The Enterprise is back. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres its fourth season today on Paramount+, kicking off a 10-episode run that rolls out weekly on Thursdays through September 24th.
For the modern flagship of the franchise, expectations are high. The first three seasons made Strange New Worlds the rare new Trek that longtime fans and newcomers both rallied behind, and the early reviews for this run are the strongest yet.
What The Cast Teased At 92NY
Two nights before the premiere, the cast gathered at New York's 92NY for a panel alongside co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman, and he laid out the season's whole philosophy in a single line. "There's a cadence between kind of classic 'TOS' sci-fi thriller and then the thing that makes us 'Strange New Worlds,'" Goldsman said, "which is our worlds are genres."
He described the writers' room chasing that idea as far as it would go. "It became a kind of extraordinary circus of the imagination, and everybody was game," he told the crowd, per Variety.
Celia Rose Gooding, who plays Uhura, singled out one of the season's oddest turns. "To have our characters immortalized in that same way. It's wacky, silly, but also incredibly serious and heartwarming," she said of the now-confirmed puppet episode. She also framed why the show lands the way it does right now: "I think we need a little more joyous curiosity in the world."
Anson Mount, meanwhile, keeps finding new ground in a captain whose fate fans already know. "I've never had a character where we know the first act, we know the third act, but not the second act," he said of playing Christopher Pike. Carol Kane put the show's foundation plainly: "There is some hope and heart as the foundation. Because there's no future without that."
A Season Of Genres
Goldsman's "our worlds are genres" pitch isn't just talk. The teased lineup leaps from one genre to the next: a western adventure across an alien desert built around Dr. M'Benga and La'an, an outing with creatures that look an awful lot like Earth dinosaurs, a white-knuckle black hole encounter, and the Jim Henson's Creature Shop puppet episode that turns the crew into felt versions of themselves.
Under the genre-hopping, the character work sounds heavier this year. Paramount+ has promised emotional arcs that put Kirk and Spock through the wringer, with the crew "battling inner demons and external threats" as the season builds. It's the balance Strange New Worlds has always chased: a different flavor every week, the same beating heart underneath.
The critics have noticed. Season 4 opened at a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes across its first wave of reviews, extending a run that has scored in the 90s since the show began. We broke down that early score and the first reactions when the embargo lifted.
The first episode is streaming now, with a new one every Thursday into late September. Which genre detour are you most curious to see the crew pull off - the western, the dinosaurs, or that puppet episode?
Let us know in the comments below!
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