Star Trek: Starfleet Academy arrives with phaser banks loaded with reasons for Star Trek fans to be excited. Executive produced by Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy unleashed its full trailer at New York Comic Con.
Taking place after the end of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set in the final decade of the 31st century. Starfleet Academy centers on the first class of cadets to matriculate at the school on Earth in 120 years, after The Burn broke the United Federation of Planets apart.
A TV series or movie about Starfleet Academy has been in development in one form or another for decades, before Gaia Violo created this version, and Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau cracked the code to finally bring a Star Trek show about Starfleet Academy to television.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres January 15, 2026, on Paramount+, which kicks off Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary year. Paramount+ has already renewed Starfleet Academy for season 2, which is in production now.
Here are 10 reasons for Star Trek fans to be excited about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Is Led By Academy Award-Caliber Movie Stars
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s cast is led by Academy Award and Emmy-winner Holly Hunter, who plays Captain and Chancellor Nahla Ake, while Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner Paul Giamatti plays season 1’s recurring villain, Nus Braka.
Michelle Yeoh of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Section 31 is also an Academy Award winner for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The fact that revered, award-winning, A-list movie stars are the leads of a Star Trek series speaks to the caliber of actors Star Trek can now attract and the heightened prestige of starring in a Star Trek series.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s trailer shows that Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti share meaty and dramatic scenes. The acting alone in Starfleet Academy should be out of this world.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Has A Young Cast Of Brand New Characters
The heart and soul of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy are the cadets: Sandro Rosta plays Caleb Mir, Bella Shepard plays Genesis Lythe, Kerrice Brooks is SAM, Karim Diané plays Jay-Den Kraag, George Hawkins is Darem Reymi, and Zoë Steiner plays Tarima Sadal.
New characters expanding Star Trek‘s scope are always welcome. Starfleet Academy’s cadets are also the youngest group of characters to be the centerpiece of a Star Trek series, injecting a dynamic energy and optimism into the franchise.
Other new characters in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy are played by acclaimed actress Tatiana Maslany and WWE champion Becky Lynch (Rebecca Quin).
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s young adult focus is also crucial to expanding the franchise to new and more youthful audiences beyond Star Trek‘s aging fanbase.
Star Trek: Discovery Has 3 Legacy Characters In Starfleet Academy (That We Know Of)
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a sequel to Star Trek: Discovery and benefits from some of Disco’s familiar faces crossing over into the newest Star Trek series.
Tig Notaro returns as genius engineer Commander Jett Reno, while Oded Fehr reprises the head of Starfleet, Admiral Charles Vance, from Star Trek: Discovery. The door is also open for more Discovery characters to appear.
Star Trek: Lower Decks‘ Tawny Newsome is also a writer in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1.
Mary Wiseman also returns as Lieutenant Sylvia Tilly, although reportedly in a limited capacity, which is surprising since Starfleet Academy was originally built around Tilly in Star Trek: Discovery.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Will Explore What Happened To DS9’s Captain Sisko
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s teaser trailer released at San Diego Comic-Con contained a compelling hint that the fate of Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will be a lesson taught to the cadets.
One of the Federation’s most precarious eras was the Dominion War, which Starfleet and its allies fought and won in the late 24th century. That victory wasn’t possible without Captain Sisko and the crew of Deep Space Nine, who were on the front line for the duration.
Sisko promised he’d return, but perhaps he never did.
However, Captain Sisko was also a demigod. As the Emissary to the Prophets of Bajor, Sisko became a non-corporeal being at the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Sisko promised he’d return, but perhaps he never did.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy delivering a follow-up to what happened to Captain Sisko, 800 years after he became one with the Prophets, and 27 years afrer Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is an event hotly anticipated by DS9 fans.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Brings Back Klingons & Has A Klingon Main Character
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s cadet Jay-Den Kraag is the first time that a Klingon is a main character in a Star Trek series since the 1990s era executive produced by Rick Berman.
