News The X-Files The Lone Gunmen Creators Explain the Show’s Cancellation and the Characters’ Controversial Deaths Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz talk about regrets, bad timing, and The Lone Gunmen’s bizarre 9/11 connections By Matthew Byrd | Published on March 5, 2026 Photo: 20th Century Fox Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: 20th Century Fox In an extensive interview with the Television Academy, The Lone Gunmen co-creators Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz discussed the short-lived X-Files spin-off that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. And while many fans know that the show’s low ratings ultimately contributed to its demise, the pair explain that the situation was dire even before the final numbers came in. “We knew we were in trouble fairly early on,” Spotnitz recalls. “We were really trying to persuade the studio to spend money to support the show. We did get them to spend money on newspaper ads for the last few episodes to try and help the ratings, but to no avail. They were as supportive of the show as they could be, actually.” Unfortunately, those efforts weren’t enough to combat a series of factors that hastened the series’ downfall. “I also think, looking back on it, it was season eight of The X-Files — we had already hit our peak, and we were already on the way down in terms of the mania for The X-Files,” Spotnitz suggests. “If we had done it in season four or five [during The X-Files‘ run], we might have had a different reception. 9/11, in my view, really killed The X-Files. The mood of the country was no longer government conspiracy and all that.” Partially attributing the show’s downfall to 9/11 may seem dramatic, but The Lone Gunmen always had a bizarre relationship to that event. Its pilot episode (released in March 2001) involved a conspiracy to fly a commercial plane into the World Trade Center. That is a hell of a coincidence, to say the least, and the frightening timing of that plotline was not lost on The Lone Gunmen team. “It was my very first thought when I saw what happened that morning,” Spotnitz explains. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God, did they watch our show? Did they get this idea from us?’” Of course, the details behind the planning of the attack eventually showed that The Lone Gunmen series had nothing to do with it. And while Gilligan agrees that the cultural shakeups caused by 9/11 contributed to the show’s downfall in some ways, he attributes its sudden downfall more to bad timing in general. “Another big part of it was Friday night versus Sunday. That used to mean something,” Gilligan explains. “Timing is another word for luck, as far as I’m concerned. I always say if Breaking Bad had been six months earlier, or six months later, it wouldn’t have lasted more than a season. And if Lone Gunmen had been a year earlier, it could have been a big hit.” As Gilligan alludes to, The Lone Gunmen debuted on a Sunday night to huge ratings before being moved to a Friday night timeslot. Along with the confusion that shift caused, the pair soon realized that Friday night was going to be a death spot for almost any series. But The Lone Gunmen themselves weren’t quite done yet. They were actually brought back in a season nine X-Files episode called “Jump the Shark.” The Lone Gunmen were killed off in that episode, which some attributed to Fox’s hatred of the characters and their desire to be rid of them. However, Spotnitz says there was more to that animosity than people realize. “There’s a story I’ve never told, but I feel like I can tell it now that it’s been 25 years and Fox has been sold to Disney,” Spotnitz says regarding the death of The Lone Gunmen. “The deal that [The Lone Gunmen actors] Tom and Dean and Bruce made — Fox screwed up. They paid them way more money than they meant to pay them… Fox did not want to bring them back. They really tried to stop us; they were so mad. In their mind, they’d overpaid them for The Lone Gunmen. They were absolutely against it. And we just said, ‘We’re doing it, so you’ll have nothing to broadcast if we force their hand.'” And while the pair got to say goodbye to The Lone Gunmen (minus some hallucinogen-fuelled appearances in the X-Files revival), the nature of the character’s deaths (they sacrifice themselves to contain a virus) was certainly a more shocking conclusion than some had anticipated given their usually lighter and more comedic nature. Even Gilligan has wrestled with whether they made the right decision. “For years, that was not my favorite moment,” Gilligan says. “But, it was a very dramatic ending, for sure. They got to be heroes.” Spotnitz, meanwhile, believes that they made a specific mistake that he wishes they could take back. “I do regret that that episode didn’t end with a laugh — it just ends with sadness,” Spotnitz reveals. “That was a mistake. If you’re going to do that, then you’ve got to bring back the joy that the characters represented, and we didn’t.” Still, Gilligan hopes that if the time wasn’t right for The Lone Gunmen back then that people will still find a way to watch the show now. “We were lucky to get 13 [episodes]. Nowadays, it’d be six,” Gilligan says. “I just couldn’t be more proud of it. It’s just timely 25 years later… I’d love for people to [read] this and say, ‘What show are they talking about?’ And then look it up online and buy it. We put out DVDs.” [end-mark] ” The post <i>The Lone Gunmen</i> Creators Explain the Show’s Cancellation and the Characters’ Controversial Deaths appeared first on Reactor.

