Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ season 4 trailer is smart to play it safe. The last new Star Trek TV content to celebrate Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary year, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on Thursday, July 23, on Paramount+, with 10 new episodes running until September 24.

Going by what’s featured in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ one-minute teaser, the Starship Enterprise commanded by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) is back to exploring strange new worlds, including a cowboy and dinosaur planet, meeting new alien species, and even touching a black hole.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s new footage showcases a back-to-basics approach, which is a savvy marketing strategy after the tumult of the past year. This includes the less-than-stellar reception of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 relative to the first two seasons, and the negativity that met Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Playing It Safe Is Smart

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4‘s teaser promises the Star Trek show it originally was. Strange New Worlds was the modern-day resurrection of the 1960s-style episodic optimism of Star Trek: The Original Series. Somewhere along the way, Strange New Worlds morphed into a different kind of Star Trek show.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reveals its first season 4 teaser trailer with fresh glimpses of the newest voyages of Captain Pike’s USS Enterprise.

Bouyed by the out-of-the-box successes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2’s comedic crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Star Trek‘s first-ever musical, Strange New Worlds season 3 dove headlong into experimenting with different genres. While this was pure joy for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ actors, the reaction from fans was mixed.

The clips chosen for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s trailer abandon any ‘big swings.’ Instead, traditional Star Trek aspects are on display. There are interesting glimpses of dinosaurs and Captain Pike on horseback, but Pike being a cowboy is an established and beloved aspect of the Captain’s character. Even the trailer’s music is noticeably not a pop song, unlike previous Strange New Worlds trailers.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s filming was completed before the show reeled from the hostility that greeted season 3, and the hate campaigns that targeted the supposedly ‘woke’ Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Strange New Worlds season 4’s marketing smartly and copiously dials back any hints that could ignite fan ire in the current cultural climate.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Is Hiding Season 4’s Big Swings

Paramount+’s marketing strategy for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a 180 from what it was in 2025. At San Diego Comic-Con, Paramount+ not only proudly revealed that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has a puppet episode, but also premiered the Jonathan Frakes-Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 4, which was the highly-touted Hollywood holodeck murder mystery.

Fan reaction to both was not what Paramount+ expected. Jonathan Frakes’ “A Space Adventure Hour” was, surprisingly, not as well-received as his Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover. Meanwhile, the news of Strange New Worlds‘ puppet episode was met with skepticism, at best. Given the mood of Star Trek’s fandom, Strange New Worlds’ marketing is hiding season 4’s ‘big swings’ (and puppets), and is taking a more reassuring tack.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s episodes wrapped filming in summer 2025, and those 10 episodes were produced to be very much in the vein of Strange New Worlds season 3’s experimental spirit. And yes, there will still be Star Trek’s first-ever puppet episode, as well as other gimmicks that Paramount+ is not touting. Comedy and romance will continue in Strange New Worlds season 4, even if the new trailer is hiding it.

Before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was renewed for a six-episode fifth and final season, executive producers and co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers produced season 4 under the impression that it could be the final season. The EPs and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ cast have hailed season 4 as their best season, but audiences will cast the final judgment on that.

As the flagship Star Trek on Paramount+ series, and still the most popular show overall of Alex Kurtzman’s Star Trek era, Strange New Worlds is not looking for controversy or negativity, and neither is Star Trek’s parent company. Star Trek and Paramount Skydance need good tidings for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ final two seasons, hence playing it very safe with season 4’s marketing.

Release Date

May 5, 2022

Network

Paramount+

Showrunner

Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman

Directors

Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman

Writers

Onitra Johnson