Skip to main content

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds trailer embraces the unknown

The opening credits of the original Star Trek promised a journey that would “explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” However, there are only so many times that we can see Klingons, Vulcans, or Romulans before they just aren’t “new” anymore. Later this year, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is rolling back the clock to the earliest days of the Enterprise. And from here, the sky is the limit in terms of races and worlds we’ve never seen before.

Only hardcore Trekkies remember that Captain Kirk and his crew weren’t the original main characters of Star Trek. A single pilot episode, “The Cage,” was produced with Captain Pike, Number One, and a young Spock. Pike and Number One would have remained in obscurity if they hadn’t resurfaced in Star Trek: Discovery season 2. They, along with Spock, will be back for Strange New Worlds. In the first teaser trailer, Pike rediscovers his sense of purpose.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | Teaser Trailer | Paramount+

Anson Mount is reprising his role of Christopher Pike from Discovery season 2 alongside Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley/Number One, and Ethan Peck as Spock. Surprisingly, two of the characters from Kirk’s Enterprise will also have roles in the series. Celia Rose Gooding will portray Nyota Uhura, while Jess Bush steps into the part of nurse Christine Chapel.

The new characters on the ship include Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), and Hemmer (Bruce Horak). Christina Chong is set to play La’an Noonien-Singh, a woman who is somehow related to Kirk’s ultimate foe: Khan Noonien Singh.

Anson Mount in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. The first episode will premiere on Paramount+ on May 5.

Editors' Recommendations

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
Star Trek vs. Star Wars: which one is better in 2023?
Diego Luna walks through a scrapyard of ships in a scene from Andor.

For as long as both entities have existed, fans of science fiction and fantasy have debated the merits of Star Trek and Star Wars. But for most of the 45 years that the two franchises have overlapped, Star Trek and Star Wars haven’t actually had much in common, apart from their cosmic setting. Star Trek is an aspirational sci-fi series set in humanity’s future, while Star Wars is a bombastic fantasy adventure that takes place in a far-off galaxy. One has primarily lived on weekly television, while the other has broken big-screen box office numbers.
However, in recent years, both Star Trek and Star Wars have become tentpoles for their parent companies’ subscription streaming services, Paramount+ and Disney+, respectively, each pumping out a steady stream of content in an ever-widening array of formats. This has led them to encroach further into each other’s territory than ever before. Star Trek vs. Star Wars is no longer an apples-to-oranges comparison — they are directly competing products, sharing some of the same ambitions and struggling against the same environmental forces.
We will likely never settle on which space franchise is the greatest of all time, but we can take a moment to ask: Which is better right now?

Star Trek and Star Wars have both leaned heavily into fan service

Read more
From Khan to Beyond: All the Star Trek movies, ranked from worst to best
Kirk and Picard stand in Star Trek: Generations.

Star Trek is inarguably television’s greatest space adventure, captivating audiences with exciting, inspiring, and thoughtful stories since 1966. However, like most culturally significant pop culture franchises, Trek also has a long history on the big screen, supplementing its over 800 television episodes with 13 feature films. These large-scale adventures are often the gateways through which new fans find their way into the Star Trek universe, attracting mass audiences on a scale rarely enjoyed by their counterparts on TV.
However, as one might expect from a long-running film series that has had multiple casts and behind-the-scenes shake-ups, the Star Trek movies vary wildly in quality. The conventional wisdom amongst fans is that even-numbered Trek movies are much better than odd-numbered ones, an adage that still holds up if you slot in the loving parody Galaxy Quest as the unofficial tenth installment, which, of course, we do.

13. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Read more
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 trailer unveils Lower Decks crossover
Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Crossovers are nothing new for the Star Trek franchise. That tradition began in 1987 when original series star DeForest Kelley reprised his role as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But in the upcoming second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, there's a unique crossover coming between this series and the animated program Star Trek: Lower Decks. For the first time in Star Trek history, two characters from an animated series will appear in live-action, and they will be portrayed by the same performers who provide their voices. As seen in the new Strange New Worlds trailer below, Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid are reprising their respective roles as Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | Season 2 Official Trailer | Paramount+

Read more