As Starfleet Academy continues to film, creator Alex Kurtzman is assuring fans that this show has got its semesters all planned out!
For a franchise meant to look to the future, Star Trek has spent a lot of time in the past. Picard brought back the Next Generation crew while the first seasons of Discovery suffered from trying to be a prequel to The Original Series. Strange New Worlds ran with that, continuing to build toward TOS.
However, Discovery boosted itself with the third season, where the ship was sent into the 32nd century after a cosmic disaster ravaged the warp drive and left the Federation in tatters. The crew worked to solve the problem with the Federation rebuilding itself. This will set up Starfleet Academy, which will follow the first new Academy class in a century.
The series will mix a fresh cast with faces like Oscar winner Holly Hunter as the chancellor and even Robert Picardo as the EMH Doctor. For those worried the show isn’t planning things out, Alex Kurtzman told Collider that he has a four-year plan for the show.
"You have to have a four-year plan because college is four years long…We do have a plan for Season 3. What’s so fun is that when you start breaking a season, inevitably, you have too many ideas, and you go, ‘Oh, wait a minute, this is cool that we should do this next season…I always want to leave enough room to have improvisation happen, but know what pillars we’re trying to hit. But we just came to the end of Season 2, where we’re about to write the finale, which is kind of amazing. And it’s exactly where we wanted to go. But when we started Season 3, it isn’t exactly how we thought we’d get there. It’s really fun.”
The fact that Starfleet Academy has already been renewed for a second season will give Kurtzman more time to develop storylines, including for the class of cadets.
A question about the series is what direction it will take. It’s unclear if it’ll be self-contained tales on the cadets or some sort of overarching story arc across each season. Kurtzman hinted that it could be a combination of both.
"Yes, there are serialized stories that take you from beginning to the end of the season, and that will carry into Season 2. However, we really do have standalone episodes. So, once the story has been established and everybody gets together, we begin to foreground certain characters as the lead of each episode, and then everybody comes together, so that by the time you get to the finale, you know everybody very, very well.”
It appears the first season will show this formula with episodes looking at the characters as they seek their dreams in Starfleet, each with their own desires for success and personal challenges. Meanwhile, the greater threat of Paul Giamatti’s half-Klingon villain will provide a larger storyline unfolding that builds to the finale.
This can be a good direction for the series as the focus can be on the various cadets and their exploits. Like a real college, each season can introduce new characters and the potential for the freshmen of the first season to shine more later in the show’s run. At the same time, there can be overarching story arcs, maybe not a “save the Federation” plotline, but at least something that gives each season a cohesive bond and brings the characters together.
We’ll have to see how it works when Starfleet Academy premieres in 2026 and starts this new series off on a high note.
Starfleet Academy premieres on Paramount+ in 2026.
More from Redshirts Always Die: