Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 7, “Ko'Zeine,” which is available on Paramount+ now.

After last week’s adventure – and tragedy – on the USS Miyazaki, Starfleet Academy slows down for what we once would’ve called a “bottle episode.” Of course, these days the digital “volume” AR wall that allows for the creation of virtually any setting or backdrop means that even a bottle episode can take place on some crazy alien landscape, even if the whole idea of such an episode is to save money and production time (often to make up for a bigger, costlier segment like last week’s “Come, Let's Away”).

So in “Ko'Zeine” the focus is on two of the friendships among our main cast: that of Genesis (Bella Shepard) and Caleb (Sandro Rosta), and Darem (George Hawkins) and Jay-Den (Karim Diané). It’s the kind of story that is classic bottle episode, and the result is a nice if slight hour that plays off of some well-worn Trek tropes but also serves to further solidify how engaging this cast of young actors can be.

It’s the spring semester already, as the blooming cherry tree in the Academy makes clear, and that means it’s time for the school’s “all worlds break,” which has the cadets travelling to see their families or for some R&R to locales all over the globe (and beyond) – none of which seem to be Ft. Lauderdale or Cancun. Caleb however, as the boy with no home, has nowhere to go – or nowhere he wants to go, anyway – while Darem is called back home for an inconvenient, if quite heady, family matter.

When Darem is suddenly whisked away from the Academy and into an artificial wormhole by two apparent kidnappers, it’s cute how Jay-Den is like “whelp, there goes Ibiza” and jumps in to help his friend. That their destination winds up being the Sunset Moon of the Khionian Realm, where everything is rock and sand and red-hued, can only be seen as an homage to the original Star Trek “surprise wedding” episode, “Amok Time,” where Spock was forced to return to the similar setting of his homeworld of Vulcan in order to the tie the knot with his betrothed, T’Pring.

Because that’s why Darem has been called back to the Khionian Realm – to fulfill his obligation to marry his hometown sweetheart. Sure, it also means that he and his bride will become the new rulers of the realm, but what are ya gonna do?

It’s notable that both of these pairings were initially framed early in the season as being potential romantic partners (Genesis/Caleb, Darem/Jay-Den), but that this episode serves to strengthen their respective friendships instead. Yes, the spark of something is still there between Genesis and Caleb (and maybe Darem and Jay-Den too), but Caleb’s all wrapped up in his Tarima drama, and who can blame him after the events of last week? As for Darem and Jay-Den, obviously the Klingon and Kyle (Dale Whibley) – aka the nicest guy in the War College – are a thing now, and, you know, Darem needs good friends more than anything else anyway.

The antics of Genesis and Caleb aren’t particularly interesting or funny in this episode, but the reveal of why Genesis returned to the Academy during the break and is willing to get into trouble is worth the wait. The outsized sense of responsibility that both she and Darem feel is a weight that each must contend with in “Ko'Zeine,” and that their friends help them through these situations is gratifying. Again, the Darem/Jay-Den portion of the episode works better, not just in holding the viewer’s interest but also in terms of this thematic throughline. Jay-Den’s speech as best man/Ko'Zeine is ultimately what sparks Darem and his bride’s ability to break with tradition and allow Darem to leave for the life he actually wants to pursue, whereas Caleb is more just there to hold Genesis’ hand when the source of her insecurity is revealed.

But hey, even Caleb gets some nice moments this week as he tries to navigate the Tarima situation. The closing scene of him finally writing an honest letter to Tarima while the meteor shower kicks in outside is a great capper to an understated episode.

Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

• “You brought like four pairs of boots in here. You don’t even wear shoes!”
• “Say hi to your sister.” Darem really is an asshole!
• I just realized that the show is going to follow a “one year of school per season” format, which means these kids will graduate at the end of Season 4…? Is that how many years you go to the Academy?
• Good thing Caleb clarified that it was Caleb “Mir” who was sending that initial message, just in case Tarima wasn’t clear on it.
• It’s notable that it rains on Earth, or at least in San Francisco, as we know that Federation worlds were able to control the weather at least as far back as the 24th century. But you know, sometimes the rain is just cool, especially when you feel like brooding.
• When all the cadets were beaming (I guess we still call it that?) off to their “all worlds” locations, I was reminded of Discovery’s introduction and constant use of personal transporters in the 32nd century, and boy am I grateful that Starfleet Academy has mostly avoided that gimmick.
• If there’s a holotech rehab spa, and apparently there is since Sam (Kerrice Brooks) goes to one, does that mean that there are multiple sentient holographic individuals out there? I’m not talking about on Sam’s homeworld, but right here on Earth.
• For some reason, Jay-Den’s Karloffian-sized boots really stood out to me this week. (Maybe it was the skirt.)

