Star Trek: Starfleet Academy unleashed one of its best episodes of the season this week. Serving as a tribute to Deep Space Nine, episode 5, “Series Acclimation Mil," follows holographic student Sam as she sets out to discover what actually happened to Captain Benjamin Sisko.
For those who remember, Deep Space Nine left Sisko's fate unanswered, as he's pulled into the Celestial Temple by the Prophets. However, after the events in the Fire Caves, Starfleet officially lists him as Missing in Action, since his body was never recovered during the mission on Bajor. This serves as the crux of Starfleet Academy's latest episode, which according to executive producer Noga Landau is a love letter to Deep Space Nine and Avery Brooks, who played the beloved captain in the series.
Although Brooks doesn't actually make a physical appearance as Captain Benjamin Sikso in Starfleet Academy -- he retired from acting about 20 years ago -- the ending moments of the episode feature a beautiful voiceover cameo from the legendary character. At the conclusion of the episode, we hear the voice of Benjamin Sisko recite the following line:
Divine laws are simpler than human ones, which is why it takes a lifetime to be able to understand them. Only love can understand them. Only love can interpret these words as they were meant to be interpreted.
Before the credits role, the message "Thank you, Avery" appears. It's an incredibly moving moment that gives Deep Space Nine and Benjamin Sisko the honor and recognition they deserve. It also brings a bit of closure to Sisko's story.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, Avery Brooks did not actually return to record those lines for the series. It also wasn't a recreation of his voice using AI. Rather, the line is an excerpt pulled from Brooks' spoken word album, Here.
"That is a private recording that belonged to Mr. Brooks that he very graciously allowed us to use," explained series writer Tawny Newsome in an interview with Trek Movie. "And I still get chills thinking about how it came to be, because I was very anxious asking him for anything. Because this man has given so much of his artistry, his life and himself to this franchise. And I was very conscious of not wanting to ask him for another thing. But we needed some sign at the end that he had heard [SAM]. And he very graciously allowed us to have this. And then the full force of thanks to the studio, to Noga and Alex, Aaron Baiers, they all moved heaven and earth to make it happen. I couldn’t be more grateful."
"Tawny Newsome, who is one of the writers of the episode, along with Kirsten Beyer, is friends with Cirroc Lofton, who plays Jake Sisko," executive producer Noga Landau explained in another interview with TV Line. "We knew that we wanted to ask if Cirroc would come back to play Jake. He said yes. And Cirroc is very, very close with Avery still, of course, and we knew that what we wanted was to leave this love letter for Avery Brooks, to say thank you for what you did."
Landau continued, "Along the journey of the episode, we realized that Avery had these beautiful spoken word pieces that he had recorded, and we thought, 'Wouldn't it be amazing if we could put one in the episode?' Because the one that's in the episode in a really serendipitous way is exactly the message of the episode. And he was very, very generous, and he said yes."
So while Avery Brooks didn't come out of retirement for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, he did give his blessing to use his voice in the series.