‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Officially Announced

Today Paramount+ made the long running rumors official, announcing a series order for the brand new Star Trek show: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The series will “follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy.” The show is planned to go into production in 2024.

Starfleet Academy

Alex Kurtzman and executives at Paramount have made no secret about the development of an Academy show, which was first mentioned when Kurtzman was tasked to expand the Star Trek Universe beyond Star Trek: Discovery, which launched in 2017. Here is how the show is described in the official release.:

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will introduce us 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 will 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.

Paramount+ announcement image (NOTE: Not final title treatment)

Kurtzman will be co-showrunner alongside Noga Landau (creator of CW’s Nancy Drew and writer on Syfy’s The Magicians). Together they have made the following joint announcement:

“Admission is now open to Starfleet Academy! Explore the galaxy! Captain your destiny! For the first time in over a century, our campus will be re-opened to admit individuals a minimum of 16 Earth years (or species equivalent) who dream of exceeding their physical, mental and spiritual limits, who value friendship, camaraderie, honor and devotion to a cause greater than themselves. The coursework will be rigorous, the instructors among the brightest lights in their respective fields, and those accepted will live and study side-by-side with the most diverse population of students ever admitted. Today we encourage all who share our dreams, goals and values to join a new generation of visionary cadets as they take their first steps toward creating a bright future for us all. Apply today! Ex Astris, Scientia!”

Alongside Kurtzman and Landau, the Academy show will be executive produced by Gaia Violo (creator of the Prime Video thriller Absentia), who also wrote the series premiere episode. Also executive producing are Aaron Baiers, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa, and John Weber. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will be produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment.

“We are excited to introduce ‘Star Trek’ fans to a whole new generation of Starfleet officers in training as they navigate the rigors of the Academy and the brink of adulthood in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” said Domenic DiMeglio, chief marketing officer and head of data at Paramount Streaming in a statement. “Introducing new characters and compelling storylines, this all-new original series will serve as a fantastic addition to the franchise and Paramount+, bringing new generations of viewers and long-term ‘Star Trek’ fans alike together to enjoy the next chapter in the iconic ‘Star Trek’ universe.”

“As we continue to explore more of the ‘Star Trek’ universe, we’re thrilled to bring Star Trek: Starfleet Academy to fans around the world as the next chapter in this expanding franchise,” said David Stapf, president of CBS Studios. “Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau’s vision is a smart and thrilling take that celebrates the core principles of what ‘Star Trek’ has always stood for, but through the eyes of the next generation of Starfleet’s leaders.”

32nd century?

There are currently no firm details about the setting, characters, or cast for the new show. However, the description of the academy being reopened “for the first time in over a century,” fits with the show being set in the 32nd century. In Discovery season 4, we found out that due to The Burn, Starfleet hadn’t had a proper academy in 125 years. Season 4 also featured a storyline with Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) leaving the USS Discovery for a position at the Academy. Wiseman is returning to Discovery for the fifth and final season. It is not known if she or any of her other Discovery stars will be involved in the new Academy series.

Captain Burnham addresses the first new class of cadets in Discovery season 4.

Production is said to start in 2024, so this show would likely debut in 2025. Earlier this week Paramount+ announced renewals for both Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, filling out the 2024 slate of Star Trek on the platform, joining the fifth and final season of Discovery and the expected second half of the second season of Prodigy.

Writers’ room assembled

Lower Decks star and comedian and writer Tawny Newsome took to Twitter to announce she’s part of the writers’ room for the show.

 

This is a developing story, so keep checking TrekMovie for new details and updates.


Keep up with all the news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.

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in the 32nd century created by DSC? please don’t.

I heartily agree with you sir ( as a robot from another Space franchise might say ).

Especially with Disco being killed off

They killed off the show, not the era.

Disco never dies. Disco is forever ! 🕺🏽

It ends after next season.

It was canceled in the early ’80s I believe.

OK, this was funny.

Disco never could get the Saturday Night Fever vibe in me dancing 🕺🏻
Everything seems centered on the Captain and her latest exploits 🥱 😴
That along with the spinning ships was just way over the top for me

From the description, it is.

I agree with Antonio. Still time to change it. (Also, maybe from 2400 to 2500, you had to be 17 years old to be admitted? Here’s hoping.)

Why would they want to change it? This has likely been in the plan for a while, and is WELL into development, and they seem very happy with it.

I know they don’t want to change it, but I want them to. :(

I would think the only possible way to get them to change would be for them to hear the fan response. I realize this concept has probably been in the works for a while now, but it’s never too late.

Idk, many of the fans I see on Twitter are loving this, as many as I see crowing about it. But then again, I don’t silo myself in an echo chamber.

Is Twitter not an echo chamber?
I think I can count on 1 hand the number of “fans” I have seen who say they are very interested in an Academy show – across the comments sections of general interest genre tv news websites as well as Trek-centric ones like this one and Trek message boards.

Ometiklan, regarding the 17-years-old thing – I understand you’re hoping against hope here, but why would the announcement of a television series ever act like lowering a fictional age of admission into a school from 17 to 16 is a big thing? lol

It’s not, I was just arguing that since the only thing we know that pins it to the 32nd century is the “first time in 100 years”, that if we wanted to pretend that it will instead be in the early 24th or early 25th centuries, that we can hang our hats on the age limit being a loophole in the wording that let’s them weasel out and change the setting.

The way I see it if they truly do set the show in the Discovery future time they have already handicapped it.

The way you see it it’s a failure no matter where its set because it’s Secret Hideout, your arch nemesis.

You sound sad? 😂

Not as great a handicap for new viewers, who they desperately need. The old guard cannot remain the fan base for ever, we are getting old, lol.

Perhaps but I’m not seeing a ton of evidence nu-Trek is bringing in a lot of new viewers. Streamers are notoriously stingy when it comes to publicly presenting numbers. Much less demographics. Maybe they are. And I guess if you are getting a new viewer with Starfleet Academy they may not care what time frame it is set in. But I still think the bulk of the viewers will be existing and since the newbies won’t be affected by when the show is set it would probably better for the show to not set it in a time that has turned off a good chunk of fandom.

If it wasn’t bringing in new viewers, they wouldn’t be going ahead with the show. Simple business logic. No studio would invest millions in a new VFX-heavy show to please a theoretically dwindling viewer base.

Sure, Discovery has turned off *some* fans, but so did TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and the Kelvin Timeline films, AND THAT’S FINE.

Not everything is for everybody! And Star Trek is a big enough playground to allow many different perspectives.

The thing to maybe understand here is that “a chunk” of fans is not “the biggest chunk” or even “a measurable chunk.” Even if said “chunk” are very vocal, there’s probably a way larger number of viewers who don’t spend time nitpicking on Internet message boards about it.

Paramount is making shows for the measurable audience chunk that DOES enjoy what they’re making. If the audience stopped watching, it’d get cancelled and put future shows into jeopardy.

So far it seems clear that taking notes from Disney’s expansion of the Star Wars universe to encompass multiple characters, eras, and perspectives is working.

If it wasn’t bringing in new viewers, they wouldn’t be going ahead with the show.

Perhaps. But not necessarily. There very well could be new Trek viewers. But without any real data at our disposal I’m forced to conclude that number is probably awfully low.

There are many separate echo chambers.

I have seen recurrent, positive speculation about this show being development over on Reddit. As Tiger2 sometimes notes, a place with thousands on the Star Trek subreddits, many of them much younger than here.

I’ll have to check in with our own teens to find out what their discord groups think, but I suspect the target audience age range may reach down even to the middle grades.

Keep in mind, the r/startrek likes to moderate all negative posts about Star Trek. The joke on other pages is that it is ran by Paramount.

r/startrek has 500k+ users so it’s still significant.

There are numerous other subreddits that have moderation policies, including ones for Discovery, two for Picard etc. I have seen enthusiasm for an Academy show expressed across all of them, if at different intensities. It’s a longstanding idea that fans just keep bringing up.

It’s important to keep in mind that we’re over the dozen regulars here that some of us used to joke about, but we’re not a lot.

Some of you guys are shouting at clouds. 😂

It worked with v’ger, eventually.

LOL 🤣

This forum is a bigger echo chamber than Twitter. I’ve pretty much given up on it and I’ll let the five or so angry grandpas here think they speak for the consensus. This show sounds great to me. Can’t wait.

I only come here for the laughs.

You’re a good man, Buck Bokai.

No, twitter is not an echo chamber in and of itself, depending on who you follow. If you only follow the 10-20 accounts who agree with you, sure. But in addition to Twitter, I regularly peruse other forums and not just this website. I may not engage in all of them, but I see a larger, more diverse group of opinions than people here apparently do.

If Twitter were predictive on anything, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would be president of the US.

You’re completely missing the point. The point is to do more than just look at what people are saying here on this website. There are so many more fans than congregate here. Nobody said Twitter is “predictive” of anything, you just invented that.

Yes, many fans congregate here. But it is usually about the same 5-10 that are always complaining about everything… ad nauseam. The silent majority just don’t say much.

Yeah most of the time I don’t bother to post. I just read the article and move on with my day.

Starfleet Academy is not only for humans, development will vary.

We already know from Alexander Rozenko in DS9 that Klingons reach maturity at younger ages. Even within a species biological age varies and is different from calendar age.

Let’s not be humanocentric.

That is already covered in the announcement: “or species equivalent”.

Not every human develops at the same pace.

Wesley Crusher first took the 24th century entrance exam at 14 or 15. This is actually more conservative than classic canon.

I would think the only possible way to get them to change would be for them to hear the fan response.

That’s not overly realistic. For one thing, the reactions of fans on message boards represent a tiny, tiny percentage of the viewing audience. For another, I doubt the overall fan response is a negative one. I don’t enjoy Tilly, but she and Discovery have a lot of avid fans.

Yeah, like, which fan reactions will they choose to listen to? Youtube comments on a Nerdrotic video? Twitter followers commenting on The Podcast Boys?

Or perhaps, fans of a podcaster or youtuber who regularly talks about their love for Discovery, like Jessie Gender or Steve Shives?

There are a number of different communities with polar opposite takes.

This also does not take into account the fact that they only marginally need the ‘old’ fan base. Their is a vast untapped younger audience that are not yet fans, as we once were.

Are there?
When are they going to publish the numbers on Disco? because I think nobody is actually watching the show.

Yeah, it’s very unlikely, but if you go with “the common wisdom”, it was fan reaction to season 2 of DIS that assured we got SNW.

I don’t think it’s meant to attract legacy fans or even keep us happy.
I’m guessing this will be meant for younger viewers.

LOL they are not going change it. They been working on this idea for literally years now. I get not everyone loves this period but the story opportunities are immense.

As long as they take the story seriously, I have absolutely no issue with a teen-focused Academy series set in the 32nd century.

I think the story opportunities are just as big in the 24th and 25th centuries, and you have a larger cast of guest star characters to pull from.

Sorry, the time it’s in is completely irrelevant for a YA show.

Sure but the set up isn’t going to be as big as something like reconstituting it after a century and see what come with those issues.

That’s the difference. Of course it could be a great show in any setting or century but this premise makes it very unique you can’t get in the 23rd or 24th century. And especially in a century we know so little about as well.

Agreed, that is an advantage the 32nd has. It’s a big project for Starfleet. I hope that is considered in the show.

Frankly, for a show targeted at teens and YA, being in the relatively unknown 32nd century is much less likely to bump into canon.

Putting it then makes a lot of sense.

