Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1 Episode 8, "The Life of the Stars," takes an unconventional turn that allows for a deeply artistic installment. It borrows and adapts many of the core themes from 1938's Our Town, a play often mentioned among scholars as one of the greatest to ever come out of America. Written by Thornton Wilder, the Own Town script is central to various arcs in "The Life of the Stars," although the sci-fi setting may make it feel otherwise.
Starfleet Academy isn't alone when it comes to Star Trek acknowledging classic literature. For example, The Next Generation's "Devil's Due" puts a creative spin on Charles Dickens' festive classic, A Christmas Carol. That said, the tale of Scrooge being visited by three ghosts has long been a pop culture touchstone. By contrast, Our Town is pretty obscure, unless you move in theatrical circles. "The Life of the Stars" does a great job of referencing the 1938 play, but it's almost subtle to a fault in these acknowledgements.
FULL SPOILERS for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1, Episode 8, "The Life of the Stars."
Why the cadets are told to study Our Town in "The Life of the Stars"
Following the traumatic events aboard the USS Miyazaki two episodes earlier, the cadets are still reeling from the Furies' attack by the time of Episode 8. Unfortunately, no one seems willing to open up and talk about their troubled mental states. So, Holly Hunter's Captain Ake brings in the disarmingly friendly Lt. Tilly (Mary Wiseman) to deliver an unexpected theater class. Although the cadets are fooled at first, they initially figure out that the play's themes are being used as a vehicle to get them to open up.
The overall narratives of Our Town and "The Life of the Stars" don't share a whole lot in common, but certain elements do straddle the centuries surprisingly well. Chosen by SAM (Kerrice Brooks) before heading off for some emergency holographic surgery, Our Town's central themes revolve around being startlingly honest with one another, even when it's not easy to do so. Especially then. This is exactly what the cadets aren't doing, and just not regarding the events of the disastrous training mission in "Come, Let's Away."
When the cadets object to engaging in what they believe to be a frivolous exercise of reading and performing a 20th century play, Tilly is smart enough to know that their resistance is because they see too much of themselves in Our Town's characters. She pushes them on it, makes them acknowledge things they don't want to. It's an impressive reflection of Wilder's work. It's made even more rewarding that out of the countless plays SAM considered, she perfectly selected Our Town, knowing it was what her classmates needed in order to heal.
The Doctor & Our Town's Stage Manager are surprisingly alike
Of course, this feels like one of the episode's most intentional comparisons. While most of the other efforts to integrate "The Life of the Stars" and Our Town can feel a little washy at times, the Doctor's comparison to the Stage Manager – a character in the original play – is a masterstroke. The Stage Manager exists as a character within Our Town, but he also communicates directly with the audience, and almost seems unaffected by the passage of time and the constraints of storytelling.
Robert Picardo's Doctor never actively breaks the fourth wall, but he comes close with his opening monologue in "The Life of the Stars." His personal log sounds like a dramatic reading of a play in and of itself. Rather than coming across as a regular old account of what he's been up to lately, it serves almost as a soliloquy; a speech designed to talk directly with the audience. This is often the case with personal logs being used as voice-overs in Star Trek, but this one hits differently. Canonically, it probably is just a personal log. Spiritually, he's setting up the story, just as the Stage Manager does in Our Town.
"Doctor's personal log, stardate 869372.1 The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the east. How many dawns have I seen alone, while most of the crew is on the verge of waking, with a new perspective granted by a good night's rest? 'It's an illusion,' I want to say. 'I was here the whole time, and nothing has changed.' But time is their beast. Time is my beast. It bites us differently."The Doctor, "The Life of the Stars."
"The Life of the Stars" isn't shy about this comparison, either. The Doctor even voices his affinity for the Stage Manager character, saying he had always felt a sort of kinship with him. Like the Our Town narrator, the Doctor also sort of exists outside of time, watching various stories unfold before him as he moves past them with an ever-increasing sense of dispassion. Although Tarima (Zoë Steiner) and her sort-of resurrection in "The Life of the Stars" do loosely follow Emily's actual return from the afterlife in Our Town, the parallel pales in comparison when it comes to the Doctor and the Stage Manager.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1's penultimate episode airs on Paramount+ on March 4, 2026. The finale then drops on March 12.