Production on the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds began in early December, and thanks to one of the directors, we now know how far along they are.
That’s a wrap on episode 302
Today’s update comes from director Jordan Canning, who has been directing the second episode of the season. Earlier today, she took to her Instagram to post a picture of herself in the captain’s chair with the message “That’s a wrap on 302, and I’m missing it already. Didn’t think I could possibly love this show, this cast, and this crew more than I already did. Can’t wait to share our truly epic episode when it’s all done.” 🖖🏼
View this post on Instagram
This is Canning’s second time behind the camera for the series; she also directed episode 5 in season 2 (“Charades”). Her feelings for the cast are reciprocated: After Canning’s post, actress Jess Bush (Christine Chapel) followed it up with an Instagram story declaring today “Jordan Canning Appreciation Day,” with the message “Missing you already.” Nothing is known about the “epic” episode Canning just directed. She did share a photo (via Instagram story) from the USS Enterprise bar set on day 7 of shooting (January 16).
Behind the scenes on Strange New Worlds episode 302 (Instagram/Jordan Canning)
The third season of Strange New Worlds began filming on Monday, December 11, in Toronto with producing director Chris Fisher helming the season premiere. The team took an extended Christmas/New Year break, and resumed filming in the second week of January. Factoring in the break, it appears the team is keeping to the usual schedule of around 2 weeks of filming for each episode. The 10-episode season is scheduled to take just over 5 months, set to wrap up on May 21, 2024. Strange New Worlds usually has a mix of 10 directors for each season, helping give the show a mix of different styles and genres. We don’t have a full list of directors for season 3, but we do know TNG veteran Jonathan Frakes, who directed the fan favorite “Those Old Scientists” crossover with Lower Decks in season 2, will be returning.
Production of season 3 of Strange New Worlds was delayed by last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes; it was originally set to begin in early May 2023 and would have wrapped up late in the year. It is unknown when season 3 will debut on Paramount+ but due to the strikes delaying production, it may not be until 2025.
The second season of Strange New Worlds, which wrapped up in August, was a hit for Paramount+. The show picked up a series of Critics Choice Awards and Saturn Awards nominations. The full cast is set to return for season 3, which will also feature Scottish actor Martin Quinn as Scotty, who made his debut in the season 2 finale “Hegemony.” The showrunners have teased that more TOS characters are “inevitable,” although it’s unclear if we’ll see them in season 3. Even though the show will remain episodic, the Gorn are set to recur as villains. Co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman did confirm the series would continue to “genre hop” and attempt to once again do it “bigger and better” in season 3.
Rebecca Romijn as Una, Melissa Navia as Ortegas, Anson Mount as Capt. Pike and Jack Quaid as Boimler in “Those Old Scientists” (Paramount+)
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Sounds like we will see it in early 2025 then, but perhaps November this year if they push it. Hopefully they start filming Season 4 by this fall.
Given the delay, it would be awesome if they could film Seasons 3 and 4 back-to-back. If the cast and crew of PIC can film S2 and S3 back-to-back (because of COVID), there’s no reason the SNW cast can’t do the same. Long delays in these series is not good; it wasn’t good for DSC and I don’t think it would be good for SNW.
I agree. However, I am thinking the writers strike may in play as well…but they still have several months, so I do think it could work out at you suggest.
I’d be down with the first five episodes beginning in November and carrying the back half over into 2025. That means we could get Season 4 in Q4 2025.
Great idea! I guess it depends on if they have enough scripts. The writers were on strike for quite some time, too…
I doubt you could get all the cast members to agree to 12 consecutive months of shooting. Picard didn’t take 6 months to shoot 10 episodes.
I hope they don’t do that TBH. I would prefer they see the reactions to whatever they are doing with S3 before doing S4. Or at least have time to make adjustments if needed (not that I am saying it would be)
I would rather they make what they want to make and allow the fans that like it to enjoy it.
Discovery made too many changes that didn’t benefit the show in my opinion and turned it into something I no longer enjoyed.
Totally agree with you! As a creative director myself I can say that focusing on what you think your audience wants can often be the death knell of any creative endeavor.
Frankly, I think catering to the audience is what has been killing pop culture over the last decade or more.
If a studio wants to make X because they think that’s what the audience wants, that’s fine, but hire creators who want to do X. Don’t tell your existing creative team, who excel at making Y, to do it.
