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'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 2 is a classic sci-fi adventure

Eric Deggans

Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Una. Michael Gibson/Paramount hide caption

Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Una.

As the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuts today on Paramount+, one question stands above all others:

Can they do it again?

Because in the show's first season last year, Strange New Worlds helped prove to producers of Paramount+'s new-school Trek series something they should have known from the start — when you're telling stories from a nearly 60-year-old franchise, it makes more sense to embrace that legacy than to shy away from it.

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'star trek: strange new worlds' goes there, boldly.

Fortunately, once the second season gets rolling – the first two episodes aren't quite as impressive as the next four – it's obvious the minds behind Strange New Worlds have gotten the memo. Fans get a wide range of compelling new stories, often in an adventure-of-the-week format, with lots of eye-popping special effects and cool nods to the history of these beloved characters.

New stories with classic characters

For those who aren't Trekkers, Strange New Worlds is set at a time years before James T. Kirk will take over as the Enterprise's captain – allowing the show to retell the origin stories of key figures like Spock, Nyota Uhura and Christine Chapel.

Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock and Majel Barrett as Number One in the original Star Trek pilot. Later, Barrett played Nurse Christine Chapel. CBS via Getty Images hide caption

A few of these characters were actually created for Star Trek 's original pilot in the mid-1960s , which NBC forced creator Gene Roddenberry to significantly rewrite, recast and reshoot. (instead, Roddenberry used the pilot footage to fuel a two-episode Trek story from the first season called "The Menagerie," featuring people who would later be reimagined in Strange New Worlds , like Capt. Christopher Pike and his Number One, now called Una Chin-Riley.)

One moment in Strange New Worlds ' new season, for example, explains that Spock learned to play the Vulcan harp — seen occasionally in the original series — after the ship's doctor recommended playing music to help the half-human, half-Vulcan character better control his emotions.

And there's a cheeky scene where Spock, in temporary command of the Enterprise, needs to come up with a cool catchphrase/command for signaling the crew to accelerate into warp speed. But the words he lands on – "I would like the ship to go. Now." – don't exactly measure up to canonical phrases like "engage" and "make it so."

Second season has a slow start

As fun as much of this storytelling can be, there is the matter of the season's first two episodes, hamstrung by a didactic storyline that wraps up the matter of Una Chin-Riley's arrest by Starfleet.

Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley Michael Gibson/Paramount hide caption

Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley

Chin-Riley, played with steely precision by Rebecca Romijn, was nabbed at the end of last season because Starfleet learned she had been hiding her heritage as an Illyrian – a species which often genetically augments itself, which is an illegal act in the United Federation of Planets.

As her trial progresses, the series offers up a way too on-the-nose allegory to real-life issues like the U.S. military's former "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" anti-LGBTQ policy. Chin-Riley turns down a deal to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced punishment, saying, "I shouldn't have to hide anymore. None of us should. I know I should have done better. I didn't stand up when I should have. I'm standing up now."

Strange New Worlds , like many Trek series, often wears its causes on its sleeve. But even for a TV show whose cast regularly looks like a Benetton ad, this felt a little ham-handed and obvious (though the actress who plays Chin-Riley's Illyrian attorney, Yetide Badaki, drops a powerful performance that is easily the best reason to watch the episode.)

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There are a few other irritating tropes on Strange New Worlds which are common for most Trek projects, like the crewmembers who ignore orders they disagree with, and the leadership's illogical habit of sending the most senior officers on the most dangerous missions. Also, as much as I love Taxi alum Carol Kane, her addition as a screechy-voiced engineering expert with a surprising past veers dangerously — and quickly — from amusing to ridiculous.

But by the time we get to the episodes where Spock is turned into a human (yes, really), live-action versions of characters from the animated series Lower Decks appear and two characters travel back in time, it's obvious: Strange New Worlds is packed with the kind of grand, episodic science fiction adventure that was once the bedrock of great TV.

And its glorious return is most welcome.

Correction June 15, 2023

In a previous version of this story, an incorrectly punctuated sentence implied Nyota and Uhura are two different characters. Nyota Uhura is one character.

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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season Two’s Shocking Finale Cliffhanger

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

This post contains spoilers for Season Two of Star Trek : Strange New Worlds, which is now streaming in its entirety on Paramount+ .

Over the last year, we’ve said goodbye to some all-time television shows, and the void each one leaves can be impossible to fill. But you keep looking, and hoping that something comes along to at least approximate the feeling you got from watching the original. And sometimes, that feeling comes up again in the most unlikely of places. Case in point: the show that has most reminded me of Atlanta since Atlanta ended is… Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ?!?

Hear me out. I promise this makes sense.

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Did Atlanta tend to be more artful and distinct? Of course it did, which is what can happen when you’re a wholly original show led by a strong and singular creative vision. But the sheer joy I have felt this season as I’ve seen what crazy genre shift Strange New Worlds would do this time is the closest I’ve gotten to how it felt when Paper Boi and friends were out having misadventures. If anything, it’s amazing that Strange New Worlds can do this within the confines of a famous franchise whose owners and fans have very specific expectations for what Star Trek should be.

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What’s remarkable, then, isn’t any one particular genre or tone that Strange New Worlds has tackled this season, but that it’s done so many of them in so short a time. A traditional 22+ episode season of Trek would have room for a few comedy outings, some dark introspective crises, epic adventure, etc., but there would also be lots and lots of basic Mission of the Week episodes that felt very much of a piece with one another. Season Two did a couple along those lines, including one where Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike was trapped on a planet that wipes everyone’s memories, and another where Celia Rose Gooding’s Uhura had to stop the Enterprise from torturing a race of aliens only she could hear. Mostly, though, the SNW creative team (led by showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers) opted to take the biggest possible swings as many times as they could this year, and it worked incredibly well.

(*) La’an’s power ballad, “How Would That Feel,” was easily the best of the “Subspace Rhapsody” songs. As with most musical episodes, the other songs (save for maybe the Uhura spotlight “Keep Us Connected”) were mostly functional, memorable less for their sonic craftsmanship than for the context of having non-musical characters singing them. (Case in point: the brief snippet of mortified Klingons doing a K-Pop number.) But “How Would That Feel” has already made it onto one of my playlists. Good stuff.

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The finale, “Hegemony,” not only introduced a young version of miracle-working engineer Montgomery Scott (Martin Quinn, an actual Scottish actor playing Scotty), but went old school back to Nineties Trek by ending on one hell of a cliffhanger. A good chunk of the crew (La’an included) have been taken captive by the Gorn, Pike’s girlfriend Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) has been impregnated with Gorn eggs, whose hatching would kill her, and Starfleet is ordering Pike to back off and let the Gorn keep all that they have just taken. As with the “Mr. Worf… fire” cliffhanger from the classic Next Generation two-parter about the Borg, it’s clear that things will (mostly) work out well when the season returns, but what a rush it was to see To Be Continued on the screen at the end of such a thrilling, scary hour.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season 2, Episode 2

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Watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — Season 2, Episode 2 with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Star trek: strange new worlds.

S1.E1 ∙ Strange New Worlds

S1.E2 ∙ Children of the Comet

S1.E3 ∙ Ghosts of Illyria

S1.E4 ∙ Memento Mori

S1.E5 ∙ Spock Amok

S1.E6 ∙ Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach

S1.E7 ∙ The Serene Squall

S1.E8 ∙ The Elysian Kingdom

S1.E9 ∙ All Those Who Wander

S1.E10 ∙ A Quality of Mercy

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Recap: Strange Visitors From Another Dimension

Star trek: strange new worlds.

“Those Old Scientists” is now available to stream now via Paramount+ after an advance screening at San Diego Comic Con.

First, it’s probably worth taking a moment to appreciate the level of difficulty at work in this episode. That Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome bear more than a passing resemblance to their   Star Trek: Lower Decks  characters certainly helps make their transition from animation to live-action believable. But  Lower Decks  and  Strange New Worlds  are shows with extremely different tones and performance styles. The difference should be so jarring to make any merging of universes impossible.

The solution: “Those Old Scientists” leans into the clash. That Boimler (Quaid) and Mariner (Newsome) don’t fit in on the  Enterprise  is the gag that undergirds the entire episode. They talk too loud. They make, as Una points out,  weirdly  specific references to  Star Trek  lore. Quaid runs like a cartoon character. Newsome even keeps Mariner’s mischievous grin as her character’s default facial expression in this new environment. It’s undoubtedly hard to make all the pieces fit together, but “Those Old Scientists” makes it look pretty effortless.

Anyone who doesn’t know what’s coming might at first think they’ve tuned into the wrong show. The episode’s animated opening is set on the  USS   Cerritos , the underachieving California-class starship the  Lower Decks  characters call home. It also opens in familiar  Lower Decks  fashion, with Boimler nerding out over a mundane assignment for reasons tied to Federation history, and Mariner making fun of him for it as Tendi (Noël Wells) and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) get excited over the mission’s scientific potential. And, also in  Lower Decks  tradition, things quickly start to spin out of control. After Boimler and Tendi disagree as to whether the portal was discovered by the  Enterprise  or Orion scientists (“They weren’t all pirates,” you know, Tendi reminds him) and Boimler expresses a desire to live in the past, the portal activates and grants his wish.

This, naturally, comes as a surprise to the (long-ago, from Boimler’s perspective) members of the  Enterprise  who greet him on the other side. Though they quickly figure out Boimler’s a harmless (and wildly enthusiastic to be among his heroes) traveler from the future, his presence is a real problem. Like any visitor from another time, he could screw up history. And as a student of Federation history with a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge about the  Enterprise  and its crew, he could screw it up in one specific way: by letting them know what’s coming. To prevent this from happening, he’s handed over to La’an, who briefs him on “temporal protocols,” including an admonition not to form any attachments. It’s La’an’s own addition and one she understands all too well.

Then again, history isn’t always right. Mariner knows Uhura for her ability to enjoy life and not be on duty all the time. That doesn’t quite square with the Uhura we know from  TOS  or the   movies (who can relax, but not to the point where it’s her defining trait), and it  really  doesn’t square with the Ensign Uhura of  Strange New Worlds  who works all the time, to the point it worries those around her. Boimler discovers this firsthand when he meets her for himself and gets a brush-off that suggests she’s too busy for his nonsense.

But it’s Boimler’s encounter with Spock that  really  weirds him out. Returning to the portal with Spock and M’Benga, Boimler makes Spock laugh, then barely has time to process this moment before an Orion ship shows up (though it will haunt him later). Are they pirates? Pike assumes they are before Boimler tips him off that  this  Orion vessel might be peaceful. But the line between science and piracy gets a little blurry when they steal the portal and take off, seemingly stranding Boimler in the past forever.

At least he’s making friends. After some ribbing from Chapel and Ortegas, he gets an invitation to join them for movie night, then accidentally lets slip that (a) Pike’s birthday is coming up, and (b) it’s a holiday in his era. A party strikes Chapel and Ortegas as a good idea, even if Boimler worries it could change the future. Then he  really  puts his foot in it. Following Chapel to the turbolift, he expresses his concern that his joke may have broken Spock, whom he knows as an unsmiling, joke-averse historical hero. He goes on to tell her he’s read every book about Spock available to him, and they don’t mention this. And that, Chapel realizes, means they don’t mention her.

The note of melancholy La’an sounds when she warns Boimler about forming attachments sets the stage for other such moments to come. Pike has spent the entire series coping with the knowledge that he’ll meet his end in less than a decade, and nothing Boimler tells him suggests otherwise. But Boimler knows what awaits other characters too, just as we do. As fun as it is to watch their relationship and as much as they seem to be enjoying it, whatever’s going on between Spock and Chapel won’t last without some disruption of the continuity. “I never assumed that I would get to influence him forever,” Chapel says through tears. Sometimes it’s best not to know where you’re going.

After using some future tech to put the  Enterprise  on the trail of the Orions (with the ship’s crew looking the other way lest they learn something they shouldn’t), Boimler urges Pike (and his “really great hair”) to find a peaceful solution. They do, though it means giving up some grain badly needed by some hungry   colonists. And with that, they gain the ability to send Boimler back to his own time. The end.

Or it would be if the attempt didn’t result in Mariner traveling through the portal and joining them. For Mariner, this is no problem at all (especially if she gets to meet Uhura). But for Pike and the others, it means their troubles have doubled. Pike decides to put the new arrivals to work, sending Boimler off with Spock and letting Mariner hang out with (and fan out over) Uhura. But Mariner’s admiration for Uhura and her future accomplishments only stresses Uhura out more. Mariner’s suggestion, perfectly in keeping in character, is to slack off. Joined by Ortegas, they kick back with some improvised Orion Hurricanes, and, in the process, they figure out how to decipher the symbols that surround the portal.

Meanwhile, Boimler discovers that Spock has figured out what’s troubling him, having spoken to an upset Chapel. Even though she didn’t go into details, Spock correctly deduces that it’s his displays of human emotion that trouble Boimler because these moments don’t match up to history. But logic also suggests to Spock that he just needs to roll with it. If he tries to be less human after speaking to Boimler, that itself will alter history. Whatever will end his relationship with Chapel, it’s not this.

One pep talk from Pelia later, Boimler joins Mariner on a shuttle with the intention of reclaiming the grain Pike previously traded away. It’s a short-lived plan, thanks to La’an discovering them before they can take off. Busted, they’re taken to Pike’s quarters, who’s mad but softens when he hears that Boimler once dressed as him for Halloween. (“He had to contour the hell out of the jawline,” Mariner notes.) But what’s really annoying him is the rumor that Boimler has encouraged the crew to throw him a birthday party, not so much because he doesn’t think he has many birthdays left but because this is the year when he outlives the father with whom he had a difficult relationship and, frankly, he’d planned to spend it drinking alone. But ticked off as he was when the conversation began, Pike comes around to Boimler’s way of thinking when the time traveler suggests that if his years are more limited than he’d like, Pike might want to spend some quality time with his friends.

With the mention of Captain Archer’s original  Enterprise , Boimler hits on a plan that will allow them to reactivate the portal using the alloy they need to fire it up again, which can be found on a piece of the older ship encased in the new one. One “Live long and prosper”’ from Spock later, they’re on their way home. Or they would be if there weren’t Orions in the way. Fortunately, they arrive at a compromise by letting the Orion scientists take credit for the discovery. (Tendi was right after all! Sort of.) After stepping through the portal and back into  Lower Decks ’ animated world, they’ve left some of it behind on the  Enterprise . Pike’s party is fueled by genuine Orion Hurricanes, which seem to have the ability to alter reality, temporarily rendering them two-dimensional (and weirding them out as the episode cuts to the credits).

This was a fun one, and fun in the same self-aware-but-not-too-self-aware style of  Deep Space Nine ’s “Trials and Tribble-ations.” And while it’s a lark of an episode, it also takes the ongoing story arcs of several characters quite seriously. Chapel’s moment in the turbolift is heartbreaking, made even more so by the way she steels herself after she absorbs the implications of what Boimler tells her. This is a character who has learned not to expect too much but who’d begun to believe that maybe she’d get what she wants anyway. But mostly it keeps it light, even more in the second half, which plays at times more like a  Lower Decks  episode than  Strange New Worlds . Here’s hoping this becomes a tradition, no matter how tricky it is to pull off.

• The animated credits are a nice, unexpected touch.

• Memorable lines: “But flipping it open’s the best part.” “Funny captain. What’s happening?” “I was thoroughly unprepared for how hot Young Spock was going to be.”

• The running, and developing, gag about Boimler’s reverence for Una and the poster he has pinned up (but which is not a pinup) was fun and touching, and having Ransom (voiced by Rebecca Romijn’s real-life husband, Jerry O’Connell) admire it was the perfect button for it in this self-referential episode.

• Pelia’s quote — “I always pretended to be someone I wanted to be until finally I became that someone, or he became me” — comes from none other than Cary Grant. Now  there’s  a potentially fun time-travel episode.

• “Thanks for going back to the  TOS  era.” It’s a clever title in a couple of ways, isn’t it?

• This episode was written by Kathryn Lyn, who has previously written for both  Strange New Worlds  and  Lower Decks , and Bill Wolkoff, who’s been with  Strange New Worlds  since its first season. In an additional behind-the-scenes crossover, it’s directed by Jonathan Frakes.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3 Review — Kirk Is Back!

A time-traveling two-hander of Strange New Worlds takes us to an alternate past and finally digs into the trauma that comes with La’an’s infamous last name.

