Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is gearing up to say goodbye in the near future, but the show’s viewership figures are still strong. The third season of the series premiered on Paramount+ about a month ago, proving to be a sizable draw for the streaming service. Per TrekMovie, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was one of the most-watched streaming originals during the week of July 14th-20th (Season 2 debuted on July 17th). Data from Nielsen’s tracking shows Strange New Worlds was streamed for 471 million minutes in that week, good enough for seventh place on the Top 10. It’s also a new record for the series, topping the mark of 393 million minutes during the week Season 2’s second episode premiered.
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Strange New Worlds is the only Paramount+ original to place in Nielsen’s Top 10 for the aforementioned week. Over half the list consists of titles available on Netflix, including Untamed, Amy Bradley is Missing, and Squid Game. Peacock (Love Island USA) and Prime Video (Ballard; The Summer I Turned Pretty) are the other streamers represented.
Shortly after the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 trailer was released earlier this summer, it was announced the show would end with a shortened fifth season. Strange New Worlds Season 4 started filming back in March, but no release date has been set. The fifth and final season will consist of six episodes, helping lead the story into the events of Star Trek: The Original Series.
In the wake of the cancellation news, Strange New Worlds executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers teased the possibility of a sequel series — one that perhaps would explore some untold stories set during the time period of The Original Series. “But [the characters are] not dying. And we have those sets …” Goldman said during an appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival. Nothing has been confirmed at this point, obviously, and any follow-up would still be years away.
As a prequel to The Original Series, there was always going to be a shelf life on Strange New Worlds. However, with the show breaking viewership records in its third season, it’s a little surprising to see Paramount pull the plug on it. The reasoning may boil down to shifting studio priorities. Now that the Skydance Media-Paramount merger is complete, Star Trek has become a top priority for the studio’s film division. There are multiple Star Trek movies in development — one that would follow a new cast of characters and another chronicling the adventures of the classic Enterprise crew. It’s possible Paramount wants to dial back the franchise’s output on streaming as it relaunches the property on the big screen.
Taking a “less is more” approach could help Star Trek avoid the pitfalls of other high-profile franchises that have attempted to balance small- and big-screen offerings. In the early days of the streaming wars, the likes of Star Wars and Marvel oversaturated the marketplace with a bevy of spinoffs. Even Kevin Feige realized it had become too much like homework to follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so he changed how the studio operates. Paramount hitting the refresh button on Star Trek and focusing mainly on films instead of TV shows would help create an easy entrypoint for newcomers who don’t have to worry about watching anything else to understand storylines. In the meantime, it’ll be interesting to see if that Strange New Worlds sequel show every comes to fruition for the long-time fans who will miss it.
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