Paramount keeps rebooting Star Trek, and I keep coming back, hoping whatever they’re trying now will hit like The Next Generation did back in the ‘90s (I am very old). Strange New Worlds is the latest attempt, and I’ll be damed if the trailer doesn’t make it seem like they’ve finally gotten it right.
Star Trek is a franchise—and I say this as a longtime adherent—that has always struggled when aiming for an audience larger than the geeks who already like Star Trek. The JJ Abrams reboot films are fun and flashy special effects romps, but they play more like action-packed Marvel movies than the kinds of ideas-first stories that fueled the various classic series’ best episodes. For me, Discovery and Picard seemed to be expending too much energy chasing Prestige TV buzz and building out Game of Thrones-level lore. I like a lot about both of them, but they aren’t what I am looking for from an episode of Star Trek.
When does Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiere on Paramount+?
Strange New Worlds looks like it might finally get the balance right when it premieres on May 5. The trailer promises to take us back to the earliest voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Captain Pike (Anson Mount, who has hair so cool Shatner probably finds it personally offensive). It looks missions-focused, brightly colored, and fun (instead of serious and brooding), and Rebecca Romjin gets to be the first officer, fulfilling a promise made in the unaired pilot of the Star Trek: TOS all those years ago. I’m onboard.
Also arriving on the streamer this month: The first season of Joe Pickett, which is apparently the highest-rated “Spectrum Originals” series ever, whatever Spectrum Originals is. The adaptation of the bestselling C.J. Box novels has been renewed for a second season, so now is your chance to catch up (while you figure out what a Spectrum Original is so you can watch season two live).
Here’s everything else coming in May—including a pretty strong list of old movies (watch Paper Moon!).
Paramount Plus Originals coming in May 2022
Arriving May 3
- Never Seen Again premiere
Arriving May 5
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds series premiere
Arriving May 11
- The Challenge: All Stars Season 3 premiere
Arriving May 15
Arriving May 20
- RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 premieres
- RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Untucked Season 4 premieres
TV shows coming to Paramount+ in May 2022
Arriving May 11
Arriving May 18
Arriving May 25
- Santiago of the Seas (Season 1)
Movies coming to Paramount Plus in May 2022
Arriving May 2
- 50 First Dates
- (500) Days of Summer
- A Chorus Line
- A Thousand Words
- Amistad
- Black Dynamite
- Bound
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- Cabaret
- Days Of Heaven
- Elizabethtown
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Footloose (1984)
- Fresh
- Galaxy Quest
- Gladiator
- Grease
- Grosse Pointe Blank
- Groundhog Day
- Head of State
- Little Fauss and Big Halsy
- Love Story
- Marathon Man
- Mean Girls
- Mission: Impossible
- Mission: Impossible II
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
- Mr. Mom
- Nebraska
- Paint Your Wagon
- Paper Moon
- Pootie Tang
- Raising Arizona
- Road to Perdition
- Saving Private Ryan
- Scary Movie
- Scary Movie 2
- Semi-Tough
- Serpico
- Shaft
- Shakespeare in Love
- Short Circuit
- Sidewalks Of New York
- Sleepy Hollow
- Star Trek
- Steel Magnolias
- Taps
- Tank Girl
- The Addams Family
- The Color of Money
- The Dogs of War
- The Fifth Element
- The Fighter
- The Great Gatsby
- The Longest Yard
- The Mechanic
- The Odd Couple
- The Poseidon Adventure
- The Professional
- True Confessions
- War of the Worlds
- Yours, Mine, & Ours
Arriving May 11
Arriving May 16
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
G/O Media may get a commission
