Season 4 of Strange New Worlds will ‘go for broke’
Jan Thijs/Paramount+
In many ways, season 3 of “Strange New Worlds” felt like its most ambitious yet; so, naturally, the entire creative team wanted to up the ante even more. That’s not to say they were handing out specifics on what they have up their sleeves, mind you. In fact, main actors Ethan Peck, Celia Rose Gooding, Martin Quinn, and Melissa Navia had practically only just stepped off the plane after flying straight from the set of season 5, which contributed to a bit of whiplash among the cast over attending a promotional event for the already-completed fourth season. (In one funny bit, producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers seemed like their wires were slightly crossed with keeping seasons 3, 4, and 5 straight. A back-and-forth refresher followed, with the pair finally landing on the fact that season 3 ended with the Vezda storyline wrapping up dramatically.)
But of the details they could remember (and were actually willing to share), one in particular keyed in on their overall approach to season 4. According to Goldsman, “We wanted to go for broke. We really wanted to not leave anything behind us, but rather saying: Go in every day like this is the last time you’re going to get to do it. If it is, what is it you want to do? Let’s do those.” Peck chimed in with some vague teases about further building the bond between Spock and Paul Wesley’s James T. Kirk, fleshing out these “experimental years” for the pointy-eared Vulcan.
There’s plenty more exploration to come with the next batch of episodes, though no release date has yet been announced. You can check out the first officially-released clip of season 4 here:
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Celia Rose Gooding personally pitched Uhura’s romance arc in Strange New Worlds season 3
Jan Thijs/Paramount+
For a franchise that has always seemed to exist in past, present, and future, it was only fitting that part of the panel focused on looking back at season 3 of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” before shifting focus to season 4. While taking a well-deserved victory lap on the episodes that completed streaming this past September, star Celia Rose Gooding was asked about exploring a whole new side of the pre-established character Uhura. One significant subplot focused on her romantic arc with the younger brother of Lieutenant Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), Mynor Luken’s Beto Ortegas. As it turns out, this was a storyline that Gooding specifically requested from the writers. As she explained:
“Uhura is affectionately known as the heart of the Enterprise or the voice of the Enterprise, and I think it was really important to me after the first couple of seasons that we had where she was dealing with a lot of grief and security and a real lack of foundation that she felt for herself […] I really wanted to show off a more recognizable side of herself, which is her heart, her curiosity, her playfulness, her flirtation. Nichelle Nichols was such a freakin’ fox, and that’s so important for fans to see — pieces and flecks of the version of herself that she will then grow into in the ‘Strange New Worlds’ Uhura, in my Uhura.”
Of course, this romance comes with the knowledge that Uhura remains on the USS Enterprise once Captain Kirk takes over command in the years ahead, and “The Original Series” obviously didn’t feature Beto as a love interest. However, Gooding embraced this. “The perks of playing a legacy character is that we know who she will grow into,” she said. “But the funny thing that we get to do, as the person who plays her and the people who built her, we get to decide how she gets there.” Expect season 4 to dive into this dynamic even further.
Starfleet Academy will pick up where Discovery left off
John Medland/Paramount+
As for the future of “Star Trek,” well, it doesn’t get much more futuristic than the 32nd Century, almost a millennia after the events of “Strange New Worlds.” How’s that for a new frontier? But while much still remains unexpected and unfamiliar, from the cast to the setting to the story’s main villain (Paul Giamatti), there will at least be a few friendly faces to keep us from floating away in zero-g. Spearheaded by co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau, the upcoming series focuses on a group of cadets — the first class, in fact, to see if they have what it takes to join Starfleet in the wake of the events of the final season of “Discovery.” According to Landau, “It takes place picking up where ‘Discovery’ left off, and they’re reopening Starfleet Academy. You’ll see some familiar faces because of that.” Kurtzman went on to describe how the new cast provide a different flavor of “Trek” than we’ve seen in any show before:
“I think what we love about this show is that, on any other ‘Star Trek’ show, you meet the bridge crew and they’re fully-formed human beings and they’ve chosen what they want to do with their lives. And these are characters who are really still figuring out who they are and what they want to do. It’s a very interesting way to tell a new kind of a ‘Star Trek’ story that feels both really new and fresh, but also very, very familiar.”
Based on the new trailer screened for attendees and subsequently released online, the creative team accomplished all this and more.
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Meet the new characters of Starfleet Academy
Brooke Palmer/Paramount+
“Starfleet Academy” has the makings of a true ensemble, telling an expansive story with a full cast of characters to help flesh out the world of the show. The big names involved are limited to Holly Hunter as Captain/Chancellor Nahla Ake, a character apparently over 400 years old, and Paul Giamatti as the half-Klingon, half-Tellarite antagonist Nus Braka. Of course, “Discovery” fans can look forward to the returns of characters such as Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), while “Voyager” fans will be able to enjoy the long-awaited return of Robert Picardo as the stubborn hologram Doctor. But what about the main stars of the show?
The various cadets we’ll end up following will give this series a more youthful and energetic feel to it, primarily through the lens of main character Caleb Mir. Played by Sandro Rosta, this recruit actually wants nothing to do with Starfleet at all. As a child, he apparently had a run-in with both Nahla Ake and Nus Braka that left him scarred. Left on his own for 15 years before Nahla was able to track him down and bring him to Starfleet, this kicks off a journey of vengeance and (hopefully) a learning curve to live by Starfleet’s ideals. He’ll be flanked by several cadets from all sorts of walks of life: George Hawkins as Darem Reymi, the wild card of the group who looks at his classmates as tools to be used in his journey to the top; Karim Diané as a Klingon cadet named Jay-Den Kraag; and Kerrice Brooks’ S.A.M. (Series Acclimation Mil), described as “a newborn hologram and the first of her kind to enroll in Starfleet.”
Oh, and we’d be remiss to mention a special casting announced at the tail-end of the panel: none other than Stephen Colbert as the voice of a digital Dean of Students.
Starfleet Academy features a new setting never seen in Trek before
John Medland/Paramount+
Those paying close attention to the footage we’ve seen from “Starfleet Academy” may have noticed a certain curious detail. While ostensibly set in a single academy, the action seems to frequently take the characters to all corners of the galaxy. The premise of a new show about Starfleet cadets learning the ropes can’t help but bring to mind something like “Deep Space 9,” the first show in the franchise that (controversially) decided to set the main story in a space station rather than a starship. But, at the same time, this series seems to have all the same sequences we’d expect from any other series, taking our heroes to the stars time and again. So what gives?
As it turns out, “Starfleet Academy” is taking the best of both worlds. Alex Kurtzman explained the unprecedented decision to, essentially, turn the school into the ship:
“When you think of a ‘Star Trek’ show, you think of a crew that goes to space. And I think part of the question that many people wrestled with long before our tenure on ‘Star Trek’ is, ‘How do you do a show that’s just in a classroom the whole time?’ And so, we thought, well, if you make the ship a teaching hospital where you have to go out in the field and learn in the field and you dock with San Francisco, you get the best of both worlds. So, the ship is actually part of the Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, which then gets deployed out into space for individual missions.”
“Starfleet Academy” streams on Paramount+ January 15, 2026.
