Star Trek's Next Big Show Has Just Teased New Uniforms
Here's an early look at Starfleet's next crew.
After Season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the next new series in the franchise is the future-tense show Starfleet Academy. Set after the events of Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 in the year 3191 (but before the show’s flash-forward coda) Starfleet Academy will follow a new batch of Starfleet hopefuls in a TV series that will be set both on Earth and naturally, out there in space, the final frontier.
Featuring the return of Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Reno (Tig Notaro) from Discovery means that aesthetically, the show will likely carry with it the visual continuity from that era of Trek. And yet even between DISCO Season 3 in 2020 and Season 4 in 2021, Starfleet made its uniforms more colorful, and it appears that with Starfleet Academy the uniforms might get rebooted again. Recently, cast members of Starfleet Academy celebrated a wrap of production on the show, and in doing so, gave us a glimpse of what could be part of a new Starfleet uniform. No spoilers ahead.
As reported by TrekMovie, on Instagram, Starfleet Academy cast member Zoe Steiner celebrated the wrap of the Starfleet Academy by posting photos of herself in what appears to be a class jacket. She wrote: “That’s a wrap on Starfleet Academy Season One! Beyond grateful to have had this HUGE experience alongside my Starfleet fam… it’s easily been one of the most challenging and fulfilling things I’ve ever done — on both a creative and personal level.”
Fellow cast member Bella Shepard did the same, writing, “Wow oh wow!! Season one of Starfleet Academy is wrapped!!!” And wearing the same jacket that Steiner rocked, gave us a close-up view of what appears to be a newly revamped version of the famous Starfleet “delta” insignia.
In Discovery Seasons 3, 4, and 5, the Starfleet insignia was somewhat different than what we see in these images. While it’s possible that class jackets are actually costumes from the show, it seems very likely that this is the new insignia of Starfleet in the next Star Trek series.
In terms of canonical context, this kind of makes sense. In Discovery Season 3, we learned that Earth had broken away from the Federation, and Starfleet no longer operated out of Earth in the 32nd century. By the end of Season 4, Earth was back in the Federation, and now, with Starfleet Academy coming, we’ve learned that this will be the first time in at least a century that Starfleet Academy is back on Earth, specifically in San Francisco. The series itself is filmed in Toronto and numerous reports have indicated that the Starfleet Academy set itself will be the biggest single set in Star Trek history.
Starfleet Academy in the 24th century in TNG’s “The First Duty.”
So, with a return to Earth and San Francisco, Starfleet Academy is already headed in a direction that honors the roots of The Original Series, The Next Generation, and the classic films. TOS always suggested that Starfleet Headquarters and the Academy were located in San Francisco, and starting with The Motion Picture in 1979, that became a part of the visual canon, forever. The Next Generation spent some time at Starfleet Academy in iconic episodes like “The First Duty,” as did the first 2009 reboot film.
By revealing that the new Starfleet insignia is closer in design to older versions, Starfleet Academy might end up having an aesthetic radically different than Discovery’s. In theory, this is a time for reinvention for Starfleet and the Federation, and one big message of Discovery’s latter seasons was that an infusion of hope from the past was what could save the future. The USS Discovery itself time traveled from the 23rd century to the 32nd, making the message of the future-tense Trek era about a kind of instant nostalgia.
With Starfleet Academy coming sometime later in 2025 or 2026, the Trek franchise will technically be going into a new future, beyond the canon of Discovery. But it seems possible that when it comes to the look of Starfleet, this show might end up feeling downright retro.
