First broadcast 29 January 2026.

“Vox in Excelso”, written by Gaia Violo and Eric Anthony Glover and directed by Doug Aarniokoski, is probably the best episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy to date. It also highlights some big problems the series is likely to have going forward, and any course correction to fix them should probably happen sooner rather than later.

Klingon cadet Jay-Den (still a farcical name) learns that his parents have gone missing, and while he stresses over their fate a debating class makes him confront his fear of conflict. For those not entirely familiar with the set-up of Starfleet Academy, the galaxy is still recovering from a massive stellar disaster known as “the burn”. In this episode we learn that the Klingons – certainly Star Trek‘s most famous aliens – not only saw their home world destroyed but are now in effect an endangered species. The Federation continue to offer their assistance, but the proud Klingons continue to refuse even a whiff of charity.

It is a fantastic set-up to explore Jay-Den’s character, with a combination of back story, flashbacks, and various conversations throughout the episode. It presents a crisis for him in that he is not just facing the possibility of being an orphan, but of his entire race becoming functionally extinct. It also provides good opportunities to develop both Caleb (Sandro Rosta) and Thok (Gina Yashere) via their interactions with Jay-Den (Karim Diané), particularly for the latter – who gets to express her Klingon identity despite her mixed race.

The episode ably demonstrates how Starfleet Academy can work, by taking a large-scale crisis and playing out its emotional stakes in a small and personal way. It would be farcical for the Federation’s key strategic actions to constantly play out at a flight academy, after all. Of course, and here’s the hub, this episode’s crisis directly plays out at the academy anyway.

The episode’s back half throws away much of the appeal of the first, by making Captain Ake and Jay-Den directly involved in a scheme to gift the Klingons a new home world on the edge of Federation space. The result is terribly rushed, and it throws away an enormous number of potential storylines in the process. It also beggars belief, so soon after Ake’s direct role in tempting Betazed back into the Federation, that the chancellor of a school would again be negotiating key policy. While the series has made it clear that Starfleet is deeply diminished in the 32nd century, by the way Starfleet Academy is going one could assume the entire fleet consists of about two starships. There is also a problem with believability: Ake and Jay-Den’s solution only actually works if one assumes the Klingon people are universally credulous to the point of stupidity.

When this episode works, it sings, and it shows off the best potential of the series going ahead. When the episode fails, it fails hard. It seems likely that one half will further encourage fans to like the show, and the other will provide more ammunition for viewers that hate it.