Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns for its fourth season on Paramount+ this week, timed to coincide with Star Trek's 60th anniversary celebrations at San Diego Comic-Con on 23 July. Collider's review, based on the first six episodes provided in advance, finds the season a return to form after the more subdued, emotionally weighty Season 3 finale, but argues the show's long-standing flaw persists: characters are treated as vehicles for episodic plots rather than as people who develop meaningfully over time.

The review praises the series' trademark genre-hopping structure, which sees episodes swing between classic moral-dilemma sci-fi, horror, buddy comedy, noir and even puppetry, backed by strong visual effects, practical props and inventive camerawork that the critic says sets it apart from anything else currently on television. However, it criticises the lack of narrative follow-through, citing Captain Pike's swift emotional recovery after living a lifetime with, then losing, Captain Batel at the end of Season 3 – a experience compared to Picard's in the Next Generation episode "The Inner Light" – as evidence that character growth is sacrificed for weekly plot resets.