Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3

• 1. Introduction

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  One day before the cast was due to fly to Canada, production on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 came to a halt. Director Chris Fisher had already storyboarded the first episode. The series follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise through the 23rd century, in the decade before the events of The Original Series, which aired from 1966 to 1969. Few television seasons are interrupted that close to the start of filming. So what stopped it, and how did the producers keep the project alive through the wait? How did a long-running fan theory about two famous troublemakers end up on screen? And why did critics who started out cheering this season gradually cool on it?

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• 2. Waiting Out the Strikes

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  In June 2022, while the first season was being released and the second was in production, co-star Melissa Navia said talks about a third season had begun. Co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers said it was not officially ordered but was "definitely the next thing in line". The crew had started early because scripts, sets and virtual production technology all take time to prepare. In August of that year, CBS Entertainment CEO George Cheeks praised the first season and said the team was "just getting started".

  In March 2023, Akiva Goldsman revealed that filming was about to begin, and Paramount+ announced the 10-episode season a week later. Filming had been planned for the 2nd of May to the 30th of December 2023 at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario. On the 2nd of May 2023, the Writers Guild of America strike began, and filming was delayed indefinitely.

  As the Writers Guild strike and the SAG-AFTRA strike ran at the same time, Fisher and the series' Toronto-based producers built a rolling plan. Its aim was to let production start within a few weeks of both strikes ending. Pre-production resumed after the Writers Guild strike ended in September, and the SAG-AFTRA strike ended in early November. Cast and crew began moving to Toronto when pre-production restarted on the 13th of November.

  Filming finally began on the 11th of December 2023, with Fisher directing the first episode.

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• 3. Genre Hopping

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  Executive producer Alex Kurtzman pictured Strange New Worlds as a long-running series covering seven years. That span runs from the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, set in 2019, to the accident that seriously injures Pike in The Original Series. Goldsman hoped the show would keep going until it caught up with the events of that older series.

  Goldsman promised that the third season would keep to the show's habit of "genre hop", giving each episode its own genre and tone. The writers had settled on all 10 episode ideas before the strike began in May 2023. Several of those ideas had been left over from the second season, which was capped at 10 episodes.

  Myers warned that the strike delay could change some plans, including how the writers resolved the second season's cliffhanger ending. The most unusual outing is the fourth episode, "A Space Adventure Hour", a murder mystery. Commentators who saw the teaser compared it to an Agatha Christie story, and they also spotted an episode styled after the 1960s look of The Original Series.

  Jonathan Frakes, a frequent Star Trek director, directed the murder mystery and was filming it in early February 2024. He felt it was the best television episode he had ever directed.

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• 4. Q's Family Reunion

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  In October 2024, Rhys Darby was announced for a guest role, and fans immediately guessed which character he might be playing. Many wondered whether he was Trelane, the extradimensional being William Campbell played in the 1967 Original Series episode "The Squire of Gothos". Darby appears in the second episode, "Wedding Bell Blues", where his character is never named.

  John de Lancie, who played the extradimensional being Q in earlier Star Trek stories, has a voice-only role as the father of Darby's character. Off screen, the showrunners confirmed that the pair were Trelane and Q. Because the two characters are so alike, some fans had long treated it as headcanon that Trelane belongs to the Q Continuum and is Q's child. Author Peter David had explored similar ideas in the non-canon novel Q-Squared, published in 1994.

  Goldsman said the team wanted to "reward that brilliant thinking" by placing the connection in official Star Trek canon. They considered Darby after seeing him in Our Flag Means Death, a series from 2022-23 set in the 18th century. Its costumes resemble what Trelane wears in The Original Series.

  Myers said Darby brought a contemporary approach and "such a flair" that suited the role, down to his own New Zealand accent. The name stays unspoken in the episode because several main characters do not learn it until the events of "The Squire of Gothos".

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• 5. Younger Faces

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  Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn lead the cast as Captain Pike, science officer Spock and first officer Una Chin-Riley, known as Number One. Jess Bush plays nurse Christine Chapel, and Christina Chong plays chief security officer La'An Noonien-Singh. Celia Rose Gooding plays Ensign Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia plays helmsman Erica Ortegas, and Babs Olusanmokun plays Dr. Joseph M'Benga. Many regulars and several guests portray younger versions of Original Series characters.

  Martin Quinn first appeared as engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the second-season finale. The showrunners promised he would return, and he became a series regular. Paul Wesley, who plays James T. Kirk in the role originated by William Shatner, said in February 2024 that he would recur again.

  In July 2024, Cillian O'Sullivan was announced as Roger Korby, a character Michael Strong played in the 1966 episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?". O'Sullivan, who is Irish, auditioned with his own accent as well as British and American ones. Strong had used an American accent, and O'Sullivan wanted a British one, but Goldsman decided Korby should be Irish. O'Sullivan said the new version of Korby was shaped by Bush's fresh take on Chapel, and he wanted him to be "a good match" for her.

