It looks as though Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end satisfyingly for fans of the series, with executive producer and co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman revealing plans for the fifth and final season. The Star Trek prequel’s final season will be told across a six-episode run, abbreviated from the standard 10 episodes as was the norm for the series. While the third season is set to begin airing on July 17th, Goldsman has explained that he and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers have already developed plans for concluding the series meaningfully in a way that makes sense, allowing the team to tell the story effectively.
Speaking to TrekMovie, Goldsman stated that the fifth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will wrap up with Kirk being promoted to captain and taking command of the USS Enterprise. That would essentially bring it up to just before Star Trek: The Original Series begins canonically. “We will take the show to Kirk’s first day of command, which is, by the way, not actually The Original Series. The Original Series starts a bit into Kirk’s command,” Goldsman told the site.
Goldsman also explained that the executives at Paramount and CBS initially wanted to end the series after four seasons but were convinced to greenlight a final season of six episodes to allow it to reach the Star Trek: The Original Series era as planned.
“Unfortunately, Star Trek: Discovery’s loss was our gain,” said Goldsman. “So they basically said, ‘Look, we think we’re done after four seasons.’ And we said, ‘Hey, what about our whole Let’s get the fans to the TOS era?’ And they were like, ‘No, that’s fair. That’s true.’ And they said, ‘What do you need to get there?’ And we said, ‘Six episodes’ and they said okay.”
Goldsman continued: “The good news was, when I say ‘they,’ really the folks who make this show wanted this to happen too, but there are fiscal constraints that are real. You know what’s going on with Paramount. So, to move things forward in that environment was a challenge. So it wasn’t really a negotiation, but it was a heavy lift for pretty much everybody, because everybody wanted not to have another Discovery circumstance where it felt abrogated in a way that wasn’t thorough.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Will End Where Star Trek Began
News that Strange New Worlds would end with its Season 5 emerged earlier this year, with Paramount+ confirming that the show would continue after its third season. Goldsman and fellow co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers had also previously teased that this show would lead directly into The Original Series and perhaps even feature some of the five-year mission that was unaccounted for, as the 1966 incarnation began with the mission already underway.
The fact that Strange New Worlds already has an ending planned out and that the creators are aware of exactly when the series will end can only be a good thing. This gives the team plenty of time to conclude the story, and means fans won’t be left disappointed, as some were with the way Discovery wrapped up.
What do you think of the way that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end? Let us know in the comments!
