It sounds like the newest Star Trek series is designed well for those who have never seen Star Trek to get into!
One of the most challenging aspects of getting a newbie into Star Trek is the canon and history. The Original Series set the tone, with The Next Generation building on it more. Deep Space Nine is very complex with the Dominion War, and then we have the various spinoffs, including Discovery and Strange New Worlds, being prequels to TOS.
That’s without mentioning things like the Kelvin Timeline movies, which can be highly daunting for newcomers to attach themselves to Star Trek. That’s why there’s hope that the upcoming Starfleet Academy can be a nice entry point for the show!
The series picks up after Discovery and takes the franchise in a truly bold new direction. It’s set in the 32nd century, nearly a thousand years after most of the shows. The Federation is rebuilding after “the Burn,” an event that wrecked warp drive and kept systems separate.
For the first time in a century, Starfleet Academy is preparing a brand new class of cadets ready to make Starfleet meaningful again. It boasts a good cast, highlighted by Oscar winner Holly Hunter as the Academy chief and Robert Picardo reprising his role as the holographic Doctor.
Speaking to TrekMovie, showrunner Kristen Beyer noted the challenges of designing a show for fans and newbies alike, and hoped she pulled it off.
“I’d like to think that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Definitely, the operating instructions are you should not have to have ever seen Star Trek to be able to step into Academy and enjoy it. That said, if you have seen a lot of Star Trek, you should also very much recognize it as a continuing part of the history and tradition that you are familiar with. On the one hand, it seems like you have a metric ton of canon to sort of contend with, but it doesn’t have to be a weight around your shoulders as you’re creating these stories. Because we’re able to totally move forward into the unexplored, and that’s super exciting. You just want to make sure that it’s informed by what we know went before.”
Her words give hope that the show can take Trek to new heights in new ways.
Can Academy be Star Trek’s Andor?
Perhaps a good comparison for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is the Star Wars series Andor. While having knowledge of Star Wars is good, it wasn’t totally needed for viewers and critics to enjoy the acclaimed series.
Likewise, while there will be “Easter eggs” for fans, one doesn’t have to have binged every single Trek series to get the gist of Academy. Beyer added that a key component is the 800-year gap between Picard and Academy, a huge chunk of time that leaves the opportunity for more stories to be told.
“So what you want to do is be like, Okay, so this is what we want to do now based on what the last thing we saw. Is that possible? Is that likely? and if the answer is yes, you run with it… without worrying so much about getting bogged down in the whole “Let me explain to you how that all happened.” Because a book could be written on any of a million subjects. So it’s the trick of making it feel like it’s part of the same universe and also breaking all of this new ground.”
That last line is the key to the series as Academy is capturing the spirit of Star Trek while paving the way to explore how the universe has changed in this far future and some twists fans won’t see coming.
This all builds to Star Trek: Starfleet Academy being a great new entry in the saga and one that newbies don’t have to worry about canon and continuity to enjoy.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres on Paramount+ in 2026.