While 2025 seemed like a year to be excited once more for upcoming Star Trek shows and the grand return of one of its greatest series, Trekkies were recently hit with another gut punch. Strange New Worlds will end with an abbreviated Season 5, and while that’s still a ways out, I can’t help but be skeptical we’ll ever get that spinoff we’ve all wanted.
Practically since Strange New Worlds was announced, some have speculated that Star Trek would do a soft reboot of The Original Series, with Paul Wesley‘s Kirk taking command of the Enterprise from Captain Pike. Wesley has expressed interest in doing this, and given the success of SNW, I figured this spinoff was a foregone conclusion. Now, I’m feeling more skeptical than ever that it’ll happen given the following reasons that are more or less out of the franchise’s hands.
When I first learned that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was ending with Season 5, I wasn’t too surprised. Alex Kurtzman told CinemaBlend that when Discovery was cancelled at the same benchmark, the days of a hundred-episode Trek shows were over, and getting five seasons is considered a massive success by streaming standards. Even before it was announced, I expected we wouldn’t get more than five seasons of Strange New Worlds.
What I didn’t expect was the news that SNW Season 5 would be an abbreviated six-episode season. This immediately sent off alarm bells that this wasn’t the standard type of planned renewal. Co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman confirmed as much when speaking to Slashfilm during the Tribeca Film Festival, where a select audience was able to see the premiere of Season 3 in advance. Here’s what he had to say about the decision to end with Season 5:
It just happened. The truth is, we have been, from the beginning, hoping for a five year mission. And that was the plan, but you also have to not wear out your welcome. And the folks who determine whether or not you wear out your welcome [are the ones] who pay. And so, they gave us this abbreviated fifth season right on the heels of giving us a fourth season. Nothing stays a secret.
Akiva Goldsman is being diplomatic, but made it clear that the decision to end Strange New Worlds was made by the people controlling the money at Paramount+. I don’t find that hard to believe, considering I recall past conversations in which the showrunners discussed how seasons don’t exactly correlate to the passage of time in the show. Viewers couldn’t assume one season was equivalent to a year in the series.
This is purely speculation on my part, but given that Season 4 was already well into production, there likely wasn’t enough notice given by Paramount+ to bring the show to a conclusive end. Rather than leave the audience hanging, a decision was made to provide SNW with an additional half season to wrap up its storytelling. That way, one of the biggest Trek shows available with a Paramount+ subscription doesn’t live on the platform without a proper ending.
That’s better than the coda that Discovery was given, but it still seems that whoever is crunching the numbers thought that whatever success SNW had was not enough to keep going on for additional seasons. If that’s the case, it feels hard to believe a spinoff would be of much interest.
Paramount Hasn’t Expressed Much Interest In Continuing Any Trek Series Thus Far
When it comes to Star Trek on streaming, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in doing direct spinoffs to some of the shows we’ve seen already. I don’t think there’s any more evidence of that than the fact that we haven’t seen a legacy spinoff of Picard, despite the immense success and attention Season 3 received for bringing back the cast of The Next Generation. The series finale set the stage for a new show, but so far, all we’ve heard is that Paramount has pitched ideas that stars like Jeri Ryan turned down because she knew it wasn’t what the fans wanted.
Of course, fans aren’t getting the full story behind why the Picard spinoff isn’t happening, though it seemed for a long time that many in the cast and crew were supportive of the effort and willing to make it happen. And yet, we still don’t have any evidence that a spinoff is in the works, so why should we be so optimistic that Strange New Worlds could get a follow-up?
It’s a question I should’ve asked myself before now, and all it took was the reduced episode count in the final season to wake me up to that reality. Sure, Star Trek fans would love to see Paul Wesley step in as “Captain” Kirk finally and set out on new adventures with the TOS bridge crew, but nothing we’ve seen from Paramount+’s decisions with the Trek franchise so far suggests there’s any chance a spinoff will happen.
A New Series Could Be Costly, At A Time Where Paramount Is Reporting Financial Struggles
It has been widely reported in the entertainment world that Paramount is facing financial struggles as of late. The L.A. Times reported that the studio recently laid off another 3.5% of its domestic workforce following previous job cuts the prior year. Paramount is awaiting regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance, as well as facing a $20 billion lawsuit from President Donald Trump regarding a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
I think it’s fair to speculate that while Paramount will want to continue Star Trek and attempt to bring in new subscribers and money, a spinoff to Strange New Worlds may not be top of mind right now. To start, the series would need to retain key cast members like Paul Wesley, Ethan Peck, Celia Rose Gooding, Babs Olusanmokun, Martin Quinn and everyone else who will eventually be part of the TOS crew. Given that fans expect these actors to return as their legacy characters from the prior series, the actors would have some leverage in negotiating contracts, which could make a series costly.
As Akiva Goldsman said, the decision is all in the hands of the people who pay to make these shows happen. I would wager that someone up top has already crunched the numbers and decided it was better to end Star Trek: Strange New Worlds despite its critical acclaim and solid viewership numbers on streaming. If that’s not enough to keep a series going, I don’t feel bullish about a spinoff happening. This is all just speculation though, and we’ll ultimately have to wait and see what plans Paramount has for Star Trek in the future.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 will premiere on Paramount+ Thursday, July 17th. Give the previous two seasons a watch in the meantime and keep an eye out for any other news that may surface in the coming weeks about what’s up next for the franchise.
