Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has enrolled three new cadets. On Tuesday, Paramount+ revealed that it had cast Kerrice Brooks (My Old Ass), Bella Shepard (Wolf Pack), and George Hawkins (Tell Me Everything) in the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series. Brooks, Shepard, and Hawkins will play cadets at Starfleet Academy. They join previously announced cast members, Holly Hunter, playing a Starfleet captain and current chancellor of Starfleet Academy, and Paul Giamatti, playing Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1's villain. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is the coming-of-age story of a group of Starfleet cadets finding themselves at one of the prestigious institutions in the galaxy.

Paramount+'s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series "will follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy." CBS Studios is producing Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Production begins this summer.

What is Star Trek: Starfleet Academy about?

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set in the 32nd century of Star Trek's universe, first seen in the later season of Star Trek: Discovery. According to the official synopsis, "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces viewers to a young group of cadets who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves and a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself."

Brooks' past work includes her feature film debut in My Old Ass. She also stars in the upcoming 70s coming-of-age comedy, Feeling Randy. Her other credits include The Prom, The Cypher, How We Roll, and On My Block.

Shepard led the Paramount+ Series Wolf Pack and is best known for her work on the Brat TV series On the Ropes and A Girl Named Jo, and for leading the series Two Sides. Shepard has also appeared in The Wilds, Witch Hunt, and the iCARLY reboot, and had a guest role on the final season of Orange Is the New Black and recurring roles on Life in Pieces and Grace and Frankie.

Hawkins is best known for playing Dylan in Tell Me Everything. His other credits include playing Sean in the film Boiling Point and Adam in Gassed Up.

Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau are co-showrunners and executive producers of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The other executive producers on the series include Gaia Violo, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa, and John Weber. Violo wrote Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's premiere episode. CBS Studios produces Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Paramount Global Content Distribution will distribute the series.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is the latest addition to Paramount+'s Star Trek library. Star Trek: Discovery wrapped its run earlier this year, and Star Trek: Lower Decks is headed into its fifth and final season. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is currently in production on its third season and is already renewed for its fourth. Paramount+'s first Star Trek original movie, Star Trek: Section 31 starring Michelle Yeoh, wrapped filming earlier this year.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is coming to an end, but creator Mike McMahan is hinting that there could be spinoffs.

McMahan did an interview on the Extended 'Verse! podcast, where he discussed how the ending of Star Trek: Lower Decks also comes with setups for new series that could follow it:

"The ending of season 5 it is the ending of a chapter that I knew I wanted to do. There are things that happen in it... I'm being very careful... that are sort of setting up spinoffs and setting up backdoor pilots," McMahan explained. "There's characters I'm introducing that you'll see clearly I wanted to do more with."

Star Trek: Lower Decks has turned out to be a major pioneer for what Star Trek content can be. Lower Decks at once opened lanes to Star Trek having comedic content; animated content, and more adult-oriented content, all at once. The series has also gotten a much warmer welcome than many of the other new Star Trek series that have debuted on Paramount+ (Discovery, Picard). Star Trek Prodigy continued to expand one of those lanes with kid-friendly animated content, but Lower Decks still stands apart as a one-of-a-kind Star Trek experience.

More importantly, Lower Decks and its cast of B-level (C-level) Starfleet officers have become fan favorites. In fact, two Lower Decks characters (Jack Quaid's Ensign Boimier and Tawny Newsome's Ensign Mariner) have already made the jump from animation to live-action, as part of a crossover Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

So, when Mike McMahan says there are characters that could be exported into a spinoff series of Lower Decks, he's not kidding. As Paramount+ is entering the Star Trek movie business with the straight-to-streaming Star Trek: Section 31 movie and rumors of another Jean-Luc Picard adventure, McMahan hasn't ruled out the idea of a Star Trek: Lower Decks movie happening:

"I have an idea for an animated Lower Decks movie," McMahan told ComicBook. "I have ideas for live-action Lower Decks movies. And I have ideas for brand new, totally original Star Trek movies that don't tie into anything we've seen before. I think Star Trek is an amazing genre to think about. I love the idea of not micro but small-budget Star Trek movies, where you get the bigness of a movie set, but you get to tell a Star Trek story that drives across a moment instead of a thing that has to be dealt with, like a Khan."

Star Trek: Lower Decks is streaming now on Paramount+. Season 5 does not have a premiere date but is expected to be 10-episodes long and will be released in late 2024.

