Star Trek’s Resident Nice-Guy Leader Can’t Believe His Good Luck

Six years ago, in 2020, Star Trek: Discovery jumped into the 32nd century into a version of the galaxy in which the Federation was fractured. Following a century of spotty warp drive caused by a catastrophe known as “the Burn,” Starfleet and the UFP were scrappy, sad, and beaten down, having lost many of their biggest allies, including the Vulcans, and somehow, even Earth. But what a difference a few years can make. Set just after the end of Discovery Season 5, the new series Starfleet Academy is reviving a more hopeful version of the Federation and Starfleet. And one key player in that is a returning Discovery character, Admiral Charles Vance, played by the incomparable Oded Fehr.

“I think for Vance, it's very much his dream to go back to a time before the Burn, to bring Starfleet back to exploration,” Fehr says. “So, it’s a dream come true to open Starfleet Academy and to get Nahla (Holly Hunter) to come on as chancellor for him.”

In the context of SFA, along with Tig Notaro as Reno and upcoming appearances from Mary Wiseman as Tilly, Vance helps to actively connect the continuity of Discovery to the new series. But, unlike Tilly and Reno, Vance originates in this time, and has seen things you people wouldn’t believe. In essence, he lived through Starfleet’s worst of times period, and is now entering, in theory, the best of times.

When Vance was introduced in Discovery, that titular starship had just arrived from over eight centuries in the past, and Starfleet “was just trying to survive.” As Fehr points out, the journey of Vance back to a role of an optimistic leader comes from those days. “He was in no place to be playing games; it was literally survival every day, making hard, terrible choices. Now, it's a lighter, happier, more optimistic, more the-future-is-open kind of thing, and I think the show itself is that feeling you get when you go visit a college.”

This idea, that a dark time can lead to a happier, optimistic one, reflects the backstory of Star Trek: The Original Series, a show that Fehr has been a big fan of since he was very young.

“I grew up between Israel and Germany, and growing up in a country with a lot of conflict and seeing a show that is so full of optimism for the future, a show that says it's possible for everybody to be equal and for everybody to live in peace with each other or strive for peace as humans, it meant a lot to me as a child,” Fehr explains. “And to get to experience it, to be a part of this, it's a very momentous part of my career.”

The actor, who has been part of big franchises before, including The Mummy films and the Resident Evil franchise, said he had no idea that his role in Discovery Season 3 would lead to being a semi-permanent fixture in the franchise. His appearance in Starfleet Academy makes it feel as though Vance is now Star Trek’s resident dad figure, a kind, cool Admiral who isn’t corrupt and weird like so many high-ranking officers in Star Trek’s long history.

“I had no clue it would turn into this. I was cast to don an arc on Star Trek [Discovery], that was it. Four or five episodes. One arc,” Fehr says, and reveals that on some level, there’s an alternate univesre where it didn’t happen at all. “I was offered that, and at the same time, I think I was offered something in the DC Universe. I was like ‘Star Trek for sure.’ I didn’t know anything about the character, and now or that he could show up in a different show. It’s such a huge compliment to be asked to come back.”

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streams on Paramount+.