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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the latest live-action addition to a science fiction franchise nearly six decades old and counting. It’s also quite possibly the best-received newStar Trektelevision show since the days of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. In short, if you have even a passing interest in Star Trek, Strange New Worlds is worth watching.
But it’s no Romulan senatorial secret that Star Trek’s vast canon can feel intimidating to newcomers. With so many shows and movies, where does Strange New Worlds fit in, exactly? Why is it that the original Enterprise is the ship in this series, but Kirk’s not the captain? What’s the deal with the ties to Star Trek: Discovery?
If your universal translator is improperly aligned to make heads or tails of it all, do read on.
Before Kirk, There Was Pike
If you’ve seen the popular Star Trek movies starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldaña that came out between the 1987-2005 era of Trek television productions and the present run, then you may already be familiar with Captain Christopher Pike, the man who helmed the USS Enterprise prior to James Kirk. (In fact, Pike is the second person to serve in this role, after Robert April, who also appears in Strange New Worlds.)
In the alternate universe established in the aforementioned films, Pike gives command of the Enterprise to Kirk at the conclusion of the first movie. But indeed, this is an alternate universe - Strange New Worlds is set in the so-called ‘Prime timeline’, which is the universe in which virtually all Star Treksansthe JJ Abrams flicks take place.
Right then - so Christopher Pike is given command of the Enterprise in the in-universe year of 2250 following Robert April’s five-year expedition. By the time of Strange New Worlds’ series premiere, it’s 2259, meaning several key characters have forged a deep familiarity with each other - most notably Pike and Spock, Kirk’s future inseparable Vulcan friend and colleague.
James Kirk himself doesn’t become the Enterprise’s captain until 2265, and Strange New Worlds has, thus far, kept itself contained to 2259. Doubtless, as the show continues, we’ll see 2260 and perhaps even further into this time span, but since Captain Pike is fated for a rather terrible and life-changing injury by early 2266, it’s only logical (as a certain someone would say) to presume that Strange New Worlds willprobablyconclude its stories prior to Kirk’s turn in the captain’s chair.
More Characters You’ve Probably Heard Of
Christopher Pike and the half-Vulcan Spock are hardly the only preexisting characters in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The show’s ensemble cast also includes several other characters from the original Star Trek series and its subsequent feature films.
These include Christine Chapel (the Enterprise nurse formally played by the late Majel Roddenberry), Una Chin-Riley (previously known only as Number One, a character who only appeared in the first of two pilot episodes, and who was… also played by Majel Roddenberry), Nyota Uhura (the communications officer played by the late Nichelle Nichols), and Joseph M’Benga (a doctor who appeared in two episodes of The Original Series, played by the late Booker Bradshaw).
There’s even George Kirk, the more famous Kirk’s brother, whose only appearance prior to Strange New Worlds was as a corpse. Poor guy’s got a dreadful fate ahead of him.
More recent episodes have also ‘reintroduced’ a younger James Kirk (we assume you know Kirk’s first actor is William Shatner), and - in the second-season finale - Chief Engineer Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott (the late James Doohan).
It’s worth mentioning that the newly-created character of La’an Noonien Singh is a descendant of the tyrannical Khan Noonien Singh, the antagonist of a TOS episode who returns to wreak havoc upon Kirk’s life in the nigh-universally beloved Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Came To Be
Picture this: it’s 2019, Star Trek: Discovery’s second season begins, and the Trek-viewing audience quickly becomes enamored with actor Anson Mount’s debut as Pike. Ethan Peck’s Spock is similarly praised, and Rebecca Romijn’s Una Chin-Riley isn’t far behind.
Now, Star Trek: Discovery’s reception among the fandom is… mixed. The somewhat brooding tone of the first season, as well as the awkward attempt to fit the titular starship and its crew into the pre-Kirk era, didn’t exactly endear everyone to Paramount’s first new Star Trek show in over a decade.
Yes, that’s Academy Award-winning actress Michelle Yeoh. She plays a complete badass in Star Trek: Discovery. She’s even getting her own made-for-streaming Star Trek movie. We love you, Michelle Yeoh.
