Even with a centuries-long gap and much of Star Trek’s established canon, there are always clever ways to bring past characters into the future. And while 23rd-century characters like Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Reno (Tig Notaro) traveled to this future when Discovery arrived in the 32nd century, other sci-fi techniques beyond time travel exist to move people across eras. You might be quasi-immortal, a Trill with multiple host bodies, or—like Voyager’s gruff doctor simply called “the Doctor”—a long-lasting holographic AI.
By now, Star Trek fans know that Robert Picardo’s Doctor from Voyager is a key character in Starfleet Academy, surviving far beyond his 2371 activation; he now instructs at the named space academy in the 3190s. And in Starfleet Academy Episode 8, the Doctor’s path from Voyager’s era to the current time is explored in an unexpected manner. For the second time in Trek’s canonical history, the Doctor has a holographic family—though this time, it doesn’t conclude in tragedy.
Spoilers ahead for Starfleet Academy’s “The Life of the Stars.”
“When it comes to Robert Picardo, we were kids when he played the Doctor on Voyager,” Starfleet Academy showrunner Noga Landau tells Inverse. “So you think: If we want this actor to agree—to come back, dedicate years of their life, and put on the uniform again—we need to give them a meaningful role to dive into.”
So Landau and series creator Gaia Violo chose to revisit the themes of a 1997 Star Trek: Voyager episode titled “Real Life,” penned by Harry Doc Kloor and a Star Trek legend. In that episode, the Doctor experimented with creating a holographic family, which ended in genuine tragedy when his holographic daughter died. In Starfleet Academy’s “The Life of the Stars,” we learn that in the 32nd century, the Doctor is extremely hesitant to take on another holographic surrogate daughter in the form of because of the painful memories from that earlier episode.
“That episode [‘Real Life’] is—let’s just say—traumatic for millennials,” Landau notes. “He built a holographic family only to lose his daughter, so he shut everything down and vowed never to do it again. We knew we had to take a big risk to craft a new story for the Doctor. So we asked Bob [Picardo]: What if you become a father, but for real this time?”
When SAM is taken to her home planet Kasq, the sole way to save her life and repair her programming is for the Doctor to act as a parent and raise her through a simulated childhood. But unlike “Real Life,” the time the Doctor and SAM experience is real for them—even though it lasts just moments for Captain Ake (Holly Hunter). This concept of a life lived in an instant is a classic Star Trek trope, most famously used in The Next Generation’s “The Inner Light.” (Strange New Worlds pulled.)
But in “The Life of the Stars,” the Doctor’s time with SAM isn’t merely simulated or in an alternate reality—he and SAM truly live through her entire childhood together, in real time. So when they return to Starfleet Academy, the Doctor and SAM are permanently transformed, now a father and surrogate daughter. Unlike 1997’s Voyager, where episodes like “Real Life” were rarely revisited, this new family bond between the Doctor and SAM won’t conclude with “The Life of the Stars.”
“Bob is a mentor figure,” Violo explains. “This episode especially shows their relationship growing now that she’s a teenager. The episode is an emotional farewell to the first SAM, paving the way for the second SAM. And you’ll see more of this relationship in Season