Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has proven to be a hit for Paramount+, and even before they wrapped up filming the upcoming third season, the streamer ordered a fourth. And now, thanks to Jess Bush, we are getting a clearer picture on when they will be back in production and when season 3 could arrive.
Ready for season 4
Since production wrapped on the third season of Strange New Worlds in May, we’ve been waiting to find out when Captain Pike and his crew would return to Toronto to film another season. The first estimate we got was from Anson Mount, who suggested they would be back at it in the spring of 2025, then a few weeks ago James T. Kirk actor Paul Wesley said he was returning to the set in February for season 4. Now in a new interview with New York’s PIX 11 News, Jess Bush (Christine Chapel) has clarified things:
“Season 4 starts shooting in March, next year.”
Work on season 4 has already been well underway. In San Diego Comic-Con in late July, co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman said the writers had already mapped out all 10 episodes for the season. Strange New Worlds is shot in the Toronto area at CBS Stages Canada, unlike the first season of the new series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which is currently in production in Toronto (at Pinewood Studios) and should be wrapped up by March.
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Anson Mount, Celia Rose Gooding, Christina Chong, and Jess Bush in preview image from Strange New Worlds season 3 (Paramount+)
Season 3 in early 2025?
We are still waiting for word on when in 2025 season 3 will debut. Bush narrowed things down a bit, telling PIX 11:
“Season 3 we finished, but it hasn’t hit the screens yet. That will hopefully come out early next year. They have kept it under wraps for us as well so we are not one hundred percent sure, but it’s coming soon.”
With the first season of Starfleet Academy estimated to debut in early 2026, the only other Star Trek confirmed to be coming to Paramount+ in 2025 is the Section 31 streaming movie on Friday, January 24.
We do know that season 3 will be eventful for Jess Bush as it will be introducing Irish actor Cillian O’Sullivan in a recurring role as the TOS character of Dr. Roger Korby. In season 2, Chapel had been accepted for a fellowship with Korby, and according to Trek lore, he and Christine will eventually be engaged to be married.
We even know exactly how season 3 will start. At NYCC last month Paramount+ released a clip showing the opening moments of episode 301, picking up from the season 2 cliffhanger with Pike facing down a Gorn attack.
Jess’ Bee Totem
In addition to being an actress, Jess Bush is also an artist. She currently has an installation in New York City called “Bee Totem” on display at the lobby of Two Manhattan West until November 15. The installation is free to the public.
Here is her full interview on PIX 11 News talking about the installation and Strange New Worlds.
And here is a video from Manhattan West featuring Jess showing off her installation:
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Trek star and an artist ,too. VERY COOL!
She did the seemingly impossible: she made Christine Chapel, the biggest dud of TOS, a fantastic character.
Agreed 100 percent. I’m usually one to object to reimagining of classic characters. Don’t want them to meddle with James Bond for example. But in this case, going back and seeing the orginal Chapel, I totally understand and agree ewith the reinterpetation. Original Chapel had no real substance and it did feel she was just a token female caregive and a stereotype of the times.
also doesn’t hurt being the boss’ girlfriend
She did have some help from the writers, but yeah, I disliked TOS Chapel, but SNW Chapel is way cool — good job, Ms. Bush!
I love Jess and she strikes me as a super cool person and wonderful actor, but more often than not Chapel’s storylines are tied to her romantic interest in Spock. Aside from her support for M’Benga and covering up his drug use during the war (wtf was that plotline even about?!)- everything seems to revolve around Spock for her. Even her decision to take on the archeological program towards the end of Season 2 was in part engineered by Spock being an ass towards her.
I think that by now, female characters don’t have to be solely defined by their relationships to men, romantic OR platonic.
I have such a huge crush on Jess Bush. She’s really been fantastic as Nurse Chapel, giving her far, far, far more character depth and agency than she ever had in TOS.
Bush has done such a great job that canon almost becomes a detriment. You so much stan her Chapel with Spock that its disappointing when you know they can never be. She’s his lobster!
Also a lot of pressure for Cillian O’Sullivan and the writers that his Korby has to be so compelling that we buy her moving on to him… or there’s another reason why she feels forced to.
It’s widely agreed SNW occurs in an altered timeline from TOS, so theoretically the writer’s room could do whatever they want with the Spock/Chapel romance.
What’s a ‘lobster?’
No it isn’t, not widely or otherwise. You can’t just say things, pretend to have the backing of the masses, and expect nobody to call your bluff.
All I will say is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow essentially established SNW takes place in an altered timeline once the evil Romulan lady showed up in the present day and monologued how the Temporal Wars changed history and why kid Khan is now born 60 years later than his original birthday.
That is literally the definition of an altered timeline, especially since none of it was reset by the end of that episode. But yes, I also get until a writer just says thats officially the case, it will be argued about for a millennia. So you don’t have to believe it either.
But if everyone is being honest about it, that would actually make the most sense since hardly anything about SNW aligns directly with TOS canon at this point. From the Gorn to Chapel herself bares hardly any relation to what happens in TOS other than they both exist on the other show.
But this is why I really really hate prequels because of arguments like this.
