As I write this it has been almost two years since the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered on Paramount+. On June 15, 2023 we all sat down to watch season 2 premiere “The Broken Circle” as the cast and crew were gear up to work on season 3. That production ended up delayed until December 2023 due to the writers strike. But with cast and crew how hard at work on season 4, us fans are still none the wiser as to when season 3 will officially premiere. So what’s going on?
The streamer has revealed footage from season 3 at a number of US conventions over the past 18 months. Firstly there was a humorous clip featuring an away team needing to go undercover before beginning their mission. This clip was dropped at San Diego Comic-Con during the Star Trek Universe panel.
That was followed by a much more dramatic clip from the season 3 premiere. This clip finds the U.S.S. Enterprise deep in battle with the Gorn after almost losing Spock in the season 2 finale. With La’an, M’Benga, Ortegas and Sam captured alongside other survivors things are not looking good for Pike and co.
More recently the studio debuted a series of characters posters which many of us believed may hail the announcement of a release date. But alas we still await that announcement. So when might we get news on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3?
First Contact Day
A likely candidate for when CBS Studios or Paramount+ may announce the release date is First Contact Day. The annual celebration of when the Vulcans first arrived on Earth in 2063 as witnessed in Star Trek: First Contact. This year First Contact Day is celebrated on April 5 which this year lands on a Saturday. Though this isn’t the traditional Star Trek Day, that lands on the September 8 anniversary of the airing of the pilot episode, the studio does tend to lean in to the event and celebrate alongside fans.
We recently revealed the full April listings for Paramount+ which confirmed Strange New Worlds was not part of the lineup. But that doesn’t stop the streamer from making an announcement in April for a release in May or of course over the summer. Whilst the first season debuted in May of 2022 the second season debuted in June of 2023 so it seems a reasonably safe bet that season 3 will premiere in the same kind of window.
Making an announcement on April 5 would give the studio perhaps 4-6 weeks of promotion ahead of the season premiere. That’s plenty of time to release more posters and a full trailer. Star Trek notably has a built in audience and whilst we want to see the show succeed, many of us will tune in regardless of how much promotion the streamer does ahead of time.
San Diego Comic-Con
Should the studio decide it wants to delay the debut of season 3 until later in the year. San Diego Comic-Con become the perfect opportunity to launch season 3 with a big bang. Trek normally holds court in Hall H with a Star Trek Universe panel happening on the Saturday of the four-day mega event. In previous years this panel has been used to debut full episodes of Strange New Worlds. In 2023 the crossover even with Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Those Old Scientists”, was premiered in Hall H before making an early debut on the Paramount+ platform.
2025 has a lot less Trek than in previous years. Star Trek: Discovery and Lower Decks have both wrapped their five-season runs. Star Trek: Picard ended almost two years ago and many still await news on a third season of Star Trek: Prodigy. Whilst development continues on a new Trek comedy series from Tawny Newsome (Mariner in Lower Decks) and Justin Simien. The only series which has a status of in-production is the yet-to-premiere Star Trek: Starfleet Academy show. In fact, the only Trek we have seen so far in 2025 in the Section 31 event movie which debuted back in January.
With Paramount, owner of the Paramount+ streaming platform and Trek’s producer CBS Studios, deep in to negotiations on a sale to Skydance. There may be business reasons why work on other future Trek projects is currently stalled or being kept under wraps. Plans could easily be in flux as one set of studio bosses pack up their offices and other plans to move in to the building. We can only speculate what Skydance, producers of the J.J. Abrams-era movies, would want to do with the franchise moving forwards.
But with 20 episodes of Trek fully filmed and – presumably – either completed or in post-production perhaps a debuted in late summer could allow the second half of 2025 to be filled with new Trek each week?
The truth is that we simply don’t know when the series will return to our screens beyond “2025”. But as each week passes by that means we’re one week closer to have new adventures for Captain Pike, Number One and Spock to look forward to.
Whilst we sit, wait and impatiently nag our friends on Team Paramount+ why not rewatch the blockbuster trailer for season 2:
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stars Anson Mount as Captain Pike, Rebecca Romjin as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock. Joining them are Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga and Bruce Horak as Hemmer.
Both of the first two seasons of Strange New Worlds are available to stream on Paramount+ in the US and UK. Episodes are also available on digital platforms, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD.
