During the San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel this weekend, Paramount+ finally lifted the curtain on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The teaser trailer gives us our first look yet at the upcoming original series, which was first announced back in 2023.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces us to a young group of cadets "who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism." Set in the 32nd century, after the "Halcyon Days" of the Federation, the series follows the first class of Starfleet cadets at the academy after 120 years.
The highly-anticipated first look trailer features the series' main campus in San Francisco while teasing the main starship, the U.S.S. Athena. As previously announced, Academy Award winner Holly Hunter will play the series lead Nahla Ake, the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy and Captain of the U.S.S. Athena, who is also a long-lived half-Lanthanite.
Nahla Ake's welcoming speech to the first class of cadets is one filled with hopefulness and optimism, which appears to be the main running theme of the series.
"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," executive producer and co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman revealed earlier this week. "They convey hope and they search for hope, and that felt like an extremely relevant message to talk about now."
"It's wish fulfillment," fellow showrunner Noga Landau added when discussing the tone of the show. "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."
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces viewers to a young group of cadets who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves and a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself.
In addition to the trailer, Paramount+ also introduced us to the main cast playing the Starfleet Academy cadets. The core cast stars Sandro Rosta as Caleb Mir, an orphan with a troubled past and an unlikely Starfleet cadet; Karim Diané as Jay-Den Kraag, a Klingon cadet who dreams of becoming a medical officer; Kerrice Brooks as Series Acclimation Mil, a.k.a. Sam, the first of her kind to ever attend Starfleet Academy; George Hawkins as Darem Reymi, an aspiring captain from a wealthy home world; and Bella Shepard as Genesis Lythe, an admiral's daughter determined to make her own name in Starfleet.
Additional cast members and cadets include:
- Zoë Steiner as Tarima Sadal, a Betazoid and daughter of the president of Betazed.
- Robert Picardo, reprising his iconic role as The Doctor.
- Tig Notaro, reprising her role as Jett Reno.
- Oded Fehr, reprising his role as Admiral Vance.
- Recurring Guest Star Gina Yashere as Commander Lura Thok, a Klingon/Jem’Hadar hybrid who is the chancellor’s First Officer and Cadet Master.
- Recurring Guest Star and Academy Award nominee, Paul Giamatti, as part Klingon, part Tellarite Nus Braka, the season’s villain with an ominous past connected to one of our cadets.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is scheduled to premiere in early 2026 on Paramount+. The Hall H panel also gave fans a sneak peek at a new puppet-themed episode that will be featured in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4.