‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Bosses Explain Finale Ending & Share Season 2 Details

The enemy of my enemy is my … well, friend is too strong a word to use when it comes to Nahla (Holly Hunter) and Anisha (Tatiana Maslany) on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. But neither likes Nus (Paul Giamatti), so they can briefly put aside their differences.

Such is the case in the March 12 episode … at least in the beginning. Anisha still blames Nahla for separating her and her son, Caleb (Sandro Rosta), when he was a child, after she worked with Nus because she was desperate for food (an officer died in the process). But the two women both care about Caleb, who’s now one of the cadets at the academy led by Nahla, and they work together to keep him and his friends safe. But that all changes when Nus decides to put the Federation — with Nahla as its representative. TV Insider spoke with executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau about ending the season with that trial. Warning: Spoilers for the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1 finale ahead!

Nus claims that the Federation fired missiles on his colony when he was a kid and they needed supplies, but as Nahla and then Caleb, once he joins them after he and the others figure out a way to disable the mine field of omega-47 surrounding miles of Federation space, correctly determine, the explosions were caused by the weapon Nus’ father had built using the fuel at his disposal, strontium. And so while Anisha may have found Nahla guilty, with Nus’ weapon disabled, Starfleet takes control once again, and he’s taken into custody. Both Anisha and Nahla punch him in the face before he’s taken away. With that, Anisha is free to explore as she desires, and while Caleb is going to spend the summer with her, he’s also planning to return to the academy.

Below, executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau break down the Season 1 finale ending and share early intel on what’s ahead in Season 2.

Was it always the plan to have Caleb’s search for his mom be a one-season story and to have the ending that it did?

Alex Kurtzman: We still have plans for Anisha, and we’d love to bring her back, but that didn’t, I think, instinctively feel like a story that wanted to, just the search for mom, go beyond one season.

John Medland/Paramount+

And did you always plan on having Nus back in custody at the end of Season 1 or was there any consideration to stretch that out?

Kurtzman: Yeah. I think from the beginning we were open to all things, but it felt like as we were nearing the end and thinking about how do you pay off everything and how do you answer all of the incredibly complicated questions that the pilot brings up? It felt like, well, we need to bookend this season with another trial. That’s how we started the show. That’s how we’ve got to end the show. But this trial really needs to go there. It’s not going to be a scene. It’s going to be the whole episode. And some of the greatest Star Trek episodes ever — [The Next Generation‘s] “The Measure of a Man” —are trial episodes. So, it felt very appropriate.

What had you wanted to do with Nahla and Nus in the finale, and where did you want to leave them? Because I mean, everything with Paul and Holly all season was just so good.

Noga Landau: One of my favorite parts of what we were able to do in this finale was we were able to really understand why Nus is the way that he is, and we were able to peel back just one layer to see what [was behind] this man, all of his bravado and all of his justifications for brutality. And I think what was so fun about this finale was showing too that Nahla, by representing the spirit of the Federation, really, the spirit of the Federation of the 32nd century, that it’s been around for so long, that it has been battered by life itself also, but that rather than choose brutality at the end of the day, it continues to try and choose the act of accountability, that she has accountability. She’s accountable for the mistakes that she’s made and that she’s willing to stand on trial and to face it and to use her own brilliance, her own insights, her own genius to defend herself in front of the galaxy and to uphold her values in front of the galaxy, all while showing that choosing brutality, even though brutal things have been done to you in the case of Nus, is never going to get you what you want. And you will never win. You will continue to be prisoner to your own trauma, your own darkness, your own mistakes.

So I think being able to do all of that in this finale with this trial between these two characters was awesome because it’s Star Trek at its best. This is why we make Star Trek. We don’t make Star Trek so that you save the day by shooting people. We make Star Trek so that by the end of the day, you’ve used your own intellect and you’ve used your knowledge of science and of the galaxy to justify your own existence and your own continuance.

Something I appreciate was that you found the right balance between Nahla and Anisha working together when they had to, and Anisha’s anger towards Nahla that she still had. What do you want to do with those two specifically in the finale with that dynamic? Because they acknowledged it both in Caleb’s life, but it’s like these two are never going to sit down, I think, and have a drink together.

