Link: https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/star-trek-starfleet-academy-canceled-season-2-1236696816/

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" will end with its upcoming second season, Variety has learned exclusively.

Well, I'll be damned. The hate campaigners seem to have won, despite solid signs that the show was actually doing quite well with the target group — internationally, if less so in the US?

This is very sad news, the show seemed to go from strength to strength in its first season.

WHAT?!??!? NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

”…the show failed to find its significant audience.”

Put a show on a streamer that is targeting a completely different audience, and let the entitled vocal fans run wild with unchecked brigading, and then be surprised by low “crowdsourced” ratings.

Sigh.

This is depressing, if accurate, in that it may also be a signal that the new owner is looking for a new production company to manage the franchise just when things had finally and consistently stabilized with Secret Hideout.

I’m not hopeful for an SNW continuation in a Year One show, or Tawny’s project either.

Well, damn.

There's inevitably (and understandably) going to be a lot of speculation about what, exactly, led to this decision, but...in the absence of any further information, I'm just going to be bummed about it.

Ellison death-to-woke is underway.

Next up: Rambo reboot

And 4 and 5 for that matter

Random reactions:

• Disappointed but not surprised.
• Even though the article leaves this an open question, I will be surprised if Kurtzman returns after this.
• At least they didn't memory hole S2 as a tax write off.
• I wonder if they will attempt (and be allowed to attempt) to rework the S2 'cliffhanger-ish/lite' ending into something else, or if it's just impractical to rework a "part 1 of 2" episode into a 1 episode contained story.

A more measured take VS than I can manage at present.

My partner commented “It wouldn’t take much with the Ellisons” when I said it was reportedly canceled but, I have been hoping that there just might be more sophistication in the analysis of the show’s potential in a bigger, broader streamer.

My own thoughts go to women like my mother-in-law now in her 90s, or the superfan Bjo Trimble, who watched and supported Star Trek and other science fiction media, decade after decade, without seeing many women like themselves in principle roles.

They weren’t watching because of their husbands or kids, they were enjoying science fiction for themselves and their views, and all the related licensed media and merchandise they bought produced exactly the same advertising and other revenue.

Yet, entitled middle aged guys — who aren’t even in the key youth demographic anymore — want to define the franchise and seem to be being listened to.

Older person that I am, I recall the boys in the neighborhood would take their toys and wouldn’t join imaginative play unless they got to be the hero. I guess they never changed.

This is depressing, if accurate, in that it may also be a signal that the new owner is looking for a new production company to manage the franchise just when things had finally and consistently stabilized with Secret Hideout.

I'm sure they are, and suspect that this would be the trajectory regardless of Academy's viewership. The new ownership will be looking to develop a new, more fascism-friendly flavour of Star Trek in the next few years. Tremendous shame, but not a surprise.

The odd thing is that Variety seems to be saying that, according to the same unnamed inside source, negotiations are still underway for Kurtzman and Secret Hideout to continue production for CBS Studios (which I failed to notice on my initial read of the piece).

According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, Kurtzman and CBS Studios are currently in talks for a new deal that will keep him in the CBS fold. In addition to his work on “Star Trek,” he has produced shows like the “Hawaii Five-O” reboot, “Scorpion,” and “Salvation.”

If so, I’m wondering if someone leaked the specific detail of the termination of Starfleet Academy with the hope of a fan campaign to save it…

Oh man this is really sad. I liked SFA way more than I thought I would. The cast was top notch, and they had some good stories. Genuinely sad to see this one go.

It seems that my initial reaction was overly hasty and upset.

As I just replied to another post, towards the end of the article, Variety says, citing an unnamed source:

According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, Kurtzman and CBS Studios are currently in talks for a new deal that will keep him in the CBS fold. In addition to his work on “Star Trek,” he has produced shows like the “Hawaii Five-O” reboot, “Scorpion,” and “Salvation.”

If so, I’m wondering if someone leaked the specific detail of the termination of Starfleet Academy with the hope of a fan campaign to save it…

Having a "goodbye letter" from Kurtzman etc released with the announcement doesn't really scream "stealth leak" to me. IMHO.

There wasn’t a goodbye letter at the time of the Variety exclusive — but Deadline and everyone has it now.

And, as expected, someone in the UK has posted a Change.org Renew Starfleet Academy for a third season petition in the last hour.

There wasn’t a goodbye letter at the time of the Variety exclusive — but Deadline and everyone has it now.

So you're saying Variety added it after the fact? It was there when I saw it, which was like 15 minutes after the time of publication.

Didn't catch that either. I guess we'll see if those talks actually go anywhere.

I saw the news from Brian Tatosky's mastodon account, and my immediate reaction was "time for another letter writing campaign?".

