Look, mate, there's something uniquely painful about making Star Trek in 2026. Jonathan Frakes has been piloting the franchise through various iterations for decades, so you'd think he'd be thick-skinned by now. But when the legend himself sat down to talk about directing the penultimate episode of Starfleet Academy, he had something weighing on him that has nothing to do with camera angles or set design: the modern fan.
Frakes is no stranger to criticism. When The Next Generation first hit screens nearly 40 years ago, the show copped a battering from fans. "Nobody wanted us," he laughs. "We were trolled." The difference then was that trolling happened in letter columns and convention halls, not across the global internet at light speed. "It's still dimensionally more painful today," Frakes said of the current wave of online vitriol aimed at Starfleet Academy. "And the trolls are hiding, and the trolls are hating."
Fair dinkum, it's a sobering thing to hear from someone who clearly loves what he does. Frakes describes himself as an eternal optimist, yet he remains surprised by how aggressively fans resist each new iteration of Trek. He tries not to let it upset him, but the words suggest it does, just the same.
What's fascinating is how little the negativity seems to have affected the work itself. Episode 9, which Frakes directed, marks a turning point in the series. It reunites the main character Caleb with his mother Anisha after 16 years apart, a scene shot with extreme close-ups that capture the emotional weight of the moment. Frakes worked closely with series co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman to nail the visual approach, embracing tight, intimate framing rather than the cinematic sprawl that defined earlier Trek shows like Discovery.
"The intimacy was so important," Frakes explained. Part of that came from the lenses Kurtzman sourced, which blend anamorphic and spherical technology to define the show's overall look. Frakes brought his favourite cinematographer, Maya Bankovic, along to keep the visual language consistent.
The episode was shot on The Volume, those massive LED walls that first made waves on The Mandalorian. It's revolutionary technology, but it comes with headaches. Multiple camera angles create technical problems because the lead camera controls the LED backdrop; a secondary camera positioned differently won't capture the background in focus properly. Yet Frakes insists it's been worth the hassle. Before The Volume, actors worked against green screens with only tape marks and imagination to guide them. Now they're literally standing in the world of the story.
Here's the thing about Frakes: despite the slings and arrows of online fandom, his work continues to show genuine care for the material and the actors. The penultimate episode's confrontation scene between Caleb and his crewmates was carefully blocked so Caleb works his way down the line, with the camera dollying over each actor in turn. It's the kind of directorial precision that demands multiple takes and real planning.
The finale of Starfleet Academy's first season airs on Paramount+ on 12 March. Whether the online trolls show up to watch it or not, Frakes will have done his job well. That's always been the point with Star Trek, hasn't it? Make the best show you can, and let the noise sort itself out.