I’d much rather Star Trek producers and writers craft the stories they believe in and let them sink or swim on their own merits.
You’re much more likely to get a better result when a story is made by people who are passionate about it, and who chose their own direction and ideas, rather than hired guns taking direction from fans.
Besides fans aren’t very smart. That old Simpsons episode comes to mind.
“So you want a realistic, down-to-earth show that’s completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots…”
or just have seasons that are not over ‘In the blink of an eye’ (pun intended)
Any word if Jack Quaid or Tawny Newsome was spotted on set with their uniforms on? 😁
Huh, I did a double-take at that photo. Funny how much more it looks like the TOS bridge when they turn off the displays and other lights.
Anyway, I welcome more SNW. Wasn’t a big fan of Season 2 but I’ll stick with it.
Yea, S2 was a bit of a letdown after the great S1. I don’t want anymore BS “big swings” like cartoon crossovers or musicals.
I want singles, doubles, steals and a high on-base percentage — give me 10 eps of classic TOS-updated science fiction Trek this year please!
Agreed. 10 modern TOS-like episodes with maybe a connecting thread would be sublime!
I really appreciated the risks they took in the second season. The crossover episode really worked and I enjoyed the musical. There were also several standout standalone episodes.
That being said, it would be nice to actually just have nine solid singles once the S3 premiere resolves the S2 finale.
They didn’t work for every fan. All I’m saying.
Nothing ever works “for every fan” though. You can see that in the comments under basically every article posted on this site.
I liked the crossover a lot. I mean if we can accept that the TOS crew and the TAS crew are the same then I can totally get over animation vs live action. But musicals? This is just me but I have never liked any musicals. Trek or otherwise. Like I said, just my preference.
I think Season 2 was marginally better than Season 1, but both seasons were wildly uneven in their quality. Season 2’s highs were higher, but there were some god awful episodes like the premiere and M’Benga’s big episode. When the show gets it right, it’s fantastic- but it drops the ball way too much.
I didn’t have a major problem with season 2 like others did for some reason. I didn’t like the first episode, the musical or the one dealing with the Klingon general all that much but pretty much liked everything else.
And TOS was definitely my favorite for both seasons! Guilty! 😁
Ya the musical one is the only one I really didn’t connect with. the rest I was more than fine with!
The Klingon General episode is probably the best SNW episode so far (haven’t seen 210 yet). Complex issue with good presentation, great acting and a couple of well executed twists.
Pretty much the same way I feel about SNW, S2 was weaker. Not ‘must see’ TV for me, but I’ll be tuning in for S3.
Just found S1 & 2 on disc on EBay for less than $20, so I picked them up.
That’s a surprisingly good price, was it a knockoff edition, or did the seller have a misspelling in the title?
20 years back, I remember getting the BLADE RUNNER SKETCHBOOK for about seven bucks off eBay because the seller mistakenly listed it as BLADERUNNER (no space) so apparently other potential buyers didn’t have it in their search (sold it for over a hundred later, wished I held onto it, it goes for 300-500 now!)
Nearly all of that original BLADE RUNNER tie-in material is gold; a couple years back I found the mass-market sized comic book adaptation in great unread-looking shape at a resale store for two bucks!
Years ago I was in a comic shop in Manhattan and saw the complete set of TOS Fotonovels (twelve volumes, plus the TMP one- no WOK, alas- all in really good shape) for sale, at like a couple of bucks each. (The price labels looked really old.) The guy at the counter was like, “Oh, man! Well, it was on the shelf and priced like this, so I guess we have to…” I still have them. (The Fotonovels- my brother had about four- were one of my first introductions to Trek.)
I loved those as a kid. Wore the set out.
Not missing much on the TWOK one, as it was black-and-white and had several pages worth of imagery ‘flipped.’ Now if TMP and TWOK had had OUTLAND / ALIEN -sized fotostories in the very large trade paperback format, that would have been something to treasure! I had the very first one, a hardcover of STAGECOACH, as well, mainly because I read that Orson Welles learned everything he needed to direct by watching that film over and over again! But as a result of inhaling that book, I’ve never actually seen the film itself (though I saw a bit of the remake with Ann Margaret, which may well have been the GIGI of its time.)
