Spoiler Warning: Beware of minor spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1.
Mere days after the finale of Season 1, and with Season 2 still in post-production, news has leaked that Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has been cancelled. I won’t lie: this was something I expected we’d hear either this year or next year at the very latest, but there’s something about the timing that feels… well, pretty brutal.
The newly-formed Skydance/Paramount corporation seems to be making it clear that a line is being drawn under Star Trek’s current streaming era. That was pretty obvious, I argued, when Discovery and Strange New Worlds were cancelled – the latter coming before the show had even aired a single episode of its *third* season, with two more still to come after that. Star Trek’s new corporate overlords clearly intend to take the franchise in a very different direction, and Starfleet Academy was the last vestige of the old regime. That final pillar of “streaming Trek” has now fallen.
Image: Variety.com
I’m still assuming, at this stage, that Season 2 will actually be completed and broadcast. Filming wrapped last month, and while there’s still a lot of work to do in the editing suite, it would be foolish to scrap the entire project. So Starfleet Academy fans can, at least, take solace in the fact that we’re only halfway through the show; ten more episodes should air sometime next year or in 2028.
I don’t really wanna keep repeating the phrase “end of an era;” it was something I said last year when Strange New Worlds got the axe, and when Discovery and Lower Decks wrapped up, too. But with Starfleet Academy being treated so brutally by Paramount, it’s hard to know what else to say. This is definitely calling to mind Enterprise’s 2005 cancellation – with the only difference, really, being that a new feature film is allegedly in the works, a consolation prize we didn’t have back then.
If you’re a regular reader, you may recall that Starfleet Academy’s cancellation was something I predicted for 2026 back in January. I’m not taking a victory lap – the show may not have been “my thing,” but I went into it with an open mind, and I truly hoped it would find a way to connect with its intended target audience. Low streaming numbers throughout Season 1, however, seem to confirm that that simply didn’t happen. I said back in January that it would take a real miracle to convince this new incarnation of Paramount to stick with the show beyond Season 2 – going viral and becoming a must-watch sensation, like Stranger Things or Wednesday, perhaps, might’ve been enough to guarantee a renewal. But even doing reasonably well probably wouldn’t have been enough. I just got that impression from Paramount’s new ownership.
But, regrettably, Starfleet Academy didn’t even manage “good but not great” streaming numbers. It never cracked the top ten in the United States or here in the UK, even in a relatively easy TV window where there wasn’t a ton of big-budget competition. Shows like Fallout, The Pitt, and even preschool cartoon Bluey were performing well ahead of Starfleet Academy during its first season. Cancellation seemed inevitable, I’m sorry to say.
But the timing… it feels brutal, as I said, but also a little insulting to the cast and crew. Paramount will still expect Holly Hunter and her co-stars to go out on the interview circuit, promoting Season 2 next year or the year after. And we’re barely ten days out from the end of Season 1. I get why the decision was made – if a show isn’t performing very well, and a new corporate team wants to reorganise the studio’s big brands and franchises, it makes sense. But even so, you’d think a bit of a grace period could’ve been given, timing-wise. There’s now practically no chance of the show picking up any extra attention from fans who missed it over the past couple of months. What would be the point, after all, in getting invested in a series which has already been cancelled?
With Starfleet Academy’s cancellation, there’s now officially no new Star Trek in production on the small screen. Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy’s second season remain in post-production, so there’ll be new Star Trek on our screens later in 2026 and into 2027. But then, after that? All we have to focus on, barring any shocking announcements, is Skydance’s new feature film. Although this was expected, and despite Starfleet Academy not really being “my thing,” I gotta be honest: this news still stings.
However, as I said a couple of weeks ago, there are some potential benefits for a long-running franchise like Star Trek taking a break or going on hiatus for a while. The previous incarnation of ViacomCBS and Paramount threw *a lot* of Star Trek at us over the past few years… in a pretty incoherent and poorly-managed way a lot of the time. There’s something to be said for a new team coming in, wiping the slate clean, and taking a moment so we can all catch our breath. And if the current creative/production team has taken Star Trek as far as it reasonably could, there’s also a lot to be said for new folks taking the reins. Most of the Star Trek shows since Discovery have shared writers, directors, producers, and more behind-the-scenes folks, so giving new people an opportunity to work on the franchise should – in my opinion, naturally – be a positive thing.
No serious Trekkie sat down to watch Starfleet Academy hoping they’d hate it or wanting it to fail. But I think a lot of us recognised that the show was probably coming along a little too late, after the previous Paramount corporation hadn’t handled Star Trek especially well. It would’ve taken something exceptionally special for Starfleet Academy to rise above all of that, and to do something that no project in the franchise’s streaming era *truly* managed to do to any great extent: connect with a new audience. It was a tall order, for sure, but making a show intentionally aimed at teens and young adults was far from the worst idea in the world. It’s just a shame, really, that Starfleet Academy launched when it did, and didn’t really get a chance to connect with potential new viewers.
Many folks argue that Star Trek shows don’t really “get good” until their second seasons or beyond, so cancelling Starfleet Academy after just one season might seem like a poor decision in that sense. And I kind of see that point, at least to an extent. But if Season 1 just wasn’t finding much of an audience in the first place, not with older Star Trek fans nor with its intended new audience of younger folks, would sticking with it for a third or fourth season have really changed that? I guess we’ll never know, eh?
It’s a shame, and despite the fact that Starfleet Academy wasn’t really for me, I don’t celebrate its cancellation by any stretch. In fact, I lament it. I think it’s a real shame, barely nine years on from Star Trek’s triumphal return to the small screen, to be back here all over again. And despite the way things look right now, it’s my hope that, behind the scenes, there are folks at the new Skydance/Paramount corporation who are seriously considering where to take the franchise in the future. Films are great, and some of Star Trek’s most highly-regarded stories came at the cinema. But for this old Trekkie, Star Trek has always been a television show; a franchise best-suited for the small screen, where crews of explorers can warp away to a new planet, a new alien race, and a new adventure every week. Maybe one day… that kind of Star Trek will be back.
If you’re a huge Starfleet Academy fan, you have my sympathies today. This news may have seemed inevitable for a while, but it’s not something any of us wanted to see. And as for what it means for the future? I really don’t know, to be honest. I want to say I feel optimistic that, one day soon, Star Trek will be back! But today… doesn’t really feel like that kind of day, to tell the truth.
I’m not sure how you’ll feel reading a mixed-to-negative review, today of all days, but if you want to check out my thoughts on Starfleet Academy’s first season, you can find my review by clicking or tapping here. I also have reviews of the two-part premiere, and episodes three through ten. Click or tap those links to check those out. And finally, I have two more pieces: one covers a storyline involving Deep Space Nine, which you can find by clicking or tapping here, and finally, my thoughts on the Doctor’s major storyline, which you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Thanks for reading. And, as always: Live Long and Prosper, friends.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the service is available. The Star Trek franchise – including Starfleet Academy and everything else discussed above – remains the copyright of Paramount/Skydance. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 