STAR TREK: STARFLEET ACADEMY

FIRST CLASS

STAR TREK IS GOING BACK TO SCHOOL… AS STARFLEET ACADEMY GEARS UP FOR ITS FIRST EVER SEMESTER, SHOWRUNNERS ALEX KURTZMAN AND NOGA LANDAU REVEAL WHAT’S ON THE CURRICULUM – AND WHY THEIR NEW SHOW IS GREY’S ANATOMY IN THE 32ND CENTURY

WORDS: RICHARD EDWARDS

Holly Hunter as Nahla Ake, captain of the USS Athena.

Ex Astris, Scientia – From the stars, knowledge

Starfleet Academy motto

STARFLEET ACADEMY HAS LONG HAD mythological status in Star Trek circles. It’s the training school where Wesley Crusher attempted a dangerous stunt that got a classmate killed, and Jean-Luc Picard lived out some of his post-Enterprise retirement years as chancellor. It’s also where two incarnations of James T Kirk cheated on their Kobayashi Maru tests. But even though almost every major character in the 60-year-old franchise is a graduate of the famous San Francisco campus, its actual screen appearances have been limited. Until now, that is, because the latest Star Trek TV show is heading to the classroom.

The idea of sending the franchise back to school is decades old. Following the critical and commercial mauling dished out to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in 1989 – y’know, the one where “God” tries to hitch a ride on the Enterprise – a script titled The Academy Years/The First Adventure found its way into development. The film would have been an origin story about Kirk and Spock becoming unlikely BFFs during their college days, until Paramount decided instead to give the ageing OG Enterprise crew a Cold War-themed swansong with The Undiscovered Country.

These cadets, like all students, go through a remarkable journey of self-discovery

But the idea never really went away – there were novels and a videogame in the ’90s, while alt-Kirk’s multiple educational misdemeanours kickstarted his unlikely journey to the Enterprise bridge in JJ Abrams’s big-screen reboot. Now – plugging a gap between the kids-in-space adventures of Prodigy and the aspiring young officers of Lower Decks – Starfleet Academy becomes the first Trek to set coordinates for bona fide YA territory.

“I think the thing that we felt most inspired by is the fact that on every other Trek show, your crew already knows who they are,” explains Alex Kurtzman, Starfleet Academy co-showrunner, franchise overlord and (coincidentally) co-screenwriter of the Abrams movie. “They’ve been through the Academy, they’ve made their decision about where they want their careers to go, and they can’t make a ton of mistakes. But these cadets are still figuring it out, and like all students in college, you go through a remarkable journey of self-discovery over the course of those four years. Oftentimes what you enter into college thinking you want to do, and what you leave college realising you want to do, are two very different things.”

It’s all smiles for the cadets on the USS Athena.

Robert Picardo returns as EMH The Doctor.

“There’s a safety net built into being a student,” adds the show’s Oscar-winning star (and ship’s captain) Holly Hunter. “It’s a place where failure is not necessarily discouraged.”

FEELING THE BURN