Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Pays Tribute To Gene Roddenberry’s Original Vision

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will cowboy up in season 4, in the ultimate callback to how Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek. Premiering Thursday, July 23, on Paramount+, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is the final season that will consist of 10 episodes. Strange New Worlds‘ fifth and final season, coming in 2027, will only be 6 episodes.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s trailer promises a return to space exploration, visiting new planets, and meeting alien species. Among the strange new worlds that Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise will encounter are a prehistoric dinosaur planet and some sort of dusty world that will require traversing on horseback.

Captain Pike, Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), and Dr. Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) don full cowboy regalia in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s premiere. The visuals of Starfleet Officers going Western as if they were in one of Taylor Sheridan’s hit Yellowstone series on Paramount+ is a nod to Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek‘s beginning.

Cowboy Captain Pike Is A Callback To Star Trek’s Original Pilot Episode

Captain Pike, along with La’an and Dr. M’Benga, on horseback calls back to Pike’s first appearance in Star Trek‘s original pilot, “The Cage,” which was rejected by NBC in 1965. “The Cage” established that Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) grew up an equestrian in Mojave, California. One of the illusions created by the Talosians brought Pike and Vina (Susan Oliver) to Mojave, with one of Chris’ horses.

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Star Trek Is Playing It Safe (& It’s Smart)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s trailer showcases a return to space exploration, which is a savvy move after the tumult of the past year.

Christopher Pike being a cowboy is an established, core aspect of the Captain of the Enterprise’s character. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ series premiere reaffirmed this for the modern Star Trek on Paramount+ era. Before he took command of the USS Enterprise again, Pike was living in Bear Creek, Montana, and rode a horse through the snow.

Star Trek: Discovery season 2 introduced Anson Mount as Captain Pike, who hadn’t been seen in Star Trek‘s TV series canon since NBC said no to “The Cage” but asked Gene Roddenberry to film a second Star Trek pilot without Pike and with an almost entirely new cast. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ premiere reminded fans that Captain Pike is an experienced cowboy.

A surprise in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s premiere is that Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh and Dr. Joseph M’Benga are also skilled on horseback. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s premiere looks like the first away mission for Pike, M’Benga, and La’an since they went to Rigel VII (another callback to “The Cage”) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 4.

Star Trek Was Originally Sold As A Space Western

Star Trek may be the most enduring and influential science fiction TV series of all time, but Gene Roddenberry rooted his creation in the dominant TV genre of the 1950s and 1960s: the Western. Roddenberry famously pitched and sold Star Trek to NBC as “Wagon Train to the stars” — an easy way for network executives to grasp Star Trek’s concept.

The Starship Enterprise’s weekly adventures were often heady morality plays, but the original Star Trek‘s episodes often evoked the Western genre’s action and fisticuffs. In Star Trek, the frontier of the Wild West became the final frontier of outer space, with a menagerie of aliens replacing Native Americans as the heavies.

Before creating Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry was a writer for many Western TV series, such as Have Gun, Will Travel, Whiplash, and The Virginian. Roddenberry also created Westerns that didn’t go to series, like Sam Houston, Wrangler, and Defiance County. Roddenberry’s career as a police officer formed the basis of his series, The Lieutenant, before Gene created Star Trek.

Jeffrey Hunter’s replacement as Star Trek‘s leading man, William Shatner, is a lifelong equestrian, and fans got to see his skills on horseback in Star Trek Generations. The Western runs deep in Star Trek‘s DNA, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 restores a seminal aspect of Captain Pike as conceived by Gene Roddenberry.

Release Date

May 5, 2022

Network

Paramount+

Showrunner

Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman