WHY WE LIKE IT: A love letter to Deep Space Nine.
WHY WE DON'T: I have the feeling, from online chatter, that a lot of people are discovering DS9 right now, and if they're watching this show, they're headed for massive spoilers.
REVIEW: A "Data's Day" for SAM is a fun little idea that shows us how she sees the world without outright making a statement about it. It LOOKS like it's just the production having fun with to-camera narration, "emoji"-like pop-ups, and imaginary comedy moments, but through the course of the episode, we start to recognize that this is how a photonic being, essentially a computer program living in a virtual space, but projecting herself into ours, sees the world. Her imagination looks as real, in her mind holodeck, as the real world. So it's a lot of fun, and as seems obvious from the get-go, any spotlight on this character is going to be a little goofy. But there are stakes, too. If SAM can't report everything there is to know about organics toot sweet, her "Makers" will recall her to the homeworld in disgrace and shut themselves off from the galaxy. In the Academy metaphor, they are parents who don't understand why you're taking non-"productive" electives (like music) and joining clubs that fit your interests. As a university graduate AND as someone who worked with or for students for most of his professional career, let me confirm that those extracuriculars are often way more important than the course work, so SAM is right to emancipate herself from her Makers and hang up on them at the end. My dad was a Maker, SAM. We reach.
These Makers want her to take the class on "Facing the Unexplainable", even though it's too late to join. To make up for time, she proposes to solve the mystery of what happened to Benjamin Sisko who, to Starfleet, is still listed as M.I.A. because they never rightly understood what happened after the Fire Caves (we know more than they do). The Sisko is now one of the Prophets worshipped on Bajor, but centuries on, he's more myth than fact. We're treading on dangerous ground here, as THIS DS9 fan wouldn't want his favorite show undermined by the episode in some way. It doesn't (beyond making me trepidatious), and instead makes several worthy points. One is probably what the class teaches (and I'd love a look at all those screens with the various "mysteries", see below), which is that FACING the unexplainable is not the same as EXPLAINING the unexplainable, and sometimes, Starfleet officers have to roll with it because they are living on the frontier of knowledge. The other main point is that Sisko's basic essence wasn't being the Emissary, but rather being a father, friend and community leader. Cirroc Lofton appears as an older Jake (hologram and mind palace hallucination) and (surprise!) Avery Brooks provides a bit of voice-over that also pushes the point. (Someone should update the family tree at the museum, though, because it omits the kid he had by Kasidy. I mean, so long as it's all about family.) And so we get to see Anslem (did I know it was the Bajoran word for "father"? No, I don't think I did), which was never officially published. And another old friend as well... Tawny Newsome (Mariner from Lower Decks) not only puts in an appearance as the class's Professor Illa, but co-wrote the episode! The character doesn't have the most fetching alien make-ups, but she obviously has Cardassian ancestry. I wondered who else was in her family tree, and certainly didn't expect it to be Trill. Because yes, she's Illa Dax (you'd think that would be in the Academy directory).
But be warned, other than the love letter to DS9 - which unfortunately spoils how the series ends for anyone who hasn't gotten there, as I know people are coming late to the show, its heavier serialization finally a feature rather than a bug, but boy, was I still happy to hear the DS9 theme at the end - it can get pretty silly. Darem's species vomits glitter. The scene where Caleb changes SAM's programming is kind of stupid, though the bit where she gets virtually drunk is a lot of fun. The weakest part of the episode by far is what they're doing with the adults, with Ake possibly trolling War College headmaster Commander Kelrec about his big meeting with the chancellor of similar aquatic species' college. I say "possible" because the traditions around the diplomatic dinner are extremely silly - preposterous, really - but you'd think Reno would be more into it if it WERE a prank. She's more confused about what's happening than Kelrec is. He feels like he was humiliated, and I think that WAS the point, it's just not as clear as we want it to be.
That said, the episode always ends up making a serious or profound point. Kelrec's problem with Ake - the elephant in the room - is that he believes she abandoned Starfleet in its hour of need, not just that she presents as an unserious mess who triggers his OCD. The Doctor, quite content to be comic relief, still has a serious reaction to loss, as everyone he was close to in previous series is long dead. SAM's choice of the theremin is an amazing one - a woman without an actual body playing an instrument that doesn't require touching, in a story about not being able to touch the unexplainable... Brilliant. Even the bar scene, where a drunk SAM is pushing her teammates to make connections (both Kraag and Caleb have War College flirtations) reflects the larger theme of the episode. She, too, must build a "bridge" between her people and the Federation... as EMISSARY.
LESSON: Love love.
WHAT'S ON THOSE SCREENS?: Somebody compiled the class curriculum on Memory Alpha, so here's a list of Starfleet's most enduring mysteries, other than Sisko's fate...
Origins of the Omega molecule
Psionic Effects of the Great Barrier
Deja Vu: Alternate Universe Theories
Immortal/Non-Corporeal Entities
Subspace Divergence Fields
Alternate Continuums
Multi-Species Accelerated Evolution
The Guardian of Forever
Katra stones
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: While entirely too silly at times, it's a lovely episode that understands what made the Siskos - and therefore DS9 - remarkable.
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