News The Exorcist Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist Casts Some Familiar Faces If you’ve seen Flanagan’s other work, you’ll recognize these names… as well as John Leguizamo’s By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on March 5, 2026 Screenshot: Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Warner Bros. It looks like Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist is moving full steam ahead. We got a slew of casting news over the last 48 hours, additional names to go with those who’ve already been announced. We already knew that Scarlett Johansson, Jacobi Jupe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Laurence Fishburne, and Diane Lane are starring in the film. And we also found out yesterday that John Leguizamo has joined the cast and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “may be playing an antagonist.” Today, we also found out (via Deadline) that eleven actors we’ve seen in Flanagan’s previous works will also be on the call sheet. Flanagan likes the actors he likes, which is why you might have noticed familiar faces in each of his works, including The Haunting of Hill House, The Fall of the House of Usher, Life of Chuck, and Midnight Mass. The names that go with those faces are: Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Gil Bellows, Carl Lumbly, Robert Longstreet, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, Kate Siegel, John Gallagher Jr., Benjamin Pajak, and Carla Gugino. We don’t know who any of these actors are playing. Indeed, the only character information we have is that Johansson is playing a mother and Jupe is her child. We also don’t know anything about the plot of the film, although it will shoot in New York City and will follow timeline established by the original 1973 film (pictured above). When we’ll know more is uncertain, although we’ll be able to see the entire film for ourselves when Flanagan’s The Exorcist premieres in theaters on March 12, 2027. [end-mark] The post Mike Flanagan’s <i>The Exorcist</i> Casts Some Familiar Faces appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Epic Fantasy Read an Excerpt From Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence Set a thief to catch a thief. Set a monster to punish monsters. By Mark Lawrence | Published on March 5, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Daughter of Crows, the first book in a new epic fantasy series by Mark Lawrence, publishing with Ace on March 24th. The Academy of Kindness exists to create agents of retribution, cast in the image of the Furies—known as the kindly ones—against whom even the gods hesitate to stand. Each year a hundred girls are sold to the Academy. Ten years later only three will emerge.The Academy’s halls run with blood. The few that survive its decade-long nightmare have been forged on the sands of the Wound Garden. They have learned ancient secrets amid the necrotic fumes of the Bone Garden. They leave its gates as avatars of vengeance, bound to uphold the oldest of laws.Only the most desperate would sell their child to the Kindnesses. But Rue … she sold herself. And now, a lifetime later, a long and bloody lifetime later, just as she has discovered peace, war has been brought to an old woman’s doorstep.That was a mistake. Rue had been born screaming at the world with an anger that took sixty years to fade. Even then her new neighbours had known that though she might look like them, she carried something else within her. Hard as nails, they said. A mean streak. Something in the way she looks at you. Had they known how deep that difference ran, they would have quietly left their homes in the night and never come back. She had told them a name that was true, though it had been so long since she had used it that it had felt like a lie. The crow that had been following her since the grave landed close by. “Stop following me, bird.” Rue wouldn’t normally waste words on a crow, but she needed distraction from her pain. “If I was going to die, I’d have done it back there.” Her head ached as if what had struck her had been an axe and the blade was still buried in the back of her skull. “Fuck