Skip to main content

Star Trek boldly goes into 2022 with renewals, premiere dates

Paramount+ is more than just the streaming home for every new Star Trek series. However, there’s a lot of Star Trek on the horizon for fans to enjoy, and Paramount+ isn’t wasting any time lining up even more for years to come. The streaming service has formally renewed Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Star Trek: Lower Decks for new seasons.

The flagship series, Star Trek: Discovery, is currently on a midseason hiatus. The fourth season of Discovery will resume on Thursday, February 10. With the renewal in hand, Discovery‘s fifth season will likely begin filming later this year.

Paramount+ also announced that Star Trek: Picard season 2 will premiere on Thursday, March 3. This series was already renewed and in the middle of shooting season three before a recent COVID outbreak forced the set to shut down. Production is likely to resume in the near future.

The cast of Star Trek: Discovery on the bridge.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Following the season finale of Picard, a new series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, will premiere on Thursday, May 5. Spinning out of Discovery season 2, this series will follow young Spock’s adventures on the Enterprise under his first commanding officer, Captain Pike. This series will also differ from Discovery by embracing stand-alone episodes that take the crew to new destinations each week. Today’s announcement ensures a second season for the show.

The animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks already had a third season of 10 episodes ready to go this summer. But as noted above, Paramount+’s renewal means that a fourth season of 10 episodes will likely follow in 2023.

“Four years ago, we made a promise to grow Star Trek into something it had never been before, and thanks to the incredibly hard work done by our many talented showrunners, writers, and directors, along with the extraordinary support of CBS Studios and Paramount+, we’re keeping our word,” said Star Trek executive producer Alex Kurtzman in a statement. “Now our current shows are set up for the future as we work to build Trek’s next phase of programming for years to come.”

Left out of the announcement was the potential Section 31 spinoff series starring Michelle Yeoh’s Empress Philippa Georgiou. That show has not received a formal pickup yet.

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: Picard season 3’s ending, explained
Beverly, Jean-Luc, and Will stand in Star Trek: Picard.

Since it debuted in 2020, each season of the sci-fi spinoff Star Trek: Picard has had its own unique story and tone, guided by a different showrunner’s vision for the series. The first season was a drama about Adm. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), now a 100-year-old Starfleet legend, leaving his lonely retirement and confronting his grief over the loss of his friend, the android Data. Season 2 took Picard and his new crew back in time to our present day to save the timeline while exploring Picard’s childhood trauma.
For its third and final season, new showrunner Terry Matalas has taken the series in a more traditional direction, reuniting Sir Patrick Stewart with the rest of the cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation for an old-school space adventure in the style of the classic Star Trek film series. Where previous seasons have received mixed reviews from Trekkies and critics alike, this more traditional iteration of Picard has, naturally, garnered almost universal praise from the fan base, to whom it has been painstakingly catered.
Littered with Easter eggs and cribbing liberally from the franchise’s greatest hits, Picard season 3 gives the people what they want: the same stuff they already have, with a happy ending and a hook for a spinoff.
Spoilers ahead for the final season of Star Trek: Picard.

What is Star Trek: Picard season 3 about?

Read more
Spock takes command in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 teaser
Ethan Peck as Spock in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

With Star Trek: Picard coming to an end this week, and Star Trek: Discovery slated to conclude next year, the future of the franchise now rests in the hands of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. This series is a spinoff of Discovery and takes place a decade before the original series, with Anson Mount's Christopher Pike as the captain of the Enterprise. But as seen in the first teaser trailer for Strange New Worlds season 2, Spock (Ethan Peck) is also going to get his first chance to sit in the captain's chair.

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

Read more
The best sci-fi shows on TV right now
Billy Crudup standing in a suit beside a sign that says Brightside in a scene from Apple TV+ series Hello Tomorrow.

In an era when everyone has too much TV to watch, it can somehow still be difficult to find a good sci-fi show. Many of them are too convoluted for their own good, or lack the great characters that always make quality sci-fi sing. It's always possible to go back to the sci-fi shows you used to love, of course, but sometimes you want something that's still airing to meet your regular sci-fi cravings.

Luckily, we've tracked down five of the best sci-fi series still airing new episodes for you to enjoy. This list includes a few shows that have been running for decades, or that are part of larger cinematic and televisual universes. Elsewhere, though, there's some more original content that you might find equally satisfying.

Read more