Review: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, "Ko'Zeine" | Season 1, Episode 7

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, for good or ill, may be the most thematically consistent Trek there's ever been.

The show so far—from the pilot onward—has been about the necessity of individuating despite the pain that comes with it. Each member of our core group of cadets, save Genesis (at least, until "Ko'Zeine"), has gotten a focus episode about finding a place for themself in the galaxy that doesn't rely on the preconceived judgments or stereotypes of their parents ("Vitus Reflux"), their species ("Vox in Excelso"), or, in Sam's case, both at once ("Series Acclimation Mil"). Even Caleb, whose swashbuckling plot arc doesn't immediately read as a teen sorting through the vagaries of his identity, is trying to figure out who he can be when he no longer has to spend his life running away from problems.

"Ko'Zeine," like those prior episodes, is an argument for the necessity of teens finding their deepest selves on their own terms. Unlike those episodes, though, it focuses much more on the "despite the pain" side of the equation. Individuation is a necessity, and, especially when it's performed by hormonal young adults in a pressure cooker of a scholastic environment, it's bound to be messy in ways that are not immediately reparable. You are your choices, Starfleet Academy is intent on telling us, and that's beautiful; it also means that you are your mistakes.