Last season on Star Trek: Prodigy, our young heroes got a lot of their advice from Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) -- well, kind of. Their ship had a hologram based on Captain Kathryn Janeway and modeled on Janeway's physical appearance in the early 2370s, complete with uniform -- so she basically looked just like she did on Star Trek: Voyager. At the end of the season, though, we found out that the real Janeway, still very much alive and now an Admiral, was on her way to pay a visit. The show's second season will deal with that -- and how she's different from her AI counterpart -- but apparently, Janeway was almost made the Captain of the Enterprise in the show's second season.

With the real Janeway around, the kids will now have a new mentor -- and it will be Voyager's The Doctor, voiced by Robert Picardo, which reteams him with Mulgrew. Now, there will be a lot to talk about, with the real Janeway being different from the hologram Janeway and The Captain back in the mix.

"We knew the Season 2 relationship between the kids and their mentor was going to change from hologram Janeway to Admiral Janeway, who was a little bit harder on them," co-showrunner Dan Hageman told IGN. "As the Admiral doesn't have time to be by their side every day and moment, we just thought how perfect it would be for The Doctor to get involved. We'd loved this idea that we always imagined [where] in Season 1 hologram Janeway is a bit of a Mary Poppins. In this one, The Doctor wants to be Mary Poppins but he's more like a Mr. Belvedere. He wants to be endeared by the kids but the kids are like, 'You're no Janeway.'"

The series was actually cancelled at Paramount+, but rescued by Netflix, who are the current home of Prodigy's first season and will debut the second season (and potentially beyond). The show was saved, in part, due to a campaign by fans, who Mulgrew praised shortly after it got saved.

"I've always held that the Star Trek fan base is among the strongest and most intelligent in the world. They have shown their collective passion, and we're happy to be able to celebrate Prodigy once again," said Mulgrew at the time.

Star Trek: Prodigy's voice cast includes Kate Mulgrew reprising her role as Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. The main cast features Brett Gray (Dal R'El), Ella Purnell (Gwyn), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Angus Imrie (Zero), Jason Mantzoukas (Jankom Pog), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), John Noble (The Diviner) and Jimmi Simpson (Drednok).

Star Trek: Prodigy's recurring voice cast includes newcomers Daveed Diggs (Commander Tysess), Jameela Jamil (Ensign Asencia), and Jason Alexander (Doctor Noum). Robert Beltran also reprises his role as Chakotay from Star Trek: Voyager, and Billy Campbell plays Thadiun Okona from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 is finally here. It's been a long road (to steal a line from another Star Trek series), but Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 is now streaming on its new home, Netflix, after being canceled and removed from Paramount+. Since Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 arrived on Netflix on Christmas Day, all 40 episodes of the animated Star Trek series are now streaming on Netflix. Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 continues the adventure of the young heroes who recovered an abandoned, experimental Starfleet vessel and used it to cross the galaxy and join Starfleet, saving the universe along the way.

ComicBook had the opportunity to chat with Star Trek: Prodigy creators Dan and Kevin Hageman about the new season, touching on new characters and how they balance the expectations of longtime Star Trek fans and the demands of children's programming. Here's what they had to say:

When you sat down to start breaking Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, what was the "prime directive," so to speak? What was your guiding light when figuring figure out what this season was going to look like?

Dan Hageman: I think we wanted to make it more Trek, with the young cadets, so to speak, in the adult world. We thought that was very interesting. And then we go, "This isn't just about the kids learning from the adults, but also the adults learning from the kids." And I think that's where it opened the door for what the season would be. And then also trying to tie the bow on what happens in Season 1, furthering those storylines and making sure that we have conclusions for those.

Kevin Hageman: I was also going to add, very early on we felt like, okay, Season 1 is these kids steal a ship; Season 2 is they earn a ship, and what does that look like? And along with that, these next 20 are like the back half of Season 1. It's all a 40-episode story really, and so there's so much to wrap up, and to pay off, and places to go, but we also didn't want to forget, this show is an on-ramp for anyone who doesn't know Star Trek. So how do we still have these little greatest hits, these ideas, whether it's Vulcans, Klingons, Tribbles, what are the elements that makeup Star Trek that we should be introducing people to?

What was your production timeline like? Had anyone seen Season 1 while you were working on Season 2 and breaking it down, or was it all really part of a whole for you all in the writer's room?

