r/trektalk

I would love to get your thoughts, but this sounds like confirmation that they’re gonna move in a different direction.

**From the interview of Jane Wiseman (**EVP & Head of Originals for Paramount+)

WISEMAN: It is our goal and it is our job to figure out what the next bounce of Star Trek is. We’re talking to a lot of writers, we are leaning on CBS Studios, and it is imperative that we figure out what the next iteration is in this franchise because it’s just too important. We also are in touch with Paramount Pictures, they have a Star Trek movie that’s in development.

https://deadline.com/2026/08/paramount-plus-jane-wiseman-interview-programming-strategy-1237040692/

Screenrant:

Celia Rose Gooding Is Taking Uhura Closer To Nichelle Nichols In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-4-celia-rose-gooding-interview/

"When Tawny Newsome guest-starred in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2's beloved crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks, her character, Ensign Beckett Mariner, was thrilled to meet her hero, Uhura, only to learn that Nyota was a workaholic who can't relax. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's ode to The Hangover, "Human Best Friend," saw an inebriated new side to Nyota: Rave-hura.

Playing Rave-hura "was such an exhale," Gooding beams, noting how

>"I've been dying to play a much more chillaxed party girl role. I think, just because of the nature of me as a dramatic actor, that I am often pulled towards very serious, very busy. very Capricorn-type divas. And so, to play a version of her that is so zenned out and blissed out, and really protective of her peace… I loved the idea that she won't hang out with her best friends because they're having a really hard time with something right now, and their energy cannot come in and like muck up what Uhura's got going on."

>"I found it to be very funny when I read it in the script where she's like, 'No, you guys are doing way too much for me right now, and I'm chilling in here,'" Celia explains. "Besides the fact that her costume was incredible, besides the fact that her makeup was incredible, besides the fact that the nature of the episode is so comedic and fun, I think Rave-hura is incredibly inspired by her relationship with Mariner, the one that she had in the Lower Decks crossover. I think that the voice of Mariner, the voice of Tawny Newsome, lives in Uhura's head, just like the voice of Tawny Newsome lives in mine."

>I don't know that there has been so much unspoken evolution of Uhura and the different facets of her, and I think we get to see one that we didn't really expand on after the Lower Decks crossover in season two. I like to think that Mariner and Ortegas, if she wasn't in this sort of buddy-cop sort of situation with Scotty, I think that they would both be very proud of Rave-hura for finally letting her hair down. Even if it required atmospheric inebriation, she got there, and that is what deserves celebrating. So yeah, I love it. It's a nice callback to that episode in season 2. ..."

ScreenRant: I also loved the jokes. “Her hands are so soft.”

>Celia Rose Gooding: Well, yeah, because no matter where she is, Uhura is always moisturized. We cannot forget that.

Read more:

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-4-celia-rose-gooding-interview/

REACTOR:

"Michael was the person who saw Spock when nobody else could. And her final words to him, when Spock admits fearing that he’ll be unable to find his balance without her, are arguably the ones that lead him directly into the orbit of a farmboy from Iowa and his grumpy southern doctor bff:

>“Listen to me, little brother: This is the last advice I’ll ever be able to give you. There is a whole galaxy out there full of people who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you, and reach for them. Reach for them. Let them guide you.”

https://reactormag.com/strange-new-worlds-spock-kirk-secret/

So it sucks, really, that Spock can’t share this with Jim. It’s likely that McCoy gets the information (or some semblance of it, at least) when Spock’s katra takes up residence in his mind following Wrath of Khan, but the person Spock is closest to by every conceivable measure is on the outs.

Unless Strange New Worlds just fixed that.

The latest episode, a vehicle created primarily to help Ortegas and Scotty reconcile their differences, is called “Human Best Friend.” [...] Jim appears again, impressed at Spock’s technical acumen, and Spock reveals that he knows why Jim is there: He has never had a human best friend. His subconscious is manifesting someone he can share his “fears, hopes, dreams” with.

Jim is so down for this sharing session: “Okay, buddy: Let’s talk,” he says, mirroring Spock’s posture and never breaking eye contact.

[...]

Ortegas finally acknowledges Kirk as she hauls Scotty off to sickbay following his interlude with the bomb. The error becomes clear and Spock, rightly, questions why Kirk was even on the planet.

The answers are unsatisfying because that was never the point. Jim was just on leave in the same place. He’s happy to have run into Spock and spent more time together; according to Jim, “a mind meld only takes you so far.” (Yeah. He’s never beating the “long talks by starlight” allegations.)