off!” “I can’t.” The bird’s croak sounded like words to Rue’s scrambled brains. Rue stopped walking and finally reached back to examine the damage. Clearly the blow had fractured her thinking. “Whoresons!” The oath escaped her through clenched teeth, but questing fingers had found no obvious fracture, just the tar-like adhesion of old blood in matted hair. She turned on unsteady feet to examine the crow, now watching her from a rock five yards back along her trail. She had not expected a reply. Even on a day when she’d hauled herself from an open grave, this was still the strangest thing to have happened. “Don’t test me, bird.” She eyed the ground for a suitable stone, though the thought of bending to pick one up made her teeth grind against the anticipated pain. Every part of her hurt, and the sole advantage to the agony in her head was that it at least shut out the rest of her body’s complaints—for the most part. “Test you? That’s not what I’m here to do.” The crow’s croaking was at once a human voice and also just a bird’s chatter. Rue took it as more confirmation that the blow that had put her down, deep enough to be taken for dead, had rearranged her mind. “Madness” was the word that suggested itself. With a groan, she bent and scooped up a stone from the side of the track. “I can’t stop following you!” Panic in the croaking now. The voice was somehow familiar. More madness. Rue raised her arm to throw. “She told me I had to!” “She?” Rue knew better than to feed a delusion. But there had been a she. Somewhere in the depths from which Rue had hauled herself, a climb that began long before she could raise her head and contemplate escaping the grave, there had been a woman. A woman of uncertain age. Of uncertain everything. But the climb had begun with her touch. With the pressure of her bony foot between Rue’s shoulder blades, perhaps a great enough pressure to squeeze out a reluctant beat from a still heart. “She. You know. Her!” The crow hopped nervously from foot to foot, eyeing the stone in Rue’s hand. Rue did not know, but another thought possessed her. “You sound like Senna Weaver.” The bird said nothing. “I don’t like Senna Weaver.” The bird shifted its feet. The only good thing about getting attacked was seeing that old cunt take an arrow in the—” The crow launched itself at Rue in an explosion of feathers. She caught it around the neck, its beak two inches from her eye. “I’m slow, but not that slow.” Rue snarled the words while tightening her grip on the fragile neck. “Wait! Don’t!” Everyone croaks when they’re choking, but a crow double-croaks. Rue squeezed a touch harder, then with an oath threw the bird away. It landed poorly and stared up at her, eyes black beads of malice. “Killing you would be a waste of a good joke. Stay a crow.” She turned her back. “I hope you like worms, Senna.” “Why didn’t you kill me when I was a person?” the crow cawed after her. “She said you’d killed more people than the cholera.” “I’m not a killer,” Rue muttered. The path before her wound around a rise where thorn bushes and stunted trees huddled together, toughing out the wind. On the far side, sheltered by the ridge, the village waited for her. Her small house, her narrow bed, the peace that had become her normal far faster than she had ever expected it to. “I’m not a killer.” Buy the Book Daughter of Crows Mark Lawrence Buy Book Daughter of Crows Mark Lawrence Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Everyone said you were. Everyone said back in the day they called you—” “The only person who said that was you, Senna Weaver. Stirring up trouble for me from the day I arrived. Starting rumours. You took against me—” Rue clamped her jaw shut to keep back the loose thoughts spilling from her rattled skull. She might not want to be a killer, but to say that she wasn’t didn’t make it so. She had to be again the thing she had once been, the one who wore this name. The Rue who succeeded in part because of skill, in part because of venom, but truly because she was part of that rare fraternity of individuals grouped only by a single characteristic. Namely that they were, for some gods-touched reason, hard to kill. That where others would fall or freeze or be overtaken by the horror of violence and adversity, Rue’s kind evened the odds by stabbing someone in the throat. Rue was the sort that somehow washed ashore when everyone else from captain to cabin boy drowned. The kind found limping from the bloodiest quarter of the battlefield. The kind that crawled from the grave spitting earth and ready for vengeance. She’d said more to this crow along a dusty mile of road than the old Rue would have said to any person in the course of a typical week. If death had kept her this time, Rue thought, it would have been an ignominious end, sucker punched from behind. Her time might be coming soon, but she planned to put on a show