DH: I mean, COVID hit, and I think everything's a bit fuzzy.

KH: Yeah, I don't think Season 1 was out yet. Maybe-

DH: I don't think Season 1 was out. Yeah, because we were upped before Season 1 had dropped, and I just remember we had finished -- You know what it was, we had finished the last script of Season 1 when COVID hit, and then we were ramping up and getting a room for Season 2 over COVID, that first year of COVID.

You say you wanted this season to be "more Star Trek," but it's still a kids' show. That makes me wonder if you read Temporal Mechanics 101 because there's a lot of time-travel stuff in here. Did you have any hard and fast rules of thumb or guidelines about how to deal with time travel in a way that makes sense -- because we all know time travel isn't always consistently handled in Star Trek -- and is accessible for this younger audience as compared to an adult audience?

DH: I feel like we kind of have our cake and eat it too, where if you really dig into the science, it's there, but then at the same time there's a very simple Back to the Future premise in Season 2 for a younger audience that goes, okay, I can get that very simple thing. But yeah, I remember thinking not only are we going to be doing a time travel season, but we're also going to do a Star Trek time travel season, which is like, we know the fans are going to be looking at that, looking for all the plot holes. There's always plot holes.

KH: Yeah, we mapped it out, we showed it to our astrophysicist advisor, "Does this work?" And she was redoing the drawing. She's like, "Yes, this can work."

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 adds a new young character into the mix with the Vulcan Nova Squadron cadet Maj'el, which brings up a couple of questions. First, has there ever been a member of Nova Squadron that hasn't come off like a jerk at first? Because I'm starting wonder why Starfleet Academy allows that to continue to exist.

DH: [Laughs] I think Nova Squadron's the coolest of the cool.

Second, when you were looking at adding Maj'el to the cast, what was the impetus there? What did you feel like she brought to the group? How did that alter the group dynamic in a way that you felt would be beneficial for this second season going forward?

KH: In Season 1, we really didn't explore Vulcans at all, and so we felt like we need to have a Vulcan. And with Gwyn being separated from our group for a period of time, it was like, yeah, let's introduce a new character. So that's where that started. Oh, what I love though is I don't want to say she's a jerk. It's interesting. We wanted to use her as the sort of mirror to our kids.

DH: Who are they up against? The best of the best are going to Starfleet. Who else are they going against?

KH: "We're the best of the best," yeah. This is Top Gun, and our kids, yeah, they saved the universe, but-

DH: They're a far cry from those Delta flyers.

You do not hold back in the season with altering - sometimes literally, and physically - who these characters are. Since you are programming for kids, are you ever concerned about is this going to upset them, or are you always assuming they're as game as any adult would be for this kind of dynamic narrative choice?

DH: I just want to say, in our childhood, Spielberg put a dead E.T. on a table, so we've got free game to do whatever we want.

KH: That's the storytelling we grew up with was the old Amblin storytelling, the Close Encounters. Very powerful, magical, wondrous, frightening, heartbreaking. That's the type of story we like to tell.

DH: It sticks to your bones. As you grow up you remember that.

KH: It sticks, exactly. We want our shows to stick to your bones. So even with Ninjago, we had some huge character deaths and twists and kids were crying, and it's probably sad and painful in that moment, but I think they're going to look back and go, "God, I loved Ninjago. I loved Prodigy. It really moved me."

DH: It's always funny. When Kevin and I come out of a Marvel movie we're always like, "They should kill more characters." In Endgame they take out one or whatever, and I'm like, "Oh, come on, that's it? Let's go, yo."

We've got some bloodthirsty children's content creators right here.

KH: That's the caption of your article.

DH: Let's go, yo.

I'll leave you with the question that I'm sure you're going to get a lot of while promoting this season, but can you offer any update to those hoping that there will be more Prodigy in the future? Or whether we might see these characters anywhere else in the future, even if Prodigy doesn't get an official renewal or anything like that?

KH: That is our hope. That's everyone's hope. Everyone on our team and all of our cast and crew, and it really just comes down to, the show needs to do gangbusters on Netflix. And then I hope it just warrants something, whether it's a season, whether it's an animated feature follow-up, or something that might be more business cost-effective, something to just keep this going.

DH: And I think it's fitting. I'm not going to spoil anything, but if you really get to the end of Season 2, where they are is kind of metaphoric of where the show is. So that's something to read into once you finish episode 40.