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This Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3

Given that one of Star Trek: Strange New World ’s main characters has the last name Noonien-Singh, it was inevitable that the show would have to find ways to address the legacy of La’an’s most famous family membe r and the lingering trauma of growing up in Khan’s shadow has had on her life. We’ve seen hints of this before—her anger when she discovered Una was genetically modified last season, and it came up during her trial last week—but “Tomorrow and Tomorrow Tomorrow” confronts the looming specter of Khan head-on, in more ways than one. 

While this hour sees the return of Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk— once again playing a version of the character who technically doesn’t exist in the show’s primary timeline—this is really a true showcase episode for Christina Chong, who gets the chance to dig into La’an’s deeply complex layers. She’s angry, she’s standoffish, she’s stubborn, afraid, and deeply lonely, convinced that few if any are capable of seeing her as anything other than the sum of her genetic parts. (Not to mention, we already know she’s worried about whether her genetics are her destiny, and she’s somehow irrevocably doomed to become a monster herself.)

“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” sees La’an trapped on an alternate version of the Enterprise after a strange man—who we find out later is from the technically-doesn’t-exist-yet Department of Temporal Investigations—appears and hands her a bizarre device insisting that she has to stop an attack that has taken place in the past. And whatever happened, it altered the timeline enough to essentially erase the Federation, make James Kirk the Captain of the Enterprise, and Spock as a Vulcan commander of his own vessel fighting a war with the Romulans. Sent back by the same device to the mid-21st century, Kirk and La’an will have to figure out what happened to make the timeline change. Said investigation will involve everything from trips to what appears to be a Canadian version of the Gap to tracking down the Pelia that lives in this timeline (and still steals famous antiquities), all while the pair grow closer along the way.

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As someone whose been fairly wary of Strange New Worlds ’ decision to introduce a younger version of Kirk, I’ll admit to being pleasantly surprised by Wesley. Admittedly, I was firmly Team Stefan during the actor’s time on The Vampire Diaries , so I’m already predisposed to like the guy, but I’ll also go to my grave insisting this show doesn’t need any version of Kirk to succeed. So it’s something fairly close to a miracle that the two episodes he’s appeared in thus far have actually been some of the series’ best. Strange New Worlds, smartly, has used alternate timelines to not only ease us as viewers into the idea of this character but to also give Wesley lots of space to find his own footing and make the role more than a remix of what Chris Pine or William Shatner have done before. 

It’s been a nice surprise, particularly in all the ways that Wesley’s Kirk just feels so darn young —lighthearted and playful in a way we don’t get to see in Pine or Shatner’s version. From his gleeful embrace of street hot dogs and real showers to his skill at hustling chess players in a park, this is a Kirk who hasn’t yet been weighed down by his own choices, a man who still believes in the promise of a better world so strongly he’s willing to die to bring it about, who chooses to follow La’an’s admittedly insane plan not for himself but for the possibility of bringing back the brother he lost. I like this Kirk, dangit, even though I didn’t at all intend to.

Plus, Wesley and Chong also have adorable chemistry with one another. Call me a sucker but I kind of love the idea of Kirk maybe kind of having a romantic flirtation with a woman descended from the man who will become his greatest adversary. (Thanks, cryostasis, I guess!) But, more importantly, this episode is also the first time we’ve ever really gotten to see La’an relax in this way—she always carries a certain tension around her, whether she’s doing routine aspects of her job or throwing back bloodwine with Klingons, as though she’s inevitably waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Here, despite the whole “trying to solve a mystery that could irrevocably alter the timeline of her life as she knows it” thing, she seems looser, freer, and like she might actually be enjoying herself. And, of course, it’s nice to see her finally being judged for herself alone, without any of the trauma of her last name attached. When is the last time that happened to her? Maybe never? 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3 Easter Eggs Just Changed Khan Canon

Strange New Worlds: Illyrians Call Back to One of Star Trek’s Darkest Moments

Of course, like any good story, that’s exactly why La’an must ultimately accept that she, too, is also part of Khan’s legacy , for both good and ill. (And, for the record: “His legacy is genocide, torture…and me ” is a hell of a line!) But that doesn’t mean she is destined to become him. She has the freedom to make different choices, which is why she ultimately decides to save the life of the young boy who will grow up to cause her (and humanity) so much pain. When given the opportunity, she makes a better choice, one that you could argue in many ways goes against her own self-interest and morals—after all, she kills someone to protect a mass murderer!—and is almost certainly not the same one her infamous ancestor would have made in a similar position. She proves to herself that she is, at heart, who she chooses to be.

