A Beloved Star Trek Actress Just Rebooted A Classic Character
From the 24th century to the 32nd.
Although Starfleet Academy is set in the 3190s, putting it roughly 790 years after the last Next Generation-era series, that doesn’t mean familiar folks from Star Trek’s past can’t show up. But the presence of legacy characters in this Trek era requires a bit of canon tap-dancing.
Near-immortal characters, like the AI hologram known as the Doctor (Robert Picardo), can appear, as can other long-lived Trek species and entities. Which, as we learned back in 2020, means the Trill are very active in the 32nd century. And with Starfleet Academy’s nostalgic fifth episode, “Series Acclimation Mil,” the most famous Trill of all is among them. Here’s how Lower Decks veteran and Trekkie fan-favorite Tawny Newsome brought back a Deep Space Nine character for the modern era. Spoilers ahead.
Starfleet Academy Episode 5 is centered on SAM’s (Kerrice Brooks) quest to solve the mystery of Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks), which was created by the end of Deep Space Nine’s finale when Sisko ascended into another plane of existence to live with the Prophets of the Celestial Temple. This story has morphed into a kind of myth by the 32nd century, and SAM’s historical research leads her to all sorts of Deep Space Nine Easter eggs, including a hologram of Sisko’s son, Jake (still played by Cirroc Lofton). But the biggest canon twist is the fact that Tawny Newsome is revealed to be the latest host of the Trill symbiont, Dax.
SAM (Kerrice Brooks) attempts to unlock the history of Captain Sisko.
“It was a needle that we thread very carefully of who would make the most sense within canon, who physically could be this age,” Newsome tells Inverse, revealing that she and co-writer Kirsten Beyer were very thoughtful about how heavily DS9 canon would weigh on the episode. “It was a question of who would be the only person to have the only copy of Jake’s book, and when do we want to reveal it’s Dax.”
Initially presented as a Professor at Starfleet Academy named Illa (Newsome), SAM notices Illa’s spots and realizes she’s part Trill. As a refresher, some Trill are joined to a symbiont that lives inside them, then carries their memories forward to a new host when the current one passes away. DS9 introduced us to previous hosts of Dax, but we primarily knew Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), and then, in Season 7, Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer). To play Illa Dax, Newsome confirms that she channeled both actresses as much as possible.
Illa Dax (Tawny Newsome) reveals that she is, in fact, Dax.
“I did a few Daxy things,” Newsome says with a laugh. “In addition to paying homage to Avery Brooks, I was paying homage to Terry Ferrell and Nicole de Boer, who lived with that character and brought that character to all of our screens in our hearts. So it was important to me to honor some of their physical mannerisms, some of their vocal quirks.”
Newsome points out that in co-writing the episode and starring in it, she was accomplishing something she’d wanted to do since joining the franchise in Lower Decks: create a modern tribute to Deep Space Nine.
“I felt that there was a big vacuum as far as how much we've honored and talked about Deep Space Nine and Mr. Brooks and Sisko himself,” Newsome says. “So, along with my co-writer, Kirsten Beyer, I wanted to do my best to correct that.”