I’ve never liked this argument that because of “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” that the timeline has been inexorably altered in such a way that SNW is now is a separate timeline than the prime timeline. I say this for two reasons – 1.) We’ve seen the past altered on numerous occasions, and said alterations have not resulted in a brand new timeline. A perfect example is DS9’s “Past Tense,” suddenly Sisko is Gabriel Bell! And the timeline couldn’t care less. VOY’s “Future’s End” basically implied that our entire microchip industry shouldn’t have happened in the way it did because of a future incursion, and there was also no Eugenics War going on when it very much should have been. Hell, the entire Temporal Cold War was all about changes in the timeline being kept in check enough that the prime timeline we know and love remains in tact. And 2.) This is based more on my understanding of Trek history, mixed in with some of the way the Temporal Cold War was portrayed, and that as long as certain major events happen in the past on some level, the prime timeline will remain in tact. In other words, while SNW straight up shows that the Eugenics War happens at a later date than TOS originally stated (which, based on what Spock say in “Space Seed,” records of the time weren’t the best, so they could’ve already had the date wrong), as long as the Eugenics War happens, and WWWIII happens, leading to Zephram Cochrane building the Phoenix, the prime timeline will remain in tact.
With all of that being said, I can’t argue that there aren’t obvious aspects of SNW that defy canon, with the Gorn being the most obvious. Oddly enough, I have quite a few Trekkie friends who haven’t really watched TOS much, and have zero issues with the Gorn being reimagined, and don’t see it as altering canon in any way. So I guess it just depends on who you ask 😜
But the difference is both ‘Past Tense’ and ‘Future’s End’ made it explicitly clear the timeline was fixed by the end of each story. In Past Tense, just like with ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ they had unintentionally wiped out the future of the Federation because Gabriel Bell was killed before the riots started and why Sisko replaced him. In Future’s End, the time ship literally said Voyager created the change in the future by going back to the past. We found out later they were always supposed to be there but this time managed to stop Henry Starling from disrupting the future. But you’re also right, he did have an influence on the timeline, but just not to the level history was completely changed over it. Major events stayed the same.
With ‘Tomorrow’, that was the problem, time had completely changed but no one bothered to try and alter it to its original state. They basically just accepted they were part of an altered timeline and the Eugenics war happened decades later. And even the 29th century time cops just shrugged over it when they explained to La’an what had happened. They all just went along with it which is not the Starfleet way lol, but there it is.
But I understand people can and will argue that SNW is not in an altered timeline. OK, fine, but here is the basic problem: When you watch that episode and then watch Space Seed, they both can’t be right, which means that Space Seed is simply no longer canon. And no, I don’t buy that Spock somehow ‘mixed up’ the dates because TWOK also exists and as stated by Khan himself in that movie he said they came from 1996. I’m pretty sure the guy would know what year they left Earth and wouldn’t be off by literally decades.
So either Space Seed (and I guess by extension TWOK) is no longer canon (good luck arguing that lol) or that SNW is in an altered timeline. And as said that would explain so many of the other changes as well. But they can’t both be right if they exist in the same timeline.
OR you can tell yourself it’s just a TV show and it doesn’t really matter. Yeah, that’s fine too lol. But regardless, the argument of it being an altered timeline is a valid one. And the people who wrote the episode obviously had to know that’s the conclusion most would take away from it or they would’ve made clear Khan being born 60 years later was a fluke that was restored by the end.
If they didn’t want people to assume this, then why make it at all???
Again, this is why I really wish they just kept TOS as the first show in the timeline and simply kept going forward from that point on, because all these prequels have made the timeline ridiculously messy and nonsensical; SNW turning out just as bad of a culprit as people accused Enterprise and Discovery of being.
You’re definitely not wrong… Trying to reconcile what Spock says in Space Seed regarding when the Eugenics War took place vs. what SNW shows us is a lesson in frustration to say the least. Then again, there’s been enough temporal shenanigans in Star Trek that I see the timeline as being able to flex to an extent without breaking.
Then again… again, I think if the writers had simply had the temporal agent in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” simply mention how now that La’an has stopped the Romulan agent, they can successfully restore the timeline (without even saying what exactly that means) right before they send her back to her own time.
To make matters worse (better? kinda the same?), we had the (fantastic) LDS crossover ep, and with everything we’ve seen in LDS it very much takes place in the proper timeline, so then that means one of three possibilities. The LDS crossover wasn’t simply Mariner and Boimler going back in time, but crossing timelines. SNW takes place in the prime timeline despite everything. Or, and this will just drive everyone completely crazy – LDS takes place in the supposed altered timeline of SNW. Which kinda means everything else has also been altered?
Or, as Miles O’Brien so succinctly put it, “I hate temporal mechanics!” ;)
It wasn’t a bluff. Simply watch the show, as well as people on these boards have been agreeing about this for well over a year (or two?) now. Canon has been flagrantly jettisoned on SNW a number of times. But hey, believe what you like, doesn’t matter to me. LLAP.
Her art display reminds me of the memory globes in Trumbull’s BRAINSTORM (an effect developed for TMP’s cloud but held back so Trumbull could use it in his movie.) I could actually easily see this as something used practically on SNW’s Enterprise in their messhall/party area (have no idea what this wide-open space is actually called in SNW nomenclature), though I don’t see the ‘bee’ aspect as being useful.