Like any episode based on time travel and potential alternate realities, your mileage can and will vary when it comes to how closely you’re willing to look at the specifics of the world this episode creates and the various plot holes that may or may not come along with it. When, exactly, do the Eugenics Wars happen in this timeline? How does Kirk know what a Romulan ship looks like in a world where “Balance of Terror” presumably hasn’t happened yet? How is adorable preteen Khan still a kid? And how much of anything we saw really happened after reality reverts back to baseline? The lingering final shot on the watch La’an brought back with her hints that we may not actually be going to gloss over all the weird aftereffects of her trip into an alternate past, but what it will ultimately mean for La’an, Kirk, or the primary timeline is anyone’s guess. 

But “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is ultimately a throwback to so many of Star Trek ’s best episodes, a bittersweet, thoughtful hour that explores roads not taken and whose lasting impacts are primarily internal and emotional ones that will reverberate throughout stories to come. Truly, is there anything Strange New Worlds can’t do? The answer seems doubtful indeed.

Lacy Baugher

Lacy Baugher is a digital producer by day, but a television enthusiast pretty much all the time. Her writing has been featured in Paste Magazine, Collider,…

Anson Mount Just Beamed Up a Huge ‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Update

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The Big Picture

• Anson Mount reveals that filming for the fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is slated to begin in Spring 2025.
• The third season was delayed due to last year's strikes, but recently wrapped, promising an answer to the Season 2 cliffhanger.
• Season 3 will feature an episode directed by Jonathan Frakes, which the Star Trek legend noted as "the best episode of television" he's ever made.

Star Trek fans are still waiting for the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , but the wait for season four will be shorter. In a new Instagram post, series star Anson Mount reports that he'll be returning to the Star Trek Stage to film the fourth season in the Spring of 2025. The series was renewed for a fourth season earlier this year. In the post, Mount praises Canada's hospitality — both Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Discovery , which debuted Mount's Captain Christopher Pike in its second season, were filmed there, as was Mount's AMC Western series, Hell on Wheels . He also dropped a crumb of information for Strange New Worlds fans eagerly awaiting the return of the series:

"We’ll see you again in the spring when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds goes back into production for Season 4!"

Last year's dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes delayed production on the show's third season; the second season ended on a cliffhanger last August, and the third season, which recently wrapped filming , isn't expected to air on Paramount+ until 2025. The prompt resumption of production, barring further disruptions, bodes well for a shorter wait next time.

What's Going To Happen in Season 3 of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'?

As season two of Strange New Worlds ended on a massive cliffhanger , with the Enterprise under attack from a fleet of hostile reptilian Gorn aliens, and Pike's on-and-off love interest Marie Batel ( Melanie Scrofano ) fatally infected with Gorn embryos, the season will presumably open by resolving it, for better or worse. Regulars Spock ( Ethan Peck ), Christine Chapel ( Jess Bush ), Una Chin-Riley ( Rebecca Romijn ), Nyota Uhura ( Celia Rose Gooding ), Joseph M'Benga ( Babs Olusanmokun ), La'an Noonien Singh ( Christina Chong ), and Erica Ortegas ( Melissa Navia ) will return.

Additionally, Martin Quinn , who debuted as the classic Star Trek character Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the Season 2 finale, will return for the third season, possibly becoming a crew member on the Enterprise , as he was in the original Star Trek series. The season will also feature at least one episode directed by Jonathan Frakes , a Star Trek legend both in front of and behind the camera; Frakes described the episode as a murder mystery, and calls it "the best episode of television I’ve ever done."

Spinning out of Star Trek: Discovery and greeted with acclaim upon its release in 2022, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise in the years before James T. Kirk took command of it. The series features a more episodic narrative than other contemporary Star Trek series, like Discovery and Star Trek: Picard , hearkening back to the early days of the franchise.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' fourth season will begin production in the spring of next year; the third season recently wrapped filming. Star tuned to Collider for future updates and check out the series on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike (played by Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds throughout the galaxy in the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series.

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First Look | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 2

Paramount+ today unveiled during the global live-streamed Star Trek Day celebration a first look clip of Season 2 of its hit original series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds !

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In addition, the series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.