Don’t Expect to See Much of This Familiar Face on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Star Trek is going where the franchise has never gone before next year with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, a long-gestating project meant to spotlight more youthful characters at the beginning of their journeys into the stars. Set in the 32nd century and after the events of Star Trek: Discovery, the series will follow the first new class of Starfleet cadets to enter the academy in over a century. (Your mileage can and likely will vary about the wisdom of placing the series at this particular moment in the Star Trek timeline, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens!) 

The show will, of necessity, feature a predominantly brand-new cast of young actors taking on the roles of the various students at the Academy, who will run the gamut in terms of both backgrounds and species. (Their initial class roster is comprised of humans, Klingons, Betazoids, a brand new species called Dar-Sha, and Kasqians, who are essentially holograms.) But there will also be some familiar faces on staff; with Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Picardo reprising his role as the Doctor, and Discovery’s Tig Notaro and Oded Fehr returning as Jett Reno and Admiral Vance. The initial series announcement also said that their former co-star, Mary Wiseman, who played Discovery’s Sylvia Tilly, would also be part of Starfleet Academy’s legacy cast. But apparently that role is actually going to be much smaller than many of us (read: me) initially assumed. 

Noticing the distinct lack of Tilly in any of the early promotional materials for Starfleet Academy, TrekMovie.com decided to find out the truth. The site posed a question about Tilly’s involvement in former TVLine reporter Matt Mitovitch’s weekly Inside Line column about the behind-the-scenes business of entertainment, and behold, the most recent edition contained the answer. “You can rest assured that Wiseman will appear on Starfleet Academy as a guest star in one episode,” Mitovitch wrote. Which, let’s be real, is some news that does not vibe with what we were initially promised. But, hey, things change on TV shows all the time, and casting details aren’t exactly an unprecedented shift. That said, it is still a disappointing update for fans, and confirmation that the world of Starfleet Academy is now a little bit less connected to what has come before.

The news that Tilly will have such a small role in the latest Star Trek spinoff is unfortunate on many levels, but mostly because she’s the legacy character who actually makes the most sense as part of this series. Her arc in the final seasons of Discovery saw her leave her position on board the ship to take up a teaching role at the academy, and the show even did an entire episode involving Tilly taking a group of cadets out on a training mission. (Do backdoor pilots even exist anymore? This hour certainly felt like one.) And while there’s certainly every possibility the character will be more involved should Starfleet Academy land a second season, it’s unfortunate that her role in its first season seems little more than a glorified cameo. Here’s hoping that the episode she does appear in is at least a really good one.