Captain Michael Burnham and his crew face serious threat in ST: Discovery S4 trailer

We haven’t had a new trailer for the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery during the Star Trek Day festivities last month, although we did get a premiere date: November 18, 2021. But we didn’t have that long to wait. The highly anticipated new trailer debuted during Discovery New York Comic Con 2021 panel, which included actors Sonequa Martin-Green, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz, David Ajala and Blu del Barrio, as well as showrunner and executive producer Michelle Paradise.

(Spoilers for previous seasons below.)

As I wrote previously, in S3, Michael Burnham (Martin-Green), Discovery, and his crew arrived in the future and discovered that Control’s plan had been thwarted: life still exists. But the galaxy was very different thanks to something called The Burn, a catastrophic event that blew up all of the Milky Way’s dilithium and destroyed much of Starfleet in the process. In the process, without any possible distortion training, all the planets had disconnected and were no longer governed by the Federation. Michael, however, managed to locate a single Federation link on a distant space station with the help of a new ally, Book (David Ajala).

The Discovery The crew found what was left of Starfleet, figured out what caused The Burn, and managed to defeat a rival syndicate known as the Emerald Chain. In the Season S3 finale, the planets began to join the Federation, and Discovery set out to bring the Nebula’s Dilithium to the planets that had been severed by the burn, presumably bringing back the Warp Drive and once again allowing travel between distant worlds. Burnham eventually became captain of Discovery after Saru chooses to return to his home planet of Kaminar for a spell. And we say a painful farewell to Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh); a spin-off series is reportedly in the works.

According to the official synopsis, in S4, “Captain Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery in the face of an unprecedented threat. With federated and non-federated worlds feeling the impact, they must face the unknown and work together to ensure a hopeful future for all. Wiseman as Tilly, Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer and Cruz as Dr Culber. The additions of S3 Book (Ajala), Adira (del Barrio), Gray (Ian Alexander) and Starfleet Commander-in-Chief Vance (Oded Fehr) will also be back.

The first trailer was released in April and made mention of a five light-year-diameter “gravitational anomaly” moving through the galaxy – clearly the formable threat hinted at in the synopsis. Highlights included chic new Starfleet uniforms, as well as glimpses of Vulcans and Book’s cat, Grudge.

This new trailer focuses even more on the threat of this mysterious anomaly – “a threat unlike any of our galaxies has ever faced before,” according to Michael. This is serious enough to warrant a rally of Federation (and presumably non-Federation) leaders to strategize on how to combine efforts to deal with the threat head-on, given that billions of lives are in danger. On a more personal level, Michael struggles to balance his new role as a leader with his penchant for taking risks and bending Starfleet rules. “Your acts of bravery are huge pendulum swings,” he is told. “But there is a very fine line between a pendulum and a wrecking ball.”

But it’s precisely the combination of qualities that could make Michael a truly great captain, assuming she and her crew survive their leap into the anomaly itself. “Once we get into the anomaly, we go where no one has gone before,” Michael said from his captain’s chair. What could be more faithful to the spirit of Star Trek only that?

Star Trek: Discovery S4 will air on November 18, 2021 on Paramount +.

Listing image by YouTube / Paramount +