Exactly that was the point with DIS obviously. If you don’t like DIS or the 32nd century I get the push back. But I think the producers love staying in the 32nd century for that reason, they could do anything they want. Why would you give that up?

And I think the 25th century is the preview of Nostalgia Trek now. Discovery is like Voyager. You’ll see it pay off more down the road.

Basically ALL the new shows minus Discovery is nostalgia Trek, but yes Picard is the biggest ATM. And Discovery was going that way until they went to the 32nd century. That’s exactly why people like me support it for that reason alone. They were finally taking a real chance and do something original. The results are mixed based on who you ask but I agree with you, it can pay off in time, this show a perfect example.

Great point, we are already seeing how DISCO and the new era are acting as springboards for a continuation of trek.

The brand needs new, not more of the same. In the new era we get new species, new tech, new problems that won’t continual bring out the canon police.

Exactly, Star Trek needs to expand. That’s what I been saying for 20 years now lol. It needs to go forward and can mold itself to new generations and fans. That’s literally what TNG did at the time. It wasn’t trying to be TOS, it really couldn’t be by then but obviously still inherently Star Trek. And it paid off really well. Not only did we get a completely new era of shows and aliens, we also got an entire new base of fans from the 90s to today.

I don’t think any new Star Trek can make that kind of waves today for many reasons if I’m being honest. But it can always be something different for new fans. I’m not a huge fan of Discovery because frankly I just think the show is bad. But it’s one saving grace for me is that it’s the first Trek show that attempted something different and finally not rely on things of the past to tell its stories like admittedly it did in its first two seasons (but welcome to prequels). Now it finally has the chance to present the universe in any crazy way it wants. That’s always a plus for me and why I am 100% onboard with this show even if I decide it’s not for me in the end IF it attracts other and younger fans to Star Trek.

Good point.

But “bumping into canon” is largely an excuse trotted out when shows/writers don’t want to have to work a little bit harder to align with the history of their own shows. You wouldn’t write a show set during World War II where FDR wasn’t president (unless you were writing alt fiction), so you shouldn’t write an episode of Trek that ignores existing canon just because it is inconvenient. There is almost always (a relatively simple) way to tweak a story to make it align.

I don’t even know if their is an official canon bible/encyclopaedia that they work from, their should be and authors often utilise this technique to make sure they have a consistent setting when writing multiple books.

I know of multiple writers that dedicate years to the build of the bible before they even write the scripts/books.

From your perspective but, the show’s not designed for you.

The franchise already has Prodigy leading kids into the late 24th century.

This show is designed to build on Discovery’s youthful demographic. So, it should be in the same era.

But those characters are ageing, and to a younger or new audience could be seen as irrelevant.

There are a few ways they could do this. One way is to focus on one group of students and not have one season be one year of school. Just have it fairly timeless. We follow their growth and the show ends upon their graduation.

Or you make an ongoing show. Which is more complex but you have a group of students at each class level. The Seniors depart upon each season or two and all the others move up. Meaning the longest an actor playing a student would be around is for four years show time. Whether or not that translates to one year per season is up to the show runners.

I think both ideas are tenable but I have a feeling it will probably be the first one. And that happens 99% of the time in most school based shows. They usually follow one group and stick with them through graduation. Maybe they will get more creative with it but I doubt it.

Yeah, no need to reinvent the wheel. They’ve already got their work cut out for them.

That sounds pretty boring. Keep your day job. Paramount has professionals working on this.

Wow, that is rather rude. ML31 was just explaining potential options for how you can follow different groups of cadets. He wasn’t pitching a story.

I wasn’t being rude. Just sarcastic. It’s my nature.

Sarcastic? “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

I think I’m pretty almost sure I know what the word means.

Lol I it’s hard to do sarcasm without the /s settings etc. I know /s I /s know what you mean A34.

LOL

No worries about A34. He’s one of the two remaining trolls I actively ignore. I skip their posts when I see the names. I’m sure it was something lame. As trolls tend to do.

You’re salty today aren’t you.

I usually ignore him too…but I’m bored.

ROOM 222 ought to be a partial model for this; teens in school, dealing with real issues in a way that is relatabe for the audience. Dif being I doubt they’d make the instructors the leads. Most of you are far too young to remember R222, and since it has been virtually forgotten for reruns and barely available in any homevid format, there really isn’t any easy way to catch up on it. I’ve only ever found s1 on DVD (not the best season at all), so my memories of the show are 50 years old … and yet I still remember the chill I felt when Mr. Dixon walked into class and told them Cory was dead (from leukemia) and that class was dismissed. And that was just a guest star! You could definitely do somethin in the vein of the show where the students rebel against having to read old classics in favor of reading CATCH-22 and put some SF spin on it.

I don’t know about the century they’re in or what got them to be in such a messed up state, but I’d at least give this a shot when it starts up, just to be sure it wasn’t going to be DSC Jr. (also, for the first time since months efore ENT first aired, I already have stories in mind, even though I just heard about this.)

As I said, there are different ways they can take this and still make it work. I’m not as down on this as a concept as others are. I think the idea has a lot of potential. My main concern remains the same as all this new stuff. Secret Hideout being capable of delivering a decent product.

Why would they change it? This has been the plan for years. I’m not saying it’s a GOOD plan, but it’s been obvious for a while now that this is where they were going.

I disagree, we are reaching a level of IRL technological advancement where a show set in the original era Academy would look incredibly dated to ‘new’ or younger fans.

The advantages of using the DISCO era are enormous, not to mention they get a lot of set & prop reuse from DISCO finishing. That’s an enormous saving in both physical assets and the digital assets already on location.

For example I’m 50 and would love the new era setting, I’m writing this on an iPad that vastly out powers some of the tech they had in TOS era and using TNG era runs into the same problems.

My feeling is it will.

And pretty much confirmed now Earth is back in the Federation.

Yes! That’s exciting as well. In fact when they say ‘reopen’ do they mean the original Academy on Earth? If so that would be interesting to have a 32nd Earth based show.

Yup, there is a segment of fans that want Star Trek to be about a Starfleet crew flying around in a Starship, that is fine but if that is all they made we would have never gotten DS9.
An Earth-bound Star Trek show in the 32nd century?! Sounds good to me!

That is the irony about the Berman era, people complained outside of DS9 it was the same thing, which I had no issues with personally at all (and DS9 is my favorite show). But some fans felt it was too much of the same formula. And sure, when you are getting 15 years of it I can understand that lol.

But as you know, what I like about Kurtzman is he at least tries to change the formula up. Yes all the shows today are ship based shows but they aren’t done with the same top down manner all the classic shows did it at least.

And I’m not going to be shocked this show will take place on a starship of some kind. I do expect it to be more Earth bound but there will be some kind of starship integration. And if we are following cadets every season I can even see a Red Squadron type of thing happening and they end up on a starship full time as part of their last years of training.

But I’m very excited for an Earth bound show in the 32nd century. That just sounds very interesting to me.

They tried to make DS9 space station based and soon found they had to bring the Defiant in to allow them to head out somewhere from time to time.

They didn’t “have to” do anything. They wanted to. The first two seasons, without the Defiant, are supremely underrated.

Yeah pretty much. And how do you create a war but you’re stuck on the station most of the time. They knew fans wanted more exploring but it also did come out of necessity of the direction they were heading in by then.

But DS9 at least tried to be something different. Every show and movie after it basically went back to the same formula minus Picard…for a season at least. ;)

I do like that they tried to be different. And it was still based on the station more often than not. But still there was a need for them to get out in something more than a runabout. I think the writers may have also been feeling a little confined that first season, too.

Yes, also true. Which is sadly why I’m not shocked every show after it has been star ship based and I won’t be remotely surprised if this show turns out the same way in some form. We all know the show is not going to be relegated to a bunch of kids hanging out in classes or dorm rooms all the time.

We’re still going to be warping somewhere at some point, that’s beyond a guarantee.

They were going places in runabouts the whole time (which is how they discovered the wormhole), so that’s an incomplete view. DEFIANT let them fight big battles while abroad, that was the difference (tho my fave battle is still TWOTW, which was the war brought home to the station.)

That is a more accurate take. So sure.

Also true Kmart And to be realistic, they have to leave the station sometimes lol. And especially because they were at the edge of Federation space. The first three seasons, you actually didn’t see many Starfleet ships there, but mostly when there was an emergency or dropping off something.

So having runabounts are obviously not the same thing. They basically were just used for transportation first and foremost.

A lot depends on how long we follow the cadets for, what major event turns up etc.

But I agree with the others, they can add ships and ‘onboard training’ at any time they want. They can use weaker ships so the challenges are harder for them rather than using giant super ships.

Yes, very true. In fact, I’m thinking about the situation they pulled with No and IIRC they reassigned him to DS9 for his training. It was kind of like a Star Trek version of an internship.

And of course we know that was a special circumstance to have the actor to keep appearing on the show but created another avenue that a cadet doesn’t just have to stay in classes before the graduate. We could see them serving full time on a ship just the same.

Sorry, meant Nog. ;)

I always wanted a ST show that focused on civilian life. Maybe featuring Jack Sisko.

I suppose it would be possible to have the academy setting alongside a civilian population thus allowing the show to explore civilian life at the same time.

While Earth bound is the cheapest option, location wise. If I try and think like a Federation member in C32 I would argue for a Yorktown style location. That way no favour is given is to any one species.

Sure it’s possible that can be the case. I’m not saying it HAS to be Earth bound obviously, we’re just assuming it will be on the press release but they may surprise us and it takes place on a meteor in the Delta quadrant lol. It’s the 32nd century, yeah, anything is possible.

And always the Yorktown and it’s symbolism. That was one of the big reasons Beyond is my favorite out of those movies.

Yeah, whole thing is just eugh.

I’m not a huge fan of the 32nd century as depicted by Discovery. But then again, DISCO has been terrible at world building, so outside of the Burn and the bit of the Federation we’ve seen, we really don’t know much about what’s going on in the 32nd century. As such, it is quite possible that this Starfleet Academy show will make the 32nd century compelling.

Disco keeps rocking 💕🎶

Good to know you’ll still have a reason to subscribe to P+ A34.

An Academy YA show will be the same, regardless of the time its located in. Who cares if it’s the 32nd century, or the 22nd century?

And it’s bound to be CWish. Two huge strikes against it already. Hoping for a post-Dom War series run by Terry Matalas.

While Matalas does seem to have more going on than any of what passes for showrunning among the other powers that be, he may be too pastiche-oriented, like Nick Meyer-lite, to do much more here. For ACADEMY, they need a James L. Brooks or someone on the level of the guy who wrote the novel of THE PAPER CHASE and also did many eps of that series (who was supposedly, if I remember my David Gerrold STARLOG columns correctly, actually all gung-ho to do a space law show for ST-TNG.)

Here’s hoping it’s for the 23rd or 24th century, not the Discovery era!

Yeah, I dunno if I’m onboard with this being a continuation of the Discovery time. I don’t care much for Tilly or any of the Discovery characters except for Burnham, Book, and Saru.

Plus, I have to say, I’m just not very interested in a SF Academy show to begin with. I didn’t think, until I saw the first two seasons of Discovery that a Section 31 show was viable, but dang it, if they get Michelle Yeoh back as the Empress, I’m sold.

I’m far more interested in Matsalas’ proposed Star Trek: Legacy show, than this SF Academy, Lower Decks, and Prodigy (I’ve watched the first season with my kids and it’s ok, mainly because of Kate Mulgrew, who I loved as Captain Janeway). I saw the first episode of Strange New Worlds and am going to watch the rest on Blu-ray and loved Anson Mount’s Pike and Ethan Peck’s Spock in Discovery season 2, so I’m most excited about SNW.

