Trying to keep track of what Star Trek is coming right now feels like trying to stop a tribble from procreating. Before even more new series get announced, here’s our guide of when to expect all the new Star Trek shows, the returns of familiar favourites, and what else is in the works right now. Engage!
Star Trek Shows Currently Airing and Coming Soon
Star Trek: Picard Season 2
The currently airing second season of Picard — which has seen the titular The Next Generation hero and his crew travel back in time to avoid a dark future manipulated into existence by a heady combination of the Borg Queen and a returned Q — is about to wrap up on Paramount+ May 5. If you want to check out our episode recaps, they’re linked below:
- Episode 2, “Penance”
- Episode 3, “Assimilation”
- Episode 4, “Watcher”
- Episode 5, “Fly Me to the Moon”
- Episode 6, “Two of One”
- Episode 7, “Monsters”
- Episode 8, “Mercy”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1
A prequel-sequel series — a prequel to the original Star Trek, a sequel to the second season of Star Trek: Discovery — Strange New Worlds follows the crew of the original USS Enterprise as they boldly go seeking all of those titular new worlds. Returning Discovery season two guests Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn will portray Captain Pike, Mr. Spock, and Number One respectively, joined by a new cast playing familiar and fresh faces alike:
- Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Uhura
- Christina Chong as Security Chief La’an Noonien-Singh
- Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel
- Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga
- Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas
- Bruce Horak as Chief Engineer Hemmer
Catch our interview with the cast here, and learn more about Spock’s trials coming into the series here. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds begins streaming on Paramount+ May 5, and season one is 10 episodes long.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3
The third season of the delightful animated series following the misfit crew of the USS Cerritos — and in particular its cadre of ensigns, Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Boimler (Jack Quaid), Tendi (Noël Wells), and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) — doesn’t have a release date yet, beyond a window of summer 2022. Expected to start airing around the time Strange New Worlds starts wrapping up in July, season three sees our heroic ensigns and the remaining bridge officers aboard the Cerritos band together to free Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) from Starfleet Security, after she was wrongly accused of destroying the Pakled homeworld in the climax of season two. Watch a new trailer above.
Upcoming Star Trek Shows and Series In Development
Upcoming: Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1, Part 2
The first half of the first season of the animated series Prodigy — following a crew of alien teens who escape a torturous living on a mining encampment in the Delta Quadrant, thanks to the discovery of the USS Protostar, an experimental Starfleet vessel with an advanced warp drive — wrapped up on Paramount+ earlier this year, but is currently expected to return for the second half of the season later in 2022. Will Admiral Janeway (returning Voyager legend Kate Mulgrew) be able to catch up with the ship formerly captained by her old friend Chakotay (fellow returning Voyager legend, Robert Beltran)? Time, and perhaps a chat with Protostar holographic instructor Janeway (also returning Voyager legend Kate Mulgrew), will tell.
Upcoming: Star Trek: Discovery Season 5
Expected some time in 2023, Discovery’s fifth season will be 10 episodes long, down from the 13 of prior seasons. In the wake of season four‘s climax earlier this year, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) led her crew in a desperate attempt to save the galaxy from a mysterious anomaly created by an extra-galactic race, ensuring peace and stability for the Federation once more… for now. As her romantic partner Book (David Ajala) pays time for his own role in a campaign to surreptitiously destroy that anomaly, we’re not sure what awaits Burnham and Discovery’s crew just yet, but given this show, we’re sure it’ll be very, very dramatic.
Upcoming: Star Trek: Picard Season 3
Star Trek: Picard’s third, and now officially final, season is also expected on Paramount+ some time in 2023, although considering it was shot back-to-back with season two, don’t be too surprised if it gets a surprise start later this year. There’s plenty to be excited about too: the series is going out in style, reuniting Sir Patrick Stewart with The Next Generation’s command crew: Brent Spiner as Data, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, Michael Dorn as Worf, and LeVar Burton as Geordi LaForge.
In Development: Section 31
Although it’s been officially unveiled since 2019, we still don’t have a clue when this spinoff based around the seediest side of Starfleet — the shadowy spy organisation Section 31, first introduced in Deep Space Nine — with Discovery guest star Michelle Yeoh is actually meant to air. Yeoh, who will return as former emperor of the Mirror Universe’s Terran Empire, Phillipa Georgiou, now turned into a kinder, but still kickass person by her time with Michael Burnham, is still expected to return, but beyond that, no one knows what to expect. Especially because the way Yeoh exited Discovery’s third season means that Georgiou could basically show up anywhere across Star Trek’s timeline.
In Development: Starfleet Academy
If we’ve been waiting a while for Section 31 to happen, then somehow this is even longer. Back in the heady days of 2018, when Discovery was the only new Star Trek, part of series architect Alex Kurtzman’s deal with CBS to helm a new era of Trek included talk of a series based around Starfleet Academy, the San Francisco-based school that shaped the Federation’s engineers, scientists, doctors, pilots, and commanders into the future explorers and peacekeepers of the galaxy. Originally slated to be showrun by Marvel’s Runaways’ Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the series went quiet after these initial reports, however earlier this year it was re-confirmed that Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is in the works again.
Now developed by Absentia co-creator Gaia Violo, little is known about the series beyond that, other than that it will obviously follow Starfleet cadets, and is expected to potentially follow the Section 31 series into production sometime in the next year. We also don’t know when it could be set in Star Trek’s timeline, but Discovery’s fourth season did include a major development for Mary Wiseman’s Sylvia Tilly, where she left the ship to take a teaching position at the re-opened Starfleet Academy of the 31st Century — so it could stand to reason the show could follow her, but we don’t know right now.
Where Can I Stream Classic Star Trek Shows?
That’s all the new bits of Star Trek coming. But what about the old Star Trek? In the U.S. at least, the vast majority of classic Star Trek shows are available exclusively to stream on Paramount+ (albeit not without issues), although some holdouts remain on other streaming services. Here’s a full list of classic Star Trek shows and where to stream them, as well as links to our recommended episode guides for every series!
- Star Trek: The Original Series (Paramount+)
- Star Trek: The Animated Series (Paramount+)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (Paramount+, Netflix)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Paramount+, Netflix)
- Star Trek: Voyager (Paramount+)
- Star Trek: Enterprise (Paramount+)
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.