All of the later smaller Foto- books seemed to suffer from bad editing … they rewrote lyrics to GREASE songs wholesale to take them down to a more traditionally PG level than those heard in the actual film, and I’m pretty sure they darkened some imagery on BODY SNATCHERS and NIGHTWING. But the TOS ones were great visual references for me, I learned a lot about shot composition and film editing, comparing them with the actual episodes. I did often wonder on what basis they made their choices, because some of the eps out of that dozen are definitely lesser efforts and/or visually uninspiring.
Thanks! There’s a scene in RKO 281 of Welles and Gregg Toland watching Statecoach over and over.
Brand new and both still in plastic. I was pretty surprised, since S1 of SNW typically goes for about $12 – $15 on EBay. So I said ‘why not?’
DISCO and SNW did a great job modernizing the 1701 bridge, esp when you consider how badly the Kelvinprise bridge was.
Oh I agree. I find it much easier on the eyes than the Kelvin bridge anyway.
So is the sun!
Ha!
Same, I questioned whether they had changed the bridge as well to be more retro-looking, guess it is just the lighting and stuff like you said.
Bring back prime Lorca!
If we don’t get Prime Lorca for the S31 film, I would most definitely like to see him pop up on SNW!
100%
I’d love to see him back too but for some reason Jason Isaacs seems to be a persona non grata in Trek circles these days.
Well, the problem is that Lorca is uninteresting without the rest of the DISCO crew as foils. He doesn’t have a history with Pike and company.
Not just that, Prime Lorca wouldn’t even be the character audiences are familiar with (assuming they’ve seen DSC season 1).
Looking forward to more SNW. Wish the season was a few episodes longer too. Since there’s no story up, let me add, RIP Gary Graham.
Trekmovie needs to do a memorial article on Gary Graham. Yes his politics might have been divisive but he had a quite bit of an impact in Trek with his role in Enterprise. Also of course lets not forget Robot Jox and Alien Nation.
After many years of not watching fiction TV at all, Alien Nation was the first time I decided it was really OK to watch some TV.
If the surprising lack of even a mention of his passing on the site is due to his political opinions not being popular among the site owners, that would be a disgrace.
Agreed about season length as we are getting less Trek shows now they should increase the ep counts to like 13. Also, RIP Gary Graham!
Since they take two weeks per episode and the original series did theirs in one, they should do 14 or 15 episodes per season.
I would love that
Yay! It’s always great to hear about SNW!
The Enterprise in SNW looks like some kind of luxury space palace at times, and I don’t really know why they chose to go with such glamour. I like the 60s vibe to the sets, but Kirk’s Enterprise wasn’t a cruise ship – it was a workhorse of the fleet, utilitarian vessel. But I feel like in SNW they think they need to make the ship so maximal, even though I feel like they don’t treat the ship like a character in the same way TOS did, the way Kirk loved the ship and the crew, not like a family, but like it was his duty. That’s really what I don’t like about SNW – that feeling that none of this is particularly serious. Yeah, it looks pretty, but it’s just a vapid copy. Give me Kirk over Pike any day.
I have a feeling it’s coming. I mean so far, we have Kirk, Spock, Uhura and now Scotty on the show. If we end up seeing Sulu and McCoy, then I say they should just transition over to a remake of TOS.
Yes!
TOS was written and produced by mostly WW2 vets and I see it reflecting this outlook including the sets. I remember seeing the interior of modern aircraft carriers and thinking about how much they now remind me of casinos.
Except when they play 21 on a carrier, it is a celebration of somebody reaching drinking age!
Oh really? I haven’t been on a modern carrier – good on them making them better places to live lol
Hope scotty replaces that awful Carol Kane character.
Oooohhh I see color on the bridge again. Whats next, some exploring strange new worlds and some action adventure again like season one?
Or is it the bland complete with dumb time travel?
Scotty to the rescue?
May fortune favor the foolish, fingers crossed.
Well, I’m glad the cliffhanger resolution is in the can at least. :-)
I’s so pumped!
Definitely looking forward to S3. I didn’t mind S2 at all except for the already mentioned several times, musical. I’ve watched S1 & S2 through a few times each and still have yet to watch that episode in its entirety. And interestingly enough, I didn’t mind the cartoon crossover, even though I can’t stand Lower Decks as a stand alone show.