‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 4 Trailer Teases an Impossible New Threat

After the long wait between Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 2 and 3 (thanks to that pesky COVID pandemic, of course), you’d be forgiven for thinking there would be a similarly long wait for Season 4. Good news, then: as revealed at today’s First Contact Day celebration held by Parmount+, Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 will premiere in 2021. Not only that, but the streamer offered up a first look teaser trailer for the upcoming season.

In Season 3, the crew of Discovery was flung into the far future — far even by Star Trek standards. Stranded in the year 3188/3189, the crew reunited the broken bits of the Federation, and restored hope to the galaxy — thanks in part to the discovery of a planet made out of Dilithium, a crystal crucial to space travel. At the end of the season, Discovery was sent off a mission that Star Trek fans know well: to travel the galaxy and discover new life, bringing Dilithium wherever they can, and reuniting all sentient beings.

Oh, and perhaps even more importantly: after three seasons, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) was made captain of Discovery. That’s exciting news for fans of the show, the franchise, and Martin-Green; arguably bad news for Burnham, who just took a job that has about as much turnover as Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher.

And as seen in the trailer, Burnham is going to have her work cut out for her. Following up on last season’s mysterious event, The Burn, this season looks to find the galaxy entering a new era of peace… Only to have that snatched away by an enormous, destructive gravitational anomaly. An anomaly that, by the looks of it, all but destroys the Discovery.

“We’re all living in uncertainty,” Burnham says over slow motion shots of the crew. “Even for a crew as familiar with it as this one. The stress is taking its toll. But we are not in this alone. None of us are.”

Glimpsed in the rest of the trailer are multiple races and characters including: a representative from Ni’Var, the united civilization of Vulcans and Romulans introduced in Discovery Season 3; Saru (Doug Jones) and other Kelpiens; and most importantly, Book’s (David Ajala) cat, Grudge Cat. We also discover just how big the gravitational anomaly is: five lightyears across, which is, uh, pretty big.

“We are facing something we don’t understand,” Burnham continues. “Something that can tear us all apart. But there’s only one way to confront the unknown: together.”

Like other Star Trek series, Discovery has always looked to give a sci-fi sheen to what is happening outside our window. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to venture that this season, which was written in COVID lockdown, is taking the idea of an implacable, massive threat like a pandemic and filtering it into the lens of a gravitational anomaly. But we’ll certainly know more when the season debuts later this year.

Also returning for Season 4 are Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz, David Ajala, Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander.

Watch the teaser above, and as Captain Burnham would say: let’s fly.

Where to watch Star Trek: Discovery