Completely agree; why, oh WHY are they doing this series. Not hating, just won’t be a series for me.

In the 32 Century ends up being lots of space magic because they are so “advanced” in technology.

Looking forward to seeing it and i hope it’s set in the 32nd century so they can have Tilly and perhaps some of the other Discovery cast appear in it.

From the sound of it, it is indeed. A teen drama wasn’t my first choice, but I love the diversity of storytelling. Given its likely 32nd century setting, we may also get members of the Discovery cast playing roles, either as instructors or as recurring guest stars.

I’m kind of cool on the idea, but then, I’m not a fan of teen dramas. However, it could expand the ST audience so it does make business sense. Also lets them hire younger, cheaper talent.

Also, Prodigy has shown you can make a show for a different demo and still be good enough to attract the core audience.

The core audience is the group primarily watching Prodigy. It was intended to reach kids (which it has) but it’s the adults watching each week who are carrying that show.

I’m not disagreeing about the first part, but how do you know the adults are “carrying” it? Do you have data that says adults are a larger part of the audience? Or are you just basing that on social media and sites like this where adults are talking about it?

Because social media and sites like this are not where 6-10 year olds go to talk about television.

I know people and…I’ll just leave it at that. The show is a success and doing what it needs to.

You don’t need to tell me who you know, but is this data-driven analysis from these people, or just someone who claims to be important who claims to know some vague info? Color me skeptical.

The ‘first in a century’ seems to clearly suggest that it’s the 32nd century.

I wonder if the group Tilly worked with in Discovery season four was just a small pilot, or if the show will wind the clock back a bit.

The best news for me is that we’re likely to see more of David Cronenberg as Kovic since restarting the Academy is one of his ‘projects.’

While it’s good that they’re being on a creator/co-showrunner who has done youth targeted shows. Nancy Drew however wasn’t that strong a performer. It’s hard to judge though as teen programs have been in a significant transition from the CW-style low cost linear to Netflix’s peak streaming teen YA shows.

If that episode was a pseudo pilot episode it didn’t work.

At all.

Troll calls troll troll.

Very cool news! Can’t wait to hear more about it.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of an Academy series. Setting it in the 32nd century is a bummer for me. I was really looking forward to O’Brien teaching the challenges and stress of Engineering to a new generation. Oh well. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it will be as good as SNW and season 3 of Picard.

Would be cool if some of the instructors were holograms of Starfleet’s most iconic officers. Shatner can guest star as holo-Professor Kirk, teaching advanced starship tactics!

Love it. Historical archives.

A YA oriented show will crash and burn if it’s turned into fan service. Holo Kirk teaching tactics would be ancient history, not advanced tactics. Fan service, at it’s worst.

I was being sarcastic.

Got to get those legacy characters in. That’s all fans care about.

I was thinking the same thing! I was so hoping that we’d get an O’Brien appearance as an Academy staff member . . .

Yeah that could’ve great. A show set in the 25th century with O’Brien would’ve spurred a lot of excitement. Oddly I never thought about that until now. But I really do think the 32nd century setting can do so much more story wise, but I know people are divided on that setting and time period in general. I just find it really fascinating and I haven’t been a huge DIS fan in general.

Getting Colm on board would be a nice coup, I’ll give you that. So yeah I could endorse a concept of an Academy show with O’Brian as one of the instructors.

Ugh.
Star Trek: Riverdale

This is exactly what we need: diversity of storytelling. At least, that’s what everyone told me when I said I wasn’t thrilled by LDS getting two more seasons.

Except Lower Decks is very good Trek and also good comedy. Obviously we’ll have to wait and see if this show can be good Trek and good teen drama – if it is, then the diversity of storytelling will have paid off. If it isn’t, well, I don’t really care about the 32nd century storyline because as far as I’m concerned it’s not been written yet.

I disagree, I don’t think LDS is good comedy. I enjoy the stories far more than the jokes.

Yeah, everyone laughs at different stuff. I crack up at probably 80% of LDS stuff.

You’re an easy mark!

Thanks. Or it’s just my kind of humor.

I love the joke from Futurama: “Fry:5 Identical Castles!’ Bender:’Each more identical than the last.'” But my wife, who generally likes word-based humor, doesn’t find it funny in the least. It’s how it goes.

Love Futurama. LDS isn’t a patch on its shiny metal butt.

Disagree completely — I don’t think LDS is good Star Trek or all that funny. That being said, I actually somewhat liked three episodes in season three, but seasons one and two were just awful — annoying characters, middle school Hijinx, and force-fitted canon connections that (in most cases) were not holistically integrated into the eps.

There was one actual funny episode of Lower Decks. Can’t recall the name now but it was in S2. Every other episode has been a joyless ‘member berry filled bore. And S3 was so very bad it dropped down to Discovery level bad. Which is quite the feat.

Except Lower Decks is very good Trek and also good comedy.

Well, about that…

Lower Decks is better Trek now than it looked to be at the start. Halfway through S1, LD was about to be the first Trek series I ever just stopped watching, because the humor wasn’t landing for me and the characters seemed like little more than joke/archetype/fan-service dispensers. Then, in the last few episodes of S1, the writers seem to suddenly remember they had characters that could have actual depth, and it started getting interesting.

It still tries a little too hard sometimes with the humor; I could especially do without more of the “Boimler’s high-pitched screaming = HILARIOUS” mindset the show seems stuck in. I’d also like to see less of the characters acting like Star Trek fans. When they get all googly eyed over Deep Space Nine, they’re acting like FANS would act, not like Starfleet officers fondly admiring a place they’d always wanted to visit but, until then, had only heard about or seen from afar. Let US act like fans, because that’s what we are. They can convey that excitement as characters within that “universe”; they don’t have to go into fanboy mode over sitting in the same spot that Jake Sisko sat with Nog.

Other than those two criticisms, I’m rather liking how Lower Decks is growing, and I’m looking forward to more.

Boimler screaming is just a character trait. Like Homer saying “d’oh”. I’d say it’s at best unexpected for a “typical” male character in Trek, and thus funny. But I don’t think anyone thinks it’s particularly hilarious, especially after 30 episodes of LDS.

How did you feel about Shaw acting like a LaForge fanboy in last week’s episode of PIC?

I cannot speak for shatterhand but I found Shaw gushing over LaForge to be just as bad. Come on, guy. You are a Captain. Show some composure. And yes, it was too LDX for me.

I agree, even though LD is my #2 current Star Trek show between Prodigy and Strange New Worlds.

It’s my second favorite too and tied with SNW. Prodigy is currently my favorite as well. But maybe Picard will jump the line after this season. ;)

Don’t watch it. And even if you choose not to, others who say they won’t, will. All we need is a trailer and a cast. At that point, people will become interested.

Yeah, I rather enjoy everybody declaring they won’t watching it without even being given an actual synopsis, let alone a trailer. What a way to live life, to pre-judge and be so negative all the time. Open your mind, you’ll never know what you’ll discover — it’s a much better way to go through life.

“What a way to live life, to pre-judge and be so negative all the time,” said the pot to the kettle.

Wow, that really stung, let me rethink my life. Chokes on vomit.

Well, I’m still over here trying to convince many of the TOS die-hards here to give TAS a try.

The prejudice against a Saturday morning cartoon format runs deep.

It doesn’t matter that it won the franchise’s only series Emmy. It’s no matter that real science fiction authors wrote episodes for the show during a writers strike (because DC Fontana figured out that there was an exception for one first script for writers who hadn’t done animated series before). It’s a cartoon!

On the other hand, after a couple of years of my ‘you need to watch TAS’ PSAs here, Tiger2 finally did. So, I am content.

Trust me. Anyone here declaring that they won’t be watching it. Will be watching it.

Preeeeeeecisely.

Yeah, like how you said multiple times if they ever made a post-Nemesis show you would never watch it yourself. This is the problem when you troll, you look pretty hypocritical.

You got me confused with someone else. I never said that. I was on board with ST Picard on day one.

This is why you’re a troll dude.

Supporting Trek isn’t trolling tiger.

No, your lying is dude.

Good god, you people are joyless. All you ever do is sit at your devices and complain. Don’t you have anything good in your life? You spend way too much trashing a franchise that you claim to like/love. Get lives, the lot of you.

To be fair, Trek is the only thing they ever loved in life. And when it returned a decade after leaving them, they realized it didn’t love them back anymore.

So….space college needs a mortal enemy? I’m thinking this is aimed at the YA demographic….
This one may take some getting used too….

To be fair you could’ve said the same thing about both PRO and LDS and looked how those turned out. They are both made for younger audiences in mind too. And with PRO much younger with kid characters and yet it’s some of the best Trek around.

Yup, you are correct. Even though I know the new show is not targeting my demographic, that doesnt upset me, in fact it is great news that they are trying to broaden the appeal of the franchise. And there is no reason to assume it wont be good Star Trek.

Yeah exactly. I was skeptical of both of those shows because I just assumed it wasn’t being made for me but I was totally fine with that. I was going to give them a chance regardless but I understand the point is to attract different groups to Star Trek. Not everything is going to be like TOS, TNG or VOY; they want to do very different things to it which you know I’ve always said they SHOULD be doing. I mean a Starfleet Academy show based around teens in the 32nd century is very different lol.

And of course it’s totally OK to say you don’t think it will be your thing. It may not be my thing either. It’s nothing wrong to say you just don’t like it because it’s a comedy or designed for kids, teens, etc. But that’s the other thing, it’s NOT suppose to be made for you and I think some people seem to have a hard time just accepting that. I don’t have that problem at all. Never did. But yes, probably because I have liked the other stuff more than I thought I would, especially LDS lol.

But good Star Trek is good Star Trek. If this show has anywhere near the heart and spirit of LDS and PRO I think I’m going to love it. But, if it’s going to fall into teen soapy melodrama many seem to assume it will be (and it is a DIS spin off ;)), then maybe not so much, but I’m more optimistic it won’t be that either.

Not really with LD. The entire premise of the show is a look at Starfleet’s secondary functions, As we’ve seen, the Cerrito’s is basically a support vessel, they shouldn’t be confronting anyone (I know, they have, so it is what it is).

The first season of Prodigy was a group of kids/young adults who happen upon a means of escape from horrible circumstances. That was accomplished at the end of the season, so now they are kinda sorta in training under the tutelage of a Starfleet admiral. Season 2 is going to look a helluva lot different and may not require another mortal enemy.

Personally, every adversary out there being a mortal threat to the very existence of the Federation is a very worn-out trope. There has to be something of interest in the Federation to tell stories about that don’t require its obliteration….

I think we were talking about two different things.

I was mainly just talking about the demographics of who is suppose to watch it. You’re talking about the set up of the show. And I don’t disagree but it’s still Star Trek right? They can’t just have a show where kids go to school and the worst thing happens is someone is kept behind a grade. Yeah, they feel they need to raise the stakes again. I don’t think its necessary either but it’s hard to judge it until we at least know how they will do it. I mean after all, why would cadets face an enemy when you have the actual Starfleet out there? I guess it does suggest a ship based show though.

So I get your point now and agree. I wish they can just keep it to the Academy idea without them facing the Borg in the first season, but again we don’t know how the show will be structured yet. It may be for an important reason.

Maybe the moral enemy is a rival Klingon Academy that teaches blade sharpening and growling! Klingon House!!

