This week’s episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is technically about SAM, aka Series Acclimation Mil, the holographic student at the Academy. But really — and spoilers past this point — it’s about Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), the hero of Deep Space Nine who became the Emissary of the Prophets and disappeared at the end of the series. So why isn’t Avery Brooks back as Sisko in the episode, despite the script for the hour clearly teeing that “surprise” appearance up nearly constantly? Or is he???
The answer is pretty simple, actually… Brooks retired from acting years ago. While he most famously portrayed Sisko from 1993-1999, after that point his output slowed down incredibly. He narrated Walking with Dinosaurs in 2000, appeared in a movie called 15 Minutes starring Ed Burns and Robert DeNiro in 2001, and the same year he narrated — and appeared in — a series of commercials for IBM.
But since then, there hasn’t been much when it comes to on-screen performances. He has appeared at conventions, and even William Shatner’s 2011 documentary The Captains, so there doesn’t seem to be any love lost between Brooks and Star Trek. But he’s concentrated on a lot of other projects since the early 2000s, including working pretty steadily in theater, teaching, and recording a well-regarded jazz album. He’s guested in other projects, and done some more narrating, but — without knowing him personally — Brooks seems content to live his life the way he wants to live it.
…Which is why it’s frankly so weird that Starfleet Academy spent an entire hour on this without securing Brooks’ surprise return to live-action TV acting as Sisko. That doesn’t mean Brooks doesn’t appear in some form, and there are some surprise Deep Space Nine cameos anyway. So let’s break it down a little further.
Here’s How “Series Acclimation Mill” On Starfleet Academy Tees Up, But Doesn’t Quite Deliver On The Return Of The Sisko
In the episode, SAM is trying to both fit in at the school and explore her own role as an emissary for her emergent holographic race. Which is why she becomes hyper-fixated on the mystery of Sisko’s disappearance, thinking if she solves it all, she’ll be accepted by her peers, and her holographic overlords.
On the latter front, she’s specifically been sent to Starfleet to figure out whether organics can be trusted by this new, holographic race; particularly since previously holograms were only used as servants. One would think they could ask The Doctor (Robert Picardo) about this? But I digress.
SAM gets assigned by the holograms to register in a class called “Confronting the Unexplainable,” which they think will help her understand the, well, unexplainable aspects of organics. That’s where SAM becomes enamored with one mystery in particular: “The Fate of Benjamin Sisko, Emissary of the Prophets.” The display she looks at asks two questions: “Did he die in the Fire Caves of Bajor?” or “Did he live on in the Celestial Temple?” It also, of note to this article, doesn’t show Avery Brooks’ face, because they’d have to pay him money for that.
She’s interrupted in her revery by Professor Illa played by episode co-writer Tawny Newsome, marking her second live-action appearance in the franchise after playing Ensign Mariner on Strange New Worlds. Anyway, Illa initially doesn’t want to let her into the class because the semester is almost over. But finally, the teacher relents and tells her if she can figure out what happened to Sisko, “You can teach the class.”
“And that’s when I decided, I’m going to find out what happened to Benjamin Sisko,” SAM announces, kicking us into opening credits. They don’t, by the way. Find out what happened to him, I mean.
Coming back, SAM gives the DL on Sisko to her friends looking through a children’s book that again, doesn’t ever show Sisko’s face. Then SAM tries a Bajor Club that also isn’t very helpful — and in fact, a little offensive, which puts her in front of the school chancellor, Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter). She helpfully lays out that it’s important for SAM to know herself before she knows others. And then Ake suggests that SAM could access the Sisko museum in New Orleans virtually, through the school.
Faster than you can say “let me see that Thong,” it’s off to the Sisko Museum, which features Sisko’s uniform, but no pictures of his face. Noticing a trend? Anyway, SAM tries to use an orb in the museum that might let her communicate with The Prophets, and therefore Sisko… But it’s not the real orb, it’s virtual. She also explores Sisko’s family tree, and here we get a thick underline beneath the idea that they couldn’t get the rights to use Avery Brooks’ likeness because she immediately presses the button for Jake Sisko… And guess who shows up?
Jake Sisko, And Actor Cirroc Lofton, Make A Surprise Return
By the way, before we get much further I do want to mention that the photo for younger Jake Sisko on the show is the same picture used on the “Jake Sisko” Wikipedia page, which is pretty wild given one would think Paramount+ would have access to literally any picture of Jake Sisko from Deep Space Nine. But I digress, again.
The hologram (see what they did there?) that shows up is Jake Sisko giving a Q&A about his father from 2408. That places Jake at 53 years old, while Lofton is currently 47, so not too far off. Anyway, he talks about how he didn’t know his dad as an Emissary, he know him as a guy who liked baseball, cooking… Driving home again that SAM needs to know herself as a person, not as an emissary for an entire race. He also talks about how Ben Sisko loved him, which allowed Jake to love his own kids the right way.
After that little cameo, SAM approaches Illa again, who is carrying a tomato and explains that Sisko used to love growing his own tomatos. “You are not going to solve this mystery with facts alone,” the teacher explains, and then she eats the tomato, raw, which sure is a red flag that not everything is right.
