Star Trek: StarFleet Academy Review
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a television series created by Gaia Violo for Paramount+. It is the 12th Star Trek series and part of executive producer Alex Kurtzman‘s expanded Star Trek Universe and premiered on Paramount+ on 15 January 2026.
Set in 32nd century, following Star Trek: Starfleet Academy follows the first year of a new class of Starfleet cadets in over a century, training to become officers while navigating personal, academic and galactic-scale challenges.
The Good
Star Trek has boldly gone on many adventures before, and now it looks to a new generation of not only characters, but viewers, shifting the focus from seasoned commanders to cadets who are still figuring out who they are, their place in the universe and what they stand for aboard their high-tech school bus, and campus the USS Athena.
Holly Hunter as Chancellor Nahla Ake is the glue that holds the show together as the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy, a role she plays with quirky intensity and barefoot authority lighting up the set with her eccentric charisma.
The character-driven stories are centred around a diverse cast with the rivalries, insecurities and the budding relationships that define any experience at an academic institution. The cadets have different backgrounds and traumas and each of the main cadets has an episode which gives context and backstory to their being at Starfleet Academy.
The Bad
At times it feels like the only thing Star Trek about it is that they decided to set a teen space drama space-opera aboard the USS Athena and periodically name-drop some legacy characters with a couple cameo appearances..
While it has a central plot, the middle episodes are more like side quests (mis)adventures and filler content though great for character development, gives the show a tonal inconsistency, one week it’s a Federation-level crisis and the next its debate, then drama class and a life-or-death final examination.
The Ugly
It’s a divisive show which can offend legacy Star Trek fans for not being Star Trek enough while new gen fans will find it being too Star Treky with constant nods to the 23rd and 24th centuries as if it cannot take chart of its own bold new perspective…
Final Thoughts
Starfleet Academy is ambitious, occasionally messy, but rarely boring, offering a different lens on the Star Trek universe; the chaotic and hopeful beginnings of future officers.
Are you a Star Trek fan? Have you watched StarFleet, is it something you would watch.
Leave a Reply