Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is coming with two seasons confirmed already — here's everything we know about it

Before the first command is issued, before the first starship assignment, there’s the place where legends begin. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes us not to the edge of the galaxy but to the origin of those who will one day lead its exploration. Set in the 32nd century, long after the Federation has fractured and begun to rise again, the series brings us to a time when the future is uncertain, and faith in its promise must be earned all over again.

Among these hallways and training grounds, stardust carries the weight of ideals. Every cadet becomes a question asked of the stars, and every lesson becomes a blueprint for what the Federation might become. This is a crucible where hope is tempered into leadership, where diplomacy and science collide with youthful ambition.

The next generation must navigate ancient legacies and emergent threats in equal measure. With a legacy forged across centuries and a galaxy of possibility ahead, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy embraces the promise of exploration, responsibility, and the infinite potential of those who dare to reach for the stars.

Development and production

The genesis of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is rooted in a vision that's lived in the minds of Star Trek creators for decades. The concept of following cadets in their formative years at the Federation’s most prestigious institution has been whispered through writers’ rooms since the early days of the franchise. It's only now, in the modern streaming era and post-Discovery timeline, that the idea has found fertile ground to thrive.

Executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau helm the project with a mission to blend the optimistic spirit of Star Trek with a character-driven coming-of-age narrative. The show began filming in late summer 2024 at Pinewood Toronto Studios and wrapped in February 2025.

The production team constructed the largest set ever built for a Star Trek series: 4,590 square meters of soundstage transformed into the atrium of Starfleet Academy, reflecting both its physical grandeur and thematic significance.

Writer Tawny Newsome (Lower Decks) is part of the creative team, bringing a thoughtful approach to balancing Star Trek’s rich canon with the need to make the series welcoming for newcomers.

At the same time, Alex Kurtzman has outlined a “hybrid format” that won’t stop at graduation. He envisions following these cadets as they grow into their roles across Starfleet, allowing their stories to unfold beyond the walls of the Academy and into the wider galaxy.

In Kurtzman’s words,

“We are very quickly barreling towards production at this point. The cast is starting to arrive, sets are being built, they’re almost finished, and it’s an incredibly exciting moment for everybody here in Toronto.”

Noga Landau added,

“We want to capture that precise moment where people step into who they are meant to become. That’s what Starfleet Academy is about—forming character under pressure, with wonder, with fear, and with awe.”

This is Star Trek reimagined for a generation raised on crisis but still reaching for the stars.

Setting and premise

The series is set in the 32nd century, a time far removed from the golden age of the Federation yet fiercely determined to reclaim its ideals. In the aftermath of the Burn, a galaxy-wide event that nearly dismantled warp travel and plunged the quadrant into chaos, Starfleet emerges not as a dominant force but as a rebuilding dream.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy opens its gates for the first time in over a century, calling forth a new generation of cadets to help shape what the Federation will become.

Unlike the polished certainty of earlier centuries, this era is defined by ambiguity, recovery, and the slow reconstruction of interstellar trust. The Academy becomes a symbol of ambition and renewal. Its students aren't heirs to stability; they're pioneers in a fragile future, shouldering legacies they barely understand and responsibilities that may outpace their youth.

The series explores their training in science, strategy, ethics, diplomacy, and personal sacrifice. The curriculum is rigorous, but the greater test lies in facing the unknown.

As Alex Kurtzman described it, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will ask what it means “to serve something greater than yourself, especially when the future is uncertain and the past is broken.”

This is the frontier redefined, not a map to be filled but a world to be restored.

Characters and cast

A story set at Star Trek: Starfleet Academy lives and dies by the strength of its cadets. Here, the central cast forms a constellation of personalities in conflict, cooperation, and transformation.

Holly Hunter leads the ensemble as the Academy’s Chancellor, a seasoned leader charged with shaping the next generation amid unprecedented galactic uncertainty. Her authority carries the gravity of someone who's seen civilizations fall and rise again and is determined not to repeat the past.

