STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLD Confirmed to End in a Way That Fans Will Love and Appreciate

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end on its own terms, and the creative team already has the perfect send-off mapped out. Executive producer and co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman confirmed that the hit Star Trek prequel will wrap with Season 5, which will be a shorter, six-episode run.

The decision to give the series a definitive ending wasn’t always guaranteed. “Unfortunately, Star Trek: Discovery’s loss was our gain,” Goldsman told TrekMovie.

“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.”

The plan is to take the show right to the moment fans have been waiting for: Kirk’s first day in command of the USS Enterprise. Goldsman explained:

“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.”

That puts the finale neatly in line with established canon, acting as the connective tissue between Strange New Worlds and the classic series. Goldsman added that the studio wanted to avoid a rushed conclusion like what happened with Discovery:

“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.”

The team behind the series, Goldsman and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers, had always envisioned Strange New Worlds as a lead-in to The Original Series, even hinting that parts of the unshown five-year mission might make an appearance.

While the third season premieres July 17th, knowing the story has a clear destination should reassure fans who value closure.

Unlike some Trek entries that have stumbled at the finish line, this one seems set to stick the landing. Ending with Kirk stepping onto the bridge feels like the right way to close the book, an elegant transition that honors both the past and present of Star Trek.