When Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiered in January, the young actors playing freshman cadets found themselves suddenly thrust into the limelight, especially being part of a different kind of show for the 60-year-old franchise. Episode 5 featured a guest appearance by Cirroc Lofton, reprising his role as Jake Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (as a hologram). This made Cirroc the perfect moderator for a panel with two of the young Academy actors for Trek Talks, the annual online telethon to support Hollywood Food Coalition. His conversation with Karim Diané (Jay-Den Kraag) and Kerrice Brooks (SAM) dove into some shared experiences, social media, the show’s cancellation, and more.
Social media has been rough for the SFA crew
One of the many topics they covered was the uglier side of online discourse that relentlessly follows Starfleet Academy online; here at TrekMovie, we’ve seen this come up in comments on the site and on our social media, and at Trek Talks, every time we posted about the Academy panel, the same thing happened. The topic came up at the panel, where Kerrice explained why she’s shied away from social media.
Kerrice Brooks: “I’m not online really much because I’ve had my own relationship with social media since my dance career before acting. And I feel like I know we there’s no such thing as a perfect show, and I know that there are things that I won’t be able to understand, that the older Trekkies feel. But all I saw was negativity, if I’m being honest … And that also kept me off, especially off of Instagram. I don’t have a Facebook. Tiktok is just funny, but the ones where I think Gen Z isn’t so active, all I saw was the hate for our show and for our characters, and that kept me off. That’s why I’m excited to go to the conventions and hopefully they don’t hate on it in person … But hopefully I get to talk to people who, I don’t know, have something nice.”
Cirroc reassured her that fans at a Trek convention would nice things to say in person, to which she responded:
Kerrice Brooks: “If it’s not nice, like, let’s just talk about it. Don’t just say, like, I hate it because it’s DEI. Tell me you hate it because of something else, and then we can have a conversation.”
Karim brought up the recent drop of the Green Lantern trailer to show that it’s a regular thing for most franchises now. Both he and Kerrice thought the trailer was “dope as hell” and were stunned by the comments on Facebook. “Bro, relax, why are you mad?” Karim asked, saying it reinforced the idea that “people are going to be mad regardless.” Kerrice agreed.
Kerrice Brooks: “The state of the world right now, hate is in power… It sucks to even admit that, because I think that, like Avery said the end of the episode, or MLK kept saying, only love can drive out hate … As dark as the room is, as soon as you turn on one single flashlight, there’s light in the room. So it doesn’t matter how much love you have, even if it doesn’t measure up to the amount of hate in the world, it’s like, if we could just turn on, I don’t know, one flashlight in in the country, in society right now … The way people are reacting to these trailers and to our show even is a indication of a bigger thing than the show potentially being ‘bad,’ or whatever. It’s bigger than that, and the cancelation of it is bigger than the cancelation of just a ‘bad show,’ too.”
Karim, who came into Academy with an active social media following already, agreed.
Karim Diané: “That’s why I’m on my social media spreading love, like even the negative comments that creep into my page, I’ll always respond with even love or like a little wink… I’ve never responded to negativity with any kind of negativity, or I just won’t respond. But love drives only love and drives out hate, but also love attracts love. And so because I am so active on social media, Kerrice , there is so much — like so many people love this freaking show, like hardcore … I definitely see the negativity, but I also see a lot of positive — it’s mostly positivity on my social media channels, to be honest with you. My online life is completely transformed since the show dropped… I looked at my stats one day and it was like 5 million people within 30 days had come to my page just to show love.”
When Kerrice confessed “I feel like if I let in the good, then I have to let in the bad. So I’d rather just let, not let it in,” Cirroc pointed out that his show, Deep Space Nine, was also a target for people’s anger.
Cirroc Lofton: “We got hate in the beginning when we were doing our show, and they kept calling us a dark show … They’re like, Oh, this is not a spaceship. It doesn’t travel. It’s a space station. It’s a different thing. There’s always going to be criticism, is what I’m trying to say. And you rise past your criticism by focusing on the love and and stand positive. Because what ends up happening is Star Trek fans are are relentless. And if they love, and they stay, and they feel the love, and they they love something, they can bring something back from the dead.”
Karim talked about the original Star Trek facing its fair share of critics (and that the show was canceled and brought back), Cirroc added that gone doesn’t always mean gone:
Cirroc Lofton: “I was on your guys’ show, and my character was dead for 30 years, is what I’m saying… So what I’m what I’m saying is, you never know how the fans are going to say, we want this to come back, and we like that character, we like this. We want that. It. It really, really can change over time.”
Cirroc Lofton as Jake and Kerrice Brooks as SAM in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Star Trek’s first gay Klingon ruffled a lot of feathers
Cirroc asked Karim about playing the first gay Klingon, saying the idea was introduced with a bit of a slow burn.
