We speak with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5 co-writer Tawny Newsome and returning Star Trek: Deep Space Nine star Cirroc Lofton on honoring Captain Sisko and Avery Brooks in this week’s Starfleet Academy.
Spoilers for the ending of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine follow
In its varied cast of characters, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s Series Acclimation Mi (SAM) (Kerrice Brooks) uniquely stands out. The first Kasqian to attend the academy, SAM is not corporeal, but a holographic being only weeks old, sent by her makers to learn more about the Federation and Starfleet, while programming her as an audaciously curious 17 year old. As such, SAM is one of the most lively characters on the show, despite being technically inorganic.
In this week’s episode centering her as the protagonist, her curiosity leads her to do an in depth project on the acclaimed captain, of the U.S.S. Defiant, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), and what exactly happened to him when he stepped into the dimension of the Prophets. Assisting her is an holographic entity of Sisko’s son Jake Sisko, played by his original actor Cirroc Lofton in a triumphant return to the Star Trek franchise. While for whatever reason Avery Brooks was unable to return to the episode, it was still very welcome to see Cirroc back in his DS9 role.
Tawny Newsome, who previously starred on Star Trek: Lower Decks, debuts as a co-writer of this episode with acclaimed Star Trek scribe Kirsten Beyer. In anticipation of SAM’s featured episode of the same name this week, we spoke with Cirroc and Tawny on the significance of Jake’s return, how they aimed to honor Captain Sisko’s legacy, particularly in the context of the episode’s debut on Black History Month, what it was like writing for and working with Kerrice Brooks, and much more. You can find our written interview below the following image.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
NOC: Thanks so much for speaking with The Nerds of Color today. Cirroc, I have to ask you first, just, how’s it feel to be back playing Jake Sisko after all this time?
Cirroc: Wow, it’s amazing. I’ve been sitting on this for a while. I’ve been excited, but you can’t talk about it all this time, so I’m finally able to share it my excitement with everybody. I felt a huge responsibility to make it this right to bring back Jake in a way that was believable, and also to honor Mr. Brooks in a way that was acceptable to him.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you both did that. Everyone did that in this episode to such a great degree. So Tawny, congratulations on co-writing this episode, and I just want to ask you about how you went about writing SAM. Because SAM is technically an artificial life form, if not artificial intelligence, but she has such a zest for learning and experiencing the world, she’s basically alive. What were you excited about writing for her and what surprised you in the writing process?
Tawny: Yeah, I think Kirsten and I both really loved getting to make her the focal point of this story, because to have someone so wide eyed and such a sponge for new things is such a great place to also bring an audience along on, kind of trying to solve this mystery of what happened to Sisko. I also really love that SAM, differently from our other non organic characters like Data, she says in the pilot, “I was programmed to feel 17.” So she has been programmed with a set of predetermined ideas about what it must be like to be a teenager. And she’s a combination of a little bit of a blank slate, but also with some programming about being wide eyed and about being a sponge. So that was really exciting to then lay on all this incredible canon, to have her take the story forward and figure out what happened next. I think it was really a perfect marriage of what’s great about SAM and what we love about the Sisko legacy.
Yeah, definitely. And on Kerrice, both of you had scenes with her, and Cirroc I’d first like to ask you, what was it like acting alongside her, and how did that process evoke your time on DS9?
Cirroc: Well, acting alongside Kerrice Brooks was just a joy. She is phenomenally talented. I was just blown away by her performance. When you when you act with a great actor, you end up watching them as you’re in the scene with them, because they’re just captivating. That’s the skill and talent that she has. She’s funny, witty, smart, emotional, so deeply, she’s just an amazing person. And so yeah, that was just I was I was more worried about myself being able to keep up with her than anything else. So that was the first part. But I think that Tawny really did a phenomenal job in this script writing, because it felt real, it felt natural. It felt like a path of self discovery. It intertwined the new and the old and so Tawny is also somebody that I am completely impressed by, with her ability to master comedy, comedy, drama, writing, acting, she does it all, and I am so impressed by her. So this is also a reflection of her amalgamation of all of these things that she grew up watching, that she’s now part of, and have her voice in the writers room. And so I think she has a huge credit to why this even came about and exists at all.
Tawny: Thank you. I mean, I had so much help. I have to share the love with Kirsten Beyer, who is such an incredible partner. She’s written more Star Trek in her life than most of us have even watched. And I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in this.
That’s truly incredible to have a writing partner like that.
Tawny: Truly it was like a master class.
A question for the both of you building talking about legacy. So how did each of you aim to honor Captain Sisko and Avery Brooks’ legacy? Particularly within the context that this episode is coming out the first week of Black History Month?
Tawny: We love that timing. First of all, I’ll keep mine brief, because I think you should hear from Cirroc on this. But for me, it is not hard to honor the legacy of someone who told us and continues to tell us how we should be thinking about him, Mr. Brooks. Everyone knows the story of Mr. Brooks asking the showrunners to add that line into the finale of Deep Space Nine where he said that he would come back for his family. Okay, that tells us as future writers, we have to assert that he did indeed come back, and we should have Jake himself say it, and the legacy that he leaves behind is one of love and one of just incredible sacrifice for his family and for the franchise, and in a meta way, that’s the same legacy that the character’s legacy is the same as Mr. Brooks’ legacy. So it, it was kind of just connecting all of those dots for me. So yeah, simple.
Cirroc: Well, I feel Avery Brooks is a legend in the world, and by that, I mean the work that he’s done has been impactful. It has resonated and has touched the lives of millions of people, and he has been doing that for decades, and I felt like, and I still feel like, he doesn’t get enough credit for the impact that he has made in television and what he means to the culture, specifically for Black people, he was a strong Black leading male on television who was intelligent, articulate, held his ground, and was also sensitive and caring, and so he had all of these elements, and I believe that the idea of Captain Sisko almost paved the way for us to have somebody like Barack Obama as President, when we see somebody that we are comfortable with in a position of leadership, then it allows us to imagine that it’s possible. And I felt like this is an opportunity to pay homage to Mr. Brooks for his legendary performances on screen for the way he’s carried himself with exceptional dignity, for the class, for the education, all of the things that he brings to the table as a human being and as a father and a husband and as a son. So I think that this was an opportunity for me to say, look over here. This is one of the greatest of all time in my book, The greatest captain on Star Trek, but certainly one of the greatest captains. And so that’s how I felt about it. This was an opportunity to say, “I love you too.”
So beautifully put. I like to end all my Star Trek interviews with this question, Tawny, I’ve asked you this before, but I’ll ask you again, what does Star Trek mean to you?
Cirroc: Star Trek, to me, means a place where we can go, let our imagination be free, accept each other for who we are, where an even playing field of different people of different races, different backgrounds, getting together to problem solve, to explore, to experience, to love, to have friendships and to live life together in a peaceful, cohabitating way, and so I think that’s what it means to me. It’s the idea of a better future, of a better tomorrow, and one in which we embrace our differences instead of judge each other for them.
Tawny: Yeah, everything Cirroc said, and the most important aspect of it to me is that it is a future that, in Star Trek, humans chose. It’s not some meteor didn’t hit Earth, and suddenly everybody became post capitalism, post racism. Humans chose it, and they got there through raising their voice. They got there through political protest. They got there through uprising against fascist regimes. That’s a choice that the people of Earth made in that universe, and so that is a choice that we can make in ours too.
Incredibly well said from you both. Thank you both.
Series Acclimation Mil will be streaming this Thursday on Paramount+