The incoming class includes cadets portrayed by Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard, George Hawkins, Karim Diané, Zoë Steiner, and Sandro Rosta. They arrive from different worlds, species, and backgrounds, reflecting the renewed mission of the Federation to build unity from diversity. These aren't idealized prodigies. They're flawed, eager, overwhelmed, and determined, each one a reflection of a galaxy still learning how to move forward.

Tig Notaro reprises her role as Jett Reno, bringing engineering brilliance and dry wit to the Academy’s halls. Tatiana Maslany joins the series in a special role still under wraps, while Paul Giamatti is set to play the primary antagonist of the first season, described by producers as a powerful threat with a deeply personal connection to one of the cadets.

But perhaps the most anticipated return is Robert Picardo as the Doctor, the iconic Emergency Medical Hologram from Voyager. As Noga Landau put it,

“He’s going to do things we’ve never seen the Doctor do before—and the Doctor’s done a lot, think about it!”

The return of the Doctor

Few characters in Star Trek history have embodied both technological brilliance and emotional growth as completely as the Emergency Medical Hologram known simply as the Doctor.

Originally activated aboard the USS Voyager, his journey from protocol-bound subroutine to self-aware, sentient being became a cornerstone of the franchise’s late-90s legacy. His return in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, centuries after his original programming, is both poetic and thematically loaded.

In the words of Alex Kurtzman,

“If the audience has seen Star Trek: Prodigy, there’s a lot of Doctor there—and obviously the Doctor is teaching cadets at Starfleet Academy. It seemed very logical to us that he would still be there in the 32nd century.”

For co-showrunner Noga Landau, the character held personal significance.

“I don’t know if Bob knows this, but the Doctor, like, raised me. So I was worried… that I would come on [the video call to pitch his return] and scare him away. But then I realized that nothing scares Bob Picardo.”

The producers hinted that this version of the Doctor will break new ground.

“He’s going to do things we’ve never seen the Doctor do before—and the Doctor’s done a lot, think about it.”

Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk) makes a guest appearance, bringing sharp charisma to an unexpected role, while Oded Fehr returns as Admiral Vance, grounding the episode in Discovery continuity.

The Doctor’s origin also echoes across Star Trek: Prodigy and the Voyager episode Living Witness, weaving his presence into a larger ethical reflection on legacy, memory, and the stories we choose to preserve.

This isn't nostalgia. Its legacy is alive and evolving.

Themes and expectations

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy arrives with the burden and the privilege of legacy. It inherits six decades of mythos shaped by diplomacy, exploration, and existential wonder and channels that inheritance through the eyes of characters just beginning their journey.

This shift in perspective isn't a reduction of scale but a refinement of focus. The stakes are no less galactic, but they're filtered through youth, through uncertainty, and through potential still forming.

Alex Kurtzman described the core of the series as “that moment when someone realizes who they are meant to become.” The Academy is where personal ambition must bend to collective purpose and where science, ethics, and leadership collide in messy, beautiful ways.

Themes of identity, recovery, and hope resonate through every layer of the story. The Federation is no longer an unchallenged beacon. It's a question being asked all over again. And that question, in the hands of a new generation, becomes an opportunity for reinvention.

What emerges isn't a side chapter but a story with its own gravitational pull, worthy of its place among the stars.

Why Star Trek: Starfleet Academy could be the beating heart of Star Trek’s future

The legacy of Star Trek has always rested not in its ships or battles but in its belief that humanity can grow into something better. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy stands as the newest vessel for that hope. It doesn't look back to preserve the past but forward to imagine how the ideals of the Federation evolve through adversity, across centuries, through the eyes of those just beginning to dream.

In the cadets’ uncertainty there is honesty. In their mistakes there is meaning. And in their courage there is a spark of what makes Star Trek endure.

If the franchise is to thrive in a changing galaxy, it may be here, in a classroom orbiting a fragile future, that its heart will beat the loudest.