The world of production is still on hold both in Hollywood and in Canada, where the various Star Trek series are filmed. One Star Trek veteran is ready to get back to work on two new Trek shows.
Frakes is ready to add another Star Trek show to his resume
Star Trek: The Next Generation actor and director Jonathan Frakes confirmed to SyFy Wire that he will be helming at least one episode of the recently announced series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, set on board Captain Pike’s USS Enterprise, adding “I’m looking forward to it very much.”
Strange New Worlds was spun off the second season of Star Trek: Discovery which re-introduced the USS Enterprise, Anson Mount as Captain Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, and Rebecca Romijn as Number One. Frakes directed two episodes that season and talked about working with the cast then, as well as in the past:
I’ve had great experiences with all three of them. Anson and I worked through finding Captain Pike. And Ethan and I worked through finding who Spock was. And the mantle of Spock, in particular, was so complicated and so emotionally taxing and was such huge shoes to fill, and Ethan felt it. Rebecca and I have a long relationship from back on The Librarians, and we have a fabulous working shorthand, so it will be great getting back to the floor with three old friends.
With five different series ( The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Discovery, and Picard), Frakes has already held the record for directing on the most Star Trek series. Adding Strange New Worlds to the list will only further solidify his position, with two Trek feature films on top being a bonus. As of now, it isn’t known when production will start on Strange New Worlds, which is expected to be shot in Toronto, like Discovery. Restrictions on film and television production activities in Ontario, Canada will begin to be lifted this month.
Rebecca Romijn and Jonathan Frakes
Frakes went on to direct three episodes for the upcoming third season of Discovery as well as two episodes of Picard. Frakes has previously confirmed he will be back in the director’s chair for Picard season two and told Syfy how he’s looking forward to working with his TNG co-star again:
I can’t wait to get back with Sir Patrick. It was wonderful to have Jeri Ryan on the show, and Brent Spiner and Jonathan Del Arco from our timeline. And I’m looking forward to whatever brilliance Michael Chabon and Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman bring to the table. I haven’t seen any scripts yet, but I’m chomping at the bit.
Production on the second season of Picard was originally set to start this month, but the California lockdown put that all on hold. Those filming restrictions are being lifted this month, but the latest news from Jeri Ryan is production is set to start in the fall. In May executive producer Akiva Goldsman explained that once restrictions are lifted, prep work will have to start over again.
Jonathan Frakes with Jeri Ryan and Patrick Stewart on the set of Star Trek: Picard (CBS)
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds news at TrekMovie.com.
Hope “Will” will be directing more than one episode!
Make it so
I like Jonathan Frakes but for this they need more Nick Meyer and Harve Bennett types. People who watched TOS and went “Horatio Hornblower in space”.
I think they need to keep the TNG blandness to a minimum, bring in new TOS focused blood. My worry is this goes down like ENT where people are excited about Wagon train to the stars in a universe filled with conflict and adventure and we get the bland TNG Trek the general audience rejects again and again and again.
Case in point – DIS. TOS bridge, TOS costumes, TOS Big-E steal the show from the bland TNG want to be DIS bridge, DIS uniforms, DIS itself.
ENT – is it first contacts, humanity rebuilding/proving itself post WW3, no transporters, no phasers on stun, nuclear weapons, short on dilithium crystals, Vulcan’s think we are irrational, Andorians think we are push overs, Klingons want us dead, Romulans want us as slaves, short on dilithium crystals, learning from mistakes. No it’s phasers on stun, peace with the Klingons and transporters in the first hour of the show…
TNG fans have Lower Decks, Picard, the holodeck where they should stay.
Let’s get some real final frontier Wagon Train to the Stars for the rest of us by some new blood.
I think it’s nonsensical that because TNG blandness is so boring they then create new TOS shows only for them to then force the holodecks, technobabble nonsensical TNG blandness into it, thus crippling the show on delivery defeating their whole attempt to make something people are excited to watch.
Call up whoever you can from the Mandalorian, the new Lost in Space, Firefly – they are out “Classic Trek”ing those who own Classic Trek. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I’m guessing. You don’t like. TNG.
He does like TNG.
I liked the one episode where Picard destroyed half the Starfleet as part of a collective hive mind and Riker saved the day and the scene where a 50 year old bird of prey, less advanced than the one the Ent-A took on in VI decades earlier, put the hotel that was the Ent-D out of its misery.
I also like Picard when you view it as Locutus being manipulated by the Borg to use the Federation to make organic components obsolete (after the whole use Picard and Data in First Contact fell through).
Also I enjoyed seeing TNG launch DS9.
So… wasn’t a total waste of time.
Your concerns really fall more on the showrunners and writers. All a director can really do is work with the actors and on set staff to make the most of the script he has been given.
Two words: Nicholas Meyer.
