Since Paramount first announced its Discovery spinoff Starfleet Academy, fans have been wondering if Mary Wiseman would be reprising her role as Sylvia Tilly. After all, the final seasons of Discovery had her training cadets, so it would only be logical that she help train the next generation of Starfleet’s best and brightest.
TV insider Matt Mitovich recently reported that Wiseman will be in only one episode of Starfleet Academy Season 1, which is evidence that Paramount has no real faith in its latest Star Trek show.
The Character Arc That Almost Was
For context, Wiseman’s character previously accepted a teaching position at Starfleet Academy, and Discovery’s final episode confirmed that she later became the longest-tenured instructor in the academy’s history. These plot developments made it seem like a no-brainer that Tilly would be a major part of the Starfleet Academy, but Wiseman always demurred when asked questions about whether she would be in the show or not. Now, Mitovich is reporting that she will only be in one episode of the upcoming spinoff, which is proof that Paramount has no faith in the past or the future of its most famous franchise.
While Discovery was a solid Star Trek show with a couple of bad seasons, it still proved to be very controversial for many reasons, including the show’s violence and the fact that it was written around a central character and not a full cast ensemble. So, making Starfleet Academy a spinoff of Discovery was a surprising decision. Instead of setting the upcoming show in a new time or place, Paramount decided to make it a spinoff of arguably the most controversial Star Trek show ever made.
Creating Distance From Discovery
However, keeping Mary Wiseman away from Starfleet Academy except for a single cameo seemingly proves Paramount now wants to create distance between the new show and Discovery. Admittedly, her absence may make it easier for this show to establish its own roster of characters, including Holly Hunter’s Starfleet captain. Still, Paramount didn’t blink an eye at bringing in Robert Picardo’s character from Voyager and even Tig Notaro’s character from Discovery; why, then, not bring back Wiseman’s Discovery character, especially when that show spent so much time setting up her arc as a Starfleet Academy instructor?
To me, this weird decision is the latest indication that Paramount doesn’t know what it’s doing with Star Trek. They want Starfleet Academy to be a Discovery spinoff in order to appeal to that show’s fan base, but they also want to distance the new show from the earlier one in order to placate those who hate Discovery. And all of this is happening after Paramount canceled fan-favorite series like Lower Decks and Prodigy and put a premature end date on the popular Strange New Worlds.
Paramount Doesn’t Know What To Do With Star Trek
Paramount doesn’t know whether to embrace Starfleet Academy as a spinoff or to treat it as its own thing. And they don’t know whether the next Trek movie should be a final Kelvinverse film or a Star Trek origin movie that threatens to undo decades of canon. And given that their last Trek film (the direct-to-TV Section 31) is the lowest-rated and most-hated movie in franchise history, I’m starting to worry that they don’t even know how to make a decent Star Trek movie.
Mary Wiseman is a great actor, and her Tilly character was one of the best parts of Discovery. Setting her up as an instructor and then keeping her almost entirely out of Starfleet Academy is proof that there’s no real long-term planning happening at Paramount, which is bad news for anyone hoping that the NuTrek era is going to get better. Right now, fans need to hope for something else entirely: that Star Trek is even still around after executive mismanagement runs the best science fiction franchise ever made into the ground.
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