Star Trek: Animal House

Maybe THAT could be the Star Trek comedy idea!

We haven’t seen Klingons yet in the 32nd century.

I’m curious.

Exactly. We haven’t even seen the freaking Klingons yet. I would love to know how they are getting on. I guess DIS isn’t going to tell us so maybe this show will.

A big meh from me. I suppose it will fill the constant crying requirement that will no longer be available due to Discovery being finished.

I hope it is set in Discovery’s time period, because then all of Star Trek history is what they can reference and teach at the Academy.

Yeah for some odd reason I love that stuff lol. A look back of the entire history of the Federation and basically Star Trek. And I’m trying to imagine all the things the cadets will be learning in 32nd century classes. I think it can be very interesting.

I would hope they would do that, but I don’t have a lot of faith. They might reference well-known things in a very tangential manner as a jumping off point of a new storyline, but I get the feeling (don’t ask me where it comes from), that the current breed of Trek producers for the 32nd century stuff (as opposed to those helming PRO, LDS, and PIC s3) don’t seem to be very interested in deep dives on Trek history/trivia. Hence, the whole “let’s jump to the 32nd century to get away from all that pesky restrictive canon” thing.

Why oh why is it set in the 32nd century? Sigh.

Because, contrary to popular believe around this site, Discovery actually has a ton of fans. This is essentially a spin-off of that, it sounds like.

Yes. also it feels similar to Short treks Show. But we still need to know how they plan their Main cast or do they switch new Actors on weekly basis?

Because of the 32rd Century they have only Discovery Crew and these VIP’s from the Starfleet HQ. i am looking at you Admiral Vance and the two lovebirds of Saru and T’Rina

I think Saru is one of the strongest post-2017 characters in Star Trek so if they incorporated him into it that would be good.

I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but, yeah, it kind of is.

I don’t know why anyone is surprised lol. Everyone has assumed for over a year now the Academy show would be a Tilly led show in the 32nd century. We don’t know if that character will actually be involved but this is what was suggested for a pretty long time now. It was assumed to be a Discovery spin off, which is why for fans of that show it wasn’t completely the end if this show got picked up. But I think a lot of people thought it may never get a green light and I was becoming one of those people.

But I want ALL the characters to continue. I just think Discovery sucks as a show. But this show isn’t DIS either, it will be its own thing. I think no matter your feelings about DIS, that’s what everyone should keep in mind.

My feelings as well.

I just think the producers don’t want to make an orphan, as it were, of the last 3 DISCO seasons.
They already have SNW in the 23rd century setting shared with DISCO’s first 2 seasons, TOS, TAS, and the first six films. They already have Picard, LDS, and PROD in the 24th/25th century setting shared with TNG, DS9, VOY and the Next Gen films. But recent DISCO is all by itself in the 32nd century and the producers probably just want to keep their paws active in that time period. Makes for a variety of settings among concurrent productions. And they can probably save money by using some existing 32nd century sets. I don’t think there’s anything deeper than that going on.

I agree with this but I also just think they love the freedom of being in that time period. That’s why DIS was sent there in the first place. And they were just starting to build out an interesting mythology there with the Burn and now uniting the Federation. That’s why I think having the Academy show in this period is great, because it will be a bigger symbol of that and we’ll probably be watching the Federation unite more as it goes.

Bringing Starfleet Academy back to Earth, a world that left both the Federation and Starfleet itself is already a big symbol. I think want to continue that story and as you said not just leave it in vein either. I always loved how the franchise became bookends with the 22nd century creating the Federation and the 32nd century restarting it.

And yes, they do save money on the sets lol.

So, Prodigy with a dash of 20-somethings playing teens for the sole purpose of CW-style angst and staring deeply into the camera.

Ground-breaking.

Star Trek: Riverdale. Maybe not a bad thing, really, if you want to expand the ST audience.

For Trek, it genuinely is. And let’s not forget that they came VERY close to an Academy movie back in 1990.

Does it NEED to be groundbreaking?

This is definitely true. It’s funny how people will make fun of it for not being groundbreaking, then turn around and ask for a starship show in the 25th century starring characters we’ve seen for decades

True. But you see this with fans of other shows as well. James Bond fans can be like that.

Oh, it’s definitely not unique to Trek, that’s for sure. It’s a sad reality of modern fandom in general.

It can be groundbreaking in more ways that one. Yoyager could have been groundbreaking for its setting: alone in the Delta quadrant with limited resources, trying to integrate Starfleet and Marquis crews, able to run into literally any wildly different race/concept you can think of. But those were dropped basically immediately or never pushed as far as they should have. Instead it was groundbreaking (YMMV) for its strong collection of lead female characters: first lead ship captain, female chief engineer (and half-Klingon), and not-just-a-catsuit former Borg (and great actress).

You can set a show on a starship and have legacy characters, but the stories you tell, the risks you take, and the different approaches to storytelling or mood, can all make the show wildly different than what has come before – breaking new ground.

Nah. Read my above reply.

Nah. Just needs to be entertaining.

But my point is — looking at the franchise — that you could tell this kind of coming-of-age YA schoolyard story in any number of franchises. It would be great to see Paramount lean into themes and settings that are unique to Star Trek. DS9 and Voyager were both great examples of this. For YA, maybe a story like this::

–For a trio of adolescents raised on a starship, the world has been one great wonder after another. But when they become separated from their families during a tumultuous first contact gone wrong, they must face a new reality without a replicator or shields. In their new paradigm, they must learn to survive in a new alien culture while holding on to the values of the Federation and their parents, all while discerning friend and foe.

…just feels like we’re getting an Academy show for the same reason Star Wars keeps going back to Tatooine…

That’s not a very good point, but hey, you do you.

Speaking of Star Wars, I saw some commentary criticizing the idea of a series of “limited run special shows” focusing on individual characters (ala the Obi-wan show) as a bad idea, as not being very successful for Wars. I am hoping that if Trek goes in this direction, that they are more successful than Wars/Obi-wan.

There have been plenty of people complaining about wanting something new and different. So here it is. And the complaining continues….

I’m not complaining. Nor are most of those here who were saying they hoped new things would be coming too.

The overlap between those wanting/hoping Matalas would be given rein to make every new thing in the early 25th century, and those who are less than happy is high.

This is why I get uneasy when subsets of fans start advocating to cancel this to give us that.

For the franchise to be successful we need all this stuff.

I’ll certainly give it a try. And if Vance and Kovich continue as recurring characters, I’ll be watching attentively.

So it’s a Discovery Spin Off co-created by Alex Kurtzman? … yeah … I’m out.

Not hot on that Idea in general but I don’t think it’s im possible to make it work in the right hands. The thing is, it should be trated like a university setting, not a high school one and I can’t even think of a good existing show to model it off. Maybe something along the lines of Scrubs.

Well maybe we’ll be surprised. All I can say is I had doubts to both LDS and PRO and love them both. But yes, I know many people don’t either. But if you do, maybe we will get a very interesting show. But the irony is for me is I like Kurtzman because he is constantly creating shows for different demographics which I think is great to grow future audiences.

LDS, PRO and SNW were successful because there was a shift in mindset on how to approach Star Trek moving forward and that started with the showrunners brought in to run each of those series (and now Picard season 3 as well).

It’s telling that he brought in Noga Landau as showrunner which should give some indication of the tone and direction of the series.

Hopefully, Noga will be given the latitude to play out her artistic vision (whatever that may turn out to be), like how Matalas, McMahan, Goldsman/Myers, and the Hageman’s have (and Ira Steven Behr before them). And less like the 15 cooks in the kitchen approach of DIS and PIC.

Kurtzman has taken a step and allows showrunner’s to run with the ball. A clear strength of his.

Kurtzman’s actually listed as co-showrunner for this one in the Deadline story.

However, it’s fairly clear he’s let Michelle Paradise run Discovery since season three, even if he has final say on scripts and editing. So, we can expect Landau to be largely in control.

I think once things are up and running he’ll take a step back if the show makes it past its first season.

I’m just happy Michelle Paradise is nowhere near this show. I think she is a huge part of why Discovery is such a disaster now.

I agree. While DIS S3 and S4 have been more coherent and less anti-Trekish (IMO), they have been less good and more boring than S1 and S2.

No it’s successful because it’s Star Trek.

Bye bye

Thanks for the fish.

 but I don’t think it’s im possible to make it work in the right hands.

That is exactly it. And Kurtzman’s choices for running shows has been very lacking. Yes, Matalas being fully in control of S3 of Picard seems to be right move so far but who knows? It might still just be a glitch.

His choice of showrunners for Prodigy, SNW, and PIC S3 have all worked out exceptionally well. My biggest concern on this here is that he is co-showrunning.

The third season of Veronica Mars was set in a university and worked quite well.

So it’s STAR TREK doing TOM CORBETT : SPACE CADET….

Framed that way, I think I like it even more.

…and the circle of life continues.

Oh. All good Luck for this Show

i wonder how exactly they plan this out. Officers of the Week? Lower Decks in 32nd Century? ST: Legacy? Short trek’s similarity?

Well, lets wait for more infos

Boy, a Starfleet Academy series set in the 2300-2340’s would be fun..

Lets not do that..lets do…

…eh…

Oh yeah, 32nd Century which was uninspiring.

Remembering the “dry run” DIS did on the Academy concept in “All Is Possible”…man that was a bad storyline (just poor all around).

If that is the one where Tilly led a bunch of cliche ridden young folks around you are so very right. Everything about that episode was an epic fail.

To be fair the showrunners listed had nothing to do with that episode. But honestly I think it would be much better to put the show in a more familiar Trek year.

I liked “All is Possible” well enough.

The youngest of our teens thought the cadets were being ‘stupid and cringe’ though. (No one is more critical of teens than teens themselves.)

I find it interesting that they are setting this back on Earth, which isn’t the most open society at this point. I’ll be curious whether that is glossed over.

I’ll also be curious to see whether they use one of the campuses in the area for outdoor scenes or entrances and stairways. (Will the cadets rate personal teleportation devices?)

The many colleges of the University of Toronto have many styles of architecture from ultramodern to gothic. Closer to their soundstages in Mississauga at CBS Stages, is Humber College. It’s modern, not that large, but has some a few buildings with cool architecture.

I must have missed something; they definitely said it’s being set on Earth?

I think it has been strongly implied because (contrary to logical requirements for the number of graduates needed each year), the Starfleet Academy on Earth has been the only academy/location referenced (as far as I remember) in Trek.

I loved that episode. I’m going to rewatch it tonight.

I like the Burnham half of the episode well enough, but the cadets part is bad.

Yeah the usual Michelle Paradise schlock.

A lot of pilots to excellent shows are not very good, so I wouldn’t place too much on that necessarily. They’re normally a learning experience for all involved.

Wow this is a surprising! It popped up on my phone and I honestly thought maybe April Fools came a few days early lol. But wow it’s FINALLY happening!! I’ve always been smack in the middle of the idea of doing an academy show but I admit I’m very excited about this! Mainly because I’ve always said I love being in the 32nd century and I really want to see it continue to develop so this is great news for me! And I’m hoping unlike Discovery this is actually, well, good lol.

And yes, it’s a chance to bring in other Discovery characters which I’m completely fine with. So I can’t wait to see how this develops.