Spock is mortified. He told Kirk all of his secrets. But it’s okay, because Jim promises that every single one of those secrets is safe and tucked away. They’re closer than ever now, and that’s a good thing. Spock has found his human best friend.

But, perhaps more importantly… what’s Spock’s biggest secret?

So now we know. Jim Kirk knows all about Michael Burnham, to a degree of detail that Spock probably finds embarrassing. He just never mentions it to anyone else because he follows Starfleet rules. And, if anything, this information lends more credibility to the times when Kirk is surprised by Spock’s undisclosed relationships—he already knows about the biggest and most secret one! He basically got the report with the redacted information in big text and the public info blacked out.

And he never bothered to question it because he’s an absurdly sincere person. Even when his Vulcan best friend keeps slamming him with new in-laws every five to ten years."

Emmet Asher-Perrin (Reactor.com)

Full article:

https://reactormag.com/strange-new-worlds-spock-kirk-secret/

DEADLINE:

"In a wide-ranging interview with Deadline held on her one-year anniversary, Wiseman discussed Paramount+’s programming strategy and its different areas: female forward, genre and YA dramas — but not comedies — kids and family programming and unscripted. She spoke about Paramount+’s relationship with its top creators, Sheridan and Tyler Perry — who recently sold his stake in BET+ to Paramount — teasing more shows from both.

Wiseman also talked about buying from sister studios Paramount TV Studios and CBS Studios and, for the first time in Paramount+’s history, from outside studios, too, about the future of the Star Trek franchise and the Showtime brand as well as building a slate with the WBD merger noise in the background and plans for Year 2."

https://deadline.com/2026/08/paramount-plus-jane-wiseman-interview-programming-strategy-1237040692/#comment-list-wrapper

--------------

Interview excerpts:

"[...]

DEADLINE: Along with female dramas, genre has been a priority. You brought in top genre executive Chris Parnell to lead the efforts but haven’t announced any series. Where are you in the process and what areas are you focusing on? I’ve heard world-building, fantasy, romantasy. Everybody wants their Game of Thrones and Stranger Things .

WISEMAN: Speaking of spaces, the space is wide open. We’re the home of Star Trek, and we have series coming back. We’re going to have more. Yellowjackets, I guess, is also considered genre, and Dexter. But as far as new things coming to the service, true, we want our world-building, platform-defining genre series, and that can be grounded. In fact, we hope it is grounded because the best genre shows have relationships at the center.

What’s also exciting is that we have a Paramount library to choose from, titles that we’re investigating that you’ll hear from at a later date. And there’s nothing better than hearing an original idea for a grounded genre series that speaks to a lot of people. So the space is pretty wide open. And yes, you alluded to Chris Parnell, there’s no one better in that space, and there’s no one more in that space that I want on my team.

DEADLINE: Do you feel strongly about your development? Do you think that your signature genre show may be one that you already have in the works?

WISEMAN: I will say that when you’re developing these genre platform-defining shows, they do tend to take a little bit longer. But I would say for sure that there are a handful of titles, from our studio partners as well as a third party, that we are looking at right now, developing, and are on a very, very strong path to green light. I just can’t talk about anything right now.

DEADLINE: What is your plan for the Star Trek franchise? It is at crossroads with Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy ending and no new series greenlit. If I heard you correctly, you said that something is coming. Yes?

WISEMAN: Well, it’s one of the reasons why Chris is here as the resident number one fan of the Star Trek franchise. And there’s so many people in this building, by the way, that are. It is our goal and it is our job to figure out what the next bounce of Star Trek is. We’re talking to a lot of writers, we are leaning on CBS Studios, and it is imperative that we figure out what the next iteration is in this franchise because it’s just too important. We also are in touch with Paramount Pictures, they have a Star Trek movie that’s in development.

[...]"

Full interview:

https://deadline.com/2026/08/paramount-plus-jane-wiseman-interview-programming-strategy-1237040692/#comment-list-wrapper

MOVIEWEB:

"I know it's supposed to be a somewhat playful moment, but I couldn't help but feel like I was being beaten over the head with a sentiment that could have remained unspoken, and therefore more powerful. It was already incredibly unsubtle, but this moment robbed the episode's narrative debrief of its moment to sit in quiet contemplation.

The canon explanation for Star Trek's noir episode being in black and white is that Ma'taar 12's sun emits a rare form of radiation that impacts how color is perceived. This is stated at the top of the episode, which immediately removed the possibility of the phenomenon being a mystery that needed solving. Starfleet was already aware of it. So, I assumed the lack of color would turn out to be central to the plot, rather than serving as an in-your-face visual metaphor to reflect the episode's message.

