Strange New Worlds Renewed, Lower Decks Cancelled

Paramount+ has announced that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fourth season. Currently season three is in production with plan to debut in 2025. 

However, with the good news comes that bad. Star Trek: Lower Decks has been cancelled after the upcoming fifth and now final season that is set to debut sometime in the fall later this year.

To the fans,

We wanted to let you know that this fall will be the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks. While five seasons of any series these days seems like a miracle, it’s no exaggeration to say that every second we've spent making this show has been a dream come true. Our incredible cast, crew and artists have given you everything they have because they love the characters they play, they love the world we've built, and more than anything we all love love love Star Trek. We’re excited for the world to see our hilarious fifth season which we're working on right now, and the good news is that all previous episodes will remain on Paramount+ so there is still so much to look forward to as we celebrate the Cerritos crew with a big send-off.

Finally, thank you for always being so creative and joyful, for filling convention halls and chanting
LOWER DECKS!" We remain hopeful that even beyond Season 5, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford and the whole Cerritos crew will live on with new adventures.

LLAP
Mike McMahan and Alex Kurtzman

The quote "Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern" comes to mind. This is now two Star Trek series cancelled after their fifth season. So far in Paramount+ short life, no series of theirs has reached a six season. This reminds me of a long unofficial policy that NBCUniversal had with its dramas on SyFy and other cable networks where regardless of popularity, would cancel the show after five seasons. 

The reason was financial as most contracts for TV shows are five seasons. The sixth season is when the cost goes up significantly as the cast, writers, and producers all renegotiate their contracts. By then they know their worth and the shows worth and can demand significant raises. So to avoid all that, the shows would simply be cancelled, no negotiation attempt made. This seems likely the case here as Paramount is under pressure to cut costs as it preps to sell itself and possibly have parts of it sold off to reduce the debt it will be burdened with after the sell. 

So what does this renewal and cancellation mean for the future of Star Trek? Really just less Star Trek starting in 2025 as the shows that remain are Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy which is going to gear up for production soon for either a late 2025 or 2026 debut. Budget cuts in the company means its unlikely a third show will start up production to replace Lower Decks in the next few years and any decision to start a new show would be left to future new owners to decide as all signs indicate Paramount will have a new owner by year end.