more in keeping with her reputation. Certainly, she intended to take a lot more people down with her when death came knocking again. Another wave of pain flooded her head. Rue snarled and bared her teeth, challenging any more sentimentality to try its luck. “You shouldn’t go back,” the bird croaked. “The sell-swords will have burned it all.” “No smoke.” Rue nodded to the pale sky above the trees’ reaching arms. “Don’t you want to warn your friends, Senna? Your boy? His young ’uns? That niece of yours?” Senna had been quick enough to warn everyone when Rue came to settle in the village. The stranger wasn’t to be trusted. She was dangerous. A witch perhaps. Children had started to avoid Rue in the main street within days of her arrival. Senna made no reply. A talking crow wouldn’t last long in Pye. Senna would have been the one to cast the first stone too. In a place where the young men had chased off a stranger for “wearing foreign clothes,” anything bearing even a hint of magic about it was treated with deep suspicion. Even the worthless healing charms they purchased at the grey markets were worn beneath their clothes, too shameful for the light to see. On the long slow climb to the ridge, recent memories returned, images surfacing in Rue’s mind every few paces: a horseman black against the sky as if seen from hoof height, Maddy Spinner’s face twisted by terror, the pounding of Rue’s heart becoming the gallop of mercenaries charging from the field. Rue paused at the halfway point, shaking her head to rid it of the pictures. “Shit…” The shaking was ill-advised. She put her hands to her temples and squeezed, trying to contain the hurt. “Bad?” The crow could have been asking about the pain, or the memories, or both. “Seen worse.” And Rue had seen worse. Worse than a band of hired blades cutting down peasants on their way back from market. But not for many years. Years spent trying to forget, trying to divert herself with the scratching of a living from unforgiving soil, raising goats, haggling for grain, all the dull, hard business of normal lives that can be lived without others having to die to make room for you. Rue stopped again just shy of the ridge and whatever scene would be revealed to her on the far side. “Why are you a crow?” Her head still ached as if ten devils were trapped in her skull and wanted out in a hurry, her wits still felt loose and apt to spill from her if she made a sudden move, but she wasn’t mad, she wasn’t barking-at-the-moon mad, and this bird was Senna Weaver… which made no sense at all. “I don’t know.” The crow fluttered to the branch of a nearby tree where the buds were still green fists clenched against the last breath of winter. The bird managed to look guilty. “You do know.” “I think…” The crow pecked reflexively at some unseen thing. “I think she sent it. This crow. And… I…” A shivering of black feathers. “It picked me.” “Picked at you, more like.” Nothing drew carrion crows faster than a heap of corpses. “It was… I was…” Another convulsion and the bird took off, aimed at the sky. “An eye. I was eating—” The distance devoured the words, but Rue had heard enough. The crow had eaten Senna Weaver’s eye and now it was Senna Weaver. That made no more sense than before, save now at least there was a reason for the connection, for the choice. Rue walked on. She had been stupid, and she had been weak. How could she have fallen so easily? By rights she should be dead, still with the others rotting in the sun. Age: she blamed age. It had stolen all her sharp edges and paid her with aches, with grey hair, wrinkles, and confusion. Fifty yards brought Rue to the ridge top from where Pye could be seen nestled in the bend of the river that wound its way down the shallow valley. The Rill—little more than a stream—and Aaron’s Vale. It had been “a” river and “a” valley when she’d arrived ten years ago. Now they had names and characters. Characters she liked more than many of those she shared the village with. Even so, she had time for some of the inhabitants. Or at least the woman they’d tossed into the grave had. That old woman had had friends. Rue felt herself to have become something different now. Something both new and old. She had undergone a thing most unexpected in a person of her advancing years: change. That other woman, the one she’d been, had had time for the children too, of course, even if they feared her. Children always eased her soul and tightened her heart, their chatter more soothing than the river’s, but so much more vulnerable. The chimneys in the valley below still smoked, but the thatch did not. She could see no fresh graves. Even so, there were a dozen horses in Steffan’s field that had no business being there. Overhead the crow circled, cawing alarms. “I didn’t want any of this.” Rue squeezed her head once more, never taking her eyes from the seeming peace of the village. “I’m just an old woman. I only wanted to sit and stare at the fire until…” She lowered her hands and made fists. A very long time ago a young girl had been taught three important lessons. She had been taught not to care. She had been taught not to get angry. And she had been taught how to kill. With a soft curse, Rue discovered that she had forgotten the first two lessons. Excerpted from Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence Copyright © 2026 by Mark Lawrence. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Daughter of Crows</i> by Mark Lawrence appeared first on Reactor.