As such, you can imagine my disappointment when that Dr. M'Benga line about the nature of morality was uttered. What I really wanted was a situation to arise where colors other than black and white were immediately relevant to the story at hand. Maybe a bomb needed disarming, and the red wire needed to be cut. How would anyone know which wire was red? I'm not saying that exactly, but something of that ilk. But nope, "A Case of Chiaroscuro" did very little to directly address its reduced color palette. Now, this particular gimmick has been used up, so Star Trek is far less likely to use it in the future, making this episode feel like a huge missed opportunity."

Daniel Bibby (MovieWeb.com)

Full article:

https://movieweb.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-noir-gimmick/

Source:

Star Trek on Instagram

Link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DbdejtbAY_u

CBR: "During an interview with TV Insider, Star Trek star William Shatner said he would like to return to the iconic sci-fi franchise as James T. Kirk. Shatner explained that he admires the character and believes that returning could bring an older, wiser perspective to the role and the series.

While there are no official plans yet, Shatner’s interest is good news for fans who want to see the original Kirk again. His return could help guide the franchise, create a new story that deals with his character’s ending in Generations, and bring the series back to its roots. [...]

https://www.cbr.com/star-trek-captain-return-save-franchise/

Star Trek has never been a series of space fantasy or cyberpunk dystopias, but is rather about bringing together different species to explore the nature of existence, made possible only through its standalone adventures on the great frontier. And this is what’s needed to push the franchise forward: a return to the moral lessons, sharp character development, and anticipation of the pre-Enterprise era. [...]

Unlike Picard, Spock, McCoy, Sisko, and essentially every other OG character, Kirk still has a lot more room for development. There are still several parts of his past left unexplored, including his time teaching at Starfleet Academy, his role as an eyewitness to Kodos’ massacre of 4,000 colonists, and the specifics behind his reprogramming of the Kobayashi Maru test.

The prospect of seeing an older Kirk return to fill in the gaps in these details is an exciting thought in itself. But it’s what can be achieved from this potential that would give the franchise its much-needed push. Developing his character with a fresh storyline, perhaps one in which he’s passing down wisdom acquired from such adventures, would offer an ideal opportunity for continuation. [...]

Today, Star Trek wouldn’t benefit from a simple handover between generations, mostly because there’s nothing substantial to work from. That’s what worked for TNG and DS9; both were built upon two already successful shows ready to hand over the reins.

This is why Shatner’s Kirk is the answer. His return would build on The Original Series to address gaps in his character, introduce a new crew alongside him to guide, and set up an eventual handover that would push the franchise in a new direction. And, for those ready to argue that Picard did the same thing, the issue with Stewart’s series was that the titular character was already mostly fleshed out, which led to unnecessary subplots and drama.

Thankfully, with a lot still to explore, Kirk’s return would avoid this, making him the only one capable of saving Star Trek from its impending doom. After all these decades, Shatner’s captain is still the most recognizable character from the sci-fi franchise, and if Paramount really wants to make Star Trek bigger and better than ever before, it needs to look to its past to bring back the one man who can help it boldly go into the future."

Amy Watkins (CBR)

Full article:

https://www.cbr.com/star-trek-captain-return-save-franchise/

The entire plot hinges on a collaborator seeing Una and going:

>“Oh hey, Nevette, welcome back.”

And everyone makes the same mistake. Even the photo is not just the same person, but the same makeup.
The Klingons in the episode have:

• have biometric scanners
• have mind‑reading tech
• have ID systems
• have surveillance everywhere

But this flys?

What are the odds Una looks so much like this woman that no one can tell the difference?
Slim, but possible.

Also - the aesthetic doesn’t tie into the plot in any meaningful way. Boring and slow moving episode.

Someone is doing a great job with sets and costumes, but the writing is terrible.

TREKMOVIE: "Not the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They really went for it in this one, taking a big swing into noir, complete with black and white. While the ambition can be admired, the execution came up short. If you are going to take a big swing, the key is to hit the ball. And the trick is to hit it both in terms of the genre you are shooting for, and also in terms of Star Trek and serving the characters. It’s a tall order and hard to do, admittedly.

https://trekmovie.com/2026/08/13/recap-review-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-obscures-shades-of-gray-in-a-case-of-chiaroscuro/

This was certainly a solid episode for Una, who has been given more prominence this season, with Rebecca Romijn delivering a strong and nuanced performance. She’s ably assisted by Babs Olusanmokun, who has become this show’s Klingon whisperer, once again showing Dr. M’Benga’s complex past as a war veteran. Una also showed important growth and depth as she struggled with balancing her Starfleet ambition and troubled Illyrian past. We also got some great moments with Uhura, although it’s unclear how she was able to resist the Klingon mind scanner.

