Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Premiere Date Finally Revealed
We know when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is coming!
This article is more than 2 years old
The premiere date for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been officially revealed along with some exciting information for those who are looking forward to the Star Trek: Original Series canonical prequel. Earlier this week, Paramount+ gave fans an update on its Star Trek content across the board, including the renewal of Star Trek: Discovery for a fifth season, the release date for season 2 of Star Trek: Picard as well as the release date for the animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks. In addition, the streaming wing of Viacom CBS announced that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere on Thursday, May 5, 2022.
That wasn’t all for those looking forward to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. In an effort to boldly go where no streamer has gone before, Paramount+ made the decision to renew the show for at least a second season before anyone has even seen a second of the Star Trek: Discovery spinoff’s premiere episode.
Alex Kurtzman, architect and executive producer, Star Trek franchise told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement announcing the news that this is their effort to make good on a promise made four years ago when Paramount+ was CBS All Access to expand the intellectual property of Star Trek to reach new heights. It seems now that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be a big part of that effort.
It makes sense for Paramount+ to double down specifically on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Other than perhaps Star Trek: Picard, which acts as a direct sequel to Star Trek: Generations, the upcoming spinoff has the most connective tissue to the shows that came before it. Collider notes that the new show will follow the adventures of Anson Mount’s Captain Christopher Pike along with the original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise alongside Rebecca Romijn‘s Number One and Ethan Peck’s Science Officer Spock.
Diehard fans of Star Trek: The Original Series will remember an episode titled The Menagerie. In it, we learn that Captain Pike helmed the Enterprise before Captain James T. Kirk came along with a younger Spock acting as his science officer. By the time Kirk took over the ship, most of that crew was replaced except for Spock, whose origins were further explored in the season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery and will be featured further in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. According to CBR, the behind-the-scenes reason for the episode has to do with the unaired original Star Trek pilot for NBC.
That show featured Jeffrey Hunter as the iron-jawed captain of the starship. When the network passed on that pilot, it was reportedly none other than producer Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy fame who convinced NBC to commission a second pilot. However, Jeffrey Hunter had become sour to the experience of television in that time and respectfully backed out. Creator Gene Roddenberry seized the opportunity to bring in William Shatner and a slew of other cast members, leaving only Leonard Nimoy’s Spock. Footage from the unaired pilot was repurposed for The Menagerie two-parter and the rest, as they say, is history. Or at least it was before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came along to re-write some of that history.
When it debuts, unlike some of the other new Star Trek content in recent years, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is said to be more episodic. Rather than tell long-form story arcs, it will return to the form of the original show and do a more planet-of-the-week adventuring style.
