Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s Robert Picardo addresses the Star Trek franchise’s mysterious TV and movie future. Picardo originated The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager, and returned in live-action as the irascible Emergency Medical Hologram in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy after voicing his legendary character on Star Trek: Prodigy.

Star Trek celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2026, and the enduring sci-fi franchise created by Gene Roddenberry was honored at the 53rd annual Saturn Awards. Star Trek received the Hall of Fame award, as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds competed for four Saturns (coming up short), and Star Trek: Picard season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas was honored with the Robert Forster Artist’s Award.

ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan caught up with Robert Picardo at the Saturn Awards red carpet. Picardo was one of many Star Trek luminaries in attendance, including Star Trek executive producer Alex Kurtzman, and Bob’s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy co-stars Kerrice Brooks and Bella Shepard. Picardo ran down what he knows about Star Trek’s movies and TV future and addressed online fan discourse. Read Bob’s quotes below:

Robert Picardo: I’ve heard that the movie franchise is going to be totally reinvented with all new characters. That’ll be great to see and interesting. I don’t think we’ve ever done that before. You know what I mean? Even when they rebooted the original characters in the movies with Chris Pine a dozen years ago or whatever it was, they were still familiar characters. Now we’re going to see presumably all-new Star Trek characters. That’ll be interesting.

And then for the next show — I mean, Starfleet Academy is an idea that has been talked about forever, and they just had to figure out how to do it. And the critical response to the show has been amazing, with almost 95% positive reviews. Nowadays, of course, everyone’s a critic. So on social media, there’s a lively discussion about what Star Trek should be.

I see fans who say, “We own the IP. We own the property because we’ve watched it for so many years.” Which is kind of not really true. The property is kind of owned by the studio, and the studio decides to invest in a particular pitch and a writer. And if you can do better, then I encourage any Star Trek fan that has a vision for Star Trek in the future — by golly, come to Hollywood, go in and pitch CBS Paramount with your vision for Star Trek, and definitely write a part for me. That’s all. That’s my best advice.

Paramount Skydance, which owns the Star Trek IP, announced a new theatrical feature film from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein that would reportedly be unconnected to previous Star Trek movies and TV shows.

Robert Picardo is right that every previous Star Trek movie was based on existing characters, and a reboot about all-new Starfleet heroes would be a franchise first. However, there has been no news about this Star Trek movie since it was first reported in November.

Meanwhile, Star Trek TV production has come to a halt for the time being. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 2 wrapped filming two weeks ago, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fifth and final season completed filming last Christmas.

While there are still 3 seasons and 26 episodes combined of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy yet to premiere on Paramount+, there is currently no new Star Trek in production or greenlit for the first time in a decade. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy hopes to be greenlit for season 3 (and 4 for the current cadets to graduate).

The contracts for Alex Kurtzman and Secret Hideout, who have overseen Star Trek on Paramount+ since 2016, are reportedly up at the end of this year. The entire Star Trek creative and fan community awaits whichever direction Paramount Skydance will take Star Trek next, including the possible development of new TV shows and movies.

As Robert Picardo discussed, there is constant chatter online and various opinions on what Star Trek is and what it should be going forward. Ultimately, Star Trek has epitomized Gene Roddenberry’s vision of an optimistic, inclusive, cooperative, and progressive future, and that will hopefully continue in whatever Star Trek comes next. And if there’s a part for Robert Picardo, even better.

Release Date

January 15, 2026

Network

Paramount+

Showrunner

Alex Kurtzman, Noga Landau

Directors

Douglas Aarniokoski, Alex Kurtzman, Andi Armaganian, Larry Teng

Writers

Gaia Violo, Alex Taub, Jane Maggs, Tawny Newsome, Kirsten Beyer, Kiley Rossetter, Eric Anthony Glover

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