The third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is around the corner, and the official episode titles have just been revealed. Take a look:
- Episode 1: "Hegemony, Part II"
- Episode 2: "Wedding Bell Blues"
- Episode 3: "Shuttle to Kenfori"
- Episode 4: "A Space Adventure Hour"
- Episode 5: "Through the Lens of Time"
- Episode 6: "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail"
- Episode 7: "What Is Starfleet?"
- Episode 8: "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans"
- Episode 9: "Terrarium"
- Episode 10: "New Life and New Civilizations"
The first two episodes will drop at once on Thursday, July 17, with episodes dropping one per week after that. Strange New Worlds has been one of the best-received of the new Star Trek shows debuting on Paramount+ over the past several years, and composer Nami Melumad makes it sound like there are more great times ahead. “There’s not another musical episode, but it’s my favorite season,” he told Screen Rant. “I have a very high bar for Star Trek, and I really enjoyed it. There are very different genres in there. There will be surprises. It’s not a musical, but there are surprises. Musically, it was also very challenging. Sometimes, we used a different ensemble, so maybe that’s a hint for what’s coming.”
Unlike shows like Star Trek: Discovery or Picard, Strange New Worlds mostly follows an episode-of-the-week format, harkening back to earlier series in the franchise. So far that's struck a chord with fans. Hopefully the third season will be as successful. A fourth has already been ordered.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a massive show
But if fans don't like what they see in Strange New Worlds, they have other options. Take Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, a new show with new characters (plus some familiar faces) set at the school where Starfleet officers learn the ins and outs of exploring the galaxy. Jonathan Frakes, who played Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation before going on to direct many episodes of subsequent series, makes it sound like something very special.
"[Robert] Picardo's in it, Tig Notaro’s in it," he said during an event put on by Collider. "[I]t has the most massive set of any Star Trek ever. There's also a spaceship on the show, which I think, I hope that's not a fucking secret. I have been known—I’ve had a bad experience with oversharing, and I hope that wasn't an overshare, but it's fabulous. The sets are great. The scripts are—they're funny, which is always helpful on Star Trek... It’s [aimed at] much more hardcore Star Trek fans."
Starfleet Academy is also recruiting some top-tier acting talent, including Holly Hunter as the Academy chancellor and Paul Giamatti as a villain. That's two Oscar winners joining the final frontier! Speaking to Collider, Giamatti shared Frakes' awe of the set. "It's one of the biggest I've been on," he said. "I've been on some big sets, most of them are outdoor; this is the biggest indoor one, and I can say it's a central part of the show." He was impresed by the starship Frakes mentioned as well. "The bridge is really impressive in this one. As impressive as the huge one is, I think the bridge is more impressive."
"To my mind, it feels very, very old-school Star Trek. My character is a very fun villain; he reminds me of a combination of classic Trek villains. That's all I'll really say."
I would definitely watch Paul Giamatti as a sci-fi villain. We don't yet have a firm release date for Starfleet Academy, but it'll likely come out late this year or early next. The first season will run for 10 episodes. A second season has already been ordered.
Will Star Trek: Legacy ever happen?
Star Trek fans have a lot of reason to celebrate these days. And there could be more coming. Speaking on The Sackhoff Show, franchise alum Brent Spiner (Data) talked about a potential follow-up to Star Trek: Picard, a show that was all about bringing back veterans from different Trek shows over the years. According to him, Picard showrunner Terry Matalas had an idea for a show that would center around Seven of Nine, played by Jeri Ryan and first introduced in Star Trek: Voyager. "[I]t would have been great. And we would drop in from time to time, I think, was the idea," Spiner said.
"It would have been interesting, and I think it could still happen. I don’t know for us, but for Jeri. They called it Legacy, and there’s always hope that that would continue. And I think the fans would like to see it. But there’s a lot of other stuff that the people who run Star Trek have planned."
They do seem to be planning up a storm over there. We'll start seeing the fruits of their labors in July.
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h/t ScreenRant