So to follow our previous conversations it now sounds like:

2023: Picard 3, Strange New Worlds 2, Lower Decks 4, Prodigy 2.1
2024: Discovery 5, Strange New Worlds 3, Lower Decks 5, Prodigy 2.2
2025: Strange New Worlds 4, Starfleet Academy 1, Prodigy 3.1
2026: Strange New Worlds 5 (final season?) Starfleet Academy 2, Picard Spin-off? Prodigy 3.2

I am assuming that Season 5 of LDS will be its last, but I suppose it could go longer. But Academy means that either the Picard Spin-off is a no-go, or we could have three live action shows again by 2026.

I think the Picard spinoff is still there. I think they are going to want to keep Metalas. I would hope that is a 25 show, but if SFA starts up in 25, it will be pushed a year.

I do think this means closing the door on S31.

The question is when a Picard-Spinoff shows up. Because if it’s sooner than later, that means they’ll be back to 5 Trek shows a year, and that doesn’t even include the miniseries’ and one-off television movies they recently talked about.

Interesting that you love “being in the 32nd century” but don’t think DIS is good there. What do you like about the 32nd century setting?

I personally have really liked the (maybe two?) times they have actually explored and met an alien race (10-C and the Abronians). I could do with more of that and less of the poorly paced and overly weepy typical DIS storylines.

Yes, you just said it for me and the (many) issues I had with Discovery. And I have soooo many lol.

But I love being in the 32nd century because we know so little about it for starters. As I have always said, I love both the 23rd and 24th centuries but we know pretty much everything about them, especially the 24th century with so many shows and movies there. But the 32nd century, it’s still barely been touched. We have not seen more than a few minutes of Earth after two seasons. There are tons of famous worlds out there affected by the Burn we have not seen yet at all, from Qo’Nos to Bajor. The Federation is still basically a shell of it’s former self like it was at it’s height in the 24th and 25th centuries.

And yeah, I want to see more crazy advanced tech! The other irony is they presented very little of it all things considered.

The irony is I am partly disappointed with Discovery because it really squandered the potential to explore this era better. I thought the first season (in the 32nd century) was mostly fine and a good introduction to this era given everything. But the next season really should’ve been a bigger focus on rebuilding the Federation. I didn’t have a problem with the DMA stuff but yeah it’s tiring when its always the end of the galaxy stuff. Yeah Species 10c was great, but we only spent a total of ten minutes with them all said and done. That was the other problem, soooo much build up to a fascinating species we barely had any time to interact with once we did.

But we still have one season left of that show, so maybe it will cover this those things. I hope so, I just have my doubts. I have really lost so much faith in this show sadly.

But with the new show, they can s-l-o-w d-o-w-n! Just introduce characters and settings normally. Since it’s an academy show, I don’t expect teens to handle end of the galaxy crisis every season and just fit into a more normal life. I don’t expect it to be on the level of Lower Decks but just more of an every day life feel would be refreshing to me.

Of course they already said they will be facing a new enemy, so I’m sure everything I said will be the opposite lol.

I agree with most of what you said. (lol) I think all the missed opportunities are one of the biggest failures of Discovery. Somewhat like Voyager before it and the Kelvin-timeline (but all for different reasons), Discovery never really took advantage of its new setting.

Though they did visit Vulcan (Nivar?), Earth, Trill, etc. they didn’t really get to service storylines set there as well as they could have. And thus we only got to see the vaguest surface-level stuff. I really think DIS’s issue is the serialized storytelling. If you have to service character arcs that are often not directly tied to the story-of-the-week and service the overarching season arc, there doesn’t leave a lot of time to delve into any given setting in a single week. Thus you really only get to cover one topic/story/setting in depth throughout a whole season.

Also, the lack of an episodic structure means that its harder to have introductory episodes (that might cover, for example, the societal or technological changes our crew has to deal with in the new 32nd century setting), or breaks in the narrative that explore the impacts on the crew (for example TNG’s “Family” and the fallout from BOBW), or anything that covers the fallout from the main story. With a season-long story, they kick off the “mystery box” for the season quickly to get viewers hooked, then tread water for a while until it is time to wrap up the story with an exciting conclusion in the last two episodes. Ugh.

I hope there are never any galaxy-/universe-ending stakes in Academy. Just some normal everyday problems/threats to our characters, their families or neighbors, and the ship/planet/station they are on would be sufficient to get me invested.

Exactly! I agree with all of this as well. One of Discovery’s biggest problems (along with Picard until this season IMO) is the fact the show was serialized and they just did a bad job with it. It’s been on four seasons and I have been disappointed with every one of them; mostly because it gets waaaay too involved in the big mystery box or raise the stakes to a ridiculous level. That’s why so many people have problems with the show, it tries to do waaaaay too much and create large expectations that it can’t really satisfy.

Fourth season for me was strange because on one hand I loved the story line. But it was so badly wasted with practically nothing happening for a third of the season I just stopped caring. I think a lot of people did. And what REALLY frustrates me is that they knew they didn’t have enough story so they could’ve just made it more episodic and just build episodes around smaller stories. And to be fair they did a few of them in the first half, but the second half became the ridiculous and very boring chase of Book and his partner whose name I literally forgot lol. Nothing happened for so long.

And what was frustrating is they created these huge stakes but it was all played so low key. Book (and the other guy lol) BLEW UP the DMA just for them to send another one. Right then, you knew these beings were so far advanced to an insane level but you had to believe these two dipsticks was going to wipe them out with a super bomb or something. They shouldn’t even gotten within ten lightyears of this species before they were blown away. None of it made a lot of sense other than believing this highly advanced species was a really stupid advanced species.

OK, I’m ranting lol. The point is, instead of that nonsense, DIS had a chance to just explore and go in different avenues in the 32nd century instead of more mindless galaxy ending stuff.

So since that show failed IMO, they have another chance to do it again and yes hopefully better this time. Sure the show can suck obviously and squander it’s potential as well but I’m just hoping it won’t lol.

Yeah, I got so bored I took a break before going back to finish at the end of the season.

I’ve seen a few people say it’s a little better if you binge it but the next question is why bother? I’ve already seen it, I don’t need to be proven it’s ‘less boring’ just because I watch it faster. But I’ll take their word for it.

No interest whatever in a Kurtzman series starring Tilly at a 32nd century Academy. So dumb.

I feel like setting the show in the Discovery time already puts the show in a hole. If Tilly is even part of it, much less a lead, that would only make that hole 4 times deeper.

For you.

Not feeling good about this but, I’ll give it a chance.

SNW and Picard have proven that appealing to younger audiences and nostalgic old fans aren’t mutually exclusive goals. Do we really need a thinly-veiled Gen Z soap opera (and set in the 32nd century no less)? I feel like there’s so much more interesting ground to cover.

I think they’ve done their analysis, which is one of the benefits of streaming, they have a lot more concrete data. It probably says that SNW and PIC are not attracting younger audiences (ie: teens).

So yes, in that sense, they may need a Gen Z soap opera. It’s also possible they’ve seen DSC drawing bigger Gen Z crowds, hence the 32nd century as a starting point.

It won’t be young people across the board, it will be young women. Very few men of any age watch soapies.

Well this isn’t actually a “soapy.” This is a teen drama. If you think this will only be for women, you’re not thinking straight. My guess is this will be more like a combination of shows like Stranger Things, Riverdale, the Winchesters, but with a sci-fi angle instead of horror… and all of them have broad audiences watching.

Plus old people don’t spend money, but they do eat a lot of pudding.

What is old? I’m 39 so I guess I am elderly now. Yet I have much more money than these so-called young people who are dirt broke.

I’m 44 and I have bitcoin.

I’ll have to wait until we learn more, but this doesn’t sound terribly interesting.

Maybe this will be good, maybe it won’t. I’ll certainly give it a chance. But it strikes me as profoundly odd that, at a time when the fandom is clamoring for Star Trek Legacy from Terry Matalas and company, TPTB announce a show in which no one seems to be particularly interested.

Yeah, TPTB have been kicking around an Academy show since, I think, the early 70s. You would think they might eventually understand that there hasn’t ever been a big fan push for this concept.

Dang, and I was really looking forward to a big announcement next week from First Contact Day hopefully about a Star Trek: Legacy show. Hopefully, the fan interest in that will still “make it so”.

If Harve Bennett couldn’t make it work, I’m not sure Alex Kurtzman can. Fingers crossed we hear good news about “Terry Trek” sometime soon!

It’s not that they “couldn’t make it work.” It was that after STV, the studio thought they needed a prequel because the old cast wasn’t appealing.

But eventually, Bennett and Meyer talked them into doing one more.

It wasn’t that Bennett couldn’t make it work. His concept was to have all the characters as young adults perhaps at the Academy and having a first meeting completely recast. Sort of like what Trek ’09 did. The studio didn’t have an interest in a feature film that did not feature the original cast. Harve tried to sell it by bookending the film with the original actors. But still the studio was having none of it. Harve really liked the idea and when it was killed he backed out of VI.

It’s apples and oranges. Bennett was trying to make a prequel movie with iconic characters but with new and younger actors and the studio pushed back. The Academy idea was just based on necessity, it wasn’t really even the main point. He just wanted to find a way to reboot Kirk and Spock and that was the more obvious way. I think people put too much emphasis on the Academy part of his idea and no one really liked the prequel aspect of it at the time.

This is much much different.

I really don’t get why people think that they would announce anything this year, let alone while Picard is still running its final season.

We campaigned hard for a show on Pike’s Enterprise after season 2 of Discovery, but the Paramount powers that be didn’t green light SNW until after they’d had the additional audience feedback and metrics on the Short Treks with Number One, Spock and Pike.

They may be ready to confirm publicly that one-shots, limited series, and direct to streaming movies will be coming, but I expect Paramount streaming executives will insist on confirming the numbers and make Matalas and Secret Hideout tweak the proposal for a new 25th century live-action show before we hear its greenlit.

I agree with all of this. I don’t think just because they announced this show, the Picard spin off is dead. I think it will simply come later and yes probably way after the show is done. They all said it, there is nothing on the table officially but I imagine just like SNW it’s being talked about tons. You know Frakes is calling everyone weekly lol.

Yeah it may not happen, but that’s probably nowhere to be determined yet, especially if people are watching the show like crazy now.

I think there are some good arguments toward why they might announce now.

  • They have the Titan sets, so they don’t have to redevelop them. They have many of the characters already developed, so they don’t have to develop them as much. Thus a shorter production time, so they don’t need as much of a lead time before they are sure the show can work.
  • Picard is hyped right now, so capitalizing on it now would promote the idea and Picard S3 as well.
  • The cast seem very onboard with it and so do the fans. Confirming the series and signing the cast now would be easier than letting them go their separate ways.
  • They just announced the end of Discovery and basically have confirmed that Picard is done, so announcing a replacement series for that era clarifies that the Trek machine will keep running with new, interesting shows.
  • First Contact Day would be, and has been, a day for big announcements in the past. What else is left for next week?

None of these are definitive, obviously, but I think they are supportive reasons. There are probably also an equal number of solid reason why they might wait.

Hmmm might be a miss on this one, never seen the appeal of starfleet academy as a setting, much preferred starship settings.

Well… Hmmm…

All the shows can’t be made for me I guess. Not a fan of CW style shows, but maybe I’ll like this one.

That’s the IDIC spirit.

So… will this end up being Dawson’s Trek?

Yes, just like Prodigy ended up being SpongeStar SquareTrek.

I would have gone with iTrekkly but yours works, too.

I suspect we need to use the /s in this situation.

To be fair, SpongeStar SquareTrek does sound kind of awesome.

