Star Trek Director Jonathan Frakes Gives Update On Starfleet Academy Sets

Star Trek fans have been looking forward to the franchise’s closest upcoming project for a while now, and a legend of the IP has let fans in on a really interesting fact about the series that’s sure to get some holdouts invested.

While Star Trek has made big strides over the decades to become a major theatrical franchise in the vein of Star Wars, it hasn’t quite shaken off its small-screen roots. The franchise has more recently returned to making shows for streaming platform Paramount+, with Paramount being the current steward of the IP and trying to make a mark both in homes and at the box office. One recent highlight has been the lead-up to Starfleet Academy, a new series that went through a lot of backstage retooling before being confirmed in 2023 to a ton of fan anticipation. The show has seemingly also garnered a lot of confidence behind the scenes, as evidenced by Paramount going against its usual renewal schedule to greenlight a second season of Starfleet Academy well ahead of the show’s first season hitting the streamer.

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Fans have been eagerly awaiting more details about Starfleet Academy, and now franchise legend Jonathan Frakes has delivered a small but interesting detail about the upcoming show, of which he directed a few episodes. Speaking at the last Indiana Comic Convention, Frakes revealed that the show would have one unsurprising but significant setting, a fact that he hopes wasn’t intended to remain under wraps until the show’s release. “There’s also a spaceship on the show, which I think, I hope that’s not a f***ing secret,” Frakes said. “I have been known—I’ve had a bad experience with oversharing, and I hope that wasn’t an overshare, but it’s fabulous. The sets are great.” Frakes’ worry about oversharing stems from accidentally spoiling a major plot point on Discovery, another project he worked on as a director.

Here’s Hoping The Starfleet Cadets Get To Do A Little Exploring

Frakes has been involved with Star Trek since his casting in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and has since gone on to work on or observe almost every project the franchise has put out. This vast experience means there’s no one more qualified to give an opinion on the sets for the upcoming show, making Frakes’ endorsement a golden one for Starfleet Academy. More pertinent for fans is the confirmation that the cast will have a recurring spaceship, presumably to take them on adventures away from the titular Academy (which will act as ‘home base’ for the series) on Earth. While this sort of setup was a problem for fans with Star Trek: Deep Space 9 due to it being such a radical departure from the very formulaic nature of the earlier Star Trek shows, Starfleet Academy won’t run into those same issues. In addition to Deep Space 9 taking all the initial flak and coming out the other end just as well regarded as many of the more formulaic shows, the modern franchise is also less monolithic in its approach to series setup. Star Trek: Discovery has laid similar groundwork in its more recent seasons as well, so it follows that its spin-off show would take advantage of that precedent as well.

All in all, it’s clear Starfleet Academy won’t be spending all its time in San Fransisco, sharing that space-faring attitude in common with Doctor Who’s second season on Disney+. Science fiction fans generally want to see a lot of discoveries and strange new worlds on their sci-fi shows, and having a means by which a stationary cast can still get around and contribute to the world-building and expansive lore of the rest of the franchise is certainly the right choice for Starfleet Academy

The Star Trek Franchise is available to stream on Paramount+, with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy set for a late 2025/early 2026 release window.

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Source: Indiana Comic Convention