Building an optimistic future is at the heart of the new Starfleet Academy series

Starfleet Academy is the next series coming to the Star Trek franchise, and it possibly won't air until 2026. Showrunner and executive producer Alex Kurtzman told Collider that the series would consist of ten episodes, which isn't surprising considering it will air on Paramount+, and, with work in the writers' room halfway done, filming is expected to begin late this summer. That means, of course, we might not see the series until 2026 due to post production which can take around eight months. Kurtzman was clear that this wasn't a show that was going to be rushed to completion.

Another thing Kurtzman clarified is the focus of the series. Yes, it will be on young cadets at the Academy, how they fit in, and what they will encounter on their journey toward becoming Starfleet officers, but there's more to the series than just about teaching students. It's about focusing on the future and how it can become what Star Trek has always espoused.

""There's a lot of different kids from a lot of different places. Some of them want to be there, some of them don’t want to be there. It’s gonna be a fundamental reinforcement of all the things we love about Starfleet, in general. You always want to ask yourself, 'Why this show now?' I think that one of the big things that certainly my 17-year-old son is facing, which is kind of a fundamental 'Star Trek' question, is, 'How did we get here? How has this generation inherited the mistakes from previous generations? And what are we gonna do to fix it, to build that optimistic future that is Roddenberry’s essential vision?' That is very much going to be at the heart of Starfleet Academy .""

- Alex Kurtzman

Gene Roddenberry had an idea for our future that almost fifty-eight years in the making hasn't come to fruition. We've certainly come a long way since the 1960s, but there is a lot more to be done. And that's at the heart of Starfleet Academy—building an optimistic future that was Roddenberry's vision. So a series set on fixing the present and building a better future? That sounds like a tall order, but we're looking forward to seeing if it can be fulfilled.