Starfleet Academy airs in January, and Star Trek fans are going to see where this Discovery spinoff takes their favorite franchise. In an interview, co-showrunner Noga Landau discussed how the series would give fans the exploration of strange new worlds they’ve come to expect by making the ship a teaching hospital where “cadets actually go out into space and learn on the job.”
If you’re excited about this premise, then you definitely owe it to yourself to watch Deep Space Nine’s “Valiant,” the first Trek episode to really focus on cadets in space.
Star Trek’s Most Famous Space Cadets
Jake and Nog after being rescued by the Valiant
The plot of “Valiant” begins with Jake (Cirroc Lofton) and Nog (Aron Eisenberg) being rescued from the Dominion by the Starfleet vessel Valiant. It was originally a training ship, but all of the command officers were killed in a particularly brutal attack. A group of elite students called Red Squadron is now running the ship, but it’s only a matter of time before these Starfleet Academy cadets run into more trouble than they can handle.
How does this work out for them? Spoilers, sweetie: the cadets remain fatally committed to their commanding officer’s final mission to gather intel on an advanced new Dominion ship. They succeed, but a charismatic cadet convinces them to try to destroy the ship, causing everyone aboard the Valiant (save Jake, Nog, and a single cadet) to be killed in the attempt.
Star Trek At Its Darkest
The cadet crew of the Valiant
Obviously, “Valiant” is one of those darker, more mature episodes that Deep Space Nine specialized in, and all because the cadets’ commanding officers are killed. On Starfleet Academy, the instructors will be very much alive, and we expect the cadets to survive (more or less) the entirety of their missions.
For Star Trek fans looking forward to the new show full of cosmic cadets’ misadventures, this classic Deep Space Nine episode is most definitely worth revisiting as something of a tasty television appetizer. That’s because the episode dramatizes something that would normally be very boring: learning.
The Defiant class ship Valiant is destroyed
For example, watching Red Squadron do things like study for finals or put together capstone projects would have been snooze-inducing (take it from me, an English professor!). Watching them learn on the fly while facing life and death situations in the depths of space, now, that’s downright riveting.
Star Trek’s Future Is Its Past
Valiant’s cadet captain
Without traveling to the future (Discovery-style), I have no way of knowing what, exactly, Starfleet Academy will be like. Given that co-showrunner Noga Landau promises it will have a “mission of the week” format, it sounds like the show’s premise is like what “Valiant” might have been if the command officers hadn’t gotten killed. That makes this Deep Space Nine episode worth rewatching for anyone wanting to preview the vibe of the new show or anyone simply wanting to revisit the golden age of Star Trek.
While it’s not the most talked-about episode of Deep Space Nine, “Valiant” encapsulates what that show did best: taking characters and audiences alike out of our comfort zones to explore tales of murky morality. Starfleet Academy will likely be a bit more lighthearted, but it promises to offer the same kinds of harrowing adventures of Starfleet cadets jumping from peril to peril. That means if you’re a fan who wants to really make the grade, be sure to do the homework and rewatch “Valiant” today.
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