Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – First Trailer Boldly Goes Where No Teen Drama Has Gone Before (video).
Well, fellow space cadets, Paramount+ has finally lifted the curtain on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, and the first trailer suggests we’re in for a wild ride through the final frontier’s most prestigious educational institution. Set to premiere January 15th 2026, this latest addition to Alex Kurtzman’s ever-expanding Star Trek Universe takes us to the 32nd century—because apparently, the 23rd and 24th centuries were getting a bit crowded.
The premise is delightfully straightforward: after a cataclysmic event (because what’s Star Trek without a good galaxy-threatening catastrophe?), Starfleet Academy is finally accepting its first new class in over a century. One has to wonder what the admissions office has been doing all this time. Playing solitaire? Reorganizing the filing system? At any rate, they’re back in business, and they’ve assembled quite the motley crew of cadets.
Leading this youthful charge is Academy Award winner Holly Hunter as Captain Nahla Ake, who gets the enviable task of being both the captain of the USS Athena AND the chancellor of Starfleet Academy. Because why have one incredibly demanding job when you can have two? Hunter apparently enjoys the dichotomy of commanding in emergencies while also showing “tremendous empathy” to students—a skill any teacher will tell you requires the patience of a Vulcan and the fortitude of a Klingon.
Speaking of Klingons, the cadet roster includes Jay-Den Kraag, an aspiring medical officer who presumably will have to overcome centuries of his people’s cultural aversion to saying “please” and “thank you” in sickbay. Actor Karim Diané reportedly spent five hours in the makeup chair initially, though this was whittled down to a brisk two hours by season’s end. Nothing says “commitment to your craft” quite like willingly subjecting yourself to that much prosthetic application before breakfast.
Then there’s Sam, played by Kerrice Brooks, who has the distinction of being the first Kasqian to attend the Academy. The twist? Kasqians are holograms, and Sam is only weeks old but programmed to be a young adult. So she’s essentially experiencing university life as a literal newborn, which honestly explains a lot about first-year students everywhere.
Our apparent protagonist is Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta), a disillusioned human orphan who’s spent most of his life on the run and joins the Academy to find his mother. Nothing like a nice personal quest to spice up your coursework. He’s the outsider through whose eyes we’ll learn about Starfleet values, which is convenient for viewers who somehow haven’t absorbed them through the previous eleven Star Trek series.
Rounding out the cadet corps are Darem Reymi, a wealthy Khionian with high expectations (read: probably insufferable at first); Genesis Lythe, an admiral’s daughter determined to make her own name (good luck with that family pressure); and Tarima Sadal, daughter of the president of Betazed (because apparently, we’re going full nepotism with this class).
But wait—there’s more! Robert Picardo returns as the Doctor from Voyager, now a sprightly 900-year-old holographic instructor who remembers “36 generations of organic colleagues” dying around him. If that’s not a recipe for existential crisis, I don’t know what is. Picardo promises the Doctor is “as we remember him, but deeper,” which presumably means he’s had nine centuries to work on his bedside manner.
The USS Athena herself is a clever workaround to the eternal problem of Starfleet Academy stories: how do you have space adventures when you’re stuck in San Francisco classrooms? Simple—you make the school a starship that can deploy with the fleet. It’s basically a teaching hospital in space, which means these cadets will get hands-on experience with real diplomatic crises, alien encounters, and probably a lot of paperwork. Paul Giamatti joins as the season’s big bad, Nus Braka, a part-Klingon, part-Tellarite villain who apparently represents real-world divisions and hate. Giamatti chose this role after being given his pick of five different guest spots, which means he specifically selected “menacing antagonist” over presumably easier gigs. The man enjoyed the lengthy makeup process, which tells you everything you need to know about his dedication—or his masochism.
The creative team has assembled an impressive roster, including showrunners Kurtzman and Noga Landau, creator Gaia Violo, and notably, Tawny Newsome (voice of Beckett Mariner from Lower Decks) as the first Star Trek actor to hold a staff writing position. The writers’ room has been working overtime to balance respecting canon while also giving themselves enough 32nd-century freedom to avoid contradicting fifty-eight years of established Trek lore. Good luck with that, folks.
According to Kurtzman, the series champions classic Star Trek ideals of empathy, unity, and peacemaking over intolerance and hate—because some messages bear repeating, especially when you can dress them up with impressive VFX and alien prosthetics. The cadets are meant to “reinstate the original vision of Star Trek,” which is either inspiring or a damning indictment of what happened to Starfleet over the past nine centuries. Possibly both.
Production wrapped on the ten-episode first season in February 2025, having utilized Canada’s largest soundstage to build the Academy’s atrium—a two-story behemoth featuring a mess hall, amphitheater, classrooms, catwalks, trees, and a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Because if you’re going to build a set, you might as well make it bigger than anything Trek has attempted before.
The trailer reactions have been, shall we say, mixed. Trade publications noted that the producers have some work to do in building enthusiasm, with responses ranging from excited to skeptical. A second trailer at New York Comic Con reportedly emphasized more drama and intensity, presumably after someone noticed the first one leaned a bit heavily on the “hip teen academy” vibes.
Guest appearances include Mary Wiseman returning as Sylvia Tilly (now an instructor, having successfully escaped her Discovery duties), Tig Notaro as engineer Jett Reno, Oded Fehr as Admiral Charles Vance, and even WWE superstar Becky Lynch as a bridge crew member. Stephen Colbert provides the voice of the Digital Dean of Students, because nothing says “prestigious space academy” quite like having a late-night talk show host delivering your morning announcements.
The series has already been renewed for a second season, with production beginning in August 2025, so Paramount+ is clearly committed to this venture. Whether it will capture the magic of classic Trek while appealing to younger audiences remains to be seen, but one thing’s certain: we’re about to find out if Starfleet Academy can survive the most dangerous threat it’s ever faced—Generation Z with access to starship controls.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres January 15, 2026, on Paramount+, with the first two episodes dropping simultaneously before settling into a weekly release schedule.
