Paramout+’s struggling new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, has been unable to crack the top ten shows in the Nielsen Ratings as the eight-figure per episode series wallows in a constant stream of left-wing, identity politics like gay Klingons, bisexuals, lesbians, and girl boss characters irks fans the world over.
The most recent plot rankling longtime fans of the franchise is the full-fledged gay Klingon character named “Ja-Den.”
Ja-Den, portrayed by gay actor Karim Diane, breaks the Star Trek mold for the 60-year-old franchise’s war-like, aggressive Klingon alien race. Instead of being a warrior, Ja-Den is a vegan and a bird watcher who had two dads. And when he gets to the academy, he immediately begins dating a young human male he meets there. But, wait, there’s more. Ja-Den also has secret feelings for one of the other male students in the series.
But Ja-Den is not the only character who ticks a box for the left-wing narrative. There is also a photonic character who is neurodivergent, a jock-like male character who is also bi-sexual, and a young female character who seems to be perfect in every way — always faster, smarter, and more capable than all the men. Then there are a pair of lesbian teachers at the academy, and it is all led by a “captain” who refuses to wear shoes, sits in chairs like an eight year-old child, and seems to have an aversion to combing her hair.
Woke Trek:
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) February 21, 2026
New Paramount+ series ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ branded ‘woke’ for featuring Klingon wearing a DRESS.
The actor playing the character has declared he is ‘Star Trek’s first gay Klingon’ and said ‘Klingons wear pretty dresses.’ pic.twitter.com/XbfCw1VIwn
The woke agenda is coupled with bad writing with numerous plot holes, and dialog written as if the show was set in a high school circa 2026, not an elite space academy set more than 1,000 years in the future. With modern slang and curse words popping up in every other line of dialog, many fans feel that the show simply doesn’t feel like a Star Trek show at all.
Consequently, the series has devolved into a ratings disaster for Paramount.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has consistently failed to make much of a dent in the Nielsen Ratings, rarely if ever getting into the top ten even as many of the shows that are charting have already been on hiatus for months. Meaning shows that are more than two months old, or more, are beating the brand new, first-time airing of episodes of Starfleet Academy.
The new series, which debuted with a double episode presentation on January 15 on Paramount +, had major warning signs from the start and was so poorly received that a sneak peek of episode one posted to Youtube didn’t even earn much more than 1,500 concurrent live viewers during the episode’s first posting. This is for an episode that cost Paramount more than ten million dollars to make.
In fact, the episode had fewer viewers on Youtube than a motionless Spock action figure posted as a live broadcast during the same hour as Academy by popular Youtube movie commentators The Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic. The reviewers and their Spock action figure stunt earned more than triple the live Youtube viewers than the Academy premiere did on Youtube, a fact that caused Paramount no end of embarrassment.
The viewership fiasco for that first episode was so bad that Paramount quickly made its Youtube premiere video “private” to make it go away.
The review sites have been brutal to the show, as well.
Metacritic has been most harsh with a weighted user score of 1.7 and a Metascore of 66. And on the popular review site Rotten Tomatoes, the fan’s “popcornmeter” rates the show at a lowly 45 percent, making it one of the worst-rated Star Trek shows in TV history.
The ten-episode first season has already aired seven episodes. With only three more to go until the first season ends, it does not seem to be getting any better in the ratings and fans are severely divided on the series.
Perhaps even worse for Paramount’s new Star Trek series, the network had already greenlighted two seasons of Starfleet Academy before the first episode had even aired, so it appears that Paramount is going to have to suffer through an entire second season of this disaster. Season two is already filmed and is in post production now, and will be ready to air early next year.
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