Star Trek’s newest series,Starfleet Academy, will open its doors early next year. But before that happens, Collider’sSteve Weintraubwas on the scene at San Diego Comic Con to talk to the show’s cast and crew. They revealed some secrets about the show, including the expansive set for theUSS Athena, themuch-talked-about shipwhose true nature has finally been revealed. The set isn’t just enormous on-screen: it’s the biggest TV set ever. SaysKarim Diané, who plays Klingon medical cadet Jay-Den Kraag:
“It’s the biggest set in North America. Like period. So it’s huge. The first time we walked in, I mean, it’s a real school. It’s like multiple levels we filmed on, like not just the ground. We walked up and filmed everywhere.”
ShowrunnerAlex Kurtzmanexplained the true nature of the ship, which is, in fact, the titular Starfleet Academy:
“The ship docks on campus in San Francisco and stays there as part of the campus, and so what that does is you know, one of the questions everybody had always faced in thinking about Starfleet Academy in, you know, prior iterations when people were thinking about it was, how do you sustain a show when kids are just in a classroom all the time? And also when we think aboutStar Trekits adventures in space and exploration and all the things thatStar Trekis, and so we thought, ‘Well what if you make the ship essentially a teaching hospital? And they go to school, and they can go to school on campus in San Francisco, but then they can deploy with the rest of the fleet and learn in the field with real captains with real officers,’ so the idea is that you get to have your cake and eat it too.”
What Is ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ About?
Star Trek: Starfleet Academytakes place in the 32nd century, and features the first Academy class in over a century following a galaxy-spanning disaster, The Burn. It starsHolly Hunteras Nahla Ake, the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy and captain of the Athena; faculty members include engineer Jet Reno (Tig Notaro) and Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr), both fromStar Trek: Discovery; the holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo), fromVoyager; and Lura Thok (Gina Yashere), a hybrid of two warrior races, the Klingons and the Jem’Hadar. Students include troubled orphan Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta), the sentient hologram Series Acclimation Mil, or SAM (Kerrice Brooks), aspiring Khionian captain Darem Reymi (George Hawkins), admiral’s daughter Genesis Lythe (Bella Shephard), and empathic Betazoid Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner).Paul Giamattiwill recur as the villainous Nus Braka, who has a mysterious connection to one of the Academy’s students.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academywillpremiere on Paramount+ early next year. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
