Star Trek’s immediate future doesn’t look particularly bright. The two remaining Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy, are both ending soon with nothing else in the immediate pipeline. To make matters worse, Star Trek rights holder Paramount just merged with Warner Bros., raising questions about how much attention the series will get under this new megabrand (which now has to pay off $86.8 billion in debt).
Longtime Star Trek actor Robert Picardo, who played the AI hologram The Doctor in multiple shows and movies in the franchise, offered incisive comments about the recent cancellation of Starfleet Academy.
“Even though I think the quality of our show was great, we were kind of killed in the cradle, and I believe part of it is the present political moment in our culture that diversity, that all of Star Trek’s core values are now out of fashion temporarily,” Picardo said in an interview with TrekMovie.
“We see diversity under attack, and therefore Star Trek is under attack because that’s what Star Trek’s always been about,” he continued. “So hopefully, whenever they create the next Star Trek movie and Star Trek show, they’ll remember what it was that made Star Trek special, and that present weather conditions in politics will change, and Star Trek once again will emerge with all of its values intact. That’s what I believe and I hope for. But right now, you know, the feeling has been a little grim recently.”
Why was Star Trek: Starfleet Academy canceled?
Paramount hasn’t directly commented on its decision to cancel Starfleet Academy, leaving fans to wonder whether the show didn’t capture enough viewers or if it was a victim of a David Ellison-run Paramount. David’s father, Larry Ellison, donated a staggering $45 million to a Trump election campaign that directly criticized diversity and inclusion measures.
As for Starfleet Academy, the show came into the crosshairs of right-wing culture war pundits and high-ranking members of the Trump administration before it was even released. The infamous X account “End Wokeness” posted part of the trailer, which apparently sparked controversy among right-wingers because it featured women on the bridge crew. Trump administration Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller called the clip “tragic” and tagged the Paramount Plus account, saying the company could “save the franchise” if it were to “reconcile with @WilliamShatner and give him total creative control.”
Starfleet Academy received generally positive reviews from critics, with an 84% score on Rotten Tomatoes. As for audiences, like most “controversial” series on the modern internet, it’s hard to tell what those outside the one percent of over-engaged X/Reddit users thought. Starfleet Academy has a 52% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.6 on IMDb, which aren’t very good, but historically, these metrics are poor at capturing what the “average” viewer thinks; it’s hard to tell if something is being review-bombed, or if the hate is representative.
Picardo ended his interview on a note of Trekkian optimism. “We don’t know what’s next, but we’ve been at a pivot point before. And we survived it and flourished again, and I think we will. I think that a lot of the voices now that are so loud and negative will not be as loud and negative.” Hopefully, he is right. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s second (and last) season is slated for early next year.