Anyway, I’m not going to beat by beat every moment of this episode, but the important part is that from making Creole food to getting drunk at a bar, SAM tries to explore what love is, and what being human is, in the classic Star Trek manner, in order to understand who Sisko was — and maybe still is. She even gets in a bar fight “just like Sisko.”
Then, in a weird little bit of continuity dump, SAM talks to The Doctor who never met Sisko because they were on different TV shows at the same time. He notes that his creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman (also Picardo) did meet Sisko, as that character was on Deep Space Nine. And The Doctor also mentions he became acquainted with Jake Sisko… Which I don’t think we’ve seen on TV, but feel free to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong. He also tells her the way of dealing with loss is to “get over it” which isn’t helpful but whatever.
SAM thinks she’s failed, but Illa wants to know what she learned. “It doesn’t matter if Sisko died,” SAM says. “Or if he died. All I know is he didn’t get to live the life that he wanted.”
Seems like SAM is talking about herself, not Sisko, and she thinks she’s “doomed.” But the teacher has one last twist: she has a copy of Anslem, the first novel written by Jake Sisko — which he wrote, but never published (though he printed it with a cover, mind you).
SAM reads the book, and once again Jake appears — this time in hologram form — narrating the words and chatting with SAM. Whether he’s real or not, the show doesn’t specify, but it is definitely SAM’s way of working through the fact that destiny isn’t bad, it’s just what you were born to do. Jake explains that Sisko “did what The Prophets want, but he did it his way… By staying true to himself.”
So yeah, this was about SAM’s journey — not Sisko’s. Right? Well, there’s another surprise in store…
Dax To the Future: Welcome To Starfleet Academy, Illa Dax
Illa approaches and asks if SAM found what she was looking for. SAM asks where she got the book, to which she explains she was asked to keep it safe, “and only share it with those who would understand how to use it.”
SAM then wonders how Illa knew Sisko grew tomatoes, to which she pulls back her hair to reveal Trill markings. And then SAM realizes that Illa isn’t a surname, the teach invites her to join her class next year, and you can find it in the course catalogue under her full name… Illa Dax.
Bum ba BUM! So yeah, Illa Dax is the current symbiont body for Dax, who is the latest host after Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) from Deep Space Nine, and presumably others since it’s been a few centuries. The Deep Space Nine theme briefly plays on the soundtrack, and Illa Dax tells SAM that “Benjamin would have liked you. He loved people who got into trouble for the right reasons.”
Okay, there are only four minutes left in the episode at this point, including credits. But we’ve gotten Jake Sisko, and Dax… We’ve got to get a Benjamin Sisko last-minute appearance, right? Right???
Avery Brooks Appears In Audio Form Only
SAM figures out what she needs to do is figure out who she is, and tells her hologram masters she’s going to work to succeed on her own terms. She also learns how to play the theremin. It’s arguable that SAM’s embrace of music is also a reference to Avery Brooks’ own embrace of music. But it’s also arguable this is yet another hint that Sisko will pop on by as the clock ticks on down.
“I can never really tell you how much you mean to me, but I honor you,” SAM says, directly to camera, as if she’s looking out on wherever Avery Brooks is watching and thanking him. “If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”
SAM leaves frame, and as we watch the sky over San Francisco, surprise, surprise, in comes Avery Brooks’ voice. “Divine laws are simpler than human ones, which is why it takes a lifetime to be able to understand them,” Brooks/Sisko says. “Only love can understand them. Only love can interpret these words as they were meant to be interpreted.”
And then we cut to black, with a simple, white text in the Star Trek font reading, “Thank you, Avery.”
In case you’re curious, according to co-showrunner Noga Landau, “with Avery’s very generous permission, we were able to use a piece of spoken-word poetry that he recorded himself.” She also clarifies that this is neither audio from Deep Space Nine, nor something new for the show. It’s merely some audio that Brooks gifted them.
…Which is nice and all, but it is somewhat mind-boggling that an entire hour of TV seems to be leading up to an appearance by Avery Brooks, when instead it’s a very well-intentioned “thank you” to him that ends with audio from his extensive collection of audio from the past few decades.
There’s an argument the producers of the show would probably make that “well, this episode is all about SAM’s journey.” But come on: they clearly tried to get Brooks to come back and it didn’t work. Instead, they got Jake, they got a form of Dax, and they ran with it. Ah, well. Maybe next season.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere Thursdays on Paramount+, at 3am ET / Midnight PT. The season will premiere with two episodes on January 15, followed by one new episode weekly until the season finale.
Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy with premiere dates.
- Thursday, January 15, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 1
- Thursday, January 15, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 2
- Thursday, January 22, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 3
- Thursday, January 29, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 4
- Thursday, February 5, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 5
- Thursday, February 12, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 6
- Thursday, February 19, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 7
- Thursday, February 26, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 8
- Thursday, March 5, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 9
- Thursday, March 12, 2026: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 1, Episode 10 *Season Finale*
Where To Watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
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