Star Trek Is Officially Rewriting ‘Strange New Worlds’ Winning Formula for Season 5
The penultimate season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has ended with an epic finale that saw Lt. Uhura (Celia Gooding) team up with a future version of herself to save Scotty (Martin Quinn). In “Tomorrow’s Enterprise,” the episode looks ahead to the endgame of Strange New Worlds, which is expected to bring the timeline full circle to The Original Series.
Showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman sat down with Collider ahead of the finale to discuss the episode and look forward to the future of Star Trek. They confirmed big changes are coming for the show’s fifth and final season, which is expected to air sometime in 2027 after the second and final season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Uhura Meets Her Future Self
The episode sees Uhura team up with a future version of herself in a bid to save Scotty from an untimely death. The showrunners wanted to explore the relationship between the two characters.
“We wanted to find, you know, we were interested in, the romance between them, and also it’s an important episode where she’s exploring, trying to make a, you know, like a time travel adjustment, and these things are much better if you have some emotional core that you’re trying to save at the heart of it,” Myers said.
He noted that the dynamic had been implied in the films but not fully explored in the original series.
No More Genre Hopping
When Paul Wesley mentioned a few weeks ago that there might be a little less genre hopping in Season 5, Myers and Goldsman confirmed the direction.
“It’s definitely still an episodic show, but to some people’s delight and others’ dismay, there will be essentially no genre hopping,” Goldsman said. “Which isn’t to say the tones of the episodes aren’t different, but they are fundamentally a suite of episodes that are about our goodbyes to those characters.”
Myers added that the showrunners only have six episodes to land the ship, which means the focus shifts entirely to character arcs.
Goodbyes to Beloved Characters
Several Strange New Worlds characters never appear in The Original Series, and Goldsman promised they will get satisfying endings.
“We will bring those stories to a satisfying end,” Goldsman said with a laugh.
The showrunners also teased the new Bones (Thomas Jane) and Sulu (Kai Murakami).
The Future Isn’t Alternate
The episode shows an alternate future, but Goldsman argued it is not actually alternate.
“I don’t think this is an alternate future. I think this is an interstitial future. I think there is a…so, this exists in continuity as well,” Goldsman said.
Myers clarified the key difference: “Scotty doesn’t die. That’s the only part that would change.”
A Space Baby Twist
The finale carries on the tradition of Starfleet delivering space babies, and Myers explained the decision.
“What you want is an act out that twists the story in some way and makes it, like, genuinely, ‘What? Oh, my God!'” Myers said.
The Six-Episode Arc
The fifth and final season of Strange New Worlds is expected to bring the timeline full circle to The Original Series. Goldsman and Myers are using every minute of their remaining episodes to give the crew a fitting send-off.
Thomas Jane and Kai Murakami are filling the roles of Bones and Sulu, and the showrunners promised fans will see why they were the right choices when the next season airs.
| Season | Episodes | Expected Release |
|---|---|---|
| Season 4 | 12 | Now airing |
| Season 5 | 6 | Sometime in 2027 |
| Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 2 | Second season follows |
This is the end of an era for Strange New Worlds, and the showrunners are treating it that way. The six-episode arc will be a suite of goodbyes, with no time for genre hopping.
Source material: “Star Trek Is Officially Rewriting ‘Strange New Worlds’ Winning Formula for Season 5 [Exclusive],” Collider.
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