Starfleet Academy Show Is “Trying To Tell A Star Trek Story In A New Way”, Says Tawny Newsome

Tawny Newsome says Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is “trying to tell a Star Trek story in a new way,” by focusing on the young Cadets who hope to become the starship captains and crews of the future. Announced in March 2023, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a new TV series in development at Paramount+ led by showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. In addition to her gig voicing Lt. Beckett Mariner on Star Trek: Lower Decks, and playing Mariner in live-action in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2’s crossover episode, Newsome is also a writer for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

A Starfleet Academy project has been in the works for over 30 years. After the 1989 box office disappointment of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, producer Harve Bennett planned a Starfleet Academy-set origin story for James T. Kirk, Spock, and the future crew of the USS Enterprise titled Star Trek: The First Adventure (sometimes called Star Trek: The Academy Years). That plan fell apart when Paramount opted to reunite the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series one last time for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Various Star Trek series and movies have visited Starfleet Academy since then, and Star Trek: Discovery season 4, episode 4, “All Is Possible”, was a kind of backdoor pilot for a 32nd century Starfleet Academy show when Lt. Sylia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) led a group of Cadets stranded on an icy planet.

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Tawny Newsome Says Starfleet Academy Is Telling A New Kind Of Star Trek Story

Newsome is part of Starfleet Academy’s writer’s room

At the 51st annual Saturn Awards red carpet, TrekMovie talked to Tawny Newsome and asked her about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Newsome spoke about Starfleet Academy’s young adult focus, noting that the rough age for entry as a Cadet should be about 18 years old, and the show has students and teachers. Careful not to suggest that Starfleet Academy is “a college show,” Newsome instead offered a different headline highlighting the goals of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Read her quote below:

TrekMovie.com: Okay, what headline do you want us to say about
Academy
? What should the fans know?

Tawny Newsome: I love this. Okay. The headline that I want you to say about Academy is we have a room full of writers who love Star Trek and are trying to tell a Star Trek story in a new way, and we’re really excited to do that.

Although not confirmed by Paramount+, there have been many indications that Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set after Star Trek: Discovery season 5 in the 32nd century. Discovery season 4 saw the doors of Starfleet Academy reopened after a hundred years following the shattering of the United Federation of Planets by The Burn. Although Starfleet Academy was also prominent in Star Trek: Picard season 2’s early 25th century timeframe, signs point to Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as a direct spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery.

How Starfleet Academy Can Be A New Kind Of Star Trek Show

No Star Trek series yet has focused on young Cadets

Star Trek TV shows and movies are primarily about Starfleet heroes already applying their skills as the best of the best, but Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has a prime opportunity to explore what it is like to be students who make mistakes while learning and striving to become future Starfleet Officers. Although Star Trek: The Next Generation had Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had Nog (Aron Eisenberg) and Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton), Star Trek on the whole hasn’t focused entirely on young adults as main characters. A rare exception was the first act of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek 2009, where James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and the crew of the USS Enterprise came aboard the starship as Starfleet Academy Cadets.

Tawny Newsome is a Star Trek aficionado as well as one of the most prominent actors in Star Trek on Paramount+’s growing franchise, and she says Starfleet Academy‘s writers’ room is filled with people who love Star Trek and care about its vast canon. Just as Star Trek: Prodigy instilled the virtues of Starfleet in the USS Protostar’s young alien crew, Starfleet Academy is an exciting opportunity to reexamine what Starfleet and the Federation stand for in the 32nd century. By being about young adults as Cadets, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is literally about the future of Star Trek and all the possibilities that entails.

Streaming Service(s)

Paramount+

Franchise(s)

Star Trek

Showrunner

Alex Kurtzman , Noga Landau