  Carol Kane returns as Pelia, and in March 2025 Melanie Scrofano was confirmed again as Pike's girlfriend, Captain Marie Batel. Dan Jeannotte plays Kirk's brother George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, and Adrian Holmes plays Admiral Robert April. Mynor Luken appears as Ortegas's younger brother Beto, while Chris Myers plays Dana Gamble, a medical ensign who joins the Enterprise. Rong Fu returns as operations officer Jenna Mitchell, and Alex Kapp again voices the Enterprise computer.

  In April 2025, Patton Oswalt was revealed as a guest star playing a Vulcan named Doug. He had earlier had a brief voice role in Star Trek: Picard, which ran from 2020 to 2023.

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• 6. Sets, Suits and Schedule

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  A new science lab on the Enterprise has a transparent floor, and beneath the central workbench a pool of water swirls. The set was built for this season. Designers also made an updated version of the orange hazmat suits from The Original Series, 3D printed from silicon.

  Virtual production technology shows digital backgrounds on an LED video wall during filming. Pre-production design for the first seven episodes was finished when the Writers Guild strike hit. Fisher said the crew had grown confident with the technology during the second season, so it would be used in every episode of the third.

  After a break for Christmas and New Year, filming resumed in the second week of January 2024. Jordan Canning directed the second episode, which finished shooting on the 24th of January. Dan Liu directed another episode. Andi Armaganian directed the fifth episode, with location filming at Lafarge Quarry outside Toronto. Valerie Weiss began directing an episode on the 7th of March, and Sharon Lewis directed the seventh from the 20th of March to the 10th of April.

  Canning returned for the eighth episode, which finished filming by the 25th of April. By then the ninth episode had started, directed by series editor Andrew Coutts in his directorial debut. Maja Vrvilo prepared the season finale, and it wrapped in May along with extra filming for earlier episodes. Frakes returned for more filming on his episode in the week of the 13th of May. Mount announced that filming had wrapped on the 24th of May 2024.

  Composer Nami Melumad wrote the score, and Lakeshore Records released a digital soundtrack album of selections on the 7th of November 2025.

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• 7. Selling the Season

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  At San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024, Kurtzman, Goldsman, Myers, Romijn and Peck promoted the season at a "Star Trek Universe" panel. A first-look clip was shown, and O'Sullivan's casting was announced. Gizmodo listed the series among five "losers" of the convention, calling the comedic clip an awkward first impression. In October, a second panel at New York Comic Con showed another clip and announced Darby's casting. Gizmodo's James Whitbrook was warmer about this one, which was action-focused and picked up the second season's cliffhanger.

  In March 2025, character posters for the main and recurring cast were released. Photographer Pari Dukovic made them by projecting astronomical imagery onto the actors in a dark room, using a strobe light and a standard projector. He said the projections "amplified the actor's skin and eyes". A teaser followed at the start of April, using an effect inspired by a slide projector to cut between scenes.

  IndieWire's Christian Blauvelt thought the teaser promised a "blast" that continued what fans loved about the genre variety. Jeremy Mathai of /Film called it "light on plot, but it's certainly heavy on tone and hijinks", and felt the series looked "zanier than ever". Some commentators questioned the appearance of a holodeck, which was not invented until after The Original Series ended.

  Also in April 2025, Paramount+ released a commercial in which Peck, Mount and Gooding appear in character in a crossover with the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, filmed on the Strange New Worlds sets. A full trailer and more posters arrived in June, and Ray Flook of Bleeding Cool admired the poster's retro paperback look. The world premiere took place at the Tribeca Festival later that month. In July 2025, a final San Diego Comic-Con panel screened "A Space Adventure Hour" ahead of its streaming debut.

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• 8. Release and Reception

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  On the 17th of July 2025, Paramount+ released the first two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, and the rest of the 10-episode run followed weekly until the 11th of September. The service carried the season in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Japan. It aired on TVNZ in New Zealand, on Voot in India, and on SkyShowtime in other European countries. "A Space Adventure Hour", released on the 31st of July, was free for a week on Paramount+, Pluto TV and YouTube.

  Rotten Tomatoes reported that 88% of 39 critic reviews were positive, with an average rating of 7.6 out of 10, based mainly on early reviews. Its consensus called the season "Still a bright beacon in the Star Trek universe" that "makes up for its lack of narrative ambition with gleaming execution". Metacritic gave it 75 out of 100 from 11 reviews, a "generally favorable" response. By the end of the run, though, critics found the season tonally uneven and a step down from the first two.

  TVLine named several cast members honorable mentions for Performer of the Week. Peck was cited for "Wedding Bell Blues", Mount for "Shuttle to Kenfori", Navia for "Terrarium", and Scrofano for "New Life and New Civilizations". Inverse ranked the series 12th among the best television of 2025, Den of Geek ranked it 21st, and Time Out ranked it 25th. The Saturn Awards nominated the series for best science fiction television series, Peck and Chong for supporting performances, and Wesley as best guest star.

  The season reached DVD, Blu-ray and a limited edition Steelbook in the United States on the 3rd of March 2026, with over three hours of extras. A fourth season had been announced back in April 2024, while the third was still being filmed.

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