In order to get into the genre, this episode asks us to accept a lot of handwaving, and to be honest, it’s not worth nitpicking because that is actually part of the Star Trek bargain that is worth paying. But when it came to truly exploring this genre, the episode has more to bring when it comes to the visual style. Mat’Aar XII looked pretty cool, inspired by the German expressionism films of Fritz Lang, especially Metropolis. The sets and costumes were impressive.

And of course “A Case of Chiaroscuro” leaned heavily into an homage to the classic film Casablanca, with Una standing in for Rick the café owner, the Klingons standing in for the Nazis, all in the background of a resistance struggle. And in case you didn’t get it, Uhura actually says “of all the gin joints,” plus they even redid the classic scene when the café patrons drown out the Germans with a patriotic song. But for many of the trappings of film noir, the episode didn’t deliver on the themes it usually evokes, with just a taste of the classic moral ambiguity that is the driving force of the genre. DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight” and maybe even Voyager’s “The Killing Game” are better entries, without the black and white.

The saving grace of last week’s episode was that for all its frivolity, it was actually funny, delivering on the stoner comedy premise. That can only be said at the surface level of this attempt at noir.

As for the B-story on the Enterprise, there were some fun moments, like seeing how Ortegas and Scotty are now Cuban sandwich bonding buddies, and it does feel like Spock has really taken that pivot to logic, showing how these characters are changing and picking up on previous episodes. As for La’an, it’s unclear where the show is going with her but with the noir style, this was an opportunity to lean into a hardboiled detective plot, but the ship story just felt like standard Strange New Worlds, not taking advantage of the black and white environment.

It was nice to see how Pike indicated he knew she was keeping secrets from him, but again the genre calls for something grittier, the exposure of corruption, the exploration of societal issues being swept aside by the Federation. Strange New Worlds has dived deep into this area before (like when Una was put on trial), but this episode barely skims this surface.

‘Again with the Klingons’ may be a trope, but in fact, it’s quite welcome. They may be the ubiquitous baddies (turned more nuanced allies) of the franchise, but there are still many mysteries. How the Empire manages things with local populations was a fascinating aspect of this episode and a welcome addition to the canon. Putting Kor in charge had potential, but the characterization of him here didn’t really gel with the menace of his first appearance in TOS or his later appearance as old friend of Curzon Dax in DS9.

While the Klingons of this era are certainly good stand-ins for the villains in Casablanca in space, there was an opportunity here to use them for modern allegory. It may be six decades since the Cold War, but wasn’t there an opportunity here to create a more direct allegory to modern conflicts and even proxy wars, or even dip into a commentary on domestic issues with resisting overly oppressive enforcement?

Final thoughts

This fourth entry had its fair share of fun moments, cool elements, and the whole wow factor of being a franchise first in terms of format style. Still, it was a missed opportunity to be much more, something this series with only twelve more episodes to go can hardly afford."

Anthony Pascale (TrekMovie.com)

Full review:

https://trekmovie.com/2026/08/13/recap-review-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-obscures-shades-of-gray-in-a-case-of-chiaroscuro/

Redshirts:

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/star-trek-snw-season-4-episode-4-case-chiaoscuro-una-spoiler

By Steven Thrash

"Strange New Worlds executive producer and co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman addressed the new season’s propensity to warp-speed from one particular genre to another, while also bringing up Una’s importance in “A Case of Chiaroscuro," by saying in an interview:

>“I think that we've always tried to pick and choose in a way that served the storytelling. The Casablanca idea, the noir idea, serves as an Una exploration of self.”

Goldsman continued by saying:

“I think fundamentally, once we pick a thing, we're always at risk of going too far because that's what we're trying to do. We're really trying to reach the very edge of where the genre can tell us more in a Star Trek episode than might traditionally be told. And that's often the trick, right? Bend it, just don't break it.”

In my opinion, the reward far outweighs the risk Goldsman and fellow showrunner Henry Alonso Myers took in the film noir-centric Strange New Worlds episode with Romijn's Una Chin-Riley and the other characters basking in the black-and-white values caused by the infrared blackbody spectra.

Even though Una has been featured heavily in the first few episodes of Strange New Worlds, with my favorite of Romijn’s on-screen moments being when she sang “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in Klingon, she clearly steals the spotlight in SNW’s exploration of the gritty black-and-white film noir world. ..."

Read more:

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/star-trek-snw-season-4-episode-4-case-chiaoscuro-una-spoiler