Now that the first season of Starfleet Academy has wrapped up on Paramount+, the only Star Trek TV left for 2026 is the fourth season of Strange New Worlds. TrekMovie spoke to co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers at the Saturn Awards, where he gave us an update on the series which wrapped production on its fifth and final season last December. The executive producer offered up some hints about what’s in store for both of its upcoming seasons and predicted when we should expect the show to return this year.

Season 4 arriving by late summer

While there is currently no activity on the Star Trek production front, Myers told TrekMovie he is still very busy:

“I’m literally still working on season 4 as well as season 5 right now, so it doesn’t feel like — we wrapped photography, but we’ll be working on post and editorial and sound and score and all that stuff for another six to ten months. We’ll still be working on [season 5] when you get to see season 4.”

At New York Comic Con last October, Paramount+ released a clip from Strange New Worlds, promising season 4 was “coming soon.” When pressed on when we will see the show return, Myers first told TrekMovie “I can’t give you dates,” but he did give us an estimated range:

“I can say, [season 4 will arrive] sometime later this year. We’ve been very consistent in the time of year when we come out and we’re going to be consistent again this year. We’ve been told a window, so that’s where we’re going to be, I would say late summer, but take that as a guess and not really a locked date.”

For the record, season 3 of Strange New Worlds debuted last summer on July 17. Seasons 1 and 2 debuted May 2022 and June 2023, respectively. When asked if the season 4 release date was depending more on when they can complete their work than what is best for Paramount+ and their release calendar, Myers said, “It’s a little bit of both. It’s trying to deliver it so they can air it when that time is available.”

Anson Mount as Captain Pike in season 4, episode 1 of Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

More “classic” Star Trek in season 4

Last year, Myers and his co-showrunner have indicated that season 4 will pivot in terms of style and tone for the show. At the Saturns, Myers offered some more detail saying:

“We looked at season 4 and we didn’t know what our future was going to be, so we were like, ‘What are things that we have never tried that we want to try?’ What is Star Trek that hasn’t been done that we could do? Like, the whole point of doing Strange New Worlds is to visit some strange new worlds. Every one of the episodes is strange, new, and different. We want to try some things with Star Trek that is familiar to Star Trek lovers, but also, fresh, new, different, explosive — we just want to go for something.”

We do know that season 4 will have a puppet episode, but the executive producer made it clear that the upcoming season isn’t all about those big genre swings:

“It’s not like every episode is a puppet episode… It’s a mix. We have a few genre reaches. We have some real classic episodes, some very, very classic episodes. We try some things that have not been tried in Star Trek before, but still very much at their core, feel like Star Trek.”

Martin Quinn as Scotty in season 4, episode 1 of Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

Landing the plane in season 5

As noted by Henry, he is also currently working on post production for the six-episode fifth season of the show, and he confirmed there will be another pivot as the series wraps up:

“Yeah, for sure [season 5 will be different than season 4]. That’s where we are looking how to land the plane in that season. We are all lovers of Star Trek. We kind of try to look at this like, what is the ending that we would want? We have a lot of gratitude about the fact that when you end your show, you get to decide how and where it ends. And we really want to do that in a way that we appreciate, and that we like.”

The biggest news we have about season 5 is that the finale will introduce Thomas Jane as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy and Kai Murakami as Hikaru Sulu. Henry explained why they held off introducing these two classic Star Trek characters until the final episode:

“Because you don’t have to meet every single person right away. We have a lot of characters, and we want to be able to tell a compelling, interesting story for each of them, to find interesting endings for all of them.”

Last year, Akiva Goldsman told TrekMovie the final episode of Strange New Worlds will feature “Kirk’s first day of command” of the USS Enterprise. He and Henry are hoping that could be the jumping-off point for a follow-up series they have pitched called Star Trek: Year One.

Sybok

There is a classic character that has already been teased in the series: Spock’s half-brother Sybok, first introduced in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The showrunner was reluctant to reveal anything specific when pressed on whether we will see Sybok on the show, but did offer this:

“There’s a future with Sybok where we deal with Sybok, I’m going to say that. You have some future with Sybok to experience on the show.”

Sybok seen from behind in “The Serene Squall” in season 1

Season 4 video

Here again is the NYCC clip from season 4:

… and here is that SDCC puppet episode tease:

More from the Saturns

Check out our coverage of Sunday’s event, and get Henry’s update on the Star Trek: Year One series pitch. We also talked to Starfleet Academy EP/director Olatunde Osunsanmi and showrunner Noga Landau. There are  more red carpet interviews on the way.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.