5 Seasons Of Star Trek Is The New 7, Unfortunately

5 seasons seems to be the new normal for Star Trek shows on Paramount+ instead of the 7 seasons of the Star Trek: The Next Generation era. The television landscape has undergone numerous changes since Star Trek: The Original Series premiered in 1966, and the rise of streaming, in particular, has changed the way people watch TV. With its seven-season run, Star Trek: The Next Generation established a pattern that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager followed. With around 26 episodes per season, all three TNG-era Star Trek shows produced well over 100 episodes, but that amount of content is likely no longer achievable by Star Trek.

Star Trek: Discovery will come to a close with its currently-streaming season 5, and the upcoming fStar Trek: Lower Decks season 5 will also be its last. Aside from Star Trek: Picard, which was always meant to run for three seasons, five seasons appears to be the new Star Trek threshold. Star Trek TV shows are now all streaming series, and streaming follows a different business model than network TV shows, typically having shorter episode counts and fewer seasons. This allows for streaming shows to have bigger budgets and, in Star Trek’s case, Paramount+’s shows are produced like feature films, which results in higher-quality content.

Why Star Trek Shows On Paramount+ Only Last 5 Seasons

In the era of streaming, 5 seasons is a solid run.

While some network shows continue to have 20+ episode seasons, streaming series like Star Trek generally produce about half that. With all of the various streaming services, there is more content available for viewers than there has ever been, and with that comes more competition. Plus, television shows are more expensive than they used to be, particularly genre shows like Star Trek, with their state-of-the-art starships and exotic alien locales. In the cut-throat era of streaming, a new show is lucky to be renewed for season 2, let alone season 5. Five seasons is a good run, especially when each show is given enough time for a proper ending.

While Star Trek shows with only five seasons may seem disappointing to longtime fans, shorter episode counts allow the series’ creators to spend more time and money on each episode, which results in less filler. With their longer seasons, Star Trek’s TNG-era shows sometimes ran out of money or time, resulting in some lower-quality episodes. Star Trek: The Original Series only ran for three seasons (although the shortest of those contained 24 episodes), and it has its fair share of middling to bad episodes. Shorter and fewer seasons allow for higher-quality episodes with feature film-quality production values.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Will Probably Run 5 Seasons

Strange New Worlds has been a resounding success among fans and critics.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has already been renewed for season 4, and it has become one of the most successful modern Star Trek shows. Not only has Strange New Worlds received almost universal praise among critics (it currently has 98% on Rotten Tomatoes), but it has also been a hit with fans and newcomers alike. With its phenomenal cast of characters and its connections to Star Trek canon, it’s very likely Strange New Worlds will get a fifth season. In the Star Trek timeline, Strange New Worlds leads directly into Star Trek: The Original Series, meaning it couldn’t run forever anyway, but it could conceivably go beyond 5 seasons.

Strange New Worlds is Star Trek at its best. Not only has the show reinvented several classic Star Trek characters, but it has also introduced some amazing new characters to canon. With its experiments with genre and storytelling styles, Strange New Worlds has produced several episodes that will go down as Star Trek classics. Hopefully, future Star Trek shows will learn from the success of Strange New Worlds and continue to experiment and push boundaries. Plus, the end of a Star Trek show does not mean an end to those characters. As the Strange New Worlds / Lower Decks crossover proved, characters can always pop up in other shows.

Can Any Other Star Trek Show Last 5 Seasons?

Could Star Trek: Prodigy or Star Trek: Starfleet Academy make it that long?

Star Trek’s next upcoming show, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, is a spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery set in the 32nd century, although little else has been revealed. Starfleet Academy will be aimed more at teenagers and young adults and will focus on hopeful cadets dreaming of being the next to explore the final frontier. It’s too early to speculate about how many seasons Starfleet Academy will get, as it is largely dependent on how successful the show becomes. Starfleet Academy showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau may have a plan for a certain number of seasons, but it always comes down to the streaming numbers and the business whims of the studio.

Star Trek: Prodigy was canceled by Paramount+, but was later picked up by Netflix, who plan to release Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 sometime in 2024. Star Trek: Prodigy season 3 is entirely dependent on the streaming numbers of the first two seasons. However, Netflix’s decision to pick up Prodigy does set the precedent for canceled Star Trek shows to be picked up by other streaming services. Now ensconced as a streaming franchise, a modern Star Trek series is unlikely to produce 100 episodes again as its broadcast predecessors did. In the modern era of television, it’s almost impossible to predict what shows will become hits, but the Star Trek fanbase will hopefully keep the franchise going for many years to come.

Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, & Star Trek: Lower Decks are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Prodigy is available to stream on Netflix.