Star Trek: Strange New Worlds could continue for seven years

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns to Paramount+ for season two on June 15th. 

The series has already been greenlit for a third season, though production has been delayed due to the current writers’ strike. And showrunner Akiva Goldsman told Den of Geek that he believes Strange New Worlds could reasonably continue for seven seasons without running into problems associated with Star Trek: The Original Series.

Right now, the showrunner acknowledges they are screwing with canon, but as the series gets closer to where The Original Series began, it will have to begin to resemble the show that Gene Roddenberry brought to television in 1966.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will eventually have to acknowlege canon

And Goldsman believes that starts after the TOS episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before” because that is when the core cast was aboard the Enterprise, including DeForest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy, and the uniforms were where they would be for the remaining seasons.

Still, that leaves a wide-open landscape for the series as by the time TOS began, Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) was already a lieutenant. Currently, she’s [Celia Rose Gooding] still a cadet aboard Captain Pike’s Enterprise, which signifies she is a student in training to become a Starfleet officer. According to Memory-Alpha, the ranks of Starfleet officers start at ensign then proceed to lieutenant junior grade then lieutenant.

We already know that some unfortunate officers can remain ensigns for seven years (we’re looking at you Ensign Harry Kim), but even if Uhura doesn’t remain stuck in the vast wasteland of the no promotion zone for a while, is it feasible that she would make it to a lieutenant before seven years?

Regardless of how Uhura is promoted, there are still a plethora of things that need to happen before Strange New Worlds reaches Captain Kirk’s time period. So it’s safe to say that the series could have enough material to reasonably run for seven seasons.