Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 will have more “classic” style episodes and fewer “big swings” than season 3. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 premieres on Thursday, July 23, on Paramount+, and it will be the last season that consists of 10 episodes.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s trailer spotlighted voyages to new planets and encounters with fresh alien species, in contrast to season 3’s deep dive into a variety of genres that proved to be divisive among Star Trek fans. However, Strange New Worlds season 4 will still have “big swings,” like the already controversial puppet episode.
TrekMovie spoke to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds writer and co-executive producer Bill Wolkoff at the Hollywood Climate Summit, where he spoke at a panel with Lt. Erica Ortegas actor Melissa Navia. Wolkoff, who co-wrote Strange New Worlds season 2’s popular crossover episode “Those Old Scientists” and musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody,” explained how season 4 will “open up whole new doors” for the USS Enterprise’s crew while “paying off some stuff” from season 1.
Wolkoff also explained that Strange New Worlds season 4 will have “more of what you would call more classic Star Trek episodes” and fewer “big swings” like the aforementioned puppet episode. Read Bill’s quotes below:
Bill Wolkoff: “In season 4 we opened up new areas in the characters’ histories that we hadn’t explored yet, because — especially specifically in Pike’s story, there are certain parts of his story that we kind of put to bed with season 3. So we got to open up whole new doors. We’re paying off some stuff that we did set up early in season 1 that we hadn’t been able to pay off, that we haven’t just from the virtue of having only ten episodes each season. And every season we look at our world today, and we look at the kinds of stories we want to tell, and we try to see what stories we want to tell about our world today through genre that are, at heart, Star Trek stories. It’s merging those three things. So season 4 reflects our world today in a different way than season 3.”
TrekMovie: One thing we aren’t hearing as much is the term “big swings.” Would you say seasons 4 and 5 are more grounded, maybe more Star Trek?
Bill Wolkoff: “I think we do have more of what you would call more classic Star Trek episodes. It’s still our show, and we still do the things that our show does. I mean, you know there’s a puppet episode coming. I would call that a big swing. Is every episode a puppet episode? Of course not. And there are probably more classic episodes mixed in. And for every “big swing” — that is a term that gets bandied about, but we want every single episode to be a Star Trek episode, even if it is a big swing. But to answer your question, there are perhaps less of what you know we would have called those in previous seasons.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fifth and final season was written while season 3 was airing. Bill Wolkoff discusses how the divisive reception and criticism of Strange New Worlds season 3 affected the writing of season 5. Read Bill’s quotes below:
TrekMovie: And for season 5, how do you feel it sort of lands the plane and wraps things up?
Bill Wolkoff: “I’ll just say this, because it is so far away from actually coming out. I cried at every story break because of what we were able to pull off in every single story break. It’s a gift to be able to have the time to end a series properly. And we had that gift.”
TrekMovie: Did you guys learn anything from the reaction of season 3 that reflected in how you went about it, or did you try to just ignore that and just do the work?
Bill Wolkoff: “It’s a balancing act. That was the first time we had the advantage of seeing a season come out while we were writing a season. Does some of that come back into the writer’s room? Of course. We’re human beings, we aren’t sequestered from the internet. But we never want it to dictate what we’re doing. We’re artists, and we listen to what the audience is saying and absorbing that. And sometimes you learn lessons from that. Sometimes you grow from that.”
TrekMovie: Was there anything from the reaction to season 3 that you took to heart? Any critique you might think, “That’s a valid point?”
Bill Wolkoff: “There were some episodes that got criticized. And that criticism is very real for everybody. I can only speak for me when I say I do read the criticism, and I think about what that means for what my part telling that story was. And I stand behind all of it, because every episode that we did, we got there for a reason, and we operate as a team. It’s the beauty of the show is that we’re a crew, just like the bridge crew of the Enterprise. So we have each other’s backs. But yeah, there were some criticisms in season 3 that I took to heart.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is in a unique position. It is following the less-than-stellar reception season 3 received while also setting the table for Strange New Worlds‘ final 6 episodes in season 5. Further, Strange New Worlds season 4 will be the last new Star Trek TV episodes on Paramount+ for the rest of 2026.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is burdened with the expectations of not only improving upon season 3, but also creating excitement among fans. After all, 2026 marks Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary, but rather than a celebration, it has been a disappointing year so far with the cancellation of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and fans’ overall concern about the future of Star Trek.
Delivering on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s promise of more episodic adventures and focus on the Starship Enterprise’s beloved characters would be a winning formula. Encouragingly, executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers, as well as stars like Rebecca Romijn and Celia Rose Gooding have touted season 4 as their best season yet.
Bill Wolkoff’s hint that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 will follow up on threads from season 1 is also compelling. One of the open questions involves Lieutenant Spock’s (Ethan Peck) renegade brother, Sybok. Perhaps Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 will finally provide answers to the Vulcan heretic’s fate. Fans will know for sure when the Starship Enterprise returns on July 23rd.
- Release Date
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2022 – 2027-00-00
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman
- Directors
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Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman
- Writers
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Onitra Johnson