Sort of. They tease that he lost his memories, but then they have him start humming to imply that he's regaining them.
Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x08 – “The Life of the Stars”
That's the one
I've generally avoided commenting in these review threads for a variety reasons, but the discourse about Our Town has pushed me to speak up: As someone who isn't familiar with the play that well (sorry, Greg, I've failed my own theater cred!), I found its use in this episode both poignant and vital to the story. I also don't think prior knowledge of the play was necessary to appreciate its inclusion. The episode provided enough context in the play's introduction in the story and then utilized the right dialogue to convey the themes the episode wanted to explore.
Last edited:
Darem was trying to start fights with random cadets passing by. The situation was clearly deteriorating beyond just poor teamwork and was starting to spill over and was in very clear danger of becoming violent. It does make a lot of sense to stop these situations from reaching those points while still in the early stages before someone does something they can't just apologise for.
To play devil's advocate just because it wasn't brought up doesn't mean it was never a fact. Consider the serialised nature of Discovery we only see a few weeks of their whole year while they're on one mission, it isn't like previous shows where we saw months and months of the characters' lives.
We don't know what quadrant Kasq is in.
I agree in parts, the Doctor loved many friends but the events of Real Life was his first experience of death outside of his medical profession and that could have left a psychological scar. I believe his attitude is a culmination of everything and not just because of the holo daughter but the scar left by that first loss during the formative years of his personality that he is cursed to remember as if it were yesterday is going to be powerful especially with SAM reminding him so strongly of those events.
I bet any money when Janeway, Seven and the others died it was devestating for him too and over time he swore off making close friendships. Though he does seem to be friends with Ake. He probably decided to never seek out romance despite a few attempts on VOY he was also pretty easily able to move on from the death of his adopted son on the tachyon planet.
It would have been nice to hear him discuss all the former friends he held dear but I think it can all be seen there.
It was the untimely and senseless nature of Belle's death that traumatized him so. A child killed because of a freak accident while playing a sport she loved. A far cry from an officer giving his life in the line of duty, as they're all prepared to do, or a friend living a long fulfilling life and dying of old age.
Yeah, in the US school system it was kind of inevitable you'd be confronted by it at some point.
Regarding Darem... from the pilot, he was shown to be a jerk and doing exactly what we saw now, so this is already an established trait, not anything new with him.
Regarding Tilly loving theater... I already mentioned a possibility: she got the theater bug after her time on Discovery. Still felt like it came from out of nowhere.
Refaeding Kasq... I thought I saw an image of the Kasq location as in the Delta Quadrant in one of the earlier SFA episodes. I could be mistaken. Either way, my point about the 32nd century stands.
As these things do.
I'm still watching but I really don't understand what's going on.
Tilly says there's "third years", which implies that the academy has been around for 2 years already? Somehow the students don't even know what class they're sitting in until the professor reveals it???
Also what does the War College actually do? It's like they don't do any science whatsoever, so it's just training a bunch of Klingons who shoot stuff and don't know how to do anything else? lol
Is there a Memory Alpha entry on what all the different coloured stripes mean? I noticed some of them just have silver and black stripes... which I guess is undeclared?
Tilly says there's "third years", which implies that the academy has been around for 2 years already? Somehow the students don't even know what class they're sitting in until the professor reveals it???
Also what does the War College actually do? It's like they don't do any science whatsoever, so it's just training a bunch of Klingons who shoot stuff and don't know how to do anything else? lol
Is there a Memory Alpha entry on what all the different coloured stripes mean? I noticed some of them just have silver and black stripes... which I guess is undeclared?
The people who complain about memberberries would have thrown a fit if they started showing Voyager and Prodigy images or name drops. They would also get the "so he didn't love anyone during the intervening centuries?" response. With keeping it to Belle, it made it easier to just have him remember his first true loss in his life and the rest can be inferred as it happened again and again. Would a throwaway line about "all those I've lost" worked? I think so, but they didn't go that way.
One interesting thing that comes from the episode display is that the Starfleet cadets are completely directionless and have no teamwork in the simulations and we’re meant to think that’s because of their trauma. Except, they were like this in Episode 3 because of the fact they had bad leadership from Darem and only Genesis stepped up. Now Genesis has been removed from all leadership roles due to her falsifying records and…now they’re screwed. I think Jet Reno assumes one of the others will step up but none of them are going to and Genesis is the only one who can.
Which is kind of anti-Trek.
She can’t rise above what she did.
Which is kind of anti-Trek.
She can’t rise above what she did.
The ones from the Discovery episode. This is only the first class in San Francisco.
Yet.
Which is a beautiful story in of itself
So is the pre-release PR where they talk about how this is the first class in a century basically not actually true? I feel like that's where I got the impression that the idea that Starfleet Academy itself didn't exist, but also I don't remember the Discovery episode now either.
I'd say it is probably the case yes. Advertising is lies, as fireproof78 might say.
What a polarized episode. Everything before Kasq is odd and slow, but everything on Kasq is amazing!
Did he never love anyone after that family episode though? Seven was later IIRC. But he might mean family and not romantic love. In the alternate (original?) timeline he got married though.
It's possible the part about not loving anyone still took a few centuries after Voyager. It was Sam in particular who reminded him of the daughter.
I feel like they really wanted it to be the grand opening for the purposes of this show, but have to live with what Discovery already established, so were forced to hedge with "first class back on Earth".
Another episode that really hit for me. I'm ashamed to admit I'm not familiar with Our Town, but the show gave enough context that it worked anyway. The emotional beats on this series have been really impactful for me so far. I still haven't given anything a 10 yet (I'm stingy with perfect scores, sorry) but I've surprised myself with the number of 9s I've given out (and that's the score for this one too).
Also, what the hell is with the ridiculous notion of the War College being separate from Starfleet Academy but sharing the same campus grounds? What even is the point of the War College not having their own facilities? And if the War College produced successful officers during the galactic dark age, then why don't they get more respect?
Similar threads
- Poll
- Poll
- Poll
- Poll