Star Trek: Prodigy is now streaming on Netflix.

Everyone knows that the best way to celebrate the July 4th holiday is with fireworks, barbecues, and heavily discounted collectibles. Paramount Shop is happy to help you out with, surprisingly, more than one of those things thanks to a deal that offers 25% off everything in the store. This includes items from beloved franchises like Star Trek, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, Yellowstone, and more.

When we say sitewide, really really do mean sitewide. Even this $2000 Star Trek: First Contact Borg Queen skull prop replica is eligible, not to mention the coveted Spongebob Squarepants Painty the Pirate canvas. All you need to do is head to the Paramount Shop and enter the code "FOURTH" at checkout to activate the 25% off offer. We've added some useful links below to help you find something fantastic.

• Star Trek Replicas
• See All Star Trek Items at the Paramount Shop
• SpongeBob SquarePants Items
• South Park Items
• Yellowstone Items
• Garfield Items
• Avatar the Last Airbender Items

What is Star Trek: Starfleet Academy about?

According to Paramount's official synopsis:

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces viewers to a young group of cadets who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves and a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself."

Alex Kurtzman and Landau are Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's co-showrunners. They also serve as executive producers alongside Gaia Violo, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa, and John Weberby.

Ahead of Star Trek: Discovery Season 5's premiere, ComicBook asked Kurtzman about Star Trek's future:

"I spent a lot of time that first season [of Discovery] really kind of meditating on, you know, this incredible universe that has been around for so long and how much more can be done with it, how many amazing stories there are to tell. There's really an infinite number of stories to tell. I only want to make another Star Trek show if there's something to say. I don't wanna do it just to do more. I think that would be a huge disservice to Star Trek; it would be a huge disservice to the fans, and I think the fans would feel it instantaneously. They would know this is not authentic. Because if there's one thing that Trek fans know, it's authenticity."

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy joins Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the upcoming Star Trek: Section 31 movie among Paramount+'s Star Trek offerings (Star Trek: Prodigy has since moved to Netflix).

Star Trek: Lower Decks is headed toward its final season on Paramount+, but it doesn't feel like the end for series creator Mike McMahan. In April, Paramount+ announced that Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 will be the final season of the animated comedy series set in the Star Trek universe. Fans (including Star Trek: Lower Decks star Jack Quaid) immediately began campaigning for another streaming service to rescue Star Trek: Lower Decks from its fate (having had similar success with Star Trek: Prodigy, now on Netflix after its cancellation and removal from Paramount+). For his part, McMahan tells Awards Radar he was never thinking about the end of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and instead hoped to continue making the show indefinitely.

"For me, it's like, I'm greedy," McMahan says. "I would have kept making this show forever, but getting five seasons is such a miracle. It's insane that this show even existed. Every season I felt like was a miracle. There are grand stories I'm telling for the characters in Lower Decks. So season five feels like an amazing sendoff. It feels like the end of a chapter, but not the end of a series. I had enough time to know that it had to be special."

What's next for Star Trek: Lower Decks?

While Star Trek: Lower Decks is ending, assuming it doesn't find a new streaming home, Star Trek fans know that the end of a Star Trek television show isn't always the end of that crew's adventures. The ends of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation led to movies starring the casts of those shows. With Paramount+ entering the Star Trek movie business with the straight-to-streaming Star Trek: Section 31 movie and rumors of another Jean-Luc Picard adventure, the idea of a Star Trek: Lower Decks movie isn't out of the question. In 2023, McMahan told ComicBook that he had ideas along those lines.

"I have an idea for an animated Lower Decks movie," McMahan said. "I have ideas for live-action Lower Decks movies. And I have ideas for brand new, totally original Star Trek movies that don't tie into anything we've seen before. I think Star Trek is an amazing genre to think about. I love the idea of not micro but small-budget Star Trek movies, where you get the bigness of a movie set, but you get to tell a Star Trek story that drives across a moment instead of a thing that has to be dealt with, like a Khan."

The first four seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks are streaming now on Paramount+. Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 does not have a premiere date.

Star Trek: Prodigy's Protostar crew is back in the new Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 trailer. On Thursday, CBS Studios released the Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 trailer and key art. Star Trek: Prodigy, the Star Trek franchise's first computer-animated series and first installment aimed at younger viewers, brings its second 20-episode season to Netflix on Monday, July 1st. All 20 Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 episodes are streaming now on Netflix, having moved to the Netflix streaming library on Christmas Day 2023 after being canceled by Paramount+ and removed from that streaming service's content catalog a few months earlier.

