‘Star Trek’s Best Series Is Officially Reaching the End of an Era

Published Sep 15, 2026, 7:19 PM EDT

Michael Hein has been covering entertainment, fandom news, and trending topics since 2016 on outlets including Rogues Portal, PopCulture.com, and ComicBook.com. He has provided live coverage of red carpet premieres, conventions, and up-fronts, and has interviewed major stars including Charles Dance, Patrick Stewart, and Chloe Sevigny. An avid fiction reader and writer, Michael has been diving deep into all the biggest book-to-screen adaptations of the last decade, from Game of Thrones to Foundation.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has its most dramatic days ahead of it. The prequel series has taken fans on an unprecedented odyssey of exploration, frequently experimenting with genre and tone in the process. That trend has continued in Season 4, which is airing now on Thursdays on Paramount+, with two more episodes to go. However, that won't be the case for the final batch of episodes, which is not far behind. The show was renewed for a fifth and final season last year, but it will only have six episodes to wrap up the story. According to co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman as well as series star Paul Wesley, Season 5 will be all business as it brings the USS Enterprise in for a landing.

"It's a much more serious season," the actor told ScreenRant last week. "It's very, very serious. It's very contained. We only have six episodes, so it's not like you're going to be doing these sort of fantastical, imaginative [stories]. It's very much like: This is the conclusion. This is the final chapter." Wesley plays James T. Kirk on the series, and he's standing by eagerly to see if Paramount+ will order another Star Trek show continuing the adventures of the Enterprise with the same case. His commentary echoed Goldsman's, as both seemed to hint that there's a lot of material to get through in Season 5.

'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Is Coming In For A Landing

Image via Paramount+

Strange New Worlds has been a return to the episodic format for the Star Trek franchise, and for the most part it has been lauded for that. Fans have loved the one-off adventures and the genre-bending format — from the franchise's first ever musical episode in Season 2 to the recent installment where the crew were transformed into puppets. However, continuity is also essential to Star Trek, and Goldsman assures fans that they're not glossing over the story line that connects Strange New Worlds to The Original Series.

"I would say they're a suite. They're a set of episodes," Goldsman said of Season 5. "I think they are tonally more singular than is typical for us... Really, five is a goodbye. It is a six-episode goodbye. And it's not solemn, but it is all the colors of goodbye."

It will be interesting to see how Strange New Worlds pivots into this wrap-up phase of its story without completely abandoning the quirks that fans love it for. Despite all of its one-off adventures, the show has maintained a sense of coherence thanks to serialized character arcs playing out in the background at all times. Wesley told ScreenRant that in his case, the final season is doing something "huge" for his character. He warned that Kirk "goes through something very important that allows us to understand why he is who he is," adding: "people are going to be shocked."

'Strange New Worlds' Needs to Set Up the Future and the Past

Image via Jan Thijs/Paramount+

Strange New Worlds has a unique needle to thread in Season 5 as it must leave the door open for the spinoff fans are dying for, yet still create a satisfying bridge to the original series just in case this is truly the end. Strange New Worlds is about the Enterprises' long-term exploratory mission under Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) in the years preceding The Original Series. It introduced us to a younger version of Kirk, and will presumably show how he assumes captaincy of the ship. However, when The Original Series begins, Kirk and the crew are already on the third year of their five-year exploratory mission, meaning there are at least two years of their journey that have never been depicted on TV.

A direct sequel to Strange New Worlds would finally fill in these two missing years with Wesley at the helm. Other stars would keep their roles as well, including Ethan Peck as Spock, Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura, and Martin Quinn as Scotty. Goldsman and many other writers and producers would also be expected to stay on. Goldsman has given the project the working title Star Trek: Year One, and has pitched it to Paramount and Skydance. He asked fans to let the two companies know they want to see the spinoff on social media whenever they can.

Whether a sequel is coming or not, Strange New Worlds has to find a satisfying conclusion and stick the landing in just eight more episodes. Season 4 continues on Thursday, September 17 and then wraps up on September 24 on Paramount+. Season 5 has already been filmed, and is expected to premiere on Paramount+ sometime in 2027.

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  Captain Christopher Pike

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  Spock