Production on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 finally gearing up

The writers and actors strikes in Hollywood pushed pause on a lot of productions. For instance, Paramount+ was all ready to start production on the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds back when writers went on strike in May, but held off once the strike began. But now that both strikes have been resolved, Strange New Worlds director Chris Fisher is ready to get back at it, writing on Instagram over the weekend that he was headed “back to Toronto for work.”

That lines up with a recent listing from the Directors Guild of Canada, which according to TrekMovie.com says that pre-production on Strange New Worlds season 3 has restarted as of yesterday, November 13. Production is slated to begin on December 11 and run through July of 2024.

Naturally, cast members have started to sound off as well. Jess Bush (Christine Chapel) posted an Instagram Story on Friday about subletting her flat in Australia for six months, and Melissa Navia posted a picture of her character Ortegas with the caption, “Let’s gooooo.”

So when might we see Strange New Worlds season 3? Well, before the strikes, it seemed like Paramount+ was aiming to release one season per year. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if season 3 only began airing in early 2025. But there will be other Star Trek shows to entertain fans in the meantime. 2024 should see the release of the fifth seasons of both Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Star Trek: Lower Decks showrunner has idea for a live-action movie

Speaking of Lower Decks, the animated comedy in the Star Trek lineup, fans are a little concerned that fan favorite character D’ Vana Tendi might not return after leaving with her sister in the season 4 finale. Speaking to Inverse, showrunner Mike McMahan assured people that wouldn’t happen. “Tendi will return,” he said. “Tendi is not being written out of the show… this isn’t a bad thing for Tendi. She is going to go and kick some ass.”

McMahan elaborated to The Mary Sue:

"Tendi’s been trying to figure out is she Starfleet or is she the Mistress of the Winter Constellations? And, at the end of this episode, she’s like, “No, I’m D’ Vana Tendi. I’m something new that exists in both. And my sister wants me to come back to Orion. Well, she might’ve bit off a little more than she can chew.”"

There’s been talk recently about Lower Decks perhaps ending after this upcoming fifth season. We don’t have official confirmation on that, but whatever happens, McMahan’s doesn’t lack for ideas on where the franchise could go next. “I have an idea for an animated Lower Decks movie,” he told ComicBook.com. “I have ideas for live-action Lower Decks movies. And I have ideas for brand new, totally original Star Trek movies that don’t tie into anything we’ve seen before. I think Star Trek is an amazing genre to think about. I love the idea of not micro but small-budget Star Trek movies, where you get the bigness of a movie set, but you get to tell a Star Trek story that drives across a moment instead of a thing that has to be dealt with, like a Khan.”

"I think there are cool ways to make Star Trek movies that aren’t quite like the Marvel system and aren’t quite like DC or the superheroes in general, but I would love a world where there’s going to be Star Trek movies all the time, and when you go, you don’t know which crew it’s going to be about or if it’s going to be a comedy or suspense or a drama. I loved Captain America: The Winter Soldier, that it went from the first one [Captain America: The First Avenger] being a period piece superhero movie to being a spy thriller. I think there are ways to make Star Trek movies like that so that when you go, you don’t know what you’re going to get, you just know that you trust seeing that Starfleet Delta and that you’re going to get a cool movie within that genre."

I don’t know if Paramount+ will get around to making all of these dreams come true, but they’re still going very hard on Star Trek. In addition to all the series currently on the air, there’s also a Starfleet Academy show and a Section 31 movie in the works. And if you can’t wait until next year to watch all of this sci-fi stuff, there are other options just around the corner:

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h/t ScreenRant