Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I actually had a busy weekend. Today I wanna talk about the announcement that came out last week that Starfleet Academy has been canceled with that cancelation coming into effect after the second season comes out next year, as well as the overall state of Star Trek in 2026, even in comparison to where it was at the end of 2025. Engage!
As you know, I have been a very strong supporter of Starfleet Academy because it's a good show. It's smartly written, the characters are interesting and relatable, and it's sending a positive message that is very needed in these tumultuous times. However, this announcement is not surprising to me at all. Because Star Trek has been here before. I'll get into that in a moment.
Basically, the big reason that Starfleet Academy was canceled is because Skydance Media bought Paramount and they want to divest themselves of Alex Kurtzman's Star Trek shows in favour of whatever they decide to do with the franchise going forward, if anything. I'll leave the discussion about Skydance's political leanings and the situation surrounding the current political climate in the world and how it relates to Star Trek to other people who are more knowledgeable about the situation. Let's just say it isn't good. Here's the thing though, this isn't the first time this has happened to Star Trek.
Back when Paramount bought out Desilu Studios from Lucille Ball in 1967, the first thing they did was look at the ratings that the original series had on NBC and instantly canceled it because it wasn't making Paramount any money. Remember, this was before there was as much Star Trek merchandise as there was in the '90s, and definitely before there was as much merchandise as there is today. There were some novels, a comic book series, and some model kits, but the toys and clothing didn't come until the '70s, and there were no movies at the time. So all there was was a TV series that, while popular with a particular audience, it wasn't hitting the general late '60s TV watching audience, and it wasn't hitting them in large enough numbers to justify Paramount's continued investment in the show. The only reason it stayed on the air for two more seasons is the letter writing campaign from the show's decently sized audience that convinced Paramount to reverse their decision twice. Even still the show was canceled in 1969, and this time there was no changing the studio's mind.
Fast forward 36 years to 2005 and the franchise found itself in the exact same position as it had been in 1969, when Paramount canceled Enterprise after four seasons. While Star Trek had had some huge success with some of the movies being the highest grossing movies in the franchise with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 1986, and Star Trek: First Contact in 1996, and with Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994, things had gotten very rocky with DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. The Star Trek fans showed up, as we always did, but the non-fans didn't show up. And hadn't since TNG went off the air in 1994. And because UPN was struggling and not making the money they needed to survive as a network, Enterprise was canceled and a year later UPN and The WB merged to form The CW.
In the era of premium television shows on streaming services, Star Trek has become even more niche than it was in 2005. It sort of got a bit of reprieve in 2009 when the first movie in the Kelvin timeline trilogy came out, but by the time Star Trek Beyond came out in 2016, once again, Star Trek fans were there for it, the general audience wasn't. But, as a TV first franchise, Star Trek has never, and will never get the ratings that something like Game of Thrones gets. Star Trek was never meant to be a show like that. And while Paramount might want it to be like Game of Thrones or The Sopranos or even The Expanse, Star Trek will never be anything like those shows.
Star Trek was meant for the audience that understands the message the franchise in all of its incarnations is trying to convey. That doesn't mean it can't evolve beyond what TOS was in the '60s, or TNG, DS9, and Voyager were in the '90s. In fact, it's had to evolve to fit the times it's being produced in today. But the core essence of Star Trek is still there. TOS and TNG were just the foundations the franchise was built on. They're a jumping off point, not the end all be all of Star Trek. I even remember seeing an interview with Gene Roddenberry, either on the DVD bonus features for TNG season 1 or season 2, or in the documentary, Chaos on the Bridge, which was originally done in 1988, where he said he hoped other people would take Star Trek to the levels he couldn't. Whether he actually meant that or not is up for debate, given his history of being critical of the TOS films except for The Motion Picture, which he worked on, but at least the sentiment is there.
My point in mentioning this is that Star Trek has been making money for Paramount since the '60s. It's just not as much as other studios make from something like Harry Potter, DC, Marvel, and even Star Wars to some extent. And not every franchise is for everyone. So Star Trek struggles more than other franchises do as a result. Especially because Paramount executives, and now Skydance executives, have never understood what makes Star Trek so appealing to those of us who love it. And they don't care. They just want it to make them money, without them having to actually spend the money to produce it. And, despite what they might think, that's not how it works. In any entertainment medium.
This blog, and my past Star Trek posts on Josh's Geek Cave are proof of how niche Star Trek is. They don't get the views that my other posts do. Which is fine, because I'm doing this because of my love of Star Trek. No other reason. Just my love of it.
It does suck that Starfleet Academy was canceled, because it was a legitimately good show. But, luckily we have one more season of it, and two more seasons of Strange New Worlds before the Alex Kurtzman era of Star Trek is over. If I'm being honest, this modern era of Star Trek has been very hit or miss. The first two seasons of Discovery were okay, but they clearly suffer from the production staff, including the writers, trying to find their feet as some of them had never worked on Star Trek before. Picard was good, but season 2 suffered from too many changes behind the scenes. Lower Decks was great, but some jokes didn't land, particularly in the first two seasons. It evened out in the end, but it was rough sometimes in those early seasons, as Mike McMahan admitted in the bonus features on the Blu-rays. Prodigy was great for kids, but between Nickelodeon's restrictions and model of doing things, and there not being that much in the show for adults to enjoy, the show didn't take off the way it should've. Which is unfortunate. Strange New Worlds was solid for its first two seasons, but season 3 suffered from delays due to the writer's and actor's strikes that happened in 2023, and ended up being incredibly uneven in quality. And of course Section 31 didn't work at all.
So, like any media franchise, the Kurtzman era of Star Trek wasn't perfect, nor should it have been. Because, if it had been perfect when Discovery first started back in 2017, it would not have grown into what it became over the last eight and a half years. Even now, the imperfections are what makes anything you do, whether it's make a TV show, write a book, or even paint a picture, as awesome as it is, and they're how we grow as people.
Star Trek isn't dead. Nor will it ever truly die. It'll just come back in a different form than what it is now. Hopefully that form isn't something that Conservatives and the people online who complain about these franchises being "woke", and try to argue that they weren't that before, when in most instances, yes, all these franchises have always been "woke". But, honestly, I don't think Star Trek will ever become something other than the progressive, allegory laden, optimistic, franchise it's always been. It'll just look different. As these modern shows have from the Kelvin timeline movies, which in turn have looked different from the Rick Berman era of Star Trek (TNG through Enterprise), which also looked different from TOS and the TOS movies.
Alright my friends, I think that's all I have to say about this particular topic. Hopefully next time I post on The Star Trek Journal I'll have other things to talk about. Maybe I'll finish my re-reads of the Star Trek: Autobiography series, and maybe talk about some episodes. Until then, Live long and prosper.
