Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1×09 review: “300th Night”

Caleb’s friends help him find someone he’s been looking for, but he’s not ready to accept his found family. “300th Night” sets up a dramatic season finale for Starfleet Academy.

Imagine this: You’ve lost your son at the tender age of six years old because an organization decided you have to go to jail. Your crime wasn’t really a crime, and it’s not even something you did personally. Choosing between starvation and a deal with the Devil, you chose the Devil. He’s the one who killed over it and you paid the price. Then you spent years (more than a decade) searching for your son, heartbroken, lonely, and bereft. When you finally find your baby again, he isn’t just a grown-up you can barely recognize; he’s joined the very organization that tore him from your arms.

When Caleb finally reunites with Anisha on a planet about to be annexed by the cruel Venari Ral, she discovers Caleb has become Starfleet. It must feel a lot like reuniting with a son after you escaped prison to find out he’s become a cop.

Anisha Mir isn’t happy. And who can blame her?

The only reason Caleb and Anisha get to reunite is thanks to SAM applying her new perspective to Caleb’s problem. She helps him find the messages Anisha has left her son the last two years.

This family bond between students has developed over their year of school. Our episode begins with Jay-Den bringing his friends together in the new House Kraag. It’s really sweet to see, since Jay-Den lost his family before coming to the Academy. He’s redefining what it means to have a found family.

With a chip on his shoulder the size of a space mine, Caleb doesn’t do the ritual to join them. There’s only one family member he wants.

That’s why he’s happy to break all the rules to find his mom on planet Ukeck, even when things are getting real dire with the approach of the Venari Ral. Nus Braka has created super-ultra-mines using some kind of particle that only makes Star Trek sense. What this means is that he can blow things up in a really big way. The Federation is closing ranks against attack.

Of course, Caleb’s friends won’t let him go alone. He ends up slipping away with SAM, Genesis, and Darem, and the moment they realize the others are gone, Tarima and Jay-Den alert the teachers.

Nahla Ake is quick to mount a rescue mission.

While Ake is running after her wayward students, the Venari Ral encloses Federation space in mines. Don’t think about this too hard from a physics perspective–the number of mines it would take to isolate one planet is ridiculous, but a whole Tholian Web-style enclosure of all Federation space is downright impossible.

All of Starfleet’s ships have gone to protect Betazed, aside from the Athena on its run to Ukeck. With only one vessel outside of the mine wall, only Nahla Ake and a crew mainly made of rebelling cadets can take any action against the Venari Ral.

And poor Anisha Mir is stuck with them now, too. What a nightmare.

It’s an excitingly dire set-up, and this means we’re likely to see Ake, Anisha, and Nus Braka facing off for the first time since Caleb was taken from his mother. There are a lot of potential fissures for a villain to exploit. Ake and Anisha are far from allies. Caleb’s still not sure about his loyalties, since he’s spent the entire episode trying to insult his friends enough to abandon him. And Ake has zero support from the rest of the Federation.

This is an action-packed episode bringing all the threads of the season to a close. While I’ve loved the lower-stakes episodes, it looks like season one of Starfleet Academy will be going out with a bang.

Author: SM Reine

Half-Tellarite SM Reine is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy. She’s been publishing since 2011 and a nerd since forever.

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