The second 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 was 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, and Babs Olusanmokun. Many of the regular actors and several guest stars portray younger versions of characters from The Original Series. A second season of Strange New Worlds was confirmed in January 2022, prior to the release of the first season. Filming took place at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, from February to July 2022. The showrunners continued the series' episodic storytelling approach, giving each episode a different genre and tone. This includes "Those Old Scientists", a crossover with the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–2024); and "Subspace Rhapsody", the franchise's first musical episode which features original songs by Tom Polce and Kay Hanley.
The season premiered on the streaming service Paramount+ on June 15, 2023, and ran for 10 episodes until August 10. It was estimated to have high viewership and audience demand, and was met with critical acclaim for its "genre-bending" episodes. The season received several accolades, including a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nomination, Hugo Award nominations for "Those Old Scientists" and "Subspace Rhapsody", and a Saturn Award win. A third season was announced in March 2023. __TOC__
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main Anson Mount as Christopher Pike Ethan Peck as Spock Jess Bush as Christine Chapel Christina Chong as La'An Noonien-Singh Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas Babs Olusanmokun as Joseph M'Benga Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley / Number One
Recurring Adrian Holmes as Robert April Carol Kane as Pelia Melanie Scrofano as Marie Batel Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk Dan Jeannotte as George Samuel "Sam" Kirk Bruce Horak as Hemmer and Garkog
Notable guests
Mia Kirshner as Amanda Grayson Gia Sandhu as T'Pring Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner Jack Quaid as Brad Boimler Noël Wells as the voice of D'Vana Tendi Eugene Cordero as the voice of Sam Rutherford Jerry O'Connell as the voice of Jack Ransom Clint Howard as Buck Martinez Martin Quinn as Montgomery Scott
Production Development After beginning development on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a spin-off from the series Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024), executive producer Alex Kurtzman said he wanted it to be an ongoing series rather than a miniseries, and said it could explore the seven years between Discovery second season (2019) and the accident that seriously injures Christopher Pike in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). In November 2021, a second season of Strange New Worlds was reported to be starting production in February 2022. Frequent Star Trek director Jonathan Frakes confirmed the season order a month later, before Paramount+ officially announced it in January 2022. The first episode is dedicated to Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed the character Nyota Uhura in The Original Series and other Star Trek media, following her death in July 2022.
Writing
Work on the second season began before the release of the first in May 2022. The first season was structured with standalone episodes and season-long character arcs, which was a departure from the more serialized style of Discovery. Unsure how the new style would be received by fans, showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman chose to commit to it. Myers said the second season would "go for broke" in differentiating its episodes with unique genres, and Goldsman added that it would have some "creative stretches" and "big swings" that had not been seen in the franchise before. The season includes the romantic time travel tragedy "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"; the comedic "Charades"; "Those Old Scientists", a crossover with the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–2024); the dark and morally complex war story "Under the Cloak of War"; and the franchise's first full musical episode, "Subspace Rhapsody". Kurtzman first discussed a potential musical episode for the Star Trek franchise in July 2020, and he first said there was potential for the different Star Trek series to crossover in December 2021. The season's writers' room included Dana Horgan, David Reed, Kirsten Beyer, Davy Perez, Kathryn Lyn, Onitra Johnson, and Bill Wolkoff.
Myers said the second season would follow-up on the "serialized threads" left by the first season, including the arrest of Number One for being a genetically modified Illyrian, the death of chief engineer Hemmer, and La'An Noonien-Singh taking a leave of absence from the . The writers also developed new character arcs for the season, including relationships between Spock and Christine Chapel, Pike and Marie Batel, and La'An and James T. Kirk. These all culminate in the ninth episode, "Subpsace Rhapsody", which was determined before the writers decided that it would be a musical. Because Pike star Anson Mount expected to have a child around the start of filming, the first episode, "The Broken Circle", was written to focus on the rest of the cast. The explanation for Pike's absence is that he goes to recruit a defense counsel for Number One. This storyline continues in the second episode, "Ad Astra per Aspera", which features Number One's trial, continuing a Star Trek tradition of courtroom-focused episodes. Myers said he and Goldsman did not know how they would resolve the Number One story when they added it as a cliffhanger in the first-season finale, and they were glad when the writers came up with a "straight-down-the-middle classic Trek episode" to address it.
On the series' approach to Star Trek canon, Myers said they were focused on creating interesting characters for the actors to perform and the audience to watch rather than referencing previous media. Goldsman said knowing the end point of the characters' stories in previous projects allowed the writers to come up with new and interesting ways to get there which they might otherwise have not thought of. The episode "Lost in Translation" depicts the first canonical meetings between James Kirk, the Enterprise captain from The Original Series, and key characters such as Pike, Spock, and Uhura. In The Original Series, Kirk says he met Pike when the latter was promoted to Fleet Captain; the episode depicts Pike being temporarily promoted to that rank, allowing the season to align with The Original Series while moving the first meeting between Pike and Kirk to be earlier in the timeline than had previously been presumed. After the first season referenced the Eugenics Wars as taking place in the mid-21st century rather than the 1990s, which had been established in The Original Series, the second-season episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" explains that those events have shifted in the timeline due to interference from time travelers during the Temporal Cold War in Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). Goldsman said the real-world reasoning for this was so modern audiences could still believe that the franchise takes place in the future.
The writers wanted to revisit the recurring threat of the Gorn, a lizard-like alien species introduced in The Original Series that were reimagined for modern audiences in the first season. They wanted to depict adult Gorn, which they avoided doing in the first season, and the time needed to complete the design work for this led to the species being saved for one of the later episodes. They ultimately appear in the second-season finale, which ends on a surprise cliffhanger ending inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" (1990). Myers admitted that this was a risky decision considering a third season was not yet confirmed.
Casting 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 Ensign Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as helmsman Erica Ortegas, and Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. Joseph M'Benga.
In March 2022, Paul Wesley was revealed to have been cast for the season as James Kirk, who was portrayed in The Original Series by William Shatner. Wesley's casting was announced before the premiere of the first season, after he was spotted filming for the second season on location in Toronto. Myers cautioned fans about making assumptions regarding Kirk's involvement in the series since the science fiction genre allowed them to introduce the character in various ways. He added that they did not want to "leave a story on the table" and decided to explore a young Kirk in this time period after already exploring other The Original Series characters such as Spock, Uhura, and Chapel. Following multiple unsuccessful auditions with other actors, Myers and Goldsman approached Wesley and hired him after just having a conversation. The actor made a surprise first appearance as Kirk during the first-season finale where he played an alternate version from a potential future that Pike visits. He played a different alternate version of the character in the second-season episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow", one from a dark timeline who has never been to Earth. Wesley did not want to imitate Shatner for his performances, but said his portrayal of a younger Kirk in the second season would be closer to Shatner's than his portrayal of the alternate versions. Coincidentally, Wesley was once neighbors with Shatner, and the pair happened to share a plane ride around the time Wesley's casting was announced; Shatner gave Wesley his blessing. The second season explores the relationship between James Kirk and his brother George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, played by returning guest star Dan Jeannotte.