News The Wild Robot The Wild Robot Sequel Moving Ahead With Nimona‘s Troy Quane Set to Co-Direct The movie will be based on Peter Brown’s second book in the series, The Wild Robot Escapes By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on March 5, 2026 Credit: DreamWorks Animation Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: DreamWorks Animation It’s not a big surprise that DreamWorks Animation has greenlit a sequel to their adaptation of Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot. The 2024 film did well with critics and also at the box office, and no doubt made many a parent cry. According to TheWrap, the upcoming movie will have a new director, with Nimona alum Troy Quane taking over for Chris Sanders. Quane will co-direct with Heidi Jo Gilbert, who worked as head of story on the first feature. And even though Sanders isn’t the director, he’ll still be involved; the writer-director will pen the script for the second film. Sanders is also slated to pen and possibly direct the live-action sequel to Lilo & Stitch, which may be part of the reason why he’s not directing The Wild Robot sequel. That sequel is based on Peter Brown’s second book in the series, The Wild Robot Escapes. The book’s story centers on Roz and Brightbill trying to escape a dairy farm and return to their island. I haven’t read it, but if it’s anything like The Wild Robot, it will probably make you cry (complimentary). No news on when The Wild Robot Escapes will premiere in theaters. Given the time it takes for animated features to complete production, however, odds are good it will be a couple of years. [end-mark] The post <i>The Wild Robot</i> Sequel Moving Ahead With <i>Nimona</i>‘s Troy Quane Set to Co-Direct appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Star Trek: Starfleet Academy R’uustai — Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s “300th Night” By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on March 5, 2026 Credit: Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Paramount+ This episode of Starfleet Academy (and the next one, as this one ends on a cliffhanger leading to next week’s season finale) is exactly the kind of episode I didn’t want to see in a show about the Academy, so imagine my surprise to have completely and unreservedly loved the episode all to pieces. Kudos to scripter (and, full disclosure, friend of your humble reviewer) Kirsten Beyer and director Jonathan Frakes for pulling it off. Of course, it shouldn’t be a surprise that these two were primarily responsible for creating such a good episode. Frakes has starred as William Riker in six different Trek series and prior to this had directed anywhere between two and eight episodes of six different Trek series over the course of the past 35 years. Before becoming a producer/writer on each of the live-action Trek series that have been produced since 2017 (as well as the Khan audio drama), Beyer was a veteran Trek novelist, with eleven Trek novels to her credit. The episode has major consequences for the thirty-second-century Federation, and puts our cadets at the heart of having to save everyone’s life—which, on the face of it, is ridiculous. But dammit if “300th Night” doesn’t make it work, because it builds very skillfully on what’s already been established about the characters in general and about Caleb and Ake in particular. The title comes from it being the end of the semester, the 300th day of classes, and that night is a time of celebration. (The commentary from Stephen Colbert’s digital dean is particularly hilarious.) In addition, the Athena, along with a mess of other ships, is en route to Betazed for the installation of the seat of the Federation government on that world. One of the celebrations that night is Jay-Den making R’uustai with SAM, Genesis, Darem, and Caleb. (But not Kyle, which is a choice that stands out, and not in a good way.) The R’uustai was established in the TNG episode “The Bonding,” which was the inaugural Trek script by the great Ronald D. Moore. It’s a Klingon ritual by which you bring someone into your family who is not part of it by blood. Jay-Den sees his Academy classmates as his found family, and wants to formalize that. Everyone participates—though SAM can’t actually drink the