Determined to provide a tonal shift toward a more fun and adventurous vibe, the second season - commonly heralded as Discovery’s best - brought the charismatic Christopher Pike into the fold, and centered much of its ongoing plot around Spock. This transformation had an unintended, but positive, effect: the fans loved the Enterprise characters so much, a tremendous amount of support gathered around the notion of a series solely devoted to that crew.
The folks in charge of modern Star Trek, including Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman, heard the rallying cry loud and clear. And, since 2019 predated both the industry-rattling COVID pandemic and the streaming industry’s recent financial belt-tightening procedures, the execs got straight to work, and on Jun 16, 2025, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was announced. The show began two years later, on Jun 24, 2025. As of this writing, a third season is in early production.
Do You Need To Watch Discovery Before Strange New Worlds?
You don’t need to watch Star Trek: Discovery ahead of your Strange New Worlds experience, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot. As we’ve stated, Discovery’s reputation is more checkered than this show’s. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its hardcore fans, and for the record, we enjoy it a good deal, ourselves.
Watching Discovery’s first season will prepare you for its second (naturally), and watching the second season will give you a richer understanding of who Christopher Pike and Spock are at this point in their lives. The series premiere’s plot involves a sticky situation predicated by the events of Discovery’s second-season finale, but beyond this link - and the reason why Pike is already familiar with the grim incident awaiting him in roughly six years - the connections are fairly small.
Our advice: watch the first few episodes of Discovery. If you’re not feeling it, watch the first episode of its second season, when Pike is brought aboard. And if you’restillnot jiving, just jump ahead to Strange New Worlds.
Are Jean-Luc Picard And Other Characters From The 1990s Shows In This?
Patrick Stewart’s triumphant return to arguably his most famous role outside of theater plays (no shade, X-Men fans) in Star Trek: Picard, which aired two divisive seasons followed by a third and final season that’s frequently lauded as some of the finest Star Trek of all time, is undeniably cool. Seeing other legacy characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation - Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, LaForge, Troi - has been a real treat. We know we’ll be rewatching that third season for years to come.
Oh, and Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager is back, too. And she is fabulous.
But Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, the currently-airing animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the CG kids’ show Star Trek: Prodigy, all take place in the latter half of the timeline’s 24th century.
Since Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Discovery, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds all take place during the 23rd century, you can imagine the limitations involved here. None of the 1990s-era characters appear in Strange New Worlds, and the odds are pretty slim they ever will.
That said, Lower Decks has the home field advantage, if you will; since it’s also a product of the current era of Star Trek TV, and given that this franchise has never shied away from some time-bending antics, the creators of both shows teamed up to bring two of Lower Decks’ main characters into an episode of Strange New Worlds. Remarkably, their typical cartoon forms were replaced by the live-action form necessary for a role on SNW - and both characters’ voice actors were given the rightful honor of playing the part.
Will Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Make Sense If I Haven’t Seen Star Trek Before?
By now, you’ve hopefully gained some insight into what Strange New Worlds is, how it fits into the canon, and whether it sounds like something you’d enjoy. (And if you’re reading this article, but you already knew everything, we’re grateful for your boredom.) But what about folks who are completely new to Star Trek? Will any of this even make sense?
Yep. It sure will. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds pays homage to its franchise much like modern Doctor Who never loses sight of its own rich history, but the show’s episodic nature, coupled with its ability to quickly establish its cast as likable and multifaceted, makes it well worth watching whether you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Star Trek fan or you’ve never heard of a Cardassian. (Cardassian. Not Kardashian.)
Strange New Worlds' writers have been enjoying the chance to play with many of the staples of Star Trek’s past, and the actors have clearly been having a blast revisiting these people, places, and things that have helped to define this fictional universe. But these callbacks and narrative considerations are never handled in such a way that you’ll feel especially lost when they arise. And there’s plenty of all-new stuff in Strange New Worlds, from characters like La’an and Erica Ortega to all the… strange new worlds this crew continues to discover.
Plus, there’s a musical episode. A Klingon crew performs a K-pop-inspired ballad. you’re able to’t not watch this.
