This is called a (very) bad last minute surprise. With Season 4 of “Star Trek Discovery” set to hit Netflix on November 19, the platform has completely withdrawn the series (and its 3 previous seasons) from its catalog. A quick decision as a result of strong competition between streaming services.

This new version of the Star Trek universe starring Sonequa Martin-Green was created in 2017 for the CBS channel. However, its CBS all-access video-on-demand service was only available in the United States and Canada. For international distribution, a deal was struck with Netflix, which would share in the cost of production. Sard, Would have paid the full budget. International audiences, and therefore Europeans alike, were able to take advantage of the first three seasons of “Star Trek Discovery” in preparation for finding an episode this week from Friday the 4th.

CBS All Access changed its name to Paramount + last March, following the 2019 merger of CBS and Viacom. In 2021, this video-on-demand service began to expand internationally. First in Latin America and other countries in Northern Europe and Australia. Launches are planned for 2022 in Switzerland, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy via the Sky Network. Soon, Paramount + wanted to reserve “Star Trek Discovery” for this launch, and reached an agreement between CBS and Netflix, thereby waiving the latter’s broadcast rights and removing the series from its catalog with immediate effect.

So “Star Trek Discovery” fell into a black hole, especially for the general public in Western Europe. Not only do you have to wait until 2022 to see this season, but you also have to subscribe to a new service to do so. Given the sheer volume of offers, the audience budget is not infinite. Therefore, the chances of this season 4 being hacked are very high. Will this adversely affect Paramount +’s launch or will it be advertised? See you in 2022.

Surely this news has provoked many fans who have been brutally lost from the series. Messages of incomprehensibility, surprise and frustration abound on social networks.

Even the actors in the series were unaware of this decision, writes Anthony Rap, who plays Lieutenant Stamets. “I’m contacting many of our international ‘Star Trek Discovery’ fans who are upset at the breaking news that you will not be able to experience Season 4 until 2022. We’ve found it and we share your disappointment. Disappointment. I do not seem to understand how these kind of international rights agreements can be made (or broken). If we had been told this would happen, we could have prepared ourselves and then helped spread the word, ”he wrote on Twitter.