chech’tluth (a Klingon drink that was established in TNG’s “Up the Long Ladder”)—except for Caleb, who gets up and leaves the room when the check’tluth is passed on to him. Caleb flashes on his mother before he gets up and leaves the room, and it’s obvious he views becoming part of Jay-Den’s family as a betrayal of the only family he has left: his mother, whom he still hasn’t found. This is followed by an absolutely magnificent scene between Caleb and SAM. Kerrice Brooks beautifully plays SAM 2.0, as she’s the same person but also completely different. Now that she’s had a childhood added to her history, she finds herself being annoyed by her old self. She and Caleb discuss the situation with his mother, and how he’s tried every possible encryption to find any messages she might have put out there for him. It takes SAM, with her freshly installed childhood and perfect recall of everything, to remind him that the last time his mother saw him, he was six years old. A precocious six-year-old, but nonetheless, a wee tot. The encryption key might be something simple that would occur to a six-year-old. So he tries using the moon that they agreed would be “their” moon back in the opening scene of “Kids These Days,” and sure enough, it works—and there are a ton of messages from Anisha Mir going back two years. The good news is, she’s currently on the planet Ukeck. The bad news is that that planet is about to be taken over by the Venari Ral. The worse news comes from Vance: they now know what Nus Braka was after when he raided the starbase in “Come, Let’s Away”: the Omega-47, a weapon that harnesses the omega particle. Established in Voyager’s “The Omega Directive,” omega particles can do damage to both regular space and subspace, making warp drive impossible. (Obviously the Omega Directive that forbids any research into the omega particle—and obligates Starfleet to prevent any research into it—is no longer in effect, which is fine, as that was a particularly stupid regulation.) The Venari Ral have detonated an Omega-47 in an uninhabited star system to show that they have it. The Federation’s response is to circle the proverbial wagons, sending all their ships to protect various Federation worlds. (There’s an amusing bit where Ake and Kelrec are looking at the tactical situation, and Kelrec is momentarily confused as to why there are ships in the Eridani system, as he forgot that Ni’Var is part of the Federation now. It’s a nice touch, showing how fast the Federation is expanding and rebuilding after the Burn ended. For her part, the centuries-old Ake is still struggling to remember that Ni’Var isn’t called Vulcan anymore.) Upon learning of this, Caleb reverses course, as it were. Ukeck is outside the Federation, obviously, and it’s now very dangerous for anyone to venture outside the Federation, especially to a world the Venari Ral has targeted. If he tells Ake that he’s found Anisha on Ukeck, she’ll be duty-bound to report it—or she’ll not report it to help him, and either way, he won’t put her in that position. So he steals a shuttle. Because that’s what Star Trek characters do. SAM forces herself aboard, pointing out that she’s the only one who can do the calculations fast enough to get past security. (Nice to finally see the writer of a Trek episode acknowledge that it should be difficult to steal a shuttle…) Genesis and Darem discover what they’re doing because they’ve been tasked with making sure the shuttles are locked down. (Darem is still drunk from the chech’tluth. Khionians don’t have the enzyme to break down alcohol. When Genesis mentions that they also don’t have the enzyme to break down bananas, Darem shouts, “We don’t have a lot of enzymes!” I have to admit to laughing my ass off at that, as George Hawkins delivers it perfectly.) Caleb and SAM wind up pretty much kidnapping Genesis and Darem for their journey to Ukeck, which Genesis is not happy about, but by the time they arrive—and Darem sobers up—they’re on board with reuniting Caleb with Anisha, because they know that’s what he wants more than anything. Back on Athena, Jay-Den sees the padd that has all of Caleb’s messages from Anisha, and he and Tarima—who is still psychically linked to Caleb and knows something’s up—quickly figure out what happened and report to Ake. I love what happens next because we know from the prior eight episodes that Ake takes her caretaking of Caleb very seriously. Showing an impressive knowledge of what franchise he’s in, Vance knows damn well that if he orders Ake to stay put, she won’t, so he doesn’t give her that order. Lura has offloaded the cadets to Betazed, and the only ones still on board are Ake, Reno, and the EMH. The three of them take Athena to Ukeck to effect a rescue. Well, actually, five of them, because Jay-Den and Tarima stow away on board, because of course they do. Meantime, Caleb’s group have mixed