I would prefer that much to lower decks because at least that show would obviously not be forced on us as canon (i.e. Real Star Trek), so I’d be able to relax and enjoy a lot more

Genuine question: Why are there already nine executive producers credited for this series? This is without any of the associate producers, assistant producers, supervising producers, line producers, etc. That’s a heavy expense that significantly impacts the episodic budget.

Too many fingers in the pie drive up the costs of streaming series. People mock tv these days, but they are much more fiscally responsible.

That’s actually a great question and I suspect some will be credited but not actively working on the show by the time they start shooting. Assuming a season 2, that number will probably drop.

The Roddenberry estate reps and Secret Hideout execs all take EP credits. This doesn’t change.

Much the same as Tom Clancy gets an EP credit on anything derived from his books. It’s about control of the IP.

This isn’t unique to Star Trek.

So its the rumored Tilly the size of a Planet marathon winner Show? , NO NO NO

Why do you feel the need to make fun of an actress’s weight? It’s 2023 for crying out loud people like you should be beyond judging people on their appearances.

This should honestly be an immediate banning from this site. No call for that.

Common man, for real? You don’t have to like Disco or the Tilly character, but making a fat joke about Mary Wiseman is just uncalled for.

Ban this user. Period.

Want to try that again? Really uncalled for.

Post a body shot and/or GFTO

goodbye

Anyone know about Noga Landau or have any strong feelings about her as a showrunner? I don’t know anything about anything she has done.

I am also worried about the 9 (!) producers listed (7 in addition to Kurtzman and Landau). Given the track record of Discovery and PIC (seasons 1 and 2), that number of producers doesn’t leave me with a good feeling. Too many cooks in the kitchen didn’t do either of those series any favors.

Per IMDB, she was creator/showrunner on Nancy Drew and Tom Swift on the CW. Also has writing credits on “See” and the Netflix film “Tau.”

Right, I meant has anyone actually watched any of her stuff and formed an opinion of her as a potential showrunner and story creator?

What I’ve seen of Nancy Drew was not good, the dialogue didn’t really feel genuine to me. Not seen the others. I watched some of The Magicians, which was solid while she was story editor.

Well then, one good note and one bad one.

I don’t even know what kind of “mood” I want to see out of these characters. I don’t really watch any “teen”-centric stuff.

The only real examples we have of academy cadets are a couple of episodes with Wesley (good), Nog (good), JJ-Trek (not good), Tilly (good as an example of cadet material), and Tilly-leading some cadets (bad). LDS also is close as they are new ensigns (in some cases) and have had cadets appear (good).

I guess I would want Wesley/Nog type cadets with maybe a sprinkle of LDS fun. I definitely don’t want more of JJ-Trek type cadets and definitely not if it is the level of quality from DIS’s “All Is Possible”. But I fear the show is likely to tend toward the latter. :(

I’m not sure if it’s accurate that Landau was the senior showrunner of Nancy Drew.

Liz Rowinski, the senior EP for that show, has her own ‘first look’ deal with CBS announced in January. So, it seems the two have headed in different directions following work on the last season of Nancy Drew.

Whatever, many thought it was far better quality than Riverdale and several other successful shows in the YA niche.

Henry Alonso Myers, who is the coshowrunner of SNW, was the showrunner of the Magicians. So, Landau already has a connection to the franchise.

Keeping an open mind here.

I haven’t seen them, but Nancy Drew gets pretty good reviews. Not a lot of consensus on RT, but fans give it an 87% for whatever that’s worth, while IMDb has it at 6.6. I have however, seen it on list of “best teen dramas of all time.”

Her two efforts for the CW are about what you might expect for a CW show.

The Magicians was fun but not entirely memorable.

And aside from her show credits, does anyone know whether she’s been a Trek fan at all?

I hope she isn’t. ST needs fresh blood.

please lord do not make this show bet set in the 32nd century and have tilly as the lead.

it would be fun if it were set 30 years after ST6 in the Enterprise-B era, a part of the timeline that has yet to be explored.

I am interested in potential new characters that this show could bring to the Trek universe. Because new characters can be a lot of fun. But if you are making an academy show, part of the fun would be the academy teachers. And outside of Saru and maybe Vance (assuming he retires from CnC to the Commandant role which would be a little odd stepping down when you are overseeing the largest rebuilding/expansion in Starfleet’s history), I can’t really see any good DIS characters I would like to see show up as teachers/guest lecturers/field instructors. Compared to the dozens of great potential characters possible in the early 25th century from all the Berman-era shows…O’brien, Worf, Riker, Dax, Geordie, Paris, Tuvok, B’lana, Kim ( :)), The Doctor.

That would be my first choice. But I said in another post that I’d prefer that era be explored on an actual ship board show rather than an academy based show. Hence by desire for it to be set in the current TNG era.

Oh sh*t. I was really hoping they wouldn’t do this. I’ll still watch it because it’s Star Trek, but Gossip Girl in outer space in the 32nd century is not really my cup of tea.

I love how people are already labeling this like they know exactly what it’s going to be lol. Lots of shows with teenagers as characters that aren’t Gossip Girl.

That’s odd. Just a few days before First Contact day… They must be saving something, else to announce on that day.

Or it was probably close to being leaked so they just decided to officially announce it.

This would be my guess too. Seems like they did this last year with the SNW reveals about Kirk.

It’s been a slow build up all week. I suspect that you’re right about at least one more announcement.

S31

This sounds like great news for the franchise (as they need to expand the audience beyond greybeards like me) and good to see them trying something that has been rumored for decades. Congrats to Kurtzman for getting it greenlit.

All that said, I may be wrong, but a show centered around 16 year olds is probably not going to appeal to me – nor is ithe show targeting my demographic anyway. When I was young and TNG hit the tv screens, many fans inexplicably were critical of seeing a teenage Wesley Crusher on the Enterprise. Now think of a show focused entirely on teenage overachievers!

After S2, Discovery morphed into a show essentially targeting women and gender minorites. I still tuned in because it was Star Trek, but let’s face it, I prefer SNW and Picard. I will of course check out Starfleet Academy when it airs… because it is Star Trek, but I also know this show is not being made for legacy fans like me!

This is a really good point. I’ve spent 30+ years as the target audience for all Star Trek shows, movies, etc. That may not be the case going forward. This show is likely going to cater to a younger crowd, and that’s okay.

Not only is it ok, but I think it’s a fallacy to think that just because the characters are teenagers, you won’t enjoy it. Kids watch shows about adults, and if you’re over 60, Star Trek is mostly characters half your age.

It could be interesting to have some characters who are older and have joined Starfleet later in life.

The age of the main characters doesn’t bother me at all. Let the kids fly! It’s the 32nd century setting that limits my enthusiasm. .

I don’t really care if I am the “target” of this or not. I too will first check it out cause it is Star Trek. If it is good quality and has characters that advance the ideals of Trek, I will be on board. If it is bad quality (like some recent Trek output), I will watch begrudgingly for the occasional highlights and bemoan the missed opportunities.

I think the last line is what most of us have become really good at. ;D

Yep. Sometimes it really sucks being a fan. Many of us are compelled to watch whatever they throw at us. All with the joy that it’s new and not another rerun but knowing the odds are it will still be terrible .

Some Trek is better than other Trek, but very very little of it has ever struck me as being irredeemably terrible. Basically the pure joy of watching any new Trek permeates and outweighs other factors, as far as I’m concerned. But that’s just me.

Typically that would be the case but the current people running Trek just don’t seem to know what they have. They want to put their own twist on things right down to ignoring any canonical issue that might get in their way. Or they want to use some neat element they saw before and will do whatever they can to shoehorn it in their shows. Doesn’t matter if it works in universe or makes sense. They will just do it. And that is gravely disappointing as a fan.

Not bothered about this at all. I’m now worried about the continued series after Star Trek: Picard after how good season 3 of picard has been.

Is it good because of the old relics on the show?

this is the most ‘meh’ of concepts for me. But, like all things Trek… I will give it a shot.

“It was required reading at the Academy.” ” John Gill was my instructor at the Academy”.

I heard about it so much from Kirk’s perspective. Was hoping to see some of that.

ANOTHER DISCOVERY SPIN-OFF !!! JUST TREMENDOUS NEWS !!!

The series that re-started it all, and that has already spun off Strange new worlds, does it again! So excited for the cameos from my favorite 32 century discovery characters. Discovery is franchise maker of the 21st century for Trek.

PS: Given all the blow-back I’ve seen from the DSC hater cats here, I’m loving this concept even more! Lol.

You mean you’re vindictive too? Darn I was beginning to like you…

:-)). Well, I plead guilty! ” A man’s got to know his limitations”. Lol

PS:. The difference between me and some other fans here is that I come out and directly admit what I like and don’t like and don’t try to pretend I’m on some moral high ground. (And I’m not referring to you)

Yah, gotta hand it to you for that. And thanks for specifying you weren’t refering to me, I was getting a little worried there.

Yeah, I can be grateful for the good actors and high production values the DIS has had, and I can also appreciate when it generates a spin-off that is a better idea/better production (SNW). Let’s just hope ST:ACA (?) is better than DIS.

Fair point

Don’t forget about S31. It’s coming.

Wonderful. The adventure continues.

This is definitely a Discovery spinoff, which makes sense. DSC has a lot of detractors but also a lot of fans. A bunch of young cadets potentially fighting a dangerous enemy… This has Starship Troopers vibes, which is great. As long as they steer away from too much crying and whimpering, this could be good. It has the potential of being a cataclysmic, pathetic train wreck but also something totally different and interesting. Depends on the showrunner and the people involved.

Well said!!!

This standard company boilerplate description of the series is just too vague to be reliable. I wonder if we are going to get anything more concrete anytime soon, like something from the showrunners (probably not). Probably won’t get anything that will really tell us about the show’s “mood” until trailers before the show’s premiere.

I think someone up above probably has it right: they feared it leaking (or it did leak) so they released this very vague logline to get ahead of it, saving the more detailed premise for another day. But I’d be surprised if it’s not already fully-developed, because it got a series order. I don’t know if they would get a series order off of just a basic single sentence concept.

Yeah, I am sure it is well-developed, I just wonder when we are going to actually “see” something from it (even if it is just less generic descriptions of the show/characters).

The Deadline story lists the script credit for the pilot. That’s really quite advanced before green lighting.

Yeah, i’ll never understand people who insist that everybody hates DSC, or it has no fans. SMH.

True. People need to be objective. Just because someone doesn’t like DSC it doesn’t mean nobody does. Some of the things I dislike about DSC are actually reasons why some people love the show. Some people have this herd mentality and need to have their opinions validated by others I guess.

Yes every show has it own set of fans and haters. This has sort of been baked in for over 30 years now lol. DIS is no different. The show made it to five seasons, obviously someone was watching it. I don’t understand message boards sometimes. Not everything is so binary and it’s not usually all love or all hate. I have many issues with the show but I have stated many times where I thought it was good about it. Sadly it has just been more bad than good for me overall, especially lately. But others may have the opposite view. This can be said for every Trek show out there and obviously every TV show in general.

I’m glad we’ll be getting more 32nd century, although I’ve never loved the idea of an Academy show.

With you.

I do think the 32nd century is the best setting though.

I hope that this new show developer has an interest in world building for the 32nd and will make it a great setting. I can hope that they take the weaker elements of DIS S3/S4 and turn them into something valuable. Like DS9 taking TNG Ferengi and making them into a real and interesting species.

As Kirk would say, it has the benefit of never having been tried.

