Star Trek is entering another dark age now that Paramount has been acquired by Skydance Media. Currently, only two Star Trek TV series remain on Paramount+: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Both series have a combined three seasons totaling 26 episodes waiting to premiere on Paramount+.
Star Trek enjoyed a renaissance on Paramount+ that will total a full decade. Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017 as the first new Star Trek series in 12 years. Discovery brought Star Trek into the streaming era, and it was a cornerstone that helped build the CBS All-Access app, which later rebranded into Paramount+.
Star Trek fans took issue with various aspects of Discovery, yet the show was a success that launched Star Trek's streaming era. Five new series, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, and a streaming movie, Star Trek: Section 31, totaled the franchise's most dynamic and diverse expansion since the 1990s.
2022 was the apex of Star Trek on Paramount+, with a new episode of Star Trek premiering every Thursday for nearly the entire calendar year. This was followed in 2023 by the critically acclaimed one-two punch of Star Trek: Picard season 3 and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2. Since then, fans have been dismayed as Paramount+ canceled its Star Trek shows en masse, with a new dark age soon upon us.
For the first time in nearly a decade, there is no new Star Trek TV series in production, or even greenlit by Paramount+. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' fifth and final season, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 2, were both pre-ordered and already wrapped filming. Both seasons mark the end of executive producer Alex Kurtzman and Secret Hideout's commitments to produce Star Trek for Paramount+.
Alex Kurtzman and Secret Hideout's contract for Star Trek is reportedly up at the end of 2026 and may not be renewed. Post-production on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's final seasons are all that's left to be done by Kurtzman and those shows' producers.
When Skydance Media began its acquisition of Paramount Global, Paramount+ began canceling its Star Trek series for financial reasons. The first to go was Star Trek: Prodigy in 2023, followed by Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Lower Decks, both of which concluded after five seasons in 2024. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy are now also canceled, and their final seasons are banked until 2027.
If Paramount Skydance doesn't announce a new Star Trek TV project in the next couple of years, it means that there will be no new Star Trek on television for the first time since Star Trek: Enterprise ended in 2005. Enterprise was the last Star Trek project executive produced by Rick Berman, and this dark age lasted a dozen years until Star Trek returned to TV with Discovery.
Star Trek fans have been through a dark age before, and it's disappointing that it's happening again. Star Trek on Paramount+ has already been a difficult transition for many fans due to shorter seasons and modernizing Star Trek to be unlike how it was under Rick Berman's auspices in the 1990s. After 2027, the wait will begin for Star Trek's uncertain and undecided future.
It's hard to believe, after Star Trek was riding high just a few short years ago, how quickly the tables turned as a result of the massive changes at Paramount, with Skydance not only buying the studio, but also now trying to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. Where Star Trek fits into the grand scheme of this corporate juggernaut remains to be seen, but fans must brace for a new dark age while Star Trek's future is eventually decided.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will officially end with season 2, but Paramount+ not continuing the series past its second season has ramifications.
A best-case scenario for the quick return of Star Trek is Paramount Skydance making key creative decisions and announcing them at some point in 2026, perhaps at San Diego Comic-Con in July or New York Comic-Con in October. Those major media events will be used by Paramount+ to hype Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seasons 4 and 5, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 2, but could deliver news of Star Trek's future.
Given the long tail of modern Star Trek's development process, it would average two years to develop, produce, and release a new Star Trek TV series. Even if a new show is announced in 2026, 2028 would be the soonest Paramount+ could premiere a new Star Trek. It's more likely, however, that the wait will be longer as Paramount Skydance mulls Star Trek's future direction along with its myriad other business concerns.
Comments by Alex Kurtzman about how Paramount Skydance is taking its time due to the complications of its planned merger with Warner Brothers Discovery, and Robert Picardo's understanding that there will be no new Star Trek for a while before it gets "reintroduced again after a fallow period" indicate that Star Trek is going into cryro sleep like Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban).
How long until Star Trek returns is the question, but a repeat of Star Trek's previous 12-year dark age seems far afield considering how competitive studios are with their core franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and, of course, Star Trek. After 60 years, Star Trek is one of Paramount's most valuable, reliable, and historically profitable IPs, so it will eventually come back, hopefully, before the end of the 2020s.
