Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has a new group of cadets learning the history of Starfleet. Which means some fan favorite nods to iconic moments throughout Star Trek history. One being episode 5 of the series, titled “Acclamation Mill.”
The episode focuses on Sam (Kerrice Brooks) as she learns about the importance of none other than Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). At the end of Deep Space Nine, Sisko sacrificed his physical form to live with the Prophets in the Celestial Temple. But his time as captain was important not just to fans of Star Trek but to the world of Starfleet as well.
I was lucky enough to speak to Brooks about her work as Sam and getting to share the importance of Ben Sisko with the world. When I did the junket for the series, I had only seen 3 episodes. Before writing my review, I watched the remaining 3 given to press and was excited to see how Sam and Benjamin could find common ground. You can see our full conversation below.
The Mary Sue: Well, I’m glad I didn’t watch more episodes because I would’ve just wanted to talk to you about episode five, which is what we’re here to talk about. Because I love Deep Space Nine. So when I started hearing about Jake, I was like ‘They’re bringing back my boy! They’re bringing him back.’ And then obviously Benjamin Sisko didn’t come back. I wanted to ask you, when you’re doing an episode like that and it’s going through not only the history and the importance of a person like Benjamin Sisko to Star Trek as a whole. What is your process like as an actor? Whether you were aware of the lore of Benjamin Sisko or not, making sure that that character understands the importance that that character has, both in the context of it and also within the fandom.
Kerrice Brooks: That’s a good question. Going into it, I had an essence of an idea about how important he was because they gave us…well, I think they gave all of us like an episode guide of about 10 episodes to watch. And a lot of mine were DS9, but a lot of ’em were also Voyager for Bob [Picardo] and like understanding EMH and everything like that. And they gave me such random episodes, not like story wise, but they’re just out of order. I can’t go from season one episode six to season four. I can’t do that because I gotta know who I’m watching. And so I only just now am I really starting to also, there’s 50 hours per season, which is great, but I’m only just now starting to like really get to the thick of things. Finally, I’m on season four right now.
Brooks: And I see now because when I talk to people just walking around Toronto, last season, everyone would say DS9 was their favorite. And I’d be like, ‘I don’t understand. I haven’t watched it. I don’t get why,’ but I’ve seen Discovery and I’ve seen a bit of Voyager. And I’m like, ‘Why is no one talking about these?’ Now I get it. Now I get it. And I think it’s also good that while filming, I didn’t understand a lot of it because I think what makes, now that I’m watching it, what makes some of those moments so innocent is because I didn’t know and Sam really didn’t know. So when I’m going for the ear and everything about like feeling someone’s paw and I’m asking them, ‘Has anyone pretty much seen Jesus since he died or quote unquote died,’ that was pure, I didn’t know. It felt like that was how I should have came in actually. And now I’m starting to get the weight of everything. The real weight of everything.
The Mary Sue: Well, because especially because Sam knows the history. She doesn’t know the actual impact that a man like Benjamin Sisko has. She just knows the historical facts, which is yes, obviously watching Deep Space Nine, you learn about the man but she didn’t know the man, she just knew the history of it at all, which at all is such a fight. It is such an interesting dynamic too, because it’s kind of how we learn history. We don’t know about the people themselves. We only know what facts are given to us. When you’re playing a character who is so fact driven throughout the entire season, not just in this episode, but as a whole, how much fun is it for you to get to play into that a little bit and like just lean into the fact that she is just a wealth of knowledge that might not necessarily understand that there are people behind those facts and having to balance that?
Brooks: It is so fun because I don’t mean it in the negative connotation, but I feel like when you come in with so much factual quote unquote confidence, it gives you a bit of naive arrogance, but not arrogance in the bad way. Just like arrogance of like I know how to solve a Rubik’s cube. I know how science. I wish I could show you. Actually, I have a journal about how Sam divides her time and a part of it is learning pop culture. And that takes up like maybe 11% of her time or whatever. But it really is, when you don’t have pop culture, you don’t know how influence works. And so when you don’t really get influenced, you’re not influenced. And so it just gives you so much freedom to explore, to really explore what you like, how you feel in the most purest way. Then you have knowledge scientific, factual, concrete knowledge to back it up. It’s like the world’s your playground in a way. The world’s a big puzzle. Like the game 2048, have you played that?
The Mary Sue: Yes.
Brooks: It’s like the world becomes that I get to move that there and I get to that there and that makes that, and that can go up there and then it feels like that.
The Mary Sue: I wanted to, on the pop culture front, I also think that’s a connection with her to Benjamin Sisko, because obviously his was baseball. My brother has the Deep Space Nine baseball hat. Obviously it’s a different kind of thing where Sam’s is movies and television. Because that’s how she can kind of connect to things. And his is like things that he did on Earth. Earth and baseball and stuff like that.
Brooks: How did you know that? Did I say that before? That hers is movies and television?
The Mary Sue: No, I just have watched all six of them and I could kind of pick it up. Like, Sam’s gonna be the kind of person that is movies and TV pop culture focused versus like Captain Kirk loved classical music, which was just like rock music. And so it’s like you can see everyone’s kind of differences.
Brooks: I wanna get into that so bad without spoiling it.
The Mary Sue: Don’t spoil it!
Brooks: No, no, no. They’re gonna kill my kids that I don’t have yet.
The Mary Sue: [laughs] Well, but how is it though to find those connections with Benjamin Sisko in an episode? Like, that’s where it is so important that those two characters have those touchstones, even though they’re not the same thing.
