There’s been lots of speculation about what the next round of Star Trek television production may include, as Alex Kurtzman and the production team at Paramount+ and Secret Hideout look towards their next development cycle — and a long-rumored contender seems to be closer to fruition than ever before.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but according to a new report from Deadline tonight, the often-discussed Starfleet Academy concept — one dating all the way back to the mid-1980s Original Series film era, pitched by then-producer Harve Bennett to show the first meeting of Kirk and Spock, and rumored as a potential Secret Hideout series all the way back in 2018 — may be closer to reality than ever before.

Deadline reports that the Academy-based concept is formally in development for Paramount+, and that Gaia Violo (co-creator of the Prime Video series Absentia) is expected to pitch a take on the series for a hopeful fast-track to production.

As of this writing, no details on characters, casting, or even the Star Trek era in which the series may take place has been revealed; while some Trek fans may believe the recent reassignment of Star Trek: Discovery lead Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) to the 32nd century’s newly-reopened Academy may drive this series, that’s only fan-group speculation at this point.

As reported by Deadline —

“The Star Trek universe on Paramount+ is going back to school.

A new offshoot, ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,’ is in development at CBS Studios and Alex Kurtzman’s studio-based Secret Hideout for the ViacomCBS streamer, sources said. Sharing a name with the late 1990s video game, the series is set among the college of cadets mentored for leadership roles in the United Federation of Planets space force.

We hear ‘Absentia’ co-creator Gaia Violo is currently working on a take for the project. With the long-gestating ‘Star Trek’ spinoff ‘Section 31’ starring Michelle Yeoh expected to get a pickup soon, ‘Starfleet Academy’ is believed to be next in the Star Trek development pipeline behind it. It will be pitched to Paramount+ shortly, and the hope is to get it going in the next year, sources said.”

The Deadline report also references today’s comments from Paramount+ scripted television head Nicole Clemens’ comments about the Michelle Yeoh-led Section 31 concept made earlier today, becoming the first of the two shows next to become official Star Trek productions.

An Academy-based series has been long discussed for the modern Star Trek era, as all the way back in mid-2018 the concept was rumored (at that time coming from writers Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz); Kurtzman has mentioned the Academy concept in passing as recently as September 2021 during the Star Trek Day panels.

The Georgiou-centric Section 31 show has been bubbling along in the background since it was announced in January 2019 and had a writers room in place back in late 2019 under the leadership of Star Trek: Discovery scribes Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt.

Earlier today Kurtzman described the Secret Hideout development process as “think[ing] several years out,” but with several years of new Star Trek shows still ahead of us — 1.5 seasons of Discovery, 1.5 seasons of Prodigy, 2 seasons of Picard, 2 seasons of Lower Decks, and 2 seasons of Strange New Worlds already announced — it’s likely the arrival of either of these two shows, should they move to production, is quite far away.

But it’s never to early to rekindle the conversation.

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