Robert Picardo points to “present political moment” as part of the problem.
Surprisingly, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy never found a big enough audience to consistently rank in Paramount+’s Top 10 from week to week during season 1’s run. And it’s been clearly documented that a storm of social media negativity likely aided in the show being canceled after its second and final season.
However, according to Starfleet Academy’s Robert Picardo, the “present political moment” helped to kill the streaming series “in the cradle.” Picardo, who portrays the Emergency Medical Hologram and a professor at the school, said in an interview (per TrekMovie.com): “I’ve seen quite a bit of it [season 2] while I’ve been doing ADR on it, and it looks spectacular, And I’m sorry the show…”
“Every Star Trek show was criticized in its first two or three seasons and then took often till season 3 to get on track,” Picardo continued. “And even though I think the quality of our show was great, we were kind of killed in the cradle, and I believe part of it is the present political moment in our culture that diversity, that all of Star Trek’s core values are now out of fashion temporarily.”
Sadly, this is the second [Alex] Kurtzman-Era Star Trek project to feature Picardo as the EMH Doctor that was canceled after only two seasons. The first was the must-see animated series aimed at young audiences called Prodigy. And I never could understand why Prodigy didn’t catch on more with Trekkies and Trekkers because it’s essentially a Voyager reunion.
In addition to The Doctor, Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Chakotay (Robert Beltran) also reunite in Prodigy, but even the Voyager connection couldn’t save the animated show from being canceled. And again, even with the presence of past Star Trek actors like Picardo and Tig Notaro, Starfleet Academy went the way of Old Yeller far too soon, in my opinion.
I personally think the online negativity, not the political climate, played a bigger role in putting the kibosh on Starfleet Academy. Prodigy, on the other hand, seemed concealed by a cloaking device, as it was aimed at children and young adult audiences, but never materialized for older viewers.
If die-hard Star Trek enthusiasts had only known that Prodigy was follow-up to Voyager, which featured those three main characters I already mentioned, I firmly believe Prodigy would still be streaming. Heck, even The Next Generation followers would have enjoyed Wil Wheaton’s return as The Traveler, who played a HUGE part in Prodigy season 2.
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Live long and prosper, Trekkies!
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