Good morning, cadets, and welcome to Office Hours! This is a series by your favorite Starfleet Academy TAs, Anaum Hussain of Sirens, Singers, and Mirages and Sinéad McDevitt of My Fair Neadie!
Office Hours will be recapping and reviewing each episode of Starfleet Academy! This is on Episode 2 “Beta Test.” If you want to see Episode 1, click here!
Lecture Notes
“Beta Test” starts off with Caleb Mir and the rest of the main characters getting their roommates and starting their new classes. Caleb and Darem Raymi are assigned to be roommates— which annoys them both, as they get along like oil and water.
Darem and Caleb trying to get reassigned to different rooms. (Source: Paramount+)
Meanwhile, Nahla Ake and the crew are getting ready for talks with the Betazoids. They’re attempting to reintegrate them with the Federation after The Burn, where Betazed decided to live behind a barrier that no one in the galaxy could get through. Peace talks are beginning after the president’s children rally the youth delegation to activism.
Caleb goes through his first day of classes and it goes… poorly, to put it mildly. He gets into arguments with Darem, gets called out in the middle of class, and this whole thing is interrupting his search for his mother. He tries to break out, but is stopped by a girl who seems to be able to read his emotions.
This girl turns out to be the daughter of Betazed’s president— Tarima Sadal.
The lovely daughter of Betazed’s president! (Source: Paramount+)
The negotiations begin, and President Sadal demands that if he were to rejoin the Federation, there would be battleships at the ready at all times and that they’d get an exclusive veto on new members of the Federation.
Afterwards, Caleb takes Tarima on a tour of the Academy and shows her the ropes. He takes her to a classroom, and he tells her that he needs to find a specific planet. Goja V, where his mother might be. However, it’s not on any Federation star charts. Tarima gives him access to Betazed’s star charts, and that’s where he finds it.
Sci-fi special effects! (Source: Paramount+)
Negotiations begin to break down after that, and Tarima gets upset at the possibility of being unable to rejoin the Federation and live outside the barrier she’s been under her whole life. Caleb takes her to an aquarium in the academy where Tarima gets to fulfill a dream of hers, to see a whale.
Tarima tells Caleb her dream of living outside the barrier, and that she feels pressured to be perfect for Betazed. They nearly kiss, but are interrupted by President Sadal and Nahla. President Sadal considers this deeply disrespectful.
Humpback Whales! Just like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home! (Source: Paramount+)
Tarima and Caleb speak again the next morning, while The Doctor regales us all with his brilliant voice. Tarima reveals that she has a disorder that causes her empathic powers to go into overdrive, and that it could hurt people if she doesn’t wear a suppressant. Caleb reveals that the reason he wants information about Goja V is because his mother might be there, and Tarima gets upset because she thinks that Caleb might be using her. Negotiations break down inside, and the Betazoid delegation makes immediate plans to leave.
Nahla and Caleb speak the next morning, and they both realize the perfect idea— open and honest communication. Caleb stops Tarima from leaving and explains his whole past, about how the Federation tore him away from his mother, and says that he understands her anger. He convinces Tarima to get her father to talk one more time, and Nahla gives the strongest, most symbolic concession she can. The new Federation headquarters will be on Betazed.
President Sadal takes this and agrees to reunify Betazed with the Federation, and Tarima and her elder brother join Starfleet Academy.
Discussion
Overall, I think “Beta Test” is a better episode than “Kids These Days.” It brings some of the spirit of classic Trek back, despite being held back by the overly-edgy Discovery and Picard. I liked it a lot, and the romantic subplot between Tarima and Caleb was cute.
Plus, any time Robert Picardo gets to sing, it’s absolutely brilliant.
Robert Picardo asked me to watch the show after he signed this, haha.
The diplomatic subplot is exceptional, though. Giving the Betazoids the capital of the Federation is an extremely sweet gesture, and it feels like something straight out of a classic Star Trek episode, and the Caleb and Darem roommates subplot is absolutely hilarious.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect episode. There are a few unanswered questions, like why the Betazoids are using sign language between each other when telepathic races have been shown many times to just speak to each other… well, telepathically! Now I’m not saying that sign language is bad, it’s great that they got a deaf actor, but if you’re watching this show without the context of The Next Generation you’re not going to know that Betazoids are fully telepathic and not just empathic, and if you are you’re going to be confused why they’re not acting like Lwaxana Troi invading Deanna’s head every twenty minutes!
“Mother, we’re among non-telepaths! It’s rude to not speak aloud!” “And talk with my mouth full?! Deanna, please!” (Source: Paramount+)
Star Trek has handled disability very well before in episodes like Deep Space Nine’s “Melora” and The Next Generation’s “The Masterpiece Society,” so it’s not that they can’t mesh sci-fi and disability extremely well, it’s just that they didn’t even try this time around.
Bashir and Melora (Source: Paramount+)
And quite a few major flaws as well, like how the rest of the cast seemed to entirely fade into the background when Tarima showed up. Sam, Genesis, Jay-den, and Darem barely showed up at all in the episode, even after Darem and Caleb had such intense roommate drama! It seemed like they were going to have something… more, but the plot is entirely dropped after Tarima shows up. Same thing with the new classes plot, nothing happened after Tarima showed up.
And speaking of the Tarima and Caleb side plot, it’s… strange, sometimes. When Tarima and Caleb argue, it seems like Tarima is being unreasonable even though you’re meant to sympathize with her. Caleb is apparently weird for not wanting to share how he was ripped from his mother’s arms by the Federation… five minutes after he met someone? And Tarima is apparently upset about the fact that he didn’t tell her that he was looking for someone when earlier in the episode he told her about the planet he was looking for? The writing is quite… inconsistent in a way that makes why exactly Tarima is upset very unclear. Especially since she’s a Betazoid, shouldn’t she be able to tell what Caleb is thinking? Earlier in the episode she clocked his emotions easily, so the fact that she suddenly thinks he’s using her is… strange.
Every Star Trek has growing pains, of course. The Next Generation’s first season is so bad compared to the rest of the series that the term for something that gets significantly better after a slow start is the “Riker’s Beard” effect. So I still have high hopes for Starfleet Academy— and I hope they’ll be able to meet them.
Episode 3 will be on My Fair Neadie! Go check it out next week!