Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is an American science fiction television series created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet for the streaming service Paramount+. It is the 11th Star Trek series and debuted in 2022 as part of Kurtzman's expanded Star Trek Universe. A spin-off from the series Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024), it follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century during the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969).
Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn respectively star as Pike, Spock, and Number One, all characters from The Original Series. They were initially cast for the second season of Discovery (2019) and, after positive fan responses, Kurtzman expressed interest in bringing them back for a spin-off. Development began by March 2020 and Strange New Worlds was officially ordered in May. The lead cast and creative team were confirmed, with Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers as showrunners. Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun, Bruce Horak, and Martin Quinn also star. Some of those actors play younger versions of Original Series characters. The series is produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Weed Road Pictures, H M R X Productions, and Roddenberry Entertainment. Filming took place at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario. The showrunners chose to return to the episodic storytelling of The Original Series rather than Discovery more serialized approach.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered on Paramount+ on May 5, 2022, and its ten-episode first season was released weekly until July. A second season was released from June to August 2023, a third season was released from July to September 2025, and a fourth season was released from July to September 2026. A fifth and final season, with a shorter six-episode order, is in production. The series is estimated to have high viewership and audience demand. It received positive reviews for its episodic storytelling and cast, and several accolades including two Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nominations and two Saturn Award wins.
Premise Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds and carry out missions throughout the galaxy during the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). It has a contemporary take on The Original Series episodic storytelling and 1960s designs, and is the first Star Trek series since Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) to feature the franchise's opening narration during its main credits: Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Episodes
Season 1 (2022)
Season 2 (2023)
Season 3 (2025)
Season 4 (2026)
Season 5
Cast and characters
Anson Mount as Christopher Pike:The captain of the USS Enterprise, who knows that he will suffer a horrible fate. Pike was first portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter in The Original Series as a "gruff, authoritative commander" whom Mount described as "first act Pike... a very young man [who is] very self-involved". In contrast, Mount's "second act Pike" is confident, collaborative, and empathetic. Co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman believed that a "more thoughtful and contemporary approach" was required to avoid the toxic masculinity of some previous Star Trek captains, and Mount said his Pike represented "true masculinity". Inspired by Mount's own leadership style, Pike's quarters include a kitchen where he convenes the crew, cooks for them, and builds consensus. Pike's hairstyle was widely commented on, drawing comparisons to Elvis Presley and the title character of the animated series Johnny Bravo (1997–2004), spawning Internet memes and its own fan-run Twitter account, and being called "the best hair quiff on television". Mount enjoyed this and attributed the style to "hair guru" Daniel Losco. Ethan Peck as Spock:A half-Vulcan, half-human science officer aboard the Enterprise. The series takes the opportunity to explore Spock's human emotions before he becomes the more "computer-like" version portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in The Original Series. Peck said he was "constantly checking in" with Nimoy's portrayal, and scenes exploring Spock's emotions were "a constant source of anxiety" for him to get right. Strange New Worlds expands on the complicated relationship between Spock and his fiancée, T'Pring; co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers acknowledged that they interpreted The Original Series differently from what fans had previously done to expand on T'Pring's role in this stage of Spock's life. The series also explores a romance between Spock and Christine Chapel, who Peck said was one of Spock's "great teachers about his humanness". Jess Bush as Christine Chapel:A nurse on the Enterprise. Myers felt the character's portrayal in The Original Series came from a "very different conception of women and of marriage and what people would do in their jobs" that modern audiences would not expect, and sought to tell new stories inspired by Bush's strengths. Bush said the character had a "distinct essence" but also felt there was room to explore her youth and backstory; the actress focused on the character's "dry and sarcastic" personality and developed that into a sense of humor. She said Chapel first sees Spock as a "science subject" and is caught off guard when their relationship develops. Christina Chong as La'An Noonien-Singh:The Enterprise newly assigned chief of security, whose family was murdered by the lizard-like Gorn when she was a child. Chong described the character as guarded and struggling with survivor's guilt but noted that she opens up as the series goes on and the crew of the Enterprise becomes her new family. Serving as security chief allows her to protect that family. La'An is also a descendant of Ricardo Montalbán's Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh, and has been discriminated against because of this. Chong related to this aspect of the character because she was bullied as a child for her ethnicity. Ava Cheung plays young La'An. Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura:A cadet on the Enterprise specializing in linguistics. Despite the character's important role throughout the Star Trek franchise, the writers felt that there was a lot still unknown about her that could be explored beyond her just being a Starfleet officer. As one of her first television acting roles, Gooding related to Uhura's experiences in the series as a cadet who is learning about the Enterprise. The actress chose to keep her own natural hair rather than wear a wig to match previous Uhura actresses Nichelle Nichols and Zoe Saldaña because she felt they both represented the "black femininity" of their times and she could, too, with a modern look. Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas:The Enterprise helmsman, who Navia described as a "highly skilled pilot [and] a veteran... she can handle a gun and also crack a joke". The actress compared Ortegas to Jonathan Frakes's Next Generation character William Riker, one of her favorite Star Trek characters. Navia worked with John Van Citters—the vice president of Star Trek brand management at CBS Studios—and the series' motion graphics team, who create the display for Ortegas's on-set control panel, to understand how to fly the Enterprise accurately. Ortegas's surname is a reference to the original Star Trek pitch which included a navigator named Jose Ortegas. Babs Olusanmokun as Joseph M'Benga:The Enterprise chief medical officer, who is secretly trying to cure his daughter, Rukiya, of a rare disease. When Goldsman first discussed the character with Olusanmokun he said, "[M'Benga] was a man of war, and he's now a healer." Olusanmokun appreciated that description and chances to explore M'Benga's backstory as it is revealed. The actor felt he was "crafting something anew" with his portrayal since M'Benga only appears in two episodes of The Original Series. The character was not given a first name in that series, but was referred to as Joseph in the script for the unproduced episode "Shol". Posters at the 2022 Star Trek: Mission Chicago convention referred to him as "Jabilo", a name used in some non-canon novels, but the producers soon stated that this was incorrect and the name Joseph was eventually used in Strange New Worlds. Bruce Horak as Hemmer:The Enterprise chief engineer, Hemmer, is an Aenar, an albino subspecies of Andorians who are generally depicted as blind; Horak is blind in one eye with limited sight in the other, and the first legally blind regular actor in a Star Trek series. The writers always intended for Hemmer to die in the first season as a way to increase the series' stakes, since most of the main characters are still alive in The Original Series. Horak was told about this when he was first cast and hoped to build the character into a "fan favorite". He compared the role to the Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi, serving as a mentor to the young Uhura. Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley / Number One:The first officer of the Enterprise and second-in-command to Pike. The character was only referred to as "Number One" in The Original Series but was given the name Una Chin-Riley in non-canon Star Trek novels. Strange New Worlds brings this name into official canon. The series confirms that Number One is an Illyrian, which Original Series writer D.C. Fontana established in the novel Vulcan's Glory (1989), and reveals that Illyrians genetically modify themselves. This explains why Number One appears human while the Illyrians seen in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Damage" (2004) do not, and also aligns with the description of Illyrians practicing "selective breeding" in Greg Cox's novel Child of Two Worlds (2015). The Strange New Worlds writers believed it would be interesting for Number One to be at odds with Starfleet's anti-genetic alteration laws. Martin Quinn as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott:An engineer who joins the Enterprise. Quinn said the character was "not quite the miracle worker" he is known as in The Original Series and has a lot of learning to do before he reaches that point. Following the controversial Scottish accents used for the character by Canadian actor James Doohan in The Original Series and English actor Simon Pegg in several Star Trek films, the showrunners wanted to cast an actual Scottish actor and looked at 30 to 50 different actors before Quinn was hired. He chose not to do an impression of Doohan, and worked with the writers to make the character more authentically Scottish.
Production
Background