The news is a bit of a surprise but at the same time isn't. Despite multi-year plans that knew profitability for streaming services was around five years down the line, Wall Street has been applying significant pressure for that to change from later to now. With it comes significant budget cuts despite all services increasing their monthly fees to customers. With budget cuts comes cancellations and abandoned plans.
In Discovery's case it was going to enter season 6 making it an ideal candidate to cancel. Typical shows have a five year contract with the cast, producers, writers, directors (pretty much everyone but the crew). There is flexibility for more money but its usually limited in that five season window. As a result, season six and beyond is when the much bigger pay days start to come into play.
They say the longer a show lasts, the more expensive it becomes and the increases in salary everyone gets is why. Its almost never because the show is spending more on what you see on screen. If anything production gets cheaper as show develops an inventory of standing sets, props, locations, the now highly experienced crew that turns results around faster, writers that now can write exactly to the budget and length, and so forth. You may have unknowingly experienced the results of this five years and done rule with SyFy's decades old policy of ending shows after five years. For awhile they were on a rip where they cancelled their number 1 shows repeatedly for about 15 years straight. No Stargate SG-1 doesn't count because 5 years were with Showtime and then 5 with SyFy. NBC/Comcast has extended that rule to USA, TNT and others. To soon to say if Paramount+ is going to copy this rule.
So what does this mean for Star Trek's other shows? For the next year and a half, probably nothing. This is all speculation on my part but this is how I see things landing. Star Trek: Picard is currently airing its already planned final season that had nothing to do with budget cuts. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 has completed production and probably now aiming for a mid to late summer release. Unless things just go really sideways, it will likely get a season 3 as it becomes the new franchise flag ship. Star Trek: Lower Decks season four is probably finishing production for late 2023 to January release and its lower cost will make a (final) season five likely. My guess is the last season of Discovery following sometime in early Spring 2024. Prodigy season 2 is also in production but since its a co-production with Nickelodeon, also experiencing budget cuts, I would be really surprised if it gets a season 3. Its season two will be split for 2024.
As for new programming, I think that will be on hold until late 2024 to see how the dust settles on budget cuts and if Wall Street is satisfied with its pound of creative flesh it has demanded. Possible rumored shows include the always present Section 31, Starfleet Academy, a show with Janeway and Star Trek: Legacy, a placeholder name for a Picard spin-off series that would tell stories with previous characters from the various Star Trek series with the USS Titan and her new captain Seven of Nine. Do not get too attached to any of these as odds of getting past the idea phase is low. Not because of the budget cuts but due to the nature of TV production.
As for Star Trek 4, honestly I say forget about it. Its wishful thinking to even see 2025 release as even a possibility. I just do not see it happening in a way that pays the actors what they want while also satisfying Paramount's budget cutting plans. That is even before trying to get these in demand actors to have a schedule that allows them to unite at the same time. If a new movie is announced, I would not be the least bit surprised if its from the TV side, set in the Prime universe and likely a TV show pitch that could be bolstered to a movie scale production for the budget that Paramount wants (shades of Star Trek: Phase II).
The next two years of Star Trek remains bright as the budgets had already been approved and built in for the 2023 and 2024 years. The question then is what will 2025 and beyond bring.
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