All new details about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy were shared ahead of the Star Trek Universe Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, giving fans a glimpse into this new original series. Paramount gave EW the scoop, sharing exclusive photos and broad details about the highly anticipated show.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will be set in the 32nd century, after the "Halcyon Days" of the Federation. The Federation is slowly rebuilding, and Starfleet Academy is reopening to train a new generation of cadets. The upcoming series will revolve around the first class of Starfleet cadets at the academy after 120 years.
Part of the reason that Starfleet Academy is set after the golden era of the Federation is to better reflect the current state of the real world.
"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," explained executive producer and co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman. "Our children are facing a lot of challenges right now and they are our hope for the future."
"They've got a lot riding on their shoulders, and they are meant to reestablish and rebuild everything that we all know and love about Star Trek," Kurtzman cntinued. "They convey hope and they search for hope, and that felt like an extremely relevant message to talk about now."
"It's wish fulfillment," added fellow showrunner Noga Landau. "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."
As part of the exclusive article, EW revealed a batch of photos from the series. It's our first proper look at many of the Starfleet Academy characters although many of their details will remain under wraps until at least after the Comic-Con panel. We do know that Holly Hunter, the series lead, will the captain and chancellor of the academy. Landau referred to the captain as an "incredible force of nature," adding, "We've never seen a captain like this before."
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy may focus on new cadets, but the series will have plenty of connections to the franchise as a whole, including Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and even the animated kids show Prodigy.
"We made sure that the halls of our school are properly named for the most legendary people in Starfleet," Landau teased. You may even recognize one of these legendary people in the photos below: Robert Picardo, the Doctor from Voyager and Prodigy.
Check out the first batch of photos revealed for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The series is set to premiere in 2026 on Paramount+.