Spoilers follow for Paradise through the end of Season 1. Paradise Season 2 will debut on February 23.

Paradise, the wildest post-apocalypse series on TV, is back on Hulu for a second season this week. Starring Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, and James Marsden, the Dan Fogelman-created series was a huge hit in Season 1, and it looks like it won’t let up in the second season either. But even with a short-for-streaming gap between seasons (a year instead of the now default two- to three-year hiatus), you might be a little confused about the timeline as you jump into Season 2…

…And that’s because the timeline is confusing. Like other flashback shows such as Lost – or more to the point of the whole Fogelman of it all, This Is Us – while there’s plenty of action happening in the “present,” there’s also a lot of jumping back into different points in the past. So with that in mind, particularly given some plot points coming up in Season 2 (no spoilers here), you’re probably going to want to check and recheck the timeline of Paradise to make sure you know who was where, when.

While we won’t hit every single plot point from the first season, we are going to break down major events – and some seemingly minor ones that may have ramifications as the series moves forward. So let’s get into it, starting back in… the ’90s?

The Paradise Timeline

1997

Actually, before we even explain why we’re in 1997, aka the year Titanic took over the box office, it’s also important to note that this timeline is gonna ditch the dates pretty soon. The reason for that? Most of Paradise takes place in the “present day,” all centered around the before and after of a future (for us, the viewers) event that’s referred to as “The Day.” Again, we’ll get there in a second, but for the moment we’re starting with a real year, when Bill Clinton started his second term as President.

We got this specific year in Season 1, Episode 5, "In the Palaces of Crowned Kings," when future President Cal Bradford (Marsden) told his dad that he wants to be a teacher. Instead, the overpowering father Kane (Gerald McRaney) forces him into politics, kicking off a series of events that leads to Cal’s murder at the beginning of Season 1.

19 BTD

At this point, given the TV show doesn’t provide years, we’ve got to establish a time scale of our own. So we’re going to use Before The Day (BTD) and After The Day (ATD). For example, 19 years BTD, the billionaire Samantha Redmond, later known by her codename “Sinatra,” met her husband, Tim (Tuc Watkins), in a bar after selling her tech startup.

(We’ll also note that a lot of these dates are approximate, and some of it doesn’t quite add up. We’re flying slightly by the seat of our pants here, though ultimately it does lead to the correct order of events, even if things might be off by a year or so.)

16 BTD

For example! Sinatra’s daughter Hadley (Kate Godfrey) is born in about 16 BTD. We know this because she’s about 16 years old when we meet her on the show in – you guessed it – the present day. However, she seems to be much younger than this when we see her in flashbacks during Season 1, Episode 2, “Sinatra.” She also has an older brother, Dylan (Peter Gorbis) who was born before her, but we don’t know when. Gotta love it!

13 BTD

While outside a store riding a horse (not a real one), Dylan collapses and is diagnosed with some sort of unspecified Child Sickness. They proceed to get him treatment over the next year and a half, but…

11 BTD

Dylan dies. Before he does, he tells his mom he wants to see heaven and he wants it to be full of horses, which sets her off on a journey to, as Belinda Carlisle might say, make heaven a place on Earth. Though she doesn’t quite get there with the whole “full of horses” thing.

Just before this, Sinatra meets Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), a therapist who helps Sinatra with her grief and becomes a good friend, assisting Sinatra as she builds her plan to save the world. There’s not much you need to worry about with this in terms of the overarching plot, though Torabi and Sinatra’s friendship timeline does get brought up a lot on the show.

