School’s out, and our cadets are celebrating the completion of their freshman year at Starfleet Academy. They travel to Betazed to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet for the historic dedication of the new era of the Betazoid homeworld becoming the official Capitol of the Federation. But the party’s over when Caleb locates his mother and Admiral Vance determines an imminent plot by Nus Braka that threatens to destabilize the Federation permanently.
“300th Night” is a mixed bag of an episode that sets up interesting conflicts for the season finale in what’s effectively the first part of a two-part story. Here, we get the cadets’ version of that time-honored Trek tradition of the “Hero Goes Rogue” trope, where our crew leaves their uniforms at home while journeying into a seedy underworld on a personal mission.
Although Star Trek always shared some DNA with the Western — The Original Series was even famously pitched as a “Wagon Train to the Stars” — there’s long been a certain self-awareness by the writers that its heroes were uniformed defenders of an establishment, not cool antiheroes representing rugged individualism. The very premise was a utopian future where humanity already solved our biggest problems. So our lead frontiersmen are lawmen not seeking fortune, employment opportunities, or really anything at all but exploration for its own sake.
Eventually, every Trek crew gets an adventure or a dozen where they disobey orders from “the man,” trade in their uniforms for drab, poverty chic wardrobes and try to capture a little of that Star Wars cantina, “hive of scum and villainy” vibe. Writer Kirsten Beyer understands the assignment but didn’t do anything particularly engaging with it. It’s these very sequences down in the underworld of Ukeck where the episode suffers most because it doesn’t bring anything new or interesting.
It all feels so familiar like I’ve seen it a million times. I was actually most reminded of the second episode of the very recent Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, where its even younger, in-over-their-heads crew also found themselves in a den of pirates, thieves, mercenaries, and scoundrels. We’ve just seen this done too many times to do it again without finding some new spin.
I never found Caleb Mir’s search for his mommy particularly compelling as a central story thread, and as hard as the talented Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black, She-Hulk) works, it’s hard to build a great character out of such a flimsy foundation while given so little to work with here. But where the episode succeeds is in the character dynamics among the cadets because, despite the shortness of the season, the writers wisely invested in developing those relationships.
And while it does seem quite premature for Jay-Den to invite his friends to a sacred ritual joining of House Kraag, it also reminds us how young he is. By the end of freshmen year of college, you do think you’ve found your tribe and that your friend group will be there forever. Of course, Caleb, the loner, is reluctant to take part. He continues to not be a joiner. And Tarima Sadal was absent altogether from the ritual.
It’s also not the only time Tarima doesn’t show up. After the new and improved SAM helps Caleb locate his mother and immediately volunteers to pilot the shuttle Caleb intends to steal, their friends start trickling in one by one in what initially seems like a comedic bit as first Genesis appears and then Darem. But when Jay-Den and Tarima don’t show up next, the joke ends too soon to properly land. It would have been a great opportunity for a callback where Jay-Den enters the cockpit repeating what he told Caleb in the pilot episode: “A warrior does not let a friend face danger alone.”
And the camera lingered for a moment on Tarima in the earlier Turbolift scene after Caleb exits, showing Tarima sensed he was planning something. It could have been a nice further demonstration of both their telepathic and romantic connection if she then showed up on the shuttle too because she sensed what he was up to and worried that something could happen to him. I’m not sure why Beyer chose to leave Jay-Den and Tarima out until they later stowaway on the Athena other than perhaps not knowing what to do with more characters on Ukeck.
It’s similarly a bit of a bummer that my favorite faculty member, Lura Thok, stayed behind this week while Chancellor Ake, Jett Reno, and the Doctor go after the kids on the Athena. Of course there is a big ticking clock. Ukeck, where Caleb finds his mother, is outside of Federation space and just days away from being invaded by the Venari Ral. The very reason Caleb chose not to tell Ake he found his mother and stole a shuttle in the first place was because he overheard Admiral Vance tell Ake no Starfleet vessel would be allowed outside of Federation space until they’ve ended the Venari Ral threat.
“300th Night” is a mostly satisfying setup to what will hopefully be a strong season finale. It’s not without it’s flaws. It should be more thrilling to watch these kids navigate Ukeck’s “hive of scum and villainy,” but it all feels a bit too formulaic with nobody doing anything particularly novel or engaging. And so far, Caleb’s mother, Anisha Mir, feels like a waste of Tatiana Maslany’s abilities.
This episode was directed by franchise veteran and Commander William Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes, who delivers solid work here. The episode ultimately sticks the landing by setting up great story potential for the finale with Ake and Anisha Mir — Caleb’s two mother figures — brought together, an emergency ship separation, and a ring of Omega-47 Mines surrounding Federation territory, completely cutting Athena off from the rest of the fleet, now all alone.
New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy release Thursdays on Paramount+.
