The Star Trek Universe makes a splash at Comic-Con with Strange New Worlds Season 3 footage, talk of another musical, and more

Last Updated on August 2, 2024

While the feature-film side of Star Trek struggles to engage its warp drive, the television side has been doing great, with various live-action and animated shows to expand the franchise. The Star Trek Universe took to Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con to tease what’s coming for the long-running franchise.

During the panel, Paramount+ unveiled a first-look clip and photos for the third season of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds series. There to make Hall H attendants lose their collective minds were Star Trek alums Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck, executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Henry Alonso Myers. Paramount seized the opportunity to announce Cillian O’Sullivan’s appointment as a recurring guest star in the upcoming season, playing the legacy role of Dr. Roger Korby, first introduced in Star Trek: The Original Series and played by Michael Strong. Dr. Korby is an accomplished archaeologist and scientist known for advancing the arena of medical archaeology.

In addition to adding Dr. Korby, Scotty, the chief engineer of the starship USS Enterprise, will be a series regular for Season 3. Strange New Worlds is set around a decade before the original series and follows Captain Christopher Pike, the Captain of the USS Enterprise, before James T. Kirk’s service.

Paramount screened a clip from the upcoming season of Strange New Worlds (shown above), featuring Pike and three other crew members temporarily transforming into Vulcans by taking a serum. The transformed Vulcans mock Spock for being only half-Vulcan, but Spock has the last laugh when the formula doesn’t wear off. The clip features Number 2 in the captain’s chair, with Pike leading various away missions. Paramount also teased a Hollywood murder mystery-themed episode.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which has already been renewed for a fourth season. The series has quickly become a fan favourite and hasn’t been afraid to take some big swings, including a musical episode and a crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks. Speaking of Lower Decks, the animated series got some love at Comic-Con as well, although the series will sadly be coming to an end with the upcoming fifth season.

Paramount also shared the premiere date and teaser trailer for the fifth and final season of the animated series Star Trek: Below Decks. The season premieres on Paramount+ with two episodes on Thursday, October 24. New episodes of the 10-episode series will be broadcast every Thursday on Paramount+ leading up to the finale on Thursday, December 19.

Season 5 of Lower Decks finds the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos tasked with closing “space potholes”—subspace rifts causing chaos in the Alpha Quadrant. Pothole duty would be easy for Jr. Officers Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford…if they didn’t also have to deal with an Orion war, furious Klingons, diplomatic catastrophes, murder mysteries, and, scariest of all, their own career aspirations.

Star Trek: Lower Decks focuses on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, in 2380. Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi have to keep up with their duties and their social lives, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies. The Starfleet crew residing in the “lower decks” of the U.S.S. Cerritos includes Ensign Beckett Mariner, voiced by Tawny Newsome, Ensign Brad Boimler, voiced by Jack Quaid, Ensign Tendi, voiced by Noël Wells and Ensign Rutherford, voiced by Eugene Cordero. The Starfleet characters that comprise the ship’s bridge crew include Captain Carol Freeman, voiced by Dawnn Lewis; Commander Jack Ransom, voiced by Jerry O’Connell; Lieutenant Shaxs, voiced by Fred Tatasciore; and Doctor T’Ana, voiced by Gillian Vigman.

Surprisingly, Akiva Goldsman announced that a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds musical could happen. “We’re in the very early stages of figuring out whether we can bring a version of that to the stage,” Goldsman said when asked if there will be any more musical episodes like episode 209 “Substance Rhapsody.” The announcement got a big reaction from Romijn, who said, “Akiva, I can’t believe you just said that!” The “Substance Rhapsody” episode revolves around an accident with an experimental quantum probability field, causing everyone aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise to burst into song as other crew members become affected by the expansion of the field, an unforgettable mission unfolds, making Star Trek history as the storied franchise’s first musical episode.

Akiva Goldsman reveals a #StarTrek Strange New Worlds musical could be coming to stage | #SDCC pic.twitter.com/PwNPiMNg4u

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) July 27, 2024

Want more? Justin Simien and Tawny Newsome are developing a new Star Trek project! It’s the first Star Trek live-action comedy! Simien says Dear White People wouldn’t exist without Star Trek: The Next Generation. TNG was the show that made him realize you could really create multi-episode arcs for characters. In addition to being a voice on Lower Decks, Newsome is a writer for Starfleet Academy. Newsome praised Alex Kurtzman during the panel, saying he paid support staff during the strikes without anyone knowing. Simien describes the new Star Trek project as “people on a thing, shenanigans, and uh-oh.” Whatever that means.

Now that Star Trek: Discovery has ended after five seasons, there’s room for a new live-action series to take place. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will take place in Discovery‘s 32nd-century era and follow a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy. The series stars Kerrice Brooks (My Old Ass), Bella Shepard (Wolf Pack), George Hawkins (Tell Me Everything), Karim Diané (One Of Us Is Lying), and Zoë Steiner (Significant Others). The cast also includes some heavy hitters, with Holly Hunter (The Incredibles) set to play the captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy and Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers) as the main villain.

During today’s panel, Paramount announced four actors are joining the cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, including Tig Notaro, Oded Fehr, and Mary Wiseman, alongside Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Picardo.

“Holly Hunter is going to play the chancellor of the school; she’s a very different kind of chancellor and captain,” Kurtzman said at today’s panel. “Who are the captains before they become captains, and what happens when they don’t become captains?” Kurtzman said about the upcoming series. Production for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy begins next month.