'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' Has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. So Why Are Fans So Divided?

Ben MundSat, March 7, 2026 at 6:39 PM UTC

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(Photo by Slaven Vlasic on Getty Images)

The season finale airs March 12. Nine weeks in, people are still arguing about whether the show belongs in the franchise at all.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiered January 15 on Paramount+ to a split that had little precedent even by the standards of modern Trek discourse. Critics certified it 'Fresh' at 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score landed around 43 percent, with the 'Popcornmeter' sitting at 21 percent on opening day. On IMDb, the user score dropped to 4.8 within the first 48 hours. The show had debuted and was already being written off by a large swath of people.

What's happened since is worth paying attention to.

The show centers on a newly rebuilt Starfleet Academy in the 32nd century, led by Holly Hunter as Chancellor Nahla Ake, with a young cast of cadets navigating personal stakes alongside a mounting threat to the Federation. The premise drew immediate criticism from a portion of the fanbase who dismissed it as a teen drama in Trek clothing. ComicBook.com documented the backlash directly, reporting that over 38 percent of early IMDb reviews were single-star ratings, which is a pattern consistent with coordinated review bombing. Meanwhile, critics were seeing something different.

Related: Patrick Stewart Said No—Then One Bottle of Wine Saved a 'Star Trek' TV Reunion

In her review for The Mary Sue, Editor in Chief Rachel Leishman wrote: 'Starfleet Academy is everything that Star Trek should be. It is fun, new, and what we love about this franchise.' Collider's Samantha Coleygave it a 9 out of 10, calling it 'the best example of what Star Trek can and should be doing in this modern era, effortlessly inclusive, compelling, and innovative.'

The audience score has since recovered from its floor, though the gap between critic and viewer response remains significant.

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Jonathan Frakes, who directed episode 9 and has helmed episodes across seven different Trek series, addressed the backlash this week in an interview with Den of Geek.

'What’s with the haters? This show is great,' Frakes said. 'I’m thrilled with it. I think it has a real optimism. It’s representative of Star Trekmoving into the future.'

'There’s a lot of canon that is in place that Starfleet Academy is reestablishing itself in San Francisco after a hundred years,' he added. 'There’s a lot for the hardcore Trekkies to dig into, to say, ‘Oh, okay, this is where they are now’ while still delivering surprises.

Frakes also weighed in on the moment that became the season's most talked-about visual, Hunter's habit of draping herself across furniture rather than sitting upright in her captain's chair. 'When I saw that in the first episode, I said, ‘This is going to be it. This is the defining moment of her captainship.’ It made me smile. I thought, ‘This show has balls doing this.’ And she just embraced it.'

Episode 9, which Frakes directed and called his final Trek episode for the foreseeable future, sets up the two-part finale directly. He told Den of Geek: 'I love this episode and everything it teased up for the finale.'

That finale airs March 12 on Paramount+.

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This story was originally published by Parade on Mar 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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