10 BTD

Sinatra attends an international finance summit where she sneaks into a lecture by Dr. Louge (Geoffrey Arend), who is less concerned about finance and more concerned about the end of the world. Basically, he thinks the world has 10 years until there’s a global catastrophe caused by a super volcano, and he is weirdly spot-on as it turns out. Sinatra, still distraught about the death of Dylan, hooks right into this and begins to put all her time and resources into constructing a plan to weather the end of the world.

Also at this finance summit? Cal Bradford, who is now a US Senator and well on his way to his destiny as President.

9 BTD

Moving quickly on her plan, Sinatra recruits Anders (Erik Svedberg-Zelman), a brilliant architect who she wants to design an underground bunker in the mountains in Colorado, where she plans to build Dylan’s heaven on Earth – and save as many people as she can, of course. By this point, she’s already begun hollowing out the mountain, and Anders agrees to help.

Then, in a good chunk of the Season 1 finale, "The Man Who Kept the Secrets,” we see them building and hollowing out the mountain more, under the partial direction of Trent (Ian Merrigan), a construction project manager. Trent discovers his workers are getting sick thanks to arsenopyrite residue, but given the accelerated construction schedule instead of waiting until it becomes non-toxic, Trent is fired. More on him later.

7 BTD

Cal is elected President for the first time. Yay, Cal!

3 BTD

Cal is elected the second time, and meets his new Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Brown). While the free-wheeling President and locked-up Collins seem at odds at first, in December of this year Cal is almost assassinated by a man posing as a cameraman who brought a 3D-printed gun to the lawn of the White House. That man? Trent, who shoots Xavier instead accidentally. Trent knows about the bunker, of course, and wants to expose it to the world. Instead, Cal survives, Xavier survives, Trent is sent to jail, and the world is none the wiser.

On the other hand, due to saving his life, Cal tells Xavier all about the Colorado project, bringing him into the loop and promising to save his wife and kids when the time comes.

THE DAY

The time comes. As detailed in the devastating seventh episode of Season 1, a super-volcano erupts, sending a massive tsunami around the world and destroying nearly all of human civilization. A lot goes down this episode, but the short version is the tsunami is just the beginning of the destruction that includes an ash cloud covering the Earth. And Cal ends up activating an EMP to stop nukes that have been launched worldwide from adding “nuclear armageddon” to the list of horrors.

Also worth noting, while Xavier’s daughter Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and son James (Percy Daggs IV) – as well as Xavier – make it onto a plane headed to Colorado, Xavier’s wife Teri Rogers-Collins (Enuka Okuma) is stuck outside Atlanta as the bombs drop and the tsunami hits. Xavier believes she’s dead, but as we find out in the Season 1 finale, she, along with other people on the outside, have somehow survived.

Meanwhile, everyone else is locked in Sinatra’s suburban bunker, known as – get this – Paradise. And in the process, Cal’s presidency is extended to a third term.

6 MONTHS ATD

As detailed in Season 1, Episode 4, “Agent Billy Pace,” six months into their new life in Paradise, Cal authorized an exploratory mission to the outside. And that four-person mission discovered that life had indeed survived, thanks in part to Cal successfully stopping the nukes with his EMP. However, Sinatra had other plans and sent a mercenary, who was posing as a secret service agent, Billy Pace (Jon Beavers), out to kill them. The folks in Paradise thought they died from outside exposure; they did not.

Some time after that, Cal discovers the truth about the exploratory mission and that the outside is safe(ish), confronts Sinatra… and is shut down. However, he begins constructing an elaborate plan to reveal the truth that involves a mixtape to his son and other weird little clues and stuff.

3 ATD

Trent – remember him? – managed to break out of jail and sneak into Paradise posing as the community’s librarian. While he actually lived (and enjoyed) his new life, three years in Cal walks into the library and Trent gets pissed all over again. He gets in his old construction uniform, sneaks into Cal’s house, and conks him on the head with construction equipment, killing him (he actually has to hit him twice, but that’s neither here nor there).

This kicks off the events of Season 1, which all take place over a series of a few days, ending with, in no particular order: Xavier leaving the bunker via plane to go find his wife, Sinatra shot but alive, and Paradise in chaos as many of the residents – thanks to a rebellion led by Xavier – know things are not what they seem.

Got it all? Good. Now you’re ready for even more timeline wackiness on Paradise Season 2. Strap in, because it’s gonna be a wild ride.