It does seem like Paramount+ has a problem with drawing younger people - stuff aimed at younger demographics doesn't seem to last long (with the exception of Spongebob). I always thought SFA's success was a bit of a long shot for that reason.

And ironically, merging with HBO Max might actually help with that, but it won't come soon enough.

Here's the first (big FWIW/grain of salt/etc) thing on the decision that's I've seen (besides the TrekMovie article note that 'it's no secret that the show didn't Nielsen chart'). From author Mike Chen on Bluesky.

From the few insiders I know, viewership was actually above expectations and this was more of a "future of the franchise" corporate decision. I'm expecting Trek to be in flux as there are SO MANY variables. Everything from tech stocks to Iran to midterms is impacting Paramount.

Leaving the link to his post here for reference but he has his posts hidden unless you're logged into Bluesky.

Variety claimed an exclusive and that they had an inside source.

This has the feel of drafted internal and external communications messages going out earlier than agreed.

Hmm, that is a very interesting data point.

Same. But it's tucked away at the end.

Paramount+ is the new 'Friday night time slot.' If they actually gave a shit about having the show being successful, they would've syndicated it to a streaming service people actually use.

Prodigy was amazing though.
Did a single person hear about it before the cancellation notice? Well, no. But it's still somehow our fault that it was cancelled, and not their fault for utterly failing to promote it in any way.

Bjo Trimble

One of the organizers of the letter-writing campaign that saved TOS for a third season, for folks who don't know.

There’s a new change.org petition for a 3rd season of Starfleet Academy that broke 500 signatures in the first hour.

No idea if the executives would pay attention but it’s a way to counter the narrative of the negative brigading the show has been dogged by.

I'm seriously surprised the series wasn't canceled after the pilot. SFA has nothing to do with the look and feel of Star Trek.

I couldn't watch SFA beyond the first few minutes of the first episode. This wan't Star Trek for me. Star Trek for me needs to be a show about a utopia.

If you want to have a dystopic show, just don't call it Star Trek and I will watch the shit out of it.

Couldn't read your comment beyond the first few letters, 0/10.

Ok, so does the series get better after start of the pilot? Because it seemed so far of that I thought there was no recovering from that.

You'll never know if you don't watch it.

Sure but how much time am I willing to invest into something that looks to me like it is bad?

There is still a utopia though, it has just been tested and they failed some of the tests and now they're trying to rebuild.

It's back to basics hopeful, a society trying to live up to it's ideals again.

That's how I felt about half way through the pilot, I said to my partner "I don't think I can handle a grimdark trek," but then they started introducing the actual premise of the show, how starfleet had a dark time, but was now rebuilding and reaffirming it's ideals.

I personally liked the vibe, it felt hopeful. Dark times don't last forever and things do get better, but still leave an impact.

My kids and me love this show 😩

Ok, I guess I'll give it another shot then.

Just try to get through the whole pilot. The first stretch isn't representative of the show.

you can't invest your precious time into a tv show but you can invest your time into whining about it.

please don't give me any stock tips mr investor

it's insanity

"no but like, where are you from"

The first episode is not a good sample of the rest of the show and genuinely feels like an entirely different writing team. The rest of the show feels more like finding and fighting for a utopia, where the first episode feels a lot more pessimistic at the idea that a utopia is even possible. I genuinely recommend skipping through the first episode as much as you want just to get the setting and characters out of it, then start actually watching from the second episode on.

Maybe a minority take here, but I think this is good. I liked the first season and would honestly be satisfied with it ending where and how it did. Getting another season out of it is awesome so we can flesh out the backstories and experiences of the characters that didn't get as much development, but I think this show is better served by just a couple really good relatively self contained seasons. I would hate to see the show dragged out beyond that, personally. I got into Star Trek from Lower Decks and I like having different shows tackling different aspects of the Star Trek universe, rather than one or two long-running shows that never truly end. I think I just like an open and closed show that has an interesting story with an end in sight so the story that gets told is more fleshed out and feels more important. I'm excited for another season and want to see what they do with it!

Encounter at Farpoint was terrible too. If you got thru that, you can stomach 90210 in space as well.

Savor the Trek that is available for I fear there will be significantly less new stuff in the future.

Im so sad

I agree about shows not overstaying their welcome, but for me the natural length of an Academy show would be 4 years (or however long we agree a cadet stays at the academy). After that, we could have a new Trek show with a new mission statement, but allow it to carry over a select few characters from Academy in the same way that Academy adopted a few of Discovery's characters. That would strike me as a nice natural rhythm.

Does that mean we're not even going to get a nice ending for season 2?

Hopefully they had enough of a sense it was coming to wrap things up.

Don't give me hope like that.