The Star Trek universe concluded at this weekend’s New York Comic Con (NYCC) panel with a brand new trailer for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The ten-episode series will follow the exploits of the first new class of students in a century.
According to the official premise:
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will introduce viewers to a group of young students 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.
The new students include Sandro Rosta as human orphan Caleb Meara; Maria Diano as a Klingon student, Jayden Cragg; Kerrice Brooks as Sam (serial’s adaptation), the first Casillian to attend the Academy; George Hawkins as Darmie Reem, a Xyrillian student who wants to be a captain; Bella Shepard as Genesis Lith, a Dar-Sha student, and Zoe Steiner as Tarima Sadal, the daughter of the Betazed president. In addition, Holly Hunter plays the Academy Chancellor, Captain Neela Akeela; Gina Yashere plays Instructor Cadet Lura Thok; Becky Lynch plays a Starfleet bridge crew member; and Paul Giamatti plays a half-Klingon, half-Tellarite character named Nus Braka, the main villain of the series.
Tig Notaro, Oded Fehr, and Mary Wiseman will reprise their Discovery roles as Jett Reno, Admiral Vance, and Sylvia Tilly, respectively. And Robert Picardo from Star Trek: Voyager returns as The Doctor, in a show set 900 years after the hologram doctor’s first appearance. Stephen Colbert will voice Dean Digital to the students, responsible for the daily announcements. The late-night host recorded his announcement that he would be joining the cast rather than attending NYCC in person, because “I’m a perfectionist, and I just didn’t have enough banner for my Mugato cosplay.”
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Caleb Rosta is the main focus of the new trailer. We see him as a child with his mother (Tatiana Maslany) being separated from him by armed guards, as Nus Braka laughs: “You cling to the amount of hate I harbor right now. It will keep you warm at night.” Captain Akeela finds Caleb, now grown, and recruits him to the Academy, promising to help him find Nus Braka—presumably for revenge. We see the instructors putting the new students through their paces as they try to prove themselves worthy of a Starfleet uniform. Love might be in the air for Caleb. And it seems Captain Akeela has her own tumultuous history with Nus Braka.
As Ars Senior Editor Sam Axon pointed out in 2023, there have been Kobayashi Maru references throughout the franchise, as well as significant storylines about the Academy in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, among others. There were also Starfleet Academy video games in the 1990s for various platforms.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres on Paramount+ on January 15, 2026.
A Glimpse of Strange New Worlds S4
Let’s be honest, season three of Strange New Worlds has been quite uneven. But a course correction may be on the way, judging by a four-and-a-half-minute clip from the upcoming fourth season that was unveiled at NYCC. It’s a lengthy sequence in which Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and his crew respond to a distress signal from another ship, only to encounter a massive space storm that knocks out nearly all of their systems. They decide to take a shuttle to a nearby planet to collect some much-needed iridium to power their warp drive. (Does anyone else hear echoes of Galaxy Quest and the search for a beryllium sphere replacement?)
However, the tone seems more like a return to form for the series. (For what it’s worth, producer Akiva Goldsman has attributed S3’s issues in part to production delays as a result of the strikes and staffing changes.) Season four of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is slated for release sometime next year. The series has already been renewed for a fifth and shortened final season of six episodes.
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Source: Ars Technica
