First broadcast 5 February 2026.

I have sat on writing this review for longer than usual, because “Series Acclimation Mil” is easily – for good or bad – the most interesting episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streamed to date. It is worth writing about, and well before that simply thinking about, because I think its merits shift based on one’s perspective. It is a different episode for different viewers, based not so much on the episode’s quality – which is by-and-large excellent – but on each viewer’s depth of Star Trek  experience, and their individual preferences for the kind of Star Trek episode they like. It has also led me to question when continuity-heavy hours like this should kick in for a new drama.

This fifth episode of Starfleet Academy finally gives some back story and focus for fresher cadet Sam, short for Series Acclimation Mil: a ‘photonic’ (read ‘holographic’) artificial intelligence sent by her digital civilization to observe biological species and report back on whether or not it is safe to interact with them. She has already been an interesting character for Starfleet Academy, and basing an entire episode from her perspective is a fantastic creative choice. This episode is vibrant, knowingly silly, consistently funny, and really goes a long way to cement Starfleet Academy‘s own house style and identity. Kerrice Brooks has been doing a marvellous job with the role to date, and does her best work to date here.

Sam is ordered by her masters to enrol in a class about “solving the unsolvable” in order to better understand organic species, and this leads her to the apparent mystery regarding long-vanished Starfleet Captain Benjamin Sisko. She learns that Sisko was Emissary to the Prophets (read ‘gods’) of the planet Bajor, and as she is expected to became an emissary of sorts from photonics to organics Sam sees a connection between them. She sets out to solve the mystery of what happened to Sisko, and in doing so opens Starfleet Academy up to an hour-long love letter to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (of which Sisko, played by Avery Brooks, was the protagonist).

It is an impeccably expressed and perceptive love letter as well, pinpointing immediately the emotional centre of that series (Sisko’s relationship with his son Jake; still honestly one of the best representations of family in the history of American television, and I do not type that lightly) and treating it with enormous affection and respect. Writers Tawny Newsome and Kirsten Beyer have threaded a difficult needle with this episode, and deserve enormous praise for it. Newsome also appears on screen here, as Cardassian instructor Illa – and I hope we get some follow-up on that character in future episodes.

It is also good to know that Avery Brooks, who does not appear in an episode dedicated to his character, was consulted and gave his blessing to this episode being produced.

The Deep Space Nine focus is a slightly contentious choice. Starfleet Academy is only five episodes old. This episode provides our first solid experience with Sam, and the character is forced to share it with a series that hasn’t been on the screen in almost 30 years. How many of Starfleet Academy‘s viewers have even seen Deep Space Nine? How does the inclusion of this tribute help a series that was envisaged and developed as a jumping-on point for a new generation of viewers? Even the link between Sam and Sisko feels tenuous: she claims they are both emissaries, but that really feels like claiming two individuals are linked because they’re both doctors – only one is an MD and another is a comparative literature academic.

This episode combines great comedy – and let’s admit it, in Star Trek great comedy episodes are rare – with insightful drama, but it inevitably feels like too much deep cut continuity too soon. It took three years for Star Trek: The Next Generation to base an episode around the original series (“Sarek”). Five weeks just feels premature.

“Series Acclimation Mil” is a wonderful episode, but it is also ill-advised.