The team behind “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” took the stage at 92NY in New York on Tuesday to delve into what fans can expect from season 4 of the Paramount+ series.

Series stars Anson Mount (Captain Pike), Celia Rose Gooding (Ensign Uhura), Melissa Navia (Lieutenant Ortegas) and Carol Kane (Comandante Pelia) were joined by co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman in a conversation moderated by VarietyIt’s Joe Otterson. The full conversation can be found below.

After fans got a special sneak peek at the Season 4 premiere, Goldsman said that Season 4 features episodes that play across multiple genres (similar to how the show pulled off that musical episode in Season 2).

“There’s a cadence between the classic sci-fi thriller ‘TOS’ and what really makes us ‘Strange New Worlds’… which is that our worlds are genres,” Goldsman said. “Those are our strange new worlds. It’s the lens that allows us to tell stories in a way that typically, or at least consistently, hasn’t been done before in ‘Star Trek.'”

Mount said it was an extraordinary experience when Goldsman and fellow showrunner Henry Alonso Myers asked the cast what kind of genres they had always wanted to act in and then allowed them to do so.

“We got to the point where we went from ‘What can they do?’ to ‘What can we give them that they can’t do?'” Goldsman said. “And it became a kind of extraordinary circus of the imagination, and everyone was excited.”

And while Goldsman said he didn’t want to spend too much time talking about the show’s upcoming final season, he promised it will offer a “most unique” and complete farewell to the show for fans.

But speaking of genres, it has already been revealed that this season will feature an episode in which the crew of the Enterprise are transformed into puppets. Yes, puppets, made by none other than the iconic Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Gooding said being able to use the puppets was “a great gift for someone who grew up seeing all the puppets that came out of that studio.

“Having our characters immortalized in the same way. It’s quirky, silly, but also incredibly serious and moving,” he said. “It’s so nostalgic but futuristic, which is what ‘Strange New Worlds’ has done since Season 1.”

Everyone on stage also agreed that turning Pelia into a puppet was largely “redundant.”

Speaking of Kane, a living legend of television and film, he said upon joining the show that he had not watched any “Star Trek” series or movies before joining “Strange New Worlds.” When asked if that had changed, she said carefully: “I’ve seen… some, but not all. But enough to get a sense of the fact that I’m extraordinarily lucky to be a part of this world.”

“People really care about the stories that are told,” he said. “And all the stories that are told have hope at their core and it’s very difficult in our modern world to feel hope. So I’m very grateful to be a part of something that… it’s not easy, it’s not pretty, blah, blah, blah, but there is some hope and heart at the core. Because there is no future without that.”

Mount and Gooding also touched on the fact that the characters are well-established in “Star Trek” history, but they and the writers are still trying to break new ground to not simply retread what was done with them before.

“The strange thing about the character is that there is very little of him, but he is very revered in the canon,” Mount said of Pike. “But it was great to be able to participate and it was a strange challenge. I’ve never had a character where we know the first act, we know the third act, but not the second act. And I got to go in and develop that and it’s been tremendous fun.”

Gooding again paid tribute to original “Star Trek” cast member Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in three seasons of the original series and six films. “We, as a loving audience, know who Uhura is going to become, but she doesn’t know and we get to watch her discover it. And we get to see her have these canonical experiences that establish her as the person she’s going to become and my job was just to fill in the blanks.”

Then, answering questions from the audience, the cast was asked what quality of their characters they would like to see more of in the world.

Navia said she wants to see more love for aviation and exploration, and that one of her joys in working on the show is meeting real pilots or those who have been inspired to be pilots after watching it.

“I’ve started to delve a lot into aviation history and we collaborate a lot with members of the space community,” he said. “I’ve worked with NASA. I’ve been able to do some very interesting things and when you look at the way aviation started, it was about people taking risks. They were taking risks and collaborating… In fact, we were talking about this the other day, our friend, an astronaut, Dr. Sian Proctor, she always says, ‘When you solve for space, you solve for Earth.'”

Gooding said he would like to see more “joyful curiosity.”

“I think Uhura has a really beautiful way of embracing the unknown with joy and curiosity instead of fear and division,” she said. “I think we need a little more joyful curiosity in the world right now.”

The fourth season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” premieres July 23 on Paramount+, with new episodes released weekly.