Why Starfleet Academy’s Cancelation Has Me Worried About The Star Trek Franchise

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy only just finished its first season on the 2026 TV schedule a few weeks ago, but that was overshadowed by bad news earlier this week. Though Season 2 will still be released sometime in 2027 as planned, CBS Studios and Paramount+ have already canceled Starfleet Academy, making it the shortest-lived live-action Trek series yet. While this development is obviously disappointing to the show's fans, myself included, it’s resulted in me worrying about the Star Trek franchise as a whole.

There Are No New Star Trek TV Shows On The Horizon

Right now, there are only two currently-airing Star Trek TV shows, but they’re both going to be gone soon. In addition to Starfleet Academy Season 2, there are two more seasons of Strange New Worlds on the way. Season 4 will premiere sometime later this year, and then Season 5, which will be comprised of six episodes rather than 10, will wrap things up in 2027. At least in Strange New Worlds’ case, the cast and crew were given enough time to bring the show to a proper close, whereas it sounds like Academy is going to end with unresolved plot threads.

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More importantly, once Starfleet Academy and Strange New Worlds are over, there are no other Trek TV shows set to officially move forward. The Picard follow-up, Star Trek: Legacy, will seemingly remain a pipe dream, particularly because IDW’s upcoming relaunched Star Trek title and new spinoff, Star Trek: Zero Point, will take place in that same time period (via Gizmodo). At one point, Lower Decks and Starfleet’s Academy’s Tawny Newsome was developing a live-actionTrek comedy, but there haven't been any updates on that project in a while.

So, there is a strong chance we’re about to enter an era similar to when Enterprise ended after four seasons in 2005. How is Paramount going to make sure that Star Trek stays in the public consciousness? Well, I’m thinking the studio is going to repeat what it did in the late 2000s, and I don’t think this is a wise course of action for the late 2020s.

I’m Worried Paramount Will Try To Blockbuster-ize Star Trek Again

From 2009 to 2016, Paramount Pictures released Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond, which featured younger takes on the Original Series characters in what’s known as the Kelvin timeline. This trilogy boasted more blockbuster-y action compared to the previous Trek movies, and I’ll readily admit that I do like them. They kept my interest in the franchise afloat, and it’s disappointing that Star Trek 4 is almost certainly not going to happen.

Instead, there’s reportedly a new theatricalTrek movie in development to “reinvigorate” the property. This sounds suspiciously like what happened with the first Kelvin timeline movie, and I really hope that’s not the case. The Paramount+ subscription-exclusive Star Trek shows proved you can add movie-quality action sequences to the various series, but in ways that balance out more nicely with the franchise’s more cerebral approach to science fiction.

I’m concerned that under the new Paramount leadership, the powers-that-be’s idea of reinvigorating the IP means trying to dumb it down to make it more appealing to the public. It was one thing to do this at a time when TV shows were more constrained with what they could deliver with special and visual effects, but we don’t live in that era anymore. I don’t want the start of a newTrek film series to come at the cost of losing the inherent thoughtfulness built Into the franchise; even more so if it also results in the reduction of all the strides in diversity and inclusion we’ve gotten over the last decade.

Hopefully we’ll get news later this year giving us a better idea of what’s next for Star Trek after Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy end next year, and that it doesn’t resemble what I’m worried about. For now, I’ll continue anticipating the former’s fourth season and hope the latter is allowed to film additional material to give its second season a more definitive ending, just like Discovery Season 5 got to do.