Kurtzman: Well, it’s interesting because I think now they could, but there was no way there was going to be a version of that before. And the fun of writing the episode was figuring out, OK, look, they have a lot to say to each other, and Anisha doesn’t want to be in the room with this woman, but they don’t have a choice because it’s life or death, and so the plot has to force them into collusion. And then once we get there, we can do a lot of things.

So, I think what was interesting was it never felt to me like we were going to get to a moment where Anisha and Nahla hugged at the end of the episode. It just would’ve felt very false. And we talked with Holly about that for a while because I think what happens in the trial is they both face their responsibilities and their contributions to how Caleb’s life was shaped, not just Nahla, but also Anisha. Anisha did what any mother would do, which is she did what she had to do to feed her child, but it resulted in the death of an officer, and therefore she, too, is responsible for everything that happened, and that’s what she has to face. Once they both understand that it’s not quite cut and dried, it’s not black and white, they’re both responsible. And then once the idea of Nahla’s genius to sort of pull on the thread that unravels Nus’ entire argument reveals itself, Anisha can no longer pretend; she can’t hold onto fiction at that point. And she’s like, “I hate Nus Braka too. We have to take him down. We’re going to prove that.”

That moment, I find incredibly moving at the end where they just look at each other across the atrium because there’s no words exchanged, but there’s a whole conversation that’s happening between them. And you can impose on it anything you kind of imagine the conversation to be, but I always imagine the conversation to be some version of, “I’m so sorry, and I’m so grateful for you,” from Nahla to Anisha, and Anisha saying, “I’m sorry and I forgive you, and let’s move forward from here.” And so now I feel like when they see each other again, they don’t have to talk about that anymore. There’s new ground they could start covering, which is — We would love to bring Tatiana back for that.

Brooke Palmer/Paramount+

You have Nus in custody, but we saw how well that went last time. So will we see Paul again in Season 2?

Kurtzman: No, not in Season 2. There’s nothing we want more than to bring Paul back and there’s nothing Paul wants more than to come back, so we are going to figure that out in Season 3.

Will everyone else be back?

Kurtzman: You mean everybody else who’s currently on the show?

Yeah.

Kurtzman: That’s the plan, yeah.

Which cadet learned the most about themselves during Season 1?

Landau: Caleb undergoes such a transformation in Season 1, around letting people in, around trust, around dreaming of what he can be. It’s a real journey.

Are there any new cast members or ones from other Trek series coming in Season 2 that you can talk about?

Kurtzman: Yes. [Laughs]

And what can you say?

Kurtzman: What can I say? Yes, there are new cast members and some new, really exciting guest stars. How about I leave it at that?

Is there anything else you can tease about Season 2?

Landau: There’s some really big concept episodes in Season 2 that really invoke Trek at its best that I’m so excited for the audience to watch because I think something we learned about our audience reception in Season 1 is that people really do love these episodes that are sort of close-ended stories that really feel like a complete meal. And that’s really cool because that’s what Trek always did so well in the past. And we continue to really do that in Season 2. And I’m excited for people to partake of these really great standalone episodes that we have coming, as well as an amazing serialized story over the course of the season.

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Kurtzman: I think we found a sweet spot in Trek that I really love, which is, as Noga’s saying, many of the episodes are standalone, but when you look at now the totality of the season, you see how it’s all connected in a larger arc, right? And the balance between standalones and serialization feels like it’s been maintained in Season 2. I would say that really what it means is it’s emotional serialization, but individual stories that get closed-ended by the end of each episode, more or less. I think with the exception, obviously, in the first season of Episode 9, because that’s where you begin to tee up the cliffhanger.

New characters will introduce new problems in Season 2, and those problems are going to ripple through our cadets, and it’s going to shake things up a bit. You might find romances between characters that you could never have expected. And let’s see, what else can I say? You’ll get to learn more about Nahla, a lot more about Nahla, actually.

Landau: We go deep on Nahla in Season 2. Also, Holly Hunter in Season 2, it’s like an acting [dream].

Kurtzman: You might meet some of Nahla’s family members. Yeah, I’m going to leave at that.

Landau: Lanthanites are fun. Lanthanites are a fun ride.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Season 2, TBD, Paramount+