Even before “The Burn,” the Federation and Starfleet made lots of mistakes that caused even some of their most important allies to feel, well, burned. Few more alienated than Betazed. Largely sidelined in the franchise after Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Betazoids turn out to be among the Federation’s most important members. So convincing them to rejoin this grand enterprise is critical, and the entire future of the Federation now rests in the hands of Cadet Caleb Mir.
If “Kids These Days” functioned as an introduction to the world and most of the lead characters of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, “Beta Test” presents a better picture of what a more typical story looks like. As with Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy leans towards more episodic storytelling with some threads advancing across the season.
And in at least one way this is a stronger written outing overall with its more cohesive story. There is a single, clear conflict: convincing Betazoid President Sadal to sign up as a member of the newly reconstituted Federation. There’s also a central obstacle in the Betazoids having grown heavily isolationist to the point of putting up a wall to keep outsiders away.
Speaking of Betazoids, two major new characters join our cast, the son and daughter of the Betazoid president. Though interestingly, Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner), the more prominent of the two, chose not to matriculate at Starfleet Academy but instead enrolled at The War College, its next door neighbor.
I love this dynamic between one school promoting the Starfleet values we’ve come to know over the 60 years of the franchise and this other military academy representing an aspect of Starfleet that’s clearly also ever-present but rarely acknowledged.
Strange New Worlds only shallowly gestured towards a serious reckoning with Starfleet’s military side in the recent episode “What Is Starfleet?” but, as I said in my review, that episode collapsed due to a lack of nerve. Making The War College a major element on this show reopens the possibility of a sincere interrogation of this long-seeming contradiction at the heart of Starfleet.
As with the premiere, I found most of the fan service references not overly distracting with two exceptions. And shockingly neither is the apparent cameo by Star Trek: Prodigy‘s Rok-Tahk. Rather, my concern is with the amount of time the camera lingers on the “Boothby Memorial Park” sign.
I think we all expected a Boothby nod eventually, but I wish Director Alex Kurtzman had shown enough restraint to have had the camera just follow the frightened cadet running past it without stopping to gawk at the signage for several seconds. It’s too much of a wink at the audience when it should have been a blink-and-you-miss-it Easter egg like that Exocomp cadet casually floating in the background of a shot — a reference to The Next Generation episode “The Quality of Life.”
The other reference that bugged me, as it also did in Star Trek: Section 31, is the inclusion of Cheronians from the classic episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” My problem is not merely the violation of canon. Famously, the episode ended with the very last two members of the species destroying themselves. It’s easy enough in this fictional Sci-fi series to invent an in-universe justification for others living on another planet.
My issue is that their existence fundamentally undermines the core message of that story. Much has been said of the botched execution. The ending treats both Commissioner Bele and Lokai as equally unreasonable bigots determined to destroy the other even after there’s nothing left of their civilization despite establishing earlier Bele is a member of the oppressor class and Lokai is the last survivor among those Bele’s side had oppressed.
This unintentionally gives the ending a problematic bothsidesism. But the clear intended message by writers Gene L. Coon and Oliver Crawford was to warn the 1969 audience that if humanity fails to overcome racism and tribalism, we will destroy ourselves. Every time modern Trek resurrects this species it misses the point of that original story.
“Beta Test” introduces a potentially perilous romance between Caleb and Tarima Sadal, providing some of that soapy teen drama that will likely circle this spinoff, but the moments I loved were those that celebrated the importance of youth movements. In the real world, every young generation responds to their historical moment with activism, be it Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement, the Iraq War, or the Free Palestine Movement.
And the adults always dismiss these children’s voices. Captain Ake and Admiral Vance recognize the importance of students seeing that advocating for social change matters. The line “Children are our ambassadors to now” is perhaps a bit corny but it worked for me, as did the lines, “These children have seen and experienced things far beyond their years” and “Progress is the acceptance of identity, not the negation of it.”
Regarding the ending of “Beta Test,” I’m genuinely disappointed in myself for failing to spot the solution hiding in plain sight the whole time. That solution — moving The Federation’s Capitol from Paris on Earth to Betazed — may seem insignificant initially, but I suspect it will challenge some long-time fans.
Historically, Trek has often treated Starfleet, as well as Earth specifically, as almost a stand-in for the United States. The franchise’s writers often based much of the Earth mono-culture of the future on their own experiences, and most of those writers hailed from the U.S. or another Western nation, inadvertently centering a distinctly “American” culture.
So while moving the fictional seat of power of a fictional body in a TV show may seem like a minor plot development to some, I think this move will generate pushback from some fans in Western nations who will interpret it as having greater real world political implications. Demoting Earth as the center of Star Trek’s universe may be seen as an effort to diminish white Americentrism or Anglo-centrism.
The writers are making a statement by moving The Federation’s Capitol. I think the fans likely to take offense probably would have even been comfortable if the new Capitol was on Vulcan — or Ni’Var as it’s now called in the 32nd Century — due to Vulcan’s canonical significance as the second major founding member of the Federation.
Choosing Betazed, a world ignored by the franchise for decades, sends a message that our culture may no longer be the hegemonic one going forward. I find that prospect exciting, and I dare say it suggests we may finally be BOLDLY going where no Star Trek has gone before.
New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy release Thursdays on Paramount+.
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