superficial level I found some of the design choices a little odd. Why was the Starfleet Academy recruitment thingy so damn bulky? Shouldn’t something like this have looked more appealing and less like an ancient hand grenade? And the other thing are Jay-Den’s boots, which now that I noticed how almost comically large they are, and how the sole is split in two pieces halfway through, I just can’t unsee.

Real debates involve watching the whole debate. TV show debates have to look fun and interesting with little snippets.

Discuss

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

It's really funny how Worf reset the view of all Klingons.

Michael Dorn was playing the first black Klingon, and I think it can be argued that they worked to de-racialize him to a certain extent, from giving him straight hair (which at times was even brown, rather than black) along with building up the bridge of his nose. We did see other black Klingons, like his brother and the Klingon lawyer from DS9, but these were in the distinct minority throughout the Berman era.

However, from the Kelvinverse onward, Klingons have primarily been played by black actors (with the exception of the first two seasons of Discovery, where they were mostly so made up that it didn't matter one way or another).

I never realised Michael Dorn was the first black actor to play a Klingon but I would imagine the reason in later Trek was overwhelmingly due to the fact that it felt a little bit too much like blackface.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I mean, it's perfectly possible that the destruction of the Klingon Empire during the Burn forced the remaining Klingons to have to interact with other polities who simply expected surnames, e.g. if a Klingon showed up at a refugee camp and the intake form had a required "Surname" field in it, they'd have to put something there. So why not the house name?

We actually see plenty of examples of this on today's Earth. Plenty of non-Western cultures don't have the same "surname" idea as the West. For example, many people from the Middle East have a chain of patronyms "John son of Wesley son of Brian son of . . ." and when they immigrate to the West, they will often pick the first one as a surname, "John Wesley".

Most Turkish people didn't even have surnames until a 1934 law required it, in order to help them engage with other parts of the world (for example, all passports have "Surname" fields, so if they wanted to travel, they would have to put something there).

Vito from Corleone comes to mind

 

[eschaton]

I never realised Michael Dorn was the first black actor to play a Klingon but I would imagine the reason in later Trek was overwhelmingly due to the fact that it felt a little bit too much like blackface.

I mean, the TOS Klingon makeup wasn't blackface, but it absolutely was meant as brownface/yellowface. The way that Kor and Kang were styled was meant to evoke vaguely Mongol stereotypes. Oddly, Koloth was just a dude with a goatee, but that episode used the Klingons quite differently.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

It's not even that weird, given that most Western countries on today's Earth require that immigrants have surnames, even if they never did in their countries of origin.

Or they are after the family name like the Japanese. The most famous WW2 Japanese admiral was Yamamoto Isoruku, for example.

 

[Rahul]

I assume you mean that actor because with the exception of Vixis they all clearly have brown skin.

Considering it's now considered verboten to put white people in any level of brownface, it's probably much easier to cast dark-skinned actors as Klingons.

Given modern Trek films in Toronto, I'm surprised we've not seen South Asian actors playing Klingons, though.

As long as the Klingons have lore accurate two dicks, I don't care much about the race of the actors.

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[fireproof78]

Or they are after the family name like the Japanese. The most famous WW2 Japanese admiral was Yamamoto Isoruku, for example.

Or Sun or Kim in Korea.

 

[Fateor]

As long as the Klingons have lore accurate two dicks, I don't care much about the race of the actors.

I'm pretty sure that idea is going to be quietly buried in a grave alongside the original Trill makeup design.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm pretty sure that idea is going to be quietly buried in a grave alongside the original Trill makeup design.

Canon violation

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm pretty sure that idea is going to be quietly buried in a grave alongside the original Trill makeup design.

They should totally bring back the Northern Trills for Academy,

 

[Set Harth]

AAUGH the spoiler tags next time pleeeze!!1! I haven’t seen the episode where they reveal that! That’s a litrrally insane twist!

then i have bad news about shakespeare...

 

[Misuka]

Best episode so far, 7/10.
What I disliked was the debate tournament. It’s not fair for a single person to decide the winner; even if they try to be impartial, the Doctor’s own opinion impacts who he chooses as the winner of the clash. Another issue is that he doesn't let them actually debate—they say a total of three sentences and he already determines who won? That’s not enough to determine anything.
Another major problem is the destruction of Qo'noS. Unfortunately, yet another planet has fallen victim to Kurtzman's habit of destroying planets just to serve as a subplot. It’s very annoying and, at this point, shows a lack of creativity.

 

[Stam22]

I spotted that, but I think we're at the point where Trek is so insanely, ridiculously big now that not every director or actor is going to know the pronunciation of every weird alien name.

Not like Shatner's Or-eee-ons

I was going to bring that up in my earlier post but didn't, at the risk of sounding too "get off my lawn". But yes, SAM's pronunciation of Khitomer made me scream at the TV while my wife, again, looked at me with abject pity.

 

[cooleddie74]

Noticed that, too. But then in the very first one or two episodes where it's ever mentioned Worf pronounces it "Khito-MARRRR." Trek wavers on this.

 

[Lord Garth]

Another major problem is the destruction of Qo'noS. Unfortunately, yet another planet has fallen victim to Kurtzman's habit of destroying planets just to serve as a subplot. It’s very annoying and, at this point, shows a lack of creativity.

That and what Qo'noS managed to avoid between TUC and TNG ended up happening anyway! Just centuries later. I liked the story they told with Jay-Den, so I'm willing to look past it for the purposes of this episode, but I'm not too thrilled with what happened to Qo'noS in general.

I do think Qo'noS should've been in a different situation in the 32nd Century than, say, the 24th. They could only be the Federation's unstable ally for so long. But I would've preferred something besides this.

It's like: Romulus gone. Qo'noS uninhabitable. Cardassia was decimated for a while. Moral of the story: don't be an enemy of the Federation!

And yes, before someone responds (don't know who, but it would be someone if I don't nip this in the bud right away), I know that none of those were the Federation's fault!

 

[Firebird]

Now I'm cool with this... but that's one of those things that, if they're gonna do it, they gotta explain it.

Do they?

How does Klingons using surnames now affect the episode's plot? Does that revelation forward the story at all? Does it make or break the action beats in the episode?

 

[CT_Phipps]

Best episode so far, 7/10.
What I disliked was the debate tournament. It’s not fair for a single person to decide the winner; even if they try to be impartial, the Doctor’s own opinion impacts who he chooses as the winner of the clash. Another issue is that he doesn't let them actually debate—they say a total of three sentences and he already determines who won? That’s not enough to determine anything.
Another major problem is the destruction of Qo'noS. Unfortunately, yet another planet has fallen victim to Kurtzman's habit of destroying planets just to serve as a subplot. It’s very annoying and, at this point, shows a lack of creativity.

I believe the debates were just a montage.