For the nearly 60 years that Star Trek has been a science fiction staple, fans have been forced to endure long waits between an initial promise made by the franchise and seeing that story come to fruition. Being a long-running science-fiction franchise almost inevitably comes with fallow periods where no new content is being produced. Like fellow long-runners Star Wars and Doctor Who, gaps between eras of Star Trek have sometimes lasted for years, and it wasn’t always certain that there would be new Star Trek shows on the other side of the wait.
The streaming age hasn’t necessarily made things better for Star Trek fans. Shorter seasons mean we spend less time with characters we’d like to get to know. The unpredictable schedules of streaming shows mean it’s hard to know when any given season of Star Trek will arrive… or how long it will be when it does. After Star Trek‘s great year in 2022, when there was a new Star Trek story nearly every week, the gaps between Star Trek stories seem longer than ever. There were, however, much longer waits in Star Trek.
10 13 Months+
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 to Season 3
Filming of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 was delayed by the SAG-AFTRA and the Writers’ Guild of America strikes in 2023, so 13 months have passed since the Gorn attack on Federation colony Parnassus Beta in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 10, “Hegemony”. Some characters must survive the cliffhanger ending to be in Star Trek: The Original Series, but the fates of new characters like Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) still hang in the balance over a year later.
To tide fans over for the time being, Paramount provided a sneak peek clip of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 and teased that the upcoming season would arrive sometime in 2025. As of September 2024, an official release date for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 has yet to be confirmed, so the wait could wind up being much longer than 13 months.
9 17 Months
Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 to Season 3
Less than a year had passed between Star Trek: Discovery‘s first 2 seasons, so it was surprising that fans had to wait for 17 months to see what was on the other side of Discovery‘s wormhole to the future, and how the USS Discovery would fare in the 32nd century. Star Trek: Discovery benefited from a longer period between seasons since Discovery season 3 acted as a soft reboot for Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the USS Discovery crew.
Freed from its 23rd-century setting, Star Trek: Discovery started to find its footing. With new missions to reunite a broken Federation and investigate the cataclysmic Burn, a new setting 900 years in the future, and great new characters like Cleveland Booker (David Ajala), the wait for Star Trek: Discovery season 3 could be overlooked.
8 19 Months
Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 to Season 2
The wait between Star Trek: Prodigy season 1 and Prodigy season 2 should have been shorter than the 19 months it wound up being. Fans of all ages who enjoyed the adventures of the young USS Protostar crew anticipated Star Trek: Prodigy season 2, originally scheduled to stream on Paramount+ late in 2023. Those plans changed when Paramount canceled Star Trek: Prodigy and removed Prodigy season 1 from Paramount+. It didn’t matter that Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 was completed. The show would have to find a new home to be released.
Fortunately, the plan to save Star Trek: Prodigy worked when Netflix picked up Star Trek: Prodigy. Netflix added Star Trek: Prodigy season 1 to their streaming catalog on Christmas Day, 2023. All 20 episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 dropped simultaneously on Netflix on July 1, 2024, about a year and a half after it was initially expected.
7 24 Months
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 to Season 2
The 24-month wait between Star Trek: Picard season 1 and season 2 wasn’t nearly as long as the 18-year wait between the release of Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002 and Patrick Stewart’s 2020 return as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard season 1. After a relatively normal 11-month wait between the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, the already-long stretch between Star Trek: Picard‘s first 2 seasons was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
To prevent another 2-year gap between seasons, Star Trek: Picard was renewed for a 3rd season before Picard season 2 even aired, and Picard‘s final 2 seasons were filmed back-to-back. This accommodated the schedules of Star Trek: Picard‘s cast and crew, and allowed for the highly anticipated Star Trek: The Next Generation cast reunion in Star Trek: Picard season 3.
6 25 Months
Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 to Season 5
The 24 months that passed between Star Trek: Discovery season 4 and Star Trek: Discovery season 5 were the longest period between Discovery seasons. On paper, the payoff seemed small, since season 5 was Star Trek: Discovery‘s shortest season yet, with only 10 episodes. This seemed to be the new normal for Star Trek since the count matched Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks‘ 10-episode seasons.
|
Star Trek: Discovery Season |
Streaming Dates |
Wait Time Since Last Episodes |
Number of Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Discovery Season 1, Chapter One |
September 2017–November 2017 |
N/A |
9 episodes |
|
Discovery Season 1, Chapter Two |
January 2018–February 2018 |
8 weeks |
6 episodes (15 total) |
|
Discovery Season 2 |
January 2019–April 2019 |
11 months |
14 episodes |
|
Discovery Season 3 |
October 2020–January 2021 |
17 months |
13 episodes |
|
Discovery Season 4, Part One |
November 2021–December 2010 |
11 months |
7 episodes |
|
Discovery Season 4, Part Two |
February 2022–March 2022 |
6 weeks |
6 episodes (13 total) |
|
Discovery Season 5 |
April 2024–May 2024 |
25 months |
10 episodes |
It was worth it, though. Star Trek: Discovery season 5 was an action-packed adventure spanning space and time, with deliberate but organic nods to nearly every past era of Star Trek, and a mystery that paid off another long wait. Discovery season 5 finally expanded the story of the Progenitors from Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6, episode 20, “The Chase”. Unfortunately, Star Trek: Discovery season 5 was also the end of Discovery — but with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy coming soon, more 32nd-century adventures won’t be too far away.