Cirroc Lofton: “I remember the moment when I when it registered for me. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I think, I think Jay Den is, is a gay Klingon!’ And the moment it registered for me, I think you were fixing somebody’s collar, and there was, like, a look that you guys gave each other. And I was like, this is very subtle, but it was great. It was great for television, because I thought, ‘What a great performance in the order to, like, convey a whole lot of stuff with no words.’ Actually, I think it was just the look that you gave was like a unspoken look between the two of you … And I thought this is going to be interesting. I want to know more.”
Karim also appreciated that his romance with Kyle wasn’t “a whole episode” or a “huge plot point,” but noted that portraying the first gay Klingon in Star Trek’s 60-year history has definitely ruffled some feathers — which is not a bad thing.
Karim Diané: “Star Trek has always ruffled feathers, is what I’m understanding. Like from day one, from the very first episode, you know, the point of Star Trek is to ruffle feathers, is is to stretch people’s minds and make space for everyone. Every single human being on this planet has a seat at this Star Trek table.”
He’s seen a lot of negative commentary, but the support has outweighed it.
Karim Diané: “My DMs are flooded with so much support from from all kinds of people, not just queer people, but also straight people and trans people and just Black people, white people, Asian people, like people from all across the world, have slid into my DMs to tell me how much this character means to them … That’s been awesome, but, yeah, there also has been a lot of weird stuff, like scary messages. Honestly, some people have responded to this violently, and that really tells me that we’re actually doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, truly, because the point of Star Trek is to kind of, like, push that needle forward.”
He gave a specific example to prove his point.
Karim Diané: “There’s one specific message that I can’t get out of my head … this teacher who wrote me and said … that one of his students watches Starfleet Academy, and that he’s never felt himself represented on TV before, because he is tall and he has a large stature, and he’s dark-skinned and he’s Black, and people expect him to be this, like, rough and tough kind of guy, but he’s not. He’s a really sweet young queer kid … I’m excited by what we’re all doing by introducing these different characters, it’s really like opening up the room for more people to come in and feel included.”
Karim Diané as Jay-Den and Dale Whibley as Kyle in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Being part of the legacy despite cancellation
Filming for the second season of Starfleet Academy has already been completed, but recently Paramount decided to not renew the show for a third season. When asked about the news, Karim found a positive spin:
Karim Diané: “Of course, I think we are bummed that we’re not going to get a third season right now, but we shot 20 episodes of Star Trek … a lot of shows don’t even make it to the pilot, barely make it to the first season, so two seasons, is actually really cool. And the fact that, like, we still have that to look forward to come out next year… I’m excited.”
Kerrice had her own take on it.
Kerrice Brooks” “I think I’m not bummed about the cancelation because it’s not like we were canceled for — like, none of us suck. We weren’t we weren’t a bad show. Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out.”
Cirroc, who started his Star Trek career at age 13 and is still involved all these years later, talked about the legacy ahead of the two young actors:
Cirroc Lofton: “This is a big family. This is a world that’s already constructed with people loving it, and they’re watching, hanging on every word, and they’re like, Oh, that’s a that’s Oh, the Klingon is back. And this, you know, like they’re really excited about these things. They they want to see. Oh my god, Kerrice, she, she’s playing this character, Sam’s, you know, a hologram. And, I mean, just great stories.”
He asked them how they felt being part of the Trek world.
Kerrice Brooks: “I feel like I knew it, but now I’m starting to see it’s bigger than me, because I was inspired by seeing Sonequa and Avery and Whoopi, and even B’Elanna and all these people from all these different shows. And Nichelle! And Celia and Tawny, and now to be a part of that, it’s so humbling, and it’s an honor, and especially because of how things are now going, it feels like an even bigger honor.”
Kerrice Brooks as SAM and Tawny Newsome as Dax looking at Jake Sisko’s book
Both of the young actors also said they were looking forward to conventions, and both want to cosplay — Kerrice told Karim she wanted to go as “baby Lura Thok.”
Watch the full panel at Trek Talks 5
The full show (including this panel) is on YouTube. Trek Talks is a yearly event, a full day of Star Trek panels online to benefit Hollywood Food Coalition. They are still accepting donations here.
Here it is, cued up to the Starfleet Academy panel:
About the Hollywood Food Coalition
The mission of Hollywood Food Coalition is to nourish the community by rescuing and distributing food, preparing nightly meals, and uniting efforts to achieve food equity. Their vision is a city where everyone has food, community, and support. You can see some of the great work Hollywood Food Coalition is doing on their YouTube channel in videos like this one:
Learn more at trektalks.net.
Keep up with everything to do with the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
