It’s not uncommon for some of the best streaming services to upload the first episode of a flagship original TV show to YouTube in an attempt to attract new subscribers. But offering an entire season is a frontier that few have crossed. However, Paramount Plus has just done exactly that by making the complete first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds completely free to stream.
Head over to the Paramount Plus YouTube channel and you’ll find all 10 episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds available to watch for free. Unfortunately, you do need to be in the U.S. in order to watch the episodes, but sci-fi fans in other countries can make use of one of the best VPNs to circumvent that particular restriction.
Pitched as a prequel to the original Star Trek show, Strange New Worlds follows the early adventures of the crew of the USS Enterprise and is significantly less serialized than some recent Trek projects. It stars Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, Christina Chong as La'an Noonien-Singh and Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura.
Why you should watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is broadly considered one of the best shows on Paramount Plus. Our U.S. Editor-in-Chief praised the show for combining “the best of the original series with The Next Generation, while adding in plenty of new twists” and the response from dedicated Trekkies has been similarly enthusiastic.
The prequel series has also been a critical smash scoring a seriously impressive 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Dan Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter declared that “Paramount Plus may have cracked the Star Trek code with a new series that’s bright, optimistic and fundamentally episodic in nature” and Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall noted that: “It’s almost startling how effective the old format is after all this time.” The show’s first season earned an audience score of 80%, which is also very strong.
It’s not hard to work out exactly why Paramount decided now was the time to make Star Trek: Strange New Worlds free to watch on YouTube. The show’s second season is scheduled to launch on the streaming service on June 15 and promises more space-exploring hijinks and even a crossover with the popular animated spin-off show Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is not the only Paramount Plus show that's streaming via YouTube either. Full seasons of the iCarly revival, Joe Pickett and Queen of the Universe are also now streaming for free. However, there’s no word yet on how long these shows will be available on YouTube, so we advise you to get watching as soon as possible as this may just be a limited-time promotion.
