First Star Trek: Starfleet Academy trailer knows not to skimp on the Holly Hunter

Hunter plays the headmaster of the Academy, while fan favorites Tig Notaro and Robert Picardo are on hand to welcome a new crop of students.

By William Hughes  |  July 26, 2025 | 5:35pm
Screenshot: YouTube
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First Star Trek: Starfleet Academy trailer knows not to skimp on the Holly Hunter
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Look, if you manage to get Holly Hunter to be the star of your new “Young adults go to Star Trek school and almost certainly do a ton of smooching” TV show, you use her, right? That’s certainly the perspective put forward in the trailer for Paramount+’s new Starfleet Academy, which foregrounds itself with Hunter introducing herself to the first class to enroll at the titular academy in more than a century, and then lets her soothing voice walk viewers through the show’s cast of ambitious youths.

For the record, that’s Sandro Rosta as undeclared human student Caleb Mir, Karim Diané as Klingon science guy Jay-Den Kraag, Kerrice Brooks as first-of-her-kind-at-the-Academy Sam, George Hawkins as wannabe captain Darem Reymi, and Bella Shepherd as admiral’s daughter Genesis Lythe. The trailer is also careful to show off plenty of returning faces, including Tig Notaro, reprising her role from Star Trek: Discovery, and Robert Picardo, returning to the series as Star Trek: Voyager‘s The Doctor. (And if that’s not enough fan-service for you, the new Academy also apparently has, like, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure exhibits about some of Starfleet’s biggest mysteries; hands up if you paused your video on the one about “The Fate Of Benjamin Sisko, Emissary Of The Prophets.”)

That’s to say nothing of the guy who merits the big “end of the trailer” reveal: A whistling Paul Giamatti, who’ll be playing the season’s villain, Nus Braka, a guy who’s part-Klingon, part-Tellurite, all “guy who wears a lot of rings as a personality statement”

Starfleet Academy is being co-showrun by Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. The series is expected to premiere on Paramount+ some time in early 2026.

 

 
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