Are streamers losing faith in legacy sci-fi franchises?

Class has been dismissed rather earlier than planned, following the premature cancellation of "Starfleet Academy". A second season has already wrapped shooting — and will presumably beam onto Paramount+ early next year — but "Star Trek"'s paymasters clearly decided it wasn't worth persisting any longer with the final frontier's newest show. The teen-oriented spin-off becomes the shortest-lived live-action series in the franchise's 60-year history, and — given the extensive and largely unjustified criticism the show's faced online — many will say its demise is no surprise. But whatever your feelings on "Academy", its unfortunate fate suggests that all is not well at Starfleet Headquarters. The only other 'active' "Trek" on the Paramount+ roster is "Strange New Worlds", whose fourth and fifth seasons are already in the can. But with the fifth already confirmed to be the last outing for Captain Christopher Pike and co, we could easily find ourselves with no new "Treks" on the horizon by the end of 2027. Article continues below (Image credit: Paramount) It's a scenario that would have seemed implausible just three years ago when "Discovery", "Picard", "Lower Decks", "Prodigy" and "Strange New Worlds" were all on active duty. Indeed, Gene Roddenbery's space saga was in better health than it had been since the glory days of "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager". But this potential slowdown isn't unique to "Star Trek". …