Klingons have largely been in the background since Star Trek: Discovery’s controversial reimagining of the warrior race, with only a few appearances in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds resetting the Klingons to their most popular incarnation.
Further, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces Klingon hybrids. Cadet master Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) is a hybrid of a Klingon and a Jem’Hadar, while Paul Giamatti’s villainous Nus Braka is a mix of a Klingon and a Tellarite.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Has A Love Story Like Riker & Troi
As a show about young college-aged cadets, it’s par for the course that Star Trek: Starfleet Academy would have young adult romances. Starfleet Academy‘s central love story seems to be between human Caleb Mir and Tarima Sadal, a Betazoid and the daughter of Betazed’s President.
Caleb and Tarima could be a forbidden love story in defiance of their elders, but a human man in love with a Betazoid woman updates arguably Star Trek‘s greatest romance between Captain Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Picard.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s trailer also shows that Tarima can’t fully control her Betazoid empathic abilities, which can be unleashed to frightening effect. Tarima’s powers hint at potential danger and tragedy for Starfleet Academy‘s young lovers.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s Innovative USS Athena Starship
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes place both on Earth and in outer space, which is made possible by the series’ most dazzling innovation, the USS Athena, a Federation starship that becomes Starfleet Academy’s campus when it docks in San Francisco.
The USS Athena is a creative masterstroke by Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau, who equate Captain Ake’s starship to a “teaching hospital” that allows the cadets to learn while facing the urgent dangers of real-life scenarios.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s USS Athena has a majestic atrium, which is also the largest set ever constructed for Star Trek. The Athena’s bridge, classrooms, recreational areas, and private dorms are also spectacular sets that take Star Trek to another level of production design.
The Doctor Is A Major Character In Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy also brings back Robert Picardo as The Doctor, who is the same Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager. The Doctor has been alive for 800 years and has been continuously activated and evolving for all of that time.
The Doctor’s role in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is that of an instructor, likely teaching medicine, but the EMH could also be the school’s repository for Starfleet’s vast history.
The Doctor mentoring young Starfleet cadets in Star Trek: Prodigy inspired Alex Kurtzman to port the EMH into Starfleet Academy, and Robert Picardo has been one of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s most prominent and enthusiastic flag-wavers to older fans.
All Of Star Trek’s Past Canon Is In Play In Starfleet Academy
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s late 32nd century berth after Star Trek: Discovery gives Paramount+ series the unique advantage of being able to draw from the entire thousand-year history of Starfleet and the Federation in Star Trek’s timeline.
Starfleet Academy’s cadets can and will learn from the mistakes and triumphs of legends like Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew).
Starfleet Academy‘s atrium contains a heroes’ wall of past Starfleet legends, with names representing every Star Trek series across the generations, as well as Easter eggs of behind-the-scenes luminaries who created Star Trek.
Potentially, any character, story, or aspect from every past Star Trek can be referenced in Starfleet Academy, with the potential for surprise cameos, thanks to holodecks and other sci-fi means Star Trek can incorporate.
Starfleet Academy Pushes Star Trek’s Future Forward Once Again
One of the most exciting aspects of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is that it’s not a prequel. As tremendous as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is, it is still a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, shoehorned into a few unexplored years before Captain Kirk takes command of the Starship Enterprise.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes over Star Trek: Discovery‘s position as the show that is set at the farthest continuous point in Star Trek‘s timeline. Starfleet Academy continues the forward progress of Star Trek towards the dawn of the 33rd century, which is an all-new final frontier.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy hopes to run for four seasosn to represent a four-year college experience for the cadets.
Representing the very modern angst of the turmoil found in our real world, as the best Star Trek has, but tinged with the hope and optimism of its cast of young cadets, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a truly exciting new chapter for Star Trek, its future, and its generations of fans, old and new.
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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Alex Kurtzman, Noga Landau
- Directors
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Alex Kurtzman
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Karim Diane
Jay-Den Kraag
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Kerrice Brooks
Series Acclimation Mil ‘Sam’
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