Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Youthful series set among the students of Starfleet in the 32nd century
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
There's a touch of The Dirty Dozen to Starfleet Academy, a series set in the 32nd century of Star Trek: Discovery. This is a time after a catastrophic event known as 'The Burn' left the once-pristine Federation in pieces. The story of Starfleet Academy is thus one of rebuilding, and the setting is not just confined to that stuffy building in San Francisco - oh, no. The Academy of series creator Gaia Violo's imagination partly lives on a ship called the USS Athena, a place where announcements tell students to visit the mess hall because, 'sometimes, hanger is the greatest enemy of all'. This is a show with a sense of humour, too.
Holly Hunter stars as Nahla Ake, half-captain and half-teacher but definite leader on the Athena, and also a woman with a need to atone for past misdeeds. Fans of Star Trek Voyager will be pleased to see Robert Picardo as her ship's holographic doctor, and the centuries (he's 900 years old now) seem to have made him even grumpier than Dr McCoy.
The rest of the crew are a colourful assortment of misfits, including tweaks on previously well-known species (notably the warlike Klingons and Jem'Hadar), the first-ever holographic student and even more, once they eventually reach San Francisco itself. And in terms of the baddies? Look out for Oscar-nominee Paul Giamatti under a lot of makeup.
If you didn't like the latter years of Star Trek: Discovery then this probably won't be for you, but Violo is certainly trying something different with this show and that's always to be applauded. The writer was previously behind the Stana Katic thriller Absentia, but the two shows have very little in common. (Ten episodes)
