Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 ending explained: Key deaths teased for final season

**Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 finale.**

Strange New Worlds might be set before Star Trek's very first series — beaming us onto the Enterprise before Captain Kirk took over — but all eyes are on the future right now.

With season 4 coming to an end, only one more outing remains for the current Strange New Worlds crew. And hopes that the story might continue in a Year One show were dashed just recently by showrunner Akiva Goldsman who revealed to Radio Times that he "doesn't see it happening" anytime soon.

As such, the future is wide open for this final season. Continuity permitting, season 5 is free to take more risks, and surprisingly enough, we've already been given a hint of what that might look like at the end of season 4.

Jumping back and forth between the present and one year on, the season four finale of Strange New Worlds has gone out of its way to tease what's heading our way. And honestly, it's not looking good for everyone's favourite crew.

Join us here at Radio Times as we break down the tenth episode of season four and how it sets up one more chapter for Strange New Worlds.

It's fitting that Communications Officer Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) takes centre stage here because there is a lot of information to convey.

The episode begins with an "unusual mission" where the Enterprise investigates a white hole. They wish to test the theory that it might be connected to a black hole on the other side.

When they send a probe in, the ship is suddenly attacked by what seems to be waves of energy. But Uhura hears something that sounds an awful lot like her crewmate Scotty (Martin Quinn) screaming in pain.

Upon waking in Sick Bay, Uhura realises that she's experienced a temporal incident, which means Scotty is in danger. Just not yet. Instead, he's set to die in the future. And things only get weirder when she hears another voice, this time her own, which seems to be coming from the future too.

What's going on with Uhura's new look?

After the opening credits have finished, the episode starts again in much the same way as it did before. But this time, there are a few not-so-subtle changes.

Uhura is sporting the classic look that Nichelle Nichols first established the character with in the original '60s Star Trek show. Scotty is no longer just working up the courage to ask Uhura out either. The pair are officially a couple.

This version of Uhura seems more confident and sure of herself. But where is Captain Pike (Anson Mount)? It seems James T Kirk (Paul Wesley) is in command now, plus Dr Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) has been replaced by Dr Philip Boyce (Brian Markinson).

More on that later because there's a more pressing emergency. Namely, the death of Scotty aboard a shuttle in the black hole. Uhura was aboard too, but she just made it out on time when the Enterprise beamed her out.

What's even weirder though is that the crew tell Uhura that Scotty actually died a year ago…

In search of answers, this version of Uhura scans the black hole, and that's when she connects with a younger version of herself from one year in the past, aka, the current timeline of Strange New Worlds.

How do Past Uhura and Future Uhura save Scotty?

The pair realise that time spent in the proximity of the white and black holes has caused a kind of quantum entanglement to take place. To combat the pulses that are ravaging the Enterprise, these waves of energy that have trapped it in place, they need to come up with a reverse pulse to undo that effect.

But what of Scotty?

Past Uhura has a whole year to prepare and therefore prevent Scotty's death completely. With Spock's (Ethan Peck) help, they realise a dilithium diamond could help save the day. And thankfully, those take around a year to prepare.

The plan is to send said diamond into the white hole and then send pulses from both sides to restore the timeline. Past Uhura just has to convince Pike that this is a good idea without revealing the truth behind what's happening in fear of changing time further.

Things get more complicated, however, when another energy pulse hits. This time, the Uhura pair swap bodies, so Past Uhura ends up in the future and vice versa. Even their different hairstyles follow them through time, which doesn't really make sense, but who cares right?

Does the plan actually work?

Future Kirk, now in command, figures out he's talking to a different version of his Uhura, but he trusts her anyway and agrees to the plan from his side.

Future Uhura, now in the past, is overcome with emotion upon seeing Scotty alive and well in that earlier timeline. Pike also figures out that his Uhura has changed because he knows "a thing or two about time travel".

Meanwhile, Future Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) explains to Past Uhura how their Scotty died, how she sang to him after the console exploded to bring comfort in those final moments.

The news makes something click for Uhura who realises that the key to understanding these pulses is the frequency of the music they bring.

The two versions of Uhura work together across time to decipher the message these pulses contain: "We are the midwives. The baby is breaching. Stay clear."

So it turns out that there's a giant space baby of sorts that was conceived in the future and will be born in the past. Don't question it too much, because the show sure doesn't.

The pulses are contractions to help push the baby out, but said baby is breached, so the pulses will worsen before they begin to improve — and the Enterprise can't survive them much longer.

Does the space baby survive?

Christine wants to help deliver the space baby because she's medically trained and the whole thing is real gonzo. Uhura is the only who can do it though because her movements will be synchronised in the past and the future where both versions of her will need to work simultaneously.

Using gloves to operate special drones to move the space baby, the two versions of Uhura are doing a decent job of it until one of the drones malfunctions. There's no way to fix the machine remotely, so Uhura and Uhura launch themselves into the black/white hole where they can sort the drone and deliver the baby, therefore saving Scotty's life at the expense of their own.

Suddenly they both appear on the Enterprise again where the unseen cosmic midwives have a little chat with Uhura and Uhura.

"This is not your end. We exist outside of linear time. We saw your ship and warned you of danger. You didn’t understand so we disabled ship so you wouldn’t harm the child. But we also see what has and will happen."

There is no translation for what these entities are, but we know they live simultaneously in the past, present and future.

"We do not see life as it happens," they add. "We see it before, after and in between."

The midwives send both versions of Uhura back to their respective times where only they will remember what really happened. But before they go, Future Uhura tells Past Uhura that she's doing great on the path she's embracing. "Never stop growing."

Everything has been sorted. Scotty is still alive and Past Uhura has grown in confidence, ready to embrace the future and spending more time with the people she loves.

A classic, feel-good Star Trek ending. But wait…

Will some key characters die in the final season?

With this surprise leap into the future, Strange New Worlds is actually giving us a glimpse of what might happen in the final season, bridging the gap between this story and the original Star Trek show it serves as a prequel to.

Future Christine, for example, is now officially together with Dr. Roger Korby, plus M'Benga is no longer the Chief Medical Officer. It seems that Boyce will take over before Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy replaces him, as seen in the '60s show.

These characters will almost definitely survive the end of Strange New Worlds because their future has already been confirmed by canon. But what of the new characters whose safety isn't guaranteed?

When Future Kirk mentions La'An Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), for example, a sudden sadness takes hold, as if she's no longer with them. While it could be the case that she simply left the Enterprise or no longer speaks to him personally, the feeling seemed quite intense, as if Kirk was remembering a painful loss.

Other characters are missing too including Carol Kane's Pelia, who may or may not have left the show at the end of the previous episode.

And then there's Pike. Since this show began, we've always known that Mount's character is destined to suffer a horrific radiation accident to save others, one that leaves him permanently paralysed.

Will this happen in the final season? It always seemed like it would, and our jump into the future essentially confirms it. Pike is no longer on the ship in this timeline. Kirk, always destined to succeed him, now sits in the Captain's chair. And crucially, Future Uhura is incredibly emotional to see Pike when she journeys to the past, sharing a beautiful exchange about everything she has learned from him.

With Pike's mission about to conclude, fans can also expect to see new, younger versions of classic characters such as Bones and Hikaru Sulu. Unless, of course, the cosmically powered midwives cheekily wind up changing the timeline somehow? This show ain't called Strange New Worlds for nothing.

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