Star Trek: Discovery lightly pressed the reset button again. But this time around, there’s no galaxy-wide mystery, the nostaglic look of a famous ship, or even a whole new setting. Following the end of Season 3 – “That Hope Is You Part 2”, Discovery Season 4 is set to enter the 32nd century and resume what made Star Trek famous: a show about the crew of a spaceship, which experiences exciting adventures week after week.
Now that the USS Discovery crew have a new captain and a new (loosely defined) mission, what should DISCO fans expect for Season 4? The short answer is a lot.
The Discovery Season 3 finale opened the series in a way that has never happened since its debut in 2017. As for the release date, cast, directors, and writers, here’s what to do with it. what we can expect from Star Trek: Discovery Season 4.
CBS has yet to reveal the official start date for the next season. However, the channel revealed that the cast and crew began filming on November 2, 2020 in Toronto. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Discovery Season 4 began filming approximately nine months after Season 3 ended in February 2020. Discovery is currently the only live-action Trek series to be actively filmed. This means that it will almost certainly air before Picard season 2 and the first seasons of Strange New Worlds and Section 31.
Late 2021 is a good bet as to when we can expect to see Discovery season 4.
Not yet. What comes closest to a trailer for Discovery Season 4 is the announcement of filming starting November 2. The cast and crew kept their focus on Season 3 so well that we weren’t even aware of the new uniforms, or the update to Discovery itself. So even when a trailer airs, we don’t always have a clear idea of what to expect.
Unlike previous seasons of Discovery, there appears to be little to no rotation within the creative team. As with season 3, Michelle Paradise will be the showrunner for season 4, with Alex Kurtzman as executive producer. The writing team is largely the same, and will likely include Kirsten Beyer, Bo Yeon Kim, Erika Lippoldt, and Kalinda Vazquez, among other fan favorites.
As with all previous seasons of Discovery, both Johnathan Frakes and Olatunde Osunsanmi are expected to return to episode directing. Sadly, Picard and longtime Discovery director Hanelle Culpepper revealed in 2020 that she won’t be able to direct episodes of Discovery Season 4 due to scheduling conflicts, adding that “she will miss my Star Trek family.” In addition to directing the first two episodes of Picard, Culpepper also directed the key episode of Discovery’s third season, “Forget Me Not”.