Now that CBS All Access has morphed into Paramount+, it’s starting to (FINALLY!) diversify and increase its output of original programming, but before now, this was the house that Star Trek built. The streaming service already offers Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Short Treks, and the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks. Not every one of these is for every Trekkie, but hopefully, fans can find something that they like among these offerings.
If not, maybe you’ll like this next one! Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows the exploits of the original crew of the USS Enterprise, headed by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), and Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck). This crew predated the Kirk squad.
Mount, Romijn, and Peck originated these roles on Discovery Season 2. Discovery was the first Trek series to break from the format of stand-alone episodes. Instead, it reflects the vast majority of modern shows with a serialized format with entire seasons devoted to one storyline. The change did not go over well with all fans.
But Strange New Worlds will be a throwback of sorts with stand-alone episodes that will shift in tone from one to the other. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman explained how this new series will be distinct:
“It’s unlike the other shows in that it’s really episodic. If you think back to The Original Series, it was a tonally more liberal — I don’t mean in terms of politics, but it could sort of be more fluid. Like sometimes Robert Bloch would write a horror episode. Or Harlan Ellison would have “City on the Edge of Forever,” which is hard sci-fi. Then there would be comedic episodes, like “Shore Leave” or “The Trouble With Tribbles.” So [co-showrunner] Henry Alonso Myers and myself are trying to serve that. We’ve all become very enamored, myself included, with serialized storytelling. And I’m talking to you from behind the stage where we’re shooting Picard, which is deeply serialized. But Strange New Worlds is very much adventure-of-the-week but with serialized character arcs.”
The introductions of Spock, Pike, and Number One on Discovery went over extremely well with fans, leading to them returning in episodes of Short Treks. But fans really clamored for them to get their own ongoing series. Now it’s coming!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds began filming in February and is expected to shoot until July. No release date has been announced.