Brooks: I don’t know how to really tangibalize this, or really verbalized this, but to me personally, my granddad was kind of like, I felt to Sam, who Benjamin Sisko was. And for me, Kerrice, my granddad was my one of my best friends in the entire world before he died. And then when he died, it was so unexplainable and there were so many unanswered questions. It felt like Sam was in the same boat. Like she knew so much about Sisko and she knew what he liked, what he didn’t like. He liked tomatoes, he ate gumbo, Creole kitchen, baseball, Jake. She knew Bajor. She knew so much about him, but also at the same time, felt so cut. There was a cut cord somehow and for whatever reason. And so it felt like the entire time Sam’s like grasping in the dark, trying to find and feel her way to maybe what her destiny could look like. Really getting to focus on Sisko without that connection. It felt parallel to my life as Kerice, which only made it that much more fulfilling slash I don’t know, meaningful slash relevant. I think art imitates life. And that it just felt like in real time I was looking at that connection, that bridge right there be made. And then Sam’s also a bridge. So it felt like I got to be a bridge through Sam as Kerrice, if that makes any sense.
The Mary Sue: It definitely did. Okay. Well, and I wanted to ask too, because I come from a Trekkie family. My journey of with Deep Space Nine, at the time I was in high school and there were two or three seasons of Lost out. And I said, ‘Oh, let’s watch Lost,’ to my brother. And my brother, his counter offer after Lost was all of Deep Space Nine. And like that’s a lot. Sevens seasons for the three of Lost that had been out. But I was grateful for it. Because I love to Deep Space Nine. And I think that’s because it feels the most human of the Treks. I also feel like Sam connects with the humanity that Data, like seeks throughout all of Next Gen. And like how he just like wants to have those human moments and she feels very much in line with that. Is how is it trying to find where her quest for human connection and humanity lies when you’re doing these things? Because she is so bubbly and so perky in these scenes, but it’s still kind of an undercurrent throughout all of it.
Brooks: There’s a thin line I feel like for Sam between being overly reduced down to just an “annoying, dumb” person. And there’s a thin line between that and the purity that she really, really does just inherently feel, I think it all always stems from the heart for her. She’s honored to be at this school. She’s honored to be an emissary. But in the same breath, the whole point of an emissary is to be a bridge, is to connect series acclimation mill. She’s supposed to acclimate to a series of species She’s created to get. used to life. And for Sam coming to the school, it feels like you’re gonna meet your fair share of characters, mean people who are mean to her, who don’t understand her, who are kind of taking advantage of her not knowing stuff.
Brooks: But that naiveté and that purity grounds her, it never lets her get too far because she can feel what’s happening. She just doesn’t know what to do with it. That’s really the only thing. Like she hears people being mean to her. She hears people saying she’s a lot and she’s too much energy. She hears even when, sometimes even in the friend group, where they will say things under their breath and it’s not even because they’re trying to be mean. Because she can also read vitals as we see in the pilot episode. She can feel that it’s not coming from a malicious intent, but it’s also just what did that mean? That’s really what it is. And it’s fun to get to play that because as everyone else is saying sciencey stuff, she’s just figuring out life. I feel like that’s what life is about in general. Not solving, but experiencing and feeling honestly.
The Mary Sue: A hundred percent agree. And I wanted to end with this, and you kind of touched on it because from the jump back in 1966, Star Trek has been about representation of certain subsets of people and personalities. And I think Sam was my favorite character from the jump of Starfleet because I’ve been labeled as the one who’s too much or I’m annoying or whatever it may be. And I related to her because she took that in, took it to heart and still was herself. Even though people were like, ‘You’re annoying me.’ She’s like, okay, cool. That’s me though. When you are playing a character that is constantly on in a lot of ways and always bubbly and even when she’s upset, still trying to be kind of a beacon of light. How do you balance yourself and take care of yourself when you’re constantly being on like that?
Brooks: Oof. That is something I’m still learning. That is such a good question. Holy. I feel like Sam, she does, she requires me to really let more in than I’m comfortable with as Kerrice. Just because I’ve lived a life or two and Sam hasn’t. And so to stay that malleable, it really was a matter of connecting to my inner child that I feel like I hadn’t connected to in a long time because, I don’t know, society’s pressures to be a certain type of person in this world. And then people box you in and they get mad at you when you don’t fit in that box that they created for you. It’s insane. And so Sam, she really let me tap back into my inner child and let the light in fully and to stay in that space.
Brooks: I’m such a physical person, which so is she. Thank God I just danced a lot. I would like just exasperate my body before every single take. Like literally shake it out. I would do this thing where I would like suck my eyeballs out and then put Sam’s in on set. I would play guitar, I would play a lot of Nintendo Smash Bros. I would watch a lot of Disney, especially Princess and The Frog. I would kind of delight in that. Sam, I feel like would. I have a drawing where she’s in her room and she’s figuring it out. She’s so influenced, like you said, she’s so influenced by so much pop culture because that’s what she’s craving. That’s what she’s missing. In order to get to that point, as an actor, I did the same thing. Method almost. But in the good way. Not in the, in the barbaric ways that we’ve heard.
The Mary Sue: In the Too much good way.
Brooks: Yeah. Yeah. In the too much good way. I definitely lived this life Sam lived.
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You can watch Brooks as Sam in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy on Paramount+.
(featured image: John Medland/Paramount+)
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