As Paramount+ seeks to expand its audience and engage younger viewers, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes the franchise in a bold new direction with a coming-of-age focus. Unfortunately, it seems like Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has stumbled a bit out of the gate.
While the new series has earned strong reviews from critics, Starfleet Academy hasn’t quite resonated with fans or generated much buzz. Nielsen’s latest data, covering the week of January 12-18 and including the two-episode premiere, shows that the Paramount+ series did not make the top 10 streaming originals for the week.
Starfleet Academy was outperformed by some notably high-profile series, including fellow Paramount+ show Landman. Here are the Nielsen Top 10 Streaming Originals for the week of Jan. 12–18, 2026:
- His & Hers – 2,244 million minutes (Netflix)
- Stranger Things – 1,912 million minutes (Netflix)
- Landman – 1,772 million minutes (Paramount+)
- The Pitt – 1,158 million minutes (HBO Max)
- 11.22.63 – 970 million minutes (Netflix)
- The Traitors – 892 million minutes (Peacock)
- Fallout – 844 million minutes (Prime Video)
- Tell Me Lies – 391 million minutes (Hulu)
- Agatha Christie's Seven Dials – 374 million minutes (Netflix)
- Run Away – 343 million minutes (Netflix)
For comparison, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 debuted at number seven last summer with 471 million minutes viewed. That total would have been enough to place it on the chart during the week of Starfleet Academy’s debut. However, even Strange New Worlds struggled to maintain steady viewership, dropping out of the top 10 for the remainder of its third season.
This is not to say that Starfleet Academy is doomed. Star Trek: Discovery took a week to crack the Nielsen top 10 after its Season 5 debut, so the first full week of viewership will be key in determining how the new show performs. It is also worth noting that Nielsen’s weekly U.S. Streaming Top 10 charts did not originally include Paramount+ data, so there is no available information on earlier seasons. This makes it harder to judge how the premiere compares.
Failing to reach the Top 10 in its first week does not necessarily spell trouble for Starfleet Academy, especially since the series has already been renewed for a second season. What will likely matter most is whether it maintains steady viewership throughout the first full week. The show could still follow the path of Discovery or Strange New Worlds and gain momentum after its initial debut.
This thrilling new chapter follows a fresh class of cadets as they train under the watchful, demanding eyes of Starfleet’s finest. Together, they’ll face the highs and lows of academy life: forging unbreakable friendships, clashing in explosive rivalries, experiencing first loves, and stepping into their destiny as the next generation of Starfleet officers. When a mysterious new enemy threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself, these cadets must rise to the challenge or risk losing everything they’ve just begun to fight for.
While these ratings only reflect the first two episodes of Starfleet Academy, we are now more than halfway through the first season. What are your overall thoughts on the show as a whole?