success in their mission. The good news is that Caleb does find his mother. The reunion scene is magnificently played by the always-brilliant Tatiana Maslany and director Frakes. Both Anisha and Caleb are wearing masks over the bottoms of their faces, as well as hoods. So we only see Anisha’s eyes, but that’s more than enough for Maslany to show Anisha going from anger at the person she thinks is stalking her to the slow realization that this is her son—all with just her eyes. Maslany proved on Orphan Black that she is one of the best actors in the history of humanity, and scenes like this serve as additional reminders. At Caleb’s silent urging, the other cadets don’t identify themselves as Starfleet to Anisha. After she leaves to set up transit for her and Caleb, the other cadets call Caleb on his behavior—they thought he’d be reunited, but then come back to the Academy. Because Caleb is a complete asshole, he doesn’t just say that he’s leaving with his mother, he decides to say incredibly mean things to both Darem and Genesis. He is about to say something mean to SAM as well, but she doesn’t give him a chance, as she hugs him fiercely before he can say anything. Which is so very SAM. Unfortunately, the Venari Ral were able to detect their transport down, and so the cadets are captured. To their credit, the cadets resist interrogation, despite the fact that Darem is repeatedly punched in the face. Darem’s response is to just smile at the guy punching him, which is exactly the right way to deal with that. Anisha and Caleb also try to rescue the cadets, with Anisha obviously only doing so because these people matter to her son. But eventually, it turns into a fight, during which Anisha is shot. Athena is forced to go into the atmosphere to get close enough to get a transporter lock through the interference the Venari Ral has put up, which is a beautiful visual. However, a whole mess of Venari Ral ships show up and slap tractor beams on them. Ake therefore separates the saucer and flies off—which, sadly, leaves the atrium behind. I love this particular strategy because it’s exactly the kind of maneuver that was envisioned way back in 1966 for starships—saucer separation was part of the original series bible—but it wasn’t feasible with the effects tech available at the time. It was an explicit feature of the Enterprise-D in 1987, but the expense of doing the separation with the tech available at that time was sufficiently high that it was only used three times. In 2026, however, the tech can do it with the greatest of ease, and it’s a perfect strategy to use here. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with Nus Braka, his plans are a little more complex. He deliberately detonated the one Omega-47 so that the Federation would circle the proverbial wagons. And then a whole bunch of Omega-47 mines show up surrounding Federation space. Braka has, in essence, put a wall around the Federation, and the entirety of Starfleet is trapped behind it. This is the sort of storyline that would never have worked in the twenty-third or twenty-fourth centuries, but does work in the thirty-second. The Federation of the 2200s and 2300s is big and powerful and sprawling. The Federation of the 3100s is none of those things, and they’re still crawling their way back to being a super-power. The thirty-second-century Federation is small enough and weak enough for this power play by Braka to succeed. And so Athena—or, rather, Athena’s saucer section—is the only ship that’s outside that wall, staffed only by three Starfleet officers, a half-dozen cadets, and an injured civilian. This is where they leave us at the end of the episode on a macro scale, which is a rather nasty cliffhanger for the season finale. But the micro-cliffhanger is even more effective. Recall that the last time Anisha saw Ake was in a courtroom where the latter sentenced the former to prison, which separated her from Caleb. The final scene is a masterpiece, with Anisha waking up to see herself on a Starfleet ship, being treated by a Starfleet doctor, and then to be confronted by the person who condemned her twenty years ago. Maslany magnificently plays the combination of panic and anger Anisha is feeling, while Holly Hunter perfectly plays Ake’s tentative approach to this person who she knows she has hurt so badly. I’m on tenterhooks waiting for next week. How will the confrontation between Anisha and Ake go? How will Athena save the day? Will Discovery make an appearance? (The Omega-47 mines prevent ships from getting through via traditional means, but Discovery has the spore drive, which should be able to bypass that.) And you know we’ll be seeing Paul Giamatti again, and that should mean lots more great scenes between him and Hunter. Can’t wait…[end-mark] The post R’uustai — Star Trek: <i>Starfleet Academy</i>’s “300th Night” appeared first on Reactor.