5 8 Years+
Star Trek Beyond to Star Trek 4
From 2009 to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies sustained the franchise when it seemed like Star Trek was done with television shows. With the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, however, Star Trek‘s streaming era has pivoted attention away from the Kelvin Timeline films and sent Star Trek 4 into development limbo for 8+ years.
In those 8 years, Star Trek 4 has taken various forms, with multiple rewrites and a revolving door of directors, ranging from Quentin Tarantino to its current attached director, Andor‘s Toby Haynes. Plot details of Star Trek 4 are still under wraps, though if Abrams’ Star Trek movies continue to pay homage to their Prime Universe counterparts, time travel may be involved. If and when Star Trek 4 happens, it will be the last Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movie for Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, and Zoe Saldaña’s Nyota Uhura.
4 10 Years
Star Trek: The Original Series to Star Trek: The Motion Picture
After Star Trek: The Original Series was canceled for the third and final time in 1969, there was no guarantee that fans would actually reunite with Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). A strong showing in syndicated reruns prompted the creation of Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1971, but the Filmation cartoon rarely matched the quality of live-action Star Trek.
Interest in continuing the Starship Enterprise’s live-action adventures peaked with the success of Star Wars in 1977, proving that audiences really would come out to theaters for a space-based sci-fi movie. Elements of Roddenberry’s failed Star Trek spin-off, Star Trek: Phase II, were folded into a new script, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit theaters in 1979, 10 years after Star Trek: The Original Series aired its final episode.
3 12 Years
Star Trek: Enterprise to Star Trek: Discovery
Between the end of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005 and the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, 12 years passed in which fans were unsure that Star Trek would ever return to television. Star Trek: Discovery represented Star Trek‘s rebirth into a new television landscape, with a new format on streaming service CBS All Access (now Paramount+), deep serialization, and a darker vision of the future than Star Trek had ever had.
Star Trek: Discovery was a new and different take on Star Trek that built off of the way that J.J. Abrams’ Kelvin Timeline films reinvigorated the franchise. Despite its rocky start, Star Trek: Discovery nonetheless blazed a trail for new Star Trek series of the 21st century to follow, just as Star Trek: The Next Generation had done in the 1980s and 1990s.
2 18 Years
Star Trek: The Original Series to Star Trek: The Next Generation
After the 1969 cancelation of Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek fans lacked an ongoing Star Trek television series for 18 years. The premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987 promised a brand-new take on Star Trek, with a full century separating Captain Kirk’s original Enterprise and the 24th-century adventures of the brand-new USS Enterprise-D crew under Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
Although there were purposely very few references to
Star Trek: The Original Series
in
Star Trek: The Next Generation
, the
TNG
premiere, “Encounter at Farpoint”, guest starred DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy to cement the connection between the old and new series.
Fans were initially skeptical of a new Enterprise and a new crew, not to mention Michael Dorn’s Lieutenant Worf as the first Klingon in Starfleet. Of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation endured for 7 years and became the definitive Star Trek for a whole new generation of fans, spawning Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager as spin-offs of its own, as well as 4 Star Trek: The Next Generation movies.
1 58 Years
Star Trek “The Cage” to Strange New Worlds
With the longest time between a pilot and production of a Star Trek show, it took 58 years to make the show that Roddenberry first promised with the 1965 pilot of Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Cage”. As a TOS prequel, Star Trek: Discovery season 2 hinted at the voyages of a pre-Kirk USS Enterprise, including Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Commander Una-Chin Riley (Rebecca Romijn), and Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck). Fan demand for a Star Trek series led by Discovery‘s charismatic Enterprise trio inspired the creation of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in 2022.
We’ve collectively breezed past the criticism that “The Cage” faced in its day.
Star Trek itself is responsible for much of the social progress that let Star Trek: Strange New Worlds exist, as we’ve collectively breezed past the criticism that “The Cage” faced in its day. Star Trek‘s female captains have combated the skepticism of NBC executives protesting Number One (Majel Barrett-Roddenberry) as a First Officer. Modern audiences seek out smart storytelling, and Star Trek delivers, with an ever-expanding franchise that honors different demographics and tastes. The success of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds proves that some things are well worth the long waits that Star Trek fans have had to endure.