I can’t say I love the idea of a spin-off with Tilly as a lead character, but of course it’s all speculation at this point. The 32nd Century is still very untapped, and I can’t say there’s no value in find some good coming of age stories at the Academy. Young adult dramas are prolific for a reason.

We shall see!

I really, really like that they finally move ahead with an Academy production. This is great.

But the supposed setting isn’t… The 32nd century is my least favourite of all possible settings. Post-ENT, Pre-TOS or Post-PIC, all of those settings would be infinitely more appealing than the programmable matter hotchpotch of the 32nd century.

Not sure what to make of this… Cancelling DSC and then replacing it with this sort of follow-up…

News flash. It’s not really a cancellation — it’s a Discovery Spin-off. You can expect to see lots of cameos and appearances from the current discovery cast on this new series.

You can still have spinoffs to a cancelled series (and on the rarest of occasions they outperform the original). Discovery was cancelled, a spin-off could inject life into that era or just kill it off entirely. We’ll know in a year or so.

Sure, but DSC is turning out to be the Law and Order-like franchise lynchpin to the current franchise, just like TNG was back in the day.

Kind of / sort of. SNW got its start there but Starfleet Academy will be the first true spinoff.

I have been really disappointed with the “worldbuilding” in the 32nd century. Both in terms of technology advancement and social structure. DIS s3 and s4 just never seemed to be interested in that part of their setting. The best we got was probably the reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan peoples, but that wasn’t really explored very much at all. The rest has been flashy changes (mostly visual changes: insta-transporters, programmable matter (not hologram’s, no), and detached nacelles) with no real thought behind them or impact from them. A missed opportunity.

It’s sad that dropping a crew into a society radically changed by catastrophe and 900+ years of technological and social development didn’t seem to have a single iota of impact on the characters. No one seemed very put out, depressed, or invigorated, and they all caught up on tech and operations changes basically by studying over the weekend. Tilly was maybe the only one who experienced changes, but they were more just internal developments rather than due to any external influence. (Though it has been a while since I watched S3 or S4, so I might be missing some character effects.)

I wonder if this new show will care about expanding the worldbuilding more?

You hit the nail on the head for my central complaint of DIS: lack of character impact. Other than a few individual episodes and excluding a few characters, I don’t get the sense of a “crew” from the show. I can’t tell you much of anything about the personalities of most of the crew, and that, I think, stems from a lack of imaginative writing. I hope that an academy show actually lets us spend time with an ensemble, learning things about everyone instead of 2-3 “main characters.”

Yeah, that is what I would like: a good ensemble with focus on each one. I think SNW has done a good job of this (even if there are some characters that got less screen time than I would have liked, and maybe a little too much to Pike and Spock). PIC season 3, outside of Jack, Shaw, and Sydney, hasn’t done a great job with their other new characters (the other bridge officers and LaForges’ other daughter) but with such a large cast of returning characters, it is very hard to devote enough time to everyone.

SNW criminally underuses Number One. Hoping to see that corrected in S2.

No1 is probably the most underused. Also want more of Chapel and Ortegas. Looking forward to the Ortegas episode in season 2!

Among the other problems with SNW that is yet another one. I honestly expected her role to be bigger than Travis Mayweather’s. And when they did use her they made some horrible creative decision about her being an alien masquerading as human. As if a human female couldn’t possibly contain the character qualities she has. Truly sad.

The world building has been VERY underwhelming. Even with the advent of an AR wall, it’s got nothing on what Strange New Worlds is doing. I want to get a sense of what the galaxy is really like now, but it’s mostly just a lot of dystopia, hurt feelings, starships with no pylons, and programmable matter. It feels so small and claustrophobic compared to previous Treks, despite the budget and how good each individual location looks when realized. Part of that is related to The Burn, of course.

So there’s lots of potential, I just hope they know how to tap into it excitingly.

You brought up a time frame I never thought of. How about a first year of Star Fleet Academy set at some point after the creation of the UFP and the Star Fleet? That has massive potential. Far more interesting than the Discovery time.

Again, just because a show is cancelled doesn’t mean the era just goes away. I think they want to keep developing the time period because you can do so much with it. And yes it can bring in possible DIS characters. I would’ve been fine with any of those other periods minus the pre-TOS one (but I can see it being there to cross over with SNW if its still around); but this one appeals to me the most personally.

I’m skeptical about AK’s abilities as a showrunner, and the tone that a CW-style YA Teen Drama might be a bit incongruous with what I like about Star Trek, but I’m willing to give the concept the benefit of the doubt. As many folks have pointed out, a diversity of storytelling styles and concepts is a good thing, even if each and every one isn’t for you. I love LD and SNW. Can’t stand DSC, 1-2 of PIC, and bounced off of Prodigy. But there’s probably someone who loves Trek as much as I do who has the exact opposite feelings.

A few stray thoughts:
1) I hope this doesn’t take resources from a potential Titan/Legacy/Picard S3 spinoff. There seems to be a LOT of fan interest in getting that specific show with Terry Matalas in creative control.
2) I really really don’t like the idea of there being another “big bad” / new enemy. Star Trek really doesn’t need that, and suffers when there’s too much of an emphasis on big threats. I think the moral core of the setting has been grounded in the little prejudices and biases that lurk in all of us. Not just big space baddies that want to do the bad thing.
3) The justification that this style/content is what will bring a “new generation” of viewers is patently silly. You didn’t need to make YA Trek in the 90s to get kids into it. Telling good stories, with well defined characters, and good acting will do that just as well.

So you love lower decks but you don’t want a college-age Trek adventure drama?

That’s got to be the most hilariously hypocritical thing I’ve heard this month. Lol

Tonally they both sound very different. One is a wacky comedy, the other is a teen melodrama.

my dude, I just said I’m not interested in it for me and am skeptical about AK’s showrunning skills. An adult-oriented cartoon and YA-oriented CW-style drama sound like pretty different things to me. Where’s the hypocrisy?

Reading some of his other comments, he just appears to enjoy upsetting people and openly admits to being vindictive. I don’t know why some people take pleasure in that but it’s best not to engage trolls. I’m sorry I responded in earnest.

But Captain Picard said to “engage!” – lol

I’ll see myself out…

So I get personally attacked for just being honest? Wonderful!

Should I just start hiding behind the “fake nice guy routine” and constantly crap on Trek shows I don’t like it, but then insist in general terms I really don’t dislike those shows? Because I see quite a few fans doing that all the time.

I plead guilty for my honesty and directness.

So I get personally attacked for just being honest?”

Being “honest” isn’t virtuous in a vacuum, it’s absolutely context dependent. There are plenty of opinions/thoughts that I have that I’ve come by honestly that I keep to myself, because there’s no particular reason to speak them, given that they could hurt people’s feelings (for example.)

Well as a DSC fan, if I was a very emotional person, I would have left this site a long time ago after crying, crying and more crying overall all the negativity on that show.

The point being — if your feelings are easily hurt, then you should probably not be participating here in general, because you are not going to have fun.

The characters in lower decks are youngish and the humor is middle school level. And sure it is aimed at Berman era fans, but this new show is going to be targeted towards DSC era fans — and those fans aren’t CW type fans so I’m not getting that comparison at all?

I think that comparison is because of who’s being brought in to run it. I totally agree that it’ll be aimed at DSC-era (or specifically DSC-future) fans, and that those folks might not be CW-type fans. But they’re bringing in an ex-CW showrunner, and that gets my threat ganglia going.

Noga Landau is coming off of 2 CW series (Nancy Drew, which has pretty middling reviews, and Tom Swift, which was cancelled after one season and was described as “suffer[ing] from a surprising lack of imagination”). I think concerns about CW-ifying a Trek outing are valid, regardless of whether you like Disco or not. My reading here is that folks are willing to give it a shot, even if it’s not what they prefer era-wise, but are worried about the showrunner/tone.

I don’t give a slip of latinum if something spins off of Disco, even though I don’t like that show at all. It’s my 4rd least favourite Trek thing of all time (it beats Into Darkness, Picard S1-2, and Nemesis, fwiw). I’m not going to hide or pretend that it’s not my show, BUT, SNW came from it, and I love that series. It’s my favourite since DS9. Another Disco spin-off could be great! What I am really skeptical about is this particular showrunner’s record.

Good points — I don’t think we are really all that far apart then. And I apologize if I got a little carried away with my first comment to you.

If, say this show is more CW-like, then I think those sorts of new younger fans they bring in will be likely candidates to also enjoy Lower Decks, which is sort of Trek’s version of the Simpsons…my opinion.

We’re good. :) And I’m glad you’re into Disco! Trek is strengthened with IDIC. I’m hopeful that this new one lives up to your hopes and runs long.

Cool ! :-)

Ok, so: Nemesis or STID, which is worse?

For me it’s STID by a mile. I only ever watched it once and don’t plan on ever watching it again (though I do like 2009 and Beyond a lot). I did try to rewatch Nemesis recently (for maybe the 3rd time ever) and fell asleep as Picard and Data were escaping the Scimitar in that fighter craft.

STID is worse by a country mile. It’s just such a lazy movie that tries to remake WoK without understanding anything about what makes that such a great film. Also, is Bones a mad scientist? Just injecting blood into things to see what it does? And then they phone up Spock Prime to ask him how they should feel about “Khan.” Just… what?

Nemesis is flawed and tries to be an action movie in really boring ways, but it’s not as insultingly stupid with its treatment of characters.

Side note: 2009 (or as I prefer to call it, Star Trek 11) is the movie I have seen most in theatres. Previous record was held by Phantom Menace when I was a stupid tween, and I needed to redeem my record.

For me I have to go with Nemesis. I actually think STID is at least more fun entertaining even if it’s more stupid story wise. But yes, I know, for many, ‘Khan’ alone kills it. But Nemesis feels like bad film making on top of bad writing IMO.

But Abrams should never be allowed near a Star Trek movie again, not as director at least.

JJ can manage to inject “excitement” into almost any project – mainly by shooting it very “actiony”. But he also cuts and assembles stuff almost at random such that it all feels exciting and interesting, but falls to pieces at the slightest nudge.

While Nemesis may be a little boring, does none of the characters any favors, and misunderstands a lot of Trek, it is at least a coherent (if bleh) story. In STID there is not a single scene, character motivation, or chain of events that make any logical sense. And it stripmines previous Trek ideas, but presents them hollowly, and though supposedly set in a timeline such that they would be unfettered by existing canon does absolutely nothing new nor adds anything inventive to the Star Trek universe.

They’re going after a younger demo and Discovery era fans are still Star Trek fans at their core.The goal here is to move beyond the fanbase.

I don’t think LDS is a “young adult teen drama” so I don’t see the problem here. Sure, LDS may be marketed to include teens or younger audiences (in addition to general Trek fans), but it certainly doesn’t have any of the features of “teen drama”. It’s just a regular Trek show with younger-targeted comedic elements.

Dude, the comedy is pretty middle school level humor and the characters are youngish.

I disagree on the middle-school level humor (and i have a middle schooler, their “humor” is way different). And young characters don’t make it a “teen/young adult drama”. It is a wacky workplace comedy with dramatic elements.

Anyone who can watch “Crisis Point” or “No Spare Parts” or “Wej duj” and think it’s a teen comedy, isn’t really paying attention.

We’ll I get your opinion on that. One thing that is middle-school-like targeted cartoons are the loud, annoying characters, especially Mariner — you are not going to convince me otherwise on that account.

While loud, I don’t find Mariner to be annoying.