Star Trek: Prodigy follows an ad hoc crew of young aliens as they learn to work together, and towards the Starfleet ideals they hope to emulate. According to a press release, in Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, "these six young outcasts who make up the Prodigy crew are assigned a new mission aboard the USS Voyager-A to rescue Captain Chakotay (voiced by Robert Beltran) and bring peace to Gwyn's (voiced by Ella Purnell) home world. However, when their plan goes astray, it creates a time paradox that jeopardizes both their future and past."

"We deeply appreciate our fans who have stood by us and our passionate crew who made this all possible. The work speaks for itself, but it's the heart that will endure," said Star Trek: Prodigy co-showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman about Star Trek: Prodigy's Season 2 debut in a press release.

Star Trek: Prodigy received a 2023 TCA Award nomination for "Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming" and a 2022 Children's and Family Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Series. Production designer Alessandro Taini won the Children's and Family Emmy Award Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation.

Star Trek: Prodigy Cast

Star Trek: Prodigy's voice cast includes Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway), Brett Gray (Dal), Ella Purnell (Gwyn), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Angus Imrie (Zero), Jason Mantzoukas (Jankom Pog), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), John Noble (The Diviner) and Jimmi Simpson (Drednok). Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2's recurring voice cast includes Robert Beltran (Captain Chakotay), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Jason Alexander (Doctor Noum), Daveed Diggs (Commander Tysess), Jameela Jamil (Ensign Asencia), Ronny Cox (Admiral Jellico), and Michaela Dietz (Maj'el).

CBS Eye Animation Productions, Nickelodeon Animation, Secret Hideout, and Roddenberry Entertainment produce Star Trek: Prodigy. Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Rod Roddenberry, and Trevor Roth serve as the show's executive producers with co-showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman. Ben Hibon directs, is an executive producer, and serves as the creative lead of the series. Aaron Waltke and Patrick Krebs also serve as co-executive producers.

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 will stream on Netflix globally (excluding Canada, Nordics, CEE, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Belarus, and Mainland China) and is available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Central and Eastern Europe. Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 will be available in Canada on CTV.ca and the CTV App.

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 finally arrives on Netflix on July 1st. Netflix picked up Star Trek: Prodigy after Paramount+ canceled the show during production on its second season, removing it from its streaming library a year ago. Netflix became home to Star Trek: Prodigy's first 20-episode season on Christmas Day 2023. Where Star Trek: Prodigy's first season rolled out weekly in two 10-episode blocks, Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 will adopt Netflix's binge model, debuting all 20 of its episodes at once on July 1st. The binge model is one that showrunners Dan and Kevin Hageman -- who have a history with Netflix dating back to their Trollhunters series -- fully embrace.

"I think we're very comfortable with our history with Netflix and shows dropping Christmas Day," Dan Hageman told ComicBook ahead of the animated series' Netflix debut. "So, I don't know if you know, but Trollhunters dropped on Christmas Day, and I remember, originally, we were like, 'That's a horrible time.' And they're like, 'No, kids get their new devices. There's no school on. Their parents let them watch as much TV as they want, and they can binge a whole season.' So, when that happened on Trollhunters and Trollhunters became quite a success over there, we found out we got dropped on December 25th, that's a massive honor. We're so proud."

Kevin Hageman added, "I think now that people have seen our Season 1, there are similarities to Trollhunters. You understand our voice. You understand our 22-minute serialization. There's always a hook. It's been written and built to be a binge-able show. On Paramount+ it was week by week, which was interesting. You're only getting 22 minutes, and 22 minutes of a good show never feels like enough. You want to kind of watch the next one."

Will there be more Star Trek: Prodigy?

The Hagemans remained optimistic about Star Trek: Prodigy's future when they spoke to ComicBook.com in December. They hope that Star Trek: Prodigy follows a path similar to that of Star Trek: The Original Series.

"In Season 2, I love the end of Season 2 as much as I love the end of Season 1," Dan Hageman said. "And we're never wrapping up a series. We're always having an open door for the next season, and I'm really excited at where it can go. That will be up to the fans and up to the audience."

Kevin Hageman added, "If the audience is there, my hope is we're following the footsteps of The Original Series. We were canceled, where we came back, and then there will be movies and future seasons. That will be amazing."

