It’s fair to say that Star Trek‘s new show – Starfleet Academy – has been something of a rollercoaster. Some episodes, like the excellent Episode 6 (“Come, Let’s Away”) have been some of the best of the Alex Kurtzman era, while we’ve also seen some odd storytelling decisions, tonal swings, and a strange lack of synergy that has made the writers’ room feel like disparate writing pods at times. But you cannot argue that the show cares about its past, with some of the nostalgia rather unfairly labelled as nostalgia-bait. I maintain that the Sisko episode was great, and very emotional, and now the latest episode has followed that trend with another callback-heavy story. Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Starfleet Academy episode 8.
The episode, whose main plot saw Robert Picardo’s EMH, Ake (Holly Hunter), and SAM (Kerrice Brooks) travelling to the latter’s home planet to try and resolve the glitching that’s been afflicting her since she was shot by a Fury in the attack on the Miyazaki. When SAM is deactivated, the Doctor volunteers to be her father, spending 17 years on her planet (around 2 weeks in normal time thanks to the helpfully different flow of time) to give her a childhood and a real sense of what it is to exist. And in The Doctor’s choice to take on SAM as his daughter, Star Trek finally reveals the most important name he’ll ever have
Over the course of Voyager‘s 7 seasons, the Doctor actually went by 8 different names, most often “Doc,” to the ship’s crew, of course. But there were others that were temporarily used:
After all of those near-misses, Starfleet Academy‘s latest episode revealed The Doctor’s real name in the best way possible. He’s now “Dad.” That might sound like the kind of airy-fairy Nu-Trek melodrama lots of people complain about, but it not only pays off The Doctor’s journey through multiple names, it also ends the tragedy of his existence. As he says when Ake challenges him to take SAM on, “the only thing that allows me to bear my infinity is not having to love anyone.”
In effect, The Doctor reveals why he never bonded enough with any other characters who might give him a name (as they did at times during the Voyager era): he couldn’t deal with losing anyone else. The episode also reveals that the death of his holographic daughter, Belle, in excellent Voyager episode “Real Life,” caused so much trauma that it endured for 800 years and informed how he built all of his relationships. Or didn’t, more accurately.
The Doctor becoming “Dad” is the perfect payoff of “Real Life,” where he was given a real name as a mark of his real life. It also goes some way to undoing the injustice of the lost future timeline of “Endgame,” when The Doctor’s happy ending also came with a name. It seems that for Robert Picardo’s character, a name that comes hand in hand with relationships is the true answer to the mystery of his identity. And now, through SAM, he has that perfect resolution.
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