Horror and Sci-Fi Brief · Sunday 18 October 2026
Robert Picardo has seen most of Starfleet Academy’s final season, and he thinks the show deserved better. Today’s brief also has the first trailer for the glam metal slasher Brute 1986, ahead of its FrightFest Halloween premiere in London, and a Spanish fortress lit up in Doctor Doom green for Avengers: Doomsday.
The News That Matters
Robert Picardo says Starfleet Academy was “killed in the cradle”
- New development: Picardo spoke to TrekMovie on the red carpet at the premiere of The Sixty-Year Mission, in an interview published on Saturday 17 October
- Series: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, whose second season will be its last
- His role: The Doctor, the holographic medic he has played in Voyager, Prodigy and Starfleet Academy
- UK availability: Starfleet Academy streams on Paramount+ in the UK. The final season returns in March 2027; the exact UK date is not yet confirmed. The Sixty-Year Mission opens in UK cinemas on Wednesday 21 October
Robert Picardo has been recording dialogue for the second and final season of Starfleet Academy, and he likes what he has seen. “I’ve seen quite a bit of it while I’ve been doing ADR on it, and it looks spectacular,” he told TrekMovie. But he is still sore about how the series was treated.
“Every Star Trek show was criticised in its first two or three seasons, and then took often till season three to get on track,” he said. “And even though I think the quality of our show was great, we were kind of killed in the cradle.” He puts part of that down to the present political moment, saying that diversity and “all of Star Trek’s core values are now out of fashion temporarily.” It is a phrase he first used in a Guardian interview in September, when he linked the cancellation to online attacks on the show.
Picardo is not giving up on the franchise, though. He hopes that “whenever they create the next Star Trek movie and Star Trek show, they’ll remember what it was that made Star Trek special,” and points out that Trek has been at a crossroads before: “we survived it and flourished again, and I think we will.” The Paramount+ series sets its final term for March 2027, and Picardo is one of more than 50 contributors to the documentary that reaches UK cinemas on Wednesday.
Glam metal slasher Brute 1986 unleashes its trailer before a London premiere
- New development: Cinephobia Releasing has bought North American and UK rights and released the official trailer
- Director: Marcel Walz, from a script by Joe Knetter
- Cast: Dazelle Yvette, Sarah French and Gigi Gustin return, joined by Tokio Hotel’s Bill Kaulitz and Lew Temple
- UK availability: World premiere at Tubi FrightFest Halloween in London on Saturday 31 October. A wider UK release date is not yet confirmed; Cinephobia lists a US release for Wednesday 23 December
The Birdy family are back, and this time they have big hair to deal with. Brute 1986 picks up a decade after Marcel Walz’s Brute 1976 and follows Leather Kobra, a glam metal band who head to an abandoned Western town to shoot a music video. Unfortunately for them, the ultra-violent Birdys have moved in nearby, and the shoot turns into a night of terror and bloodshed.
Where the first film nodded to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, the sequel moves on to the 1980s slashers of Friday the 13th and Maniac, set to a glam rock soundtrack with original music by Crazy Lixx and Kaulitz. “I’m an ’80s baby, actually, a 1986 baby,” says Walz, who grew up on Halloween III, Sleepaway Camp II and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4. “When we decided to make this movie, I knew we had to go all in.” Knetter sums it up neatly: “Hair metal and gore… what could be better?”
FrightFest’s Halloween weekend is the place to see it first, and the trailer makes clear it is not one for the squeamish.
Avengers: Doomsday bathes a Spanish fortress in Doctor Doom green
- New development: Disney Spain shared a short countdown promo filmed in Málaga, widely reported on Saturday 17 October
- In the promo: Anthony Mackie, David Harbour and Winston Duke, with five hooded figures in green robes at the Alcazaba fortress
- Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo, with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom
- UK release: In UK cinemas from Wednesday 16 December 2026, two days before the US
Málaga has turned green to start the countdown to Avengers: Doomsday. A short new promo, shared by Disney Spain, shows the city’s Alcazaba fortress and the Roman Theatre below it lit up at night in Doctor Doom’s signature green, with Anthony Mackie, David Harbour and Winston Duke, Marvel’s Sam Wilson, Red Guardian and M’Baku, in front of the glowing theatre.
The real talking point is the five unidentified figures in matching green robes gathered at the fortress. Fans are already guessing they could be the Black Swans, the Doom-linked order from Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers comics, or the Latverian Witches teased in earlier promotional art. Marvel has not said who they are.
The trio surprised fans at San Diego Comic-Con Málaga on Saturday 3 October, where they introduced a special Doomsday presentation made for the event. Robert Downey Jr. plays Doom, and the campaign keeps building after the latest international poster and Hayley Atwell’s talk of dropped storylines.
Movieversalfilm Takeaway
Today is about what fans get to see, and when. Robert Picardo says Starfleet Academy never got a fair run, even as its final season looks spectacular from where he is sitting. Brute 1986 brings big hair and buckets of blood to FrightFest on Halloween, and Marvel is turning whole cities green as Avengers: Doomsday closes in on UK cinemas on 16 December.
Did Starfleet Academy get a fair chance, or did it simply need the three seasons every Star Trek show used to get?