What is Star Trek: Prodigy?

Star Trek: Prodigy is Star Trek's first computer-animated series. It follows a group of young people who escape the prison of Tars Lamora, located deep in the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy (previously explored in Star Trek: Voyager) via an abandoned, experimental Starfleet starship, the U.S.S. Protostar.

The Protostar's young crew sets out to make contact with Starfleet, facing various challenges and adventures along the way and with the villainous Diviner in pursuit. The family-friendly series offers a version of Star Trek that parents and longtime fans can easily watch alongside their children or newcomers to the franchise.

Who is in the Star Trek: Prodigy cast?

Star Trek: Prodigy's voice cast includes Kate Mulgrew, who is reprising her role as Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. The main cast features Brett Gray (Dal R'El), Ella Purnell (Gwyn), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Angus Imrie (Zero), Jason Mantzoukas (Jankom Pog), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), John Noble (The Diviner) and Jimmi Simpson (Drednok).

The recurring voice cast includes newcomers Daveed Diggs (Commander Tysess), Jameela Jamil (Ensign Asencia), and Jason Alexander (Doctor Noum). Robert Beltran also reprises his role as Chakotay from Star Trek: Voyager, and Billy Campbell plays Thadiun Okona from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 is streaming on Netflix now. Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 debuts on Netflix on July 1st.

There's few movie theme songs as iconic as the one for the Star Trek franchise, with the 2013 movie Star Trek Into Darkness not only delivering fans that beloved music, but also an expansive score from Michael Giacchino. To celebrate the music, Var?se Sarabande and Craft Recordings have teamed up to bring a deluxe Star Trek Into Darkness score release, which needed three full LPs to contain the tracks on vinyl. Each LP is also colored in tribute to the various rankings of beloved Star Trek crew members, featuring yellow, red, and blue. The Star Trek Into Darkness (Deluxe Edition) score is available now to pre-order before hitting shelves on September 6th.

Per press release, "Var?se Sarabande and Craft Recordings announce the first-ever vinyl release for Michael Giacchino's expanded Deluxe Edition score for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness. The expanded Deluxe Edition version of composer Michael Giacchino's score for the film arrives on vinyl as a 3-LP Blue, Red, and Yellow set themed after the iconic Starfleet uniforms. The collection comes housed in a premium slipcase with a Starfleet Insignia-shaped cut-out, allowing fans to pick their own cover image, and includes a 16-page booklet with behind-the-scenes photos from the set and notes from J.J. Abrams and Michael Giacchino. Releasing September 6th, and available for pre-order now, the 3-LP tricolor set (limited to 1,000 copies) will be available at retailers in North America, while a Translucent Clear set will be available for the rest of the world."

"Into Darkness is the 12th installment in the Star Trek franchise and the sequel to the 2009 film Star Trek, as the second in a rebooted film series. The returning cast of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and Leonard Nimoy reprised their roles from the previous film, joined by Benedict Cumberbatch as the legendary Star Trek villain Khan. Set in the 23rd century, the film follows Captain Kirk and the crew of U.S.S. Enterprise as they are sent to the Klingon homeworld seeking a former Starfleet member-turned-terrorist, John Harrison.

"The film was a financial success and received positive reviews from critics. Its gross earnings of over $467 million worldwide made it the highest-grossing entry in the Star Trek franchise. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 86th Academy Awards. One of Giacchino's main tasks with the film was to evolve the themes from the previous installment and create new ones to reflect the film's darker tone. A specific example of this was during the composition of the track 'London Calling.' '[Director J. J. Abrams] just wanted it to feel like we weren't in a Star Trek movie,' Giacchino said. 'It was a very conscious decision to make that base sound different; then, from there, we were able to evolve to our theme for the character. I remember when J. J. heard it, he said, "Oh, it sounds English. That's perfect!"' The score is also notable for featuring orchestration that contains piano, the first Star Trek score to do so since Cliff Eidelman's music for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), as well as a choir singing entirely in the Klingon language (which appears on the track entitled 'The Qo'noS Wartet'). The score also contains interpolations of the 'Theme from Star Trek,' written by Alexander Courage.

"Michael Giacchino's prolific output features some of the most popular and acclaimed projects in recent history, including The Incredibles, Coco, Jojo Rabbit, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man: No Way Home, War for the Planet of the Apes, and The Batman. His 2009 score for the Pixar hit Up earned Giacchino an Oscar, a Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Critics' Choice Award, and two GRAMMY Awards. After almost 20 years of film scoring, Giacchino directed the very first Marvel special presentation, Werewolf by Night, in 2022."