I think many Trek characters have this same dichotomy of fan reactions: some like Tilly, some really don’t; some like Barclay, some don’t; some like Neelix, some don’t; some like Phlox…well, I hope everyone likes Phlox; Bashir, Raffi, etc.

Not really, no. An animated comedy series is a bit removed from a live action dramatic series.

Yeah. It’s not like Bob’s Burgers/Futurama/Rick and Morty/The Simpsons demos automatically dovetail with Riverdale/Nancy Drew/Outer Banks.

This is something I haven’t been interested in since it was first suggested in the 80’s. But that said I’ll be open to it mainly because PRO was marketed to be aimed at children and I loved it this past year. I get how the bottom line is for P+ to attract new viewers. If I find it’s a teen drama, I’ll just move on. Cheers, hope it does well.

Exactly, why I’m much more hopeful about it at least! But yeah if it sucks, there are other shows around.

…and it’s likely set in the 32nd century, which I know you’re a fan of, Tiger!

LOL, yes you know me very well! :)

Of course if it isn’t, that’s OK obviously but it does sound like it will be.

i seriously hope we don’t get this show instead of / and not a Titan/Legacy show. given all streaming services are contracting / reducing the amount of content they are producing, i don’t see Paramount doing 3 live action Trek shows all at the same time.

Based on the Discovery season 2 to SNW greenlight decision timeline, if we get a clear announcement this calendar year, I’ll be surprised.

No news on a Titan show or other Legacy one-offs or limited series is in no way bad news.

Well, seeing as this is a fanbase for a franchise that emphasizes open-mindedness, tolerance, and a willingness to explore and learn about new things, I’m sure they’ll be very fair about this announcement.

*looks at comments here and elsewhere on Trek-based social media*

Well, so much for that. Must have been another fanbase I was thinking of.

I don’t know what some of you are bellyaching about. I think this has definite to be more good Star Trek, provided we’re not too starry-eyed from all the memberberries in Picard S3, and the showrunners/writers for this new series doesn’t let the YA school-drama tropes to take precedent over the Trek-ness the show needs to be nested in.

There’s some serious potential here. I’ve got some doubts given AK’s mixed record and if a former CW showrunner can avoid those school drama tropes. That said, it could be cool! A mix of class years would be neat. Or commit to a 4-year run and follow a particular group through their schooling.

There are many valid complaints people can have: not being interested in the 32nd century setting, not liking established DIS characters (who may appear as instructors), not liking the approach to storytelling that DIS has (and that might be carried over into this spinoff given Kurtzman’s involvement), being worried that the “limited” funding resources that seem to be the new normal for streaming investment are going toward this concept instead of a viewer’s other preferred alternatives/era/concepts, not being interested in a teen-drama, etc.

I think this, as you mentioned, is the most important thing: “doesn’t let the YA school-drama tropes to take precedent over the Trek-ness the show needs”.

If this show comes out and is as good as TOS S1, TNG/DS9 S4-6 then I would expect to see fewer (though never no) complaints.

if we get TNG S4-6 Quality (or even 3-7. I’m one of those freaks that liked “Genesis”) I will absolutely eat my hat and enjoy the hell out of a cheesy teen drama show

I like Genesis (go director Gates Mcfadden!). And I too like TNG 3-7, DS9 3-7, and VOY 4-7 tons (and ENT S4).

But I don’t want it to be cheesy teen drama. Teen drama would be ok, if done well.

I thought I was the only one who liked ENT S4. The 3-part episodes were a great innovation and they got good musical orchestration. Though I wish they didn’t do the uptempo version of the intro song.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a cheesy drama, but if it’s good, I’ll eat a little cheese. If there’s a kind of campy Trek teen show with quality writing and production, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.

ENT S4 is basically akin to PIC S3. It was a huge turnaround in terms of fans perception of the show at the time and even more highly rated today.

And yes, I don’t want it to be a teen soapy drama either, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be good even if it is. Like everything, it will just come down to the writing.

As they said in the documentary series (now on Amazon) “The Center Seat”, ENT S4 was finally the prequel series it was meant to be. I wish we had seen Braga’s original first season concept where they would be building the ship and gathering the crew and just creating all the processes and plans for a true starship and wouldn’t launch until the end of the first season.

That and the idea of getting into the Federation/Romulan War in season 5 (and bringing Shran onboard as crew) would have been great too!

The only real duds in S4 are the Space Nazis and “the valentine to the fans” finale which were imposed on Many Coto by the powers that be. Also not great: the transporter episode and I have never personally liked the Mirror universe two-parter (much like the later DS9 and DIS mirror episodes, while they may have been fun for the cast I don’t think they had much to say about the Mirror universe or the Prime universe and our characters. The original TOS “Mirror Mirror” and DS9 “Crossover” did actually have some stuff to say about the differences between the two universes and how our characters might be different and how they might improve, degrade, or make changes given different circumstances or knowledge.)

With the title all i can think of is the 1997 PC game of Starfleet Academy

God I hope the cadet acting is better this time!

Hey, I’ll take it! It wouldn’t be my first choice, but Star Trek could use a fresh new premise and the 32nd century is an interesting playground.

Agreed! After S5 of DISCO is over, the 32nd Century is a blank canvas on which just about anything can be painted. I’ll let the artists do their thing and see how it turns out.

Exactly! I’ve already gotten so much of what I wanted with Picard and Lower Decks, and I really enjoy SNW and Discovery…I’ll let the creators do their thing and find new ways to explore this universe. It may not be for me in the long run, but I sure as hell will watch it!

Exactly.

Tawny Newsome announced on Twitter that she’s on the writing staff. That’s cool.

Are you joking? Does this imply there would be a comedic aspect to this new show? What are her writing credentials or style? Whatever the answers are this is good. I’ve always liked Newsome.

That is awesome!

RE: Tawny’s writing. I don’t know exactly what she writes, but she does a metric ton of stuff, including I assume writing (and often improving) her own podcast material.

Yeah, while it’s not unfair to assume some comedic elements, I don’t think it’s a guarantee just because she works on a comedy series.

That said, I think what we’re probably looking at is something more along the lines of other genre dramas aimed at teens, like Supernatural, Riverdale (yes, it went full sci-fi later in its run) or even to some extent, Stranger Things.

Hope they get her to play real life holo Mariner on the show.

That’s great to hear! She is definitely an advocate for the TNG/DS9/VOY fan.

Exactly! Newome is awesome. She is such a Trek fangirl and you feel that every time Mariner opens her mouth lol.

I ador her fandom, it’s so relatable and that’s very unusual in a Star Trek actor.

So agreed! :)

She’s becoming the Johnathan Frakes of modern Trek.

That’s great! I’m excited to see what she does

OMG really??? Now I’m more excited! :)

Star Trek, like most series on Paramount+ and CBS in general, tend to skew a bit older so the mindset at Paramount was likely to have a live action series which could potentially skew younger.

Moving forward with an academy series set in this time period could also explain why Discovery was cancelled. “We can afford to do one, we can’t do both if we move forward with another live action series after Picard wraps.” The cast of Discovery may have been surprised when it wasn’t picked up for another season but Kurtzman was probably aware that a green light for an academy series could potentially mean a wrap on Discovery.

The reception to such a series is probably already baked in on both sides. How much anticipation there will be will come into focus in the coming weeks. How it will actually perform is anyone’s guess but it may have the same limited appeal to those on opposite sides of the age spectrum and for entirely different reasons.

With the recent Teen Wolf movie, Wolf Pack series, and School Spirits series, it does seem like P+ is wanting to target the teen demographic more.

I think the academy show could work if it is a true ensemble show and not focused on a central character sucking all the oxygen out of every episode like Discovery.

Agreed!

Completely agree.

And, yeah, they are definitely going after a younger audience.

Those wolf things got more uptake than many of us realize here. Paramount+‘s uptick in subscribers has been attributed to those and not just to 1923.

The schedulers will want to have more content that appeals to that demographic. If a Trek show can be part of that menu, it’s great for the health of the franchise.

It’s a bit of an experiment.

It’s increasingly not making financial sense to target very young people as the population is ageing and people are living much longer and spending on themselves, while Gen Z is proportionally the smallest generation in US history. Not to mention they are also financially extremely poor in comparison to previous generations.

I think DIS time was close to over regardless. But yes, I think this will soften the blow for some like me who wanted to see the era itself continued. I didn’t care if DIS left or not but that was my biggest fear and they would just wipe the 32nd century away with it. That’s DIS biggest legacy IMO and only the third show to really build on a new era. Yes technically ENT did in the 22nd century but a lot was already established beforehand. DIS can say it really started a new era on its own, which is why it should’ve been there on day one, but I digress lol. But we can have future shows in this era for the next decade just like I’m assuming more will show up in the 25th century too. This is the Star Trek I been wanting forever. It doesn’t mean I will love every show personally; but this is the direction I want to see. It’s great to see more the franchise spreading out the time periods, formats and expanding the universe as a whole.

So now they will have a much cheaper show and HOPEFULLY a much better show too. Looking at these comments, many people don’t seem convinced of the latter lol. Everyone seems very focused on the teen aspect and again that’s understandable. But maybe people will be surprised. I’m actually surprised how much I’m looking forward to the idea but I been in a very good mood lately lol. And I still hope we get the Picard spin off but even if we do, it probably will be a ways off anyway. This thing has been waiting five years just to get a green light.

I still think we’re a long way from knowing about levels of anticipation. It won’t be until we start seeing casting at the very least, but I’m thinking a trailer is what we’ll need to gauge how excited fans are going to be about it on its premiere.

But it doesn’t really matter, because they know full well that even people who insist they won’t be watching absolutely will be, their goal is to attract a younger, teen audience.

They’re definitely not chasing down anyone here to watch. We’ll all sample it. They want regular folk in and just out of high school to watch.

Exactly.

Also agree.

A bit older? There’s a reason all those Medicare commercials advertise on those legacy broadcasts ..

I still say that just making the tone of the shows more family-friendly from the start is the best key to franchise longevity. That doesn’t have to mean making it obvious that it’s aimed at a younger audience like Prodigy and now SFA. There are millions of fans from 30 to 70 who started watching TOS-ENT as little kids with their families. Even though this was largely dictated by contemporary standards and practices, it is paying dividends now, which is why I still scratch my head at the thinking behind making Disco so R-rated right out of the gate. I don’t think reeling in adults who need sex, blood, profanity and guts to give a show a chance is worth not being able to appeal to kids who will look back fondly on the show in 20 years.

Please don’t. Cancel that and give us a Star Trek Legacy TV show. Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are ok, but Star Trek has been floundering for years!!

Picard’s Season 3 has managed to reinvigorate the franchise for many of us trekies. Capitalize on that. I’ve watched every episode of Star Trek out there. Leave it in the capable hands of Season 3s showrunner Terry Matalas. He is the only one besides Rick Berman that’s capable of making Star Trek great.

I think you are short changing many of the good producers: Ira Stephen Behr, the Hagemans, McMahon, Goldsman/Myers, and maybe Many Coto (if you like ENT S4). Ron Moore is still out there too (but busy with “For All Mankind”.)

That sounds terrible! What are they thinking?

Mark your going to love ❤️ it.

the blurb makes it sound like a space CW show. God help us….

God doesn’t exist

Which cannot be proven as you’d cease to exist just seconds before being right. Therefore God exists as their existence is pivotal to any post-life observation.

Why does God need a starship?

What if the the ‘god’ of Sha’ka’re is who Vadic is working for? lol

Well, he is a giant floating head.