We've got our first look at Starfleet Academy, and it appears ready to push the franchise in a new direction!
Right now, Star Trek is in a bit of flux. Discovery and Lower Decks both ended their runs after five seasons each, while Prodigy is dead. Strange New Worlds just unveiled its third season with the announcement that it will end after its fifth.
Thankfully, that won't be the last for Trek as Starfleet Academy is set to beam itself into Paramount+ next year, and the first peeks at it look amazing!
Starfleet Academy first look
Entertainment Weekly broke the exclusive first images of Starfleet Academy before a huge panel reveals more details at this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con.
The images do show Oscar winner Holly Hunter as an admiral and the school headmaster, and Paul Giamatti as the show's Klingon villain.
The series takes a significant step as it's set after the events of Discovery, in the 32nd century, where the Federation had become fractured after a cosmic disaster. This makes the newly revived Starfleet Academy class the first new one in over a century.
Speaking to EW, showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau were keeping most details quiet but shared the talk of how they wanted to use the far-future setting to distance themselves from other Star Trek shows and take on a new direction.
"If you're going to do a show about a young generation facing the future and you want it, as all Star Trek does, to be a mirror that holds itself up to the world as it is now, to situate the show in the halcyon days of the Federation would, in some ways, be dishonest. Our children are facing a lot of challenges right now, and they are our hope for the future."
Landau added that each episode will take on a different direction that mirrors typical college life, only set in space.
"It's wish fulfillment. Every week it's about a new part of coming of age. One week that can be a prank, war erupts another week, a romance begins another week, we encounter an alien species for the first time and we don't know what the hell we're doing [another week]. But at the end of every episode, what we want our audience to feel is, 'I want to go to Starfleet Academy.' Even in the deepest, darkest depths of character problems and drama, you get such a good feeling from watching this show [of] how much you want to be there so badly."
The show's "point of view" character is a young cadet played by Sandro Rosta with Karim Diané, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepard, and Zoë Steiner among the other cadets. Emmy-award winner Tatiana Maslany (no stranger to genre TV) will have a recurring role.
Don't worry, Trek fans, there will be familiar faces too. Coming in from Discovery are Tig Notaro's Jett Reno, Oded Fehr's Admiral Vance, and Mary Wiseman's Sylvia Tilly. Not only that, but Robert Picardo will once more play the holographic Doctor, still around in the future.
Kurtzman and Landau hint that the story will have parallels to our world, just like classic Trek, with a villain using hate and prejudices to sow dissension. However, Landau points out that the series is really making the point of the essence of Star Trek with how empathy defeats hate.
"That's really the whole point of Star Trek is to remind people of what real sci-fi optimism looks like. Part of that reminder comes from learning how to view others not through a lens of intolerance and hate and disgruntlement, but through a lens of empathy and unity and peacemaking."
Again, fans have to wait until Comic Con to learn more details about the show and its characters, but the first looks indicate Starfleet Academy is going to be another amazing entry, taking the franchise into the future!
Starfleet Academy premieres on Paramount+ in 2026. Stay tuned for more updates about the new show!