| Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | |
|---|---|
| Season 4 | |
| Showrunners |
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| Starring | |
| Release | |
| Original network | Paramount+ |
| Season chronology | |
The fourth season of the American television series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds and carry out missions during the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). The season is being produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Weed Road Pictures, H M R X Productions, and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers as showrunners.
Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn respectively star as Pike, Spock, and Number One, along with Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Martin Quinn, and Babs Olusanmokun. Many of the regular actors and several guest stars portray younger versions of characters from The Original Series. A fourth season of Strange New Worlds was ordered in April 2024. Filming is taking place at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, from March to August 2025. The showrunners continued the series' episodic storytelling approach, giving each episode a different genre and tone. This includes a puppet episode, with puppet work by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
The season is expected to premiere on the streaming service Paramount+ in 2026, and run for 10 episodes. A fifth and final season was ordered in June 2025. [1]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by [2] | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | 1 | TBA | TBD | Teleplay by : Akiva Goldsman & Henry Alonso Myers Story by : Henry Alonso Myers & Alan B. McElroy | 2026 [1] |
Kathryn Lyn wrote the second episode. [2] Axelle Carolyn and Jordan Canning are directing the fourth and fifth episodes, respectively. [3] [4] Frequent Star Trek director Jonathan Frakes is also directing an episode. [5]
Executive producer Alex Kurtzman envisioned Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , a spin-off from the series Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024), as an ongoing series that could cover the seven years between Discovery's second season (2019) and the accident that seriously injures Christopher Pike in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). [11] Co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman hoped Strange New Worlds would continue until it caught up with the events of The Original Series. [12] Following the success of Strange New Worlds's second season, Paramount+ ordered a fourth season in April 2024 while the third season was in production. [13]
The writers' room was underway and had settled on the ideas for all 10 episodes of the season by the end of July 2024, [14] including an episode where the crew are portrayed by puppets. [15] Goldsman had teased such an episode in March 2024, when he expressed doubt that there was a genre or story that the series could not include: "Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!" [16] When the season's puppet episode was announced in July 2025, Goldsman explained: "There might have been an unexpected and terrible transporter accident which might have had some unexpected felt-like effects." [17]
Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn star in the series as Captain Christopher Pike, science officer Spock, and first officer Una Chin-Riley / Number One, respectively. Also starring are Jess Bush as nurse Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as chief security officer La'An Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as communications officer Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as helmsman Erica Ortegas, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. Joseph M'Benga, [6] and Martin Quinn as engineer Montgomery Scott. [7]
Paul Wesley, who replaced The Original Series star William Shatner as James T. Kirk for the series, said in September 2024 that he would again have a role in the fourth season. [8] After filming began, Adrian Holmes and Dan Jeannotte confirmed that they were reprising their recurring guest roles as Robert April and George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, respectively, in the fourth season. [9] [10]
After completing work on the third season in May 2024, Mount said filming for the fourth season was expected to begin in Canada in early 2025. [18] Filming began on March 3, 2025, [6] at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, [19] under the working title Lily and Isaac. [20] Director Axelle Carolyn was in Toronto by March 18, [3] and began filming the fourth episode on March 31. [21] In the week of May 5, filming took place at the Cotton Factory, an historic industrial complex in Hamilton, Ontario. Filming took place inside the complex and in an alleyway, and made use of two 1930s-style trucks with alien writing on them. [22] Jordan Canning was directing the fifth episode by June 26, and was halfway through the episode on July 7. [4] Canning directed the puppet episode, with puppet work provided by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Canning previously worked with the company on the series Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock (2022–2024). [15] Frequent Star Trek director Jonathan Frakes is also directing an episode. [5] Filming is scheduled to last until August 29. [20]
During a "Star Trek Universe" panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2025, a short teaser was shown which revealed that an episode of the fourth season would portray the crew with puppets. [15] Several commentators suggested that the series was again copying the Buffyverse franchise following the second season's musical episode "Subspace Rhapsody", pointing to Buffy the Vampire Slayer 's musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" (2001) and spin-off series Angel 's puppet episode "Smile Time" (2004). [23] [24] [25] William Hughes at The A. V. Club felt the idea of a puppet episode had lost its impact after several other series had done the concept. [23]
The season is expected to premiere on the streaming service Paramount+ in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Latin America, Australia, South Korea, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. [13] [26] It will run for 10 episodes. [14] The season is not expected to premiere until mid-to-late 2026. [1] The series is released in New Zealand on TVNZ, in India on Voot, [27] and in other European countries on SkyShowtime (a combination of Paramount+ and the streaming service Peacock). [28]