The Star Trek Into Darkness (Deluxe Edition) score is available now to pre-order before hitting shelves on September 6th.

Will you be adding the album to your collection? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

WizKids has announced a new Star Trek tabletop game due out for release later this year. Star Trek: Captain's Chair is a new deckbuilding game that features six different captains from the Star Trek universe competing in different ways. Each of the captains have different strategies and strengths, and players can choose to lean into diplomacy, exploration, and science in addition to ship combat. The six captains featured in the game include Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Michael Burnham, Koloth, the Dehar Master (from the original series and Deep Space 9), Sela (a Romulan captain from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Tasha Yar's mother), and Thy'lek Shran (an Andorian from Star Trek: Enterprise.)

Previews of various cards showcase a variety of characters from across the Star Trek line, with characters from the Star Trek movies and Star Trek: Lower Deck appearing alongside characters from the live-action TV show. It's also notable that the game features a mix of different species, including an Andorian, which are usually considered afterthoughts even though they were a founding Federation member. We'll also note that the game omits several popular Star Trek captains, including James T. Kirk, which seemingly hints that there will be room for expansions should the game be a success.

WizKids has a robust Star Trek game line that includes a mix of ship tactical miniatures games and more traditional board games. This marks WizKids' first Star Trek card game, although there have been several other Star Trek card games, most notably the Star Trek Customizable Card Game that continues to have a competitive scene despite the game being out of print for nearly 20 years.

Star Trek: Captain's Chair was designed by David Turczi and Nigel Buckle, who also designed Voidfall and the Imperium Series. The game will be released in Q4 2024.

Paul Giamatti is enrolling in the cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The Oscar-nominated actor will reportedly appear in a "recurring guest star role" as "the season's central villain," who is described as being "a man with an ominous past, with a connection to one of the show's cadets.

This is a major franchise entry for Giamatti, who has largely preferred to stay away from franchise universes; his biggest role in one was playing an outrageously over-the-top version of Marvel villain The Rhino, in Sony's Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

That said, Giamatti has been known to favor genre material - even if it isn't the big comic book movie studios. His filmography has plenty of prestige work (12 Years a Slave, Sideways, his most recent Oscar-nominated film The Holdovers), but also plenty of B-movie genre films (Shoot 'Em Up, Lady in the Water, Fred Claus, The Hangover Part II, Rock of Ages, San Andreas, Gunpowder Milkshake, Jungle Cruise). If anything, it's surprising that it's taken this long for Giamatti to break the Star Trek/Star Wars barrier - and even more surprising to see him starting with Star Trek.

Starfleet Academy co-showrunners and exec producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau stated casting Giamatti, which reads:

"Sometimes you're lucky enough to discover that one of the greatest actors alive is also a huge Star Trek fan, and meeting Paul was one of those miraculous moments for us. The sheer delight with which he dove in on Starfleet Academy is only surpassed by the gratitude we feel about him joining our incredible cast,"

Giamatti has definitely played his fair share of villains. Shoot 'Em Up cast him as the secondary henchman villain Karl Hertz, who was a gun-toting psychopath. His version of Rhino started out as a Russian gangster, with Giamatti chewing so much scenery there was barely any left for set dressing. That's all to say: he can definitely exhibit menace as a Star Trek villain - and will probably delight in getting to dress up like one of the series' alien characters.

Starfleet Academy recently cast actress Holly Hunter (Batman v Superman) as one of the series leads; Hunter will play a Starfleet captain who becomes the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy. It's another big character actor casting that has Kurtzman and Landau thrilled, and Star Trek fans raising eyebrows about how Starfleet Academy is coming together.

What is Star Trek: Starfleet Academy about?

According to Paramount's official synopsis:

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces viewers to a young group of cadets who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves and a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself.

Kurtzman and Landau are Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's co-showrunners. They also serve as executive producers alongside Gaia Violo, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa, and John Weberby.

Violo wrote Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's premiere episode. CBS Studios, in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, is producing the series.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy joins Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the upcoming Star Trek: Section 31 movie among Paramount+'s Star Trek offerings (Star Trek: Prodigy has since moved to Netflix).

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set to start production this summer.

Source: THR