Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is returning to the 2026 TV schedule in July, but understandably, its fans are looking ahead to the future. With filming on the final season already wrapped, there's curiosity as to whether the proposed spinoff starring Paul Wesley's James T. Kirk will happen. Wesley recently shared the latest, though it seems there's not a whole lot of progress on that front.
The spinoff, codenamed Star Trek: Year One, was advertised as a soft reboot to the original Star Trek series that would depict the early years of the Enterprise bridge crew under Kirk's command. Wesley was asked about it during the FanX Comic Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana (via Collider), and the actor, who's wrapped his time on Strange New Worlds:, cracked a joke about Paramount+, saying:
[They] lost my phone number.
That's a kind and non-confrontational way of stating what Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes mentioned a while back: there are no Star Trek shows in active development at this time. As such, there's nothing for him to say when it comes to the existence of Star Trek: Year One, and there may be no new show announcements for a while.
If there's any good news, it's that Paul Wesley remains as committed to returning as James T. Kirk for a spinoff as he was when CinemaBlend asked him about it back in 2023. He's ready to make a spinoff happen, but it's going to require Paramount+ to give it the green light first:
We always talk about how we'd love to do a spinoff, and if we get the phone call, we'll do it. But we haven't got the phone call yet.
Who knows when or if that call will come, as Paramount is still in the midst of finalizing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. While there are plans for Star Trek to return to theaters, it seems as though we're in a holding pattern with television, with Paramount+ potentially waiting for the end of Alex Kurtzman's contract to pick the next person to lead Star Trek's next era of television.
Additionally, Paramount+ has a window of time before it's without Star Trek content on the streaming side. Strange New Worlds Season 4 is out this year, and then 2027 will presumably bring the final season as well as Season 2 of the already-cancelled Starfleet Academy. It could be a minute before we find out what's next for Star Trek, but hopefully, we'll get some answers sooner rather than later.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns with Season 4 on Thursday, July 23rd. Thus far, we've had no real indicator one way or another that there will be big announcements about new shows before the year is up, but if there are, fingers crossed Paul Wesley is involved.