Some directors care about ensuring the story is worth the direction, they need a Director like this. Badly.
Three words: Not gonna happen.
Not Nick Meyer as who they should have direct (well, actually…) but as an example of a Director who won’t just “work with the actors and on set staff to make the most of the script he has been given” but actually make sure the script/story is worth putting to film.
If it’s something he wouldn’t watch, he rewrites the film. Trek for the past decades has been lacking that, a director who cares about the story (exception is DS9 and Manny Coto I think in ENT Season 3 which was too little too late but a valiant effort to retcon back to the original prequal premise).
The thing is Cmd. Bremmon they did bring on Nick Meyer for Discovery and as far as we can tell he had no discernible impact on the show. Now I know you’re not saying that it has to Nick Meyer, just somebody with similar sensibilities but I just don’t think a director or even a producer has the authority to do what you suggest. The studio likely has a vision and direction in mind for the show and they’ll bring people into realise that.
Exactly! Some old Trek fans need to let go of Nick Meyer or this image of him. They fired the guy over two years ago now on Discovery and there seems to be zero interest in having him back for any future shows. His time with Star Trek is done. Been done since the early 90s.
They simply have a different vision for it as you said. I understand some fans aren’t happy with the current shows but bringing back Nick Meyer is not going to do anything or it would’ve happen WHEN he was working for them on Discovery.
Exactly Tiger2. If fact it’s entirely possible that the reason Meyer was so marginalised was because Fuller had departed the show,
That’s probably the case Corinhian7.
And let’s be honest, hiring Meyer was probably just as much a PR purpose too because they know most hardcore fanboys (see current thread lol) think of Meyer as some kind of Star Trek god even though he hasn’t really been part of the franchise for decades. One thing I give Kurtzman a lot of credit for is he knew the kind of fandom people like Fuller and Meyer had and it was a great idea to get them involved for fans to feel more positive about the first new show in over a decade.
It didn’t quite work out lol but he tried. We’ll probably never know why Meyer was fired but it was clear once Fuller left he probably was just marginalized. The guy was there the entire first season and we never saw him talk about the show in a single interview and his name was never brought up once at any time by other producers, writers or actors. You would think Frakes would mention him at some point for his contribution but he never did.
I think the people who replaced Fuller just didn’t see Meyer as very useful or maybe just didn’t like his ideas. That may not been a bad thing, because they could’ve been bad ideas lol. We’ll never know obviously but either way shouting ‘bring back Meyer’ clearly didn’t work the first time and it’s time to let go now.
Yeah I’d definitely go along with that there did seem to be a strong PR element to bringing in the likes of Meyer. I think we can probably assume that he would have been attached to the Khan project at some point but it’s debatable as to whether Meyer would have been the driving force behind that or if some suit just though Khan + Meyer = KER-CHING.
For the record I was just as excited to have Meyer back as everyone was but thinking about it now, its probably a very good reason why he’s not there today. End of the day I just don’t think his ideas gelled much and when I heard they rejected his script in first season that was a sign he was probably never going to have any real influence, good or bad. And honestly its probably better people remember him on a high with TUC being his last involvement with the franchise and move on for good.
But I’m VERY happy that Khan idea never happened. But that said based on the little he said about it wasn’t going to be an actual show but more like a 3 hour mini-series. That could’ve been interesting if the Eugenics war was part of it but I’m not losing sleep it never happened either.
You would think the Eugenics Wars would be the most interesting story to tell but as I recall the Khan rumours suggested it would depict his time marooned on Ceti Alpha V.
I think the problem with the Eugenics War is obviously the period it was suppose to take place in and why they always tried to avoid it besides referencing it. Voyager time traveled to the same year it was meant to start in the mid-90s in Future’s End and they literally just ignored it. It really bothered me at the time but I understand why they did it too.
We all know Star Trek is fiction (well some of us do ;)) and its not really about our universe anymore but if you have these wars start in the 90s they may be afraid any show or movie depicting them would just take them out of the story too much.
It can obviously just be retcon and say it started later but same time real world history is catching up to Trek’s fictional history now more and more so its going to be a lot of those issues in general.
I would still like to see a version of the Eugenics war though but I doubt we’ll ever get it due to those issues.
I never read them but Greg Cox did a book series about it that treated it as like a secret conflict that reinterpreted real world events to tie them to the eugenics war and also featured characters like Gary Seven. Also they do say in Space Seed that records from that time period are sketchy so it’s not out of the question to retcon the dates. The was an episode of DS9 in which Bashir mentioned the war as having taken place 2 centuries before placing it in the 22nd Century. You’re right though, it is problematic and with the fanbase being so fractured whatever route they picked would likely prove very divisive.
Making the Eugenics War a “secret” war that still dovetails with real history is amusing, but really just stupid fan service. I find those backflips to make “canon” fit into the real world history kind of silly. Just embrace it as alternate history and get on with it.
Yeah to be fair I should have listed this as a third option Locutus but we were discussing the fact that there are contradictions in canon and the fact that Voyager has already travelled back to the period that this huge conflict was supposed to take place and there was no evidence of it. So you might say that the franchise has already missed the opportunity to just embrace it,
I don’t know, Tiger…. When we see what they did in season 1 it’s hard to accept that his script could have been any worse…
I like to think that Nick Meyer saw the ship designs and stories and the single writers meeting he was in went something like this:
“Let’s at least give the main character some development and controversy, make her raised on Vulcan and have them recommend she shoot first. Maybe do something she has to spend the whole rest of the series having to make up for”
“Hmm. Why do you have a Klingon War with not a single Connie lookalike going against a D-7 battlecrusier. What are all these hundreds of TNG looking ships doing in an era where one starship going on another starship is a big strategic affair that impacts the fate of the whole sector? Let’s limit it to twelve starships max either side, also take out this Federation flagship in a big way. Setup some grand battles between the Klingons and Starfleet over resources and newly discovered worlds, have the mirror universe manipulating the whole thing in prep of an invasion, set up the Enterprise.”
“WHY IS THIS BRIDGE SO BIG?!?! WHY IS THEIR A BORING DOOR BEHIND THE CAPTAIN WHEN YOU COULD HAVE A VISUALLY APPEALING SET FILLED WITH COMPUTER SCREENS?? SUBMARINES PEOPLE. COMBAT INFORMATION CENTRE ANALOG!!!!!! CAN WE GET SOME TOS UNIFORMS IN HERE?”
“… MAGIC MUSHROOMS? WTF?!?! TAKE ALL THIS OUT!!!!”
To which he was then thrown out of the meeting to the determent of the show thus explaining all the mistakes in Discovery.
LOL
Or maybe Nick Meyer didn’t have an issue with any of these things either? Remember most of this was approved under Bryan Fuller before HE got fired and Meyer was the first person he hired for the show.
Meyer may have had a problem with some of it or none of it. He may have had the same mindset that Fuller did and that it wasn’t the 1980s anymore and they were basically just rebooting Star Trek in general. I said many times, that’s probably what Fuller saw the show as anyway, a reboot.
I just can’t see the guy who demanded bunked cadets and buttons on the Star Trek VI bridge so it felt more like a submarine with a premium on space, placed fire extinguishers and no smoking sign on the sets to ensure it is relatable was a-ok with a big TNG style bridge where the Captain basically has to scream at his subordinates, can’t read any panels and can get shot in the back while looking as visibly unappealing as anyone jsitting in a chair in a bland environment can be.
I have to assume he was fired before and/or over a disagreement on that horrid set. See Season 2 Enterprise bridge for what I see him having wanted for Discovery.
“I just can’t see the guy who demanded bunked cadets and buttons on the Star Trek VI bridge so it felt more like a submarine with a premium on space, placed fire extinguishers and no smoking sign on the sets to ensure it is relatable was a-ok with a big TNG style bridge where the Captain basically has to scream at his subordinates, can’t read any panels and can get shot in the back while looking as visibly unappealing as anyone jsitting in a chair in a bland environment can be.”
Meyer was a hired hand, he wasn’t in charge of Discovery like he was for the TOS films. But obviously he had no issues with it because he took the job, right? As I just said he was the FIRST person Fuller hired so he was there literally from the beginning. He clearly had no issues with what Fuller wanted or he wouldn’t be there at all. And even after Fuller got fired he stayed on. Your assumption of why he was fired is nothing but an odd assumption.
All we know was Meyer was originally there to be a writer and they rejected his script and it probably just got worse from there.
As for what he wanted for TOS, you’re talking about another era and another crew. Meyer had a certain vision for the TOS movies. It doesn’t mean A. that’s how he envisioned ALL of Star Trek to be or B. that he can’t have OTHER ideas. As time changes, maybe his own ideas changed too. Even George Lucas had wildly different ideas of how he saw Star Wars decades later. Same with Roddenberry and Star Trek obviously. And they created these properties. People can simply have different views as time goes on.
Stop pigeonholding them just because you want the 80s back. It’s clearly not going to happen.
Had he been in charge I fully expect we would have had a better show ironically more original than “Into Darkness” which tried to copy TWOK line by line while ignoring everything that truest made it great.
Just to be clear, everything that makes Strange New Worlds appealing (bridge, ship, final frontier, Pike, Number One, wagon train to the stars) is partly the back to basics appeal.
Lose sight of that, just more bland TNG.
Was it approved under Fuller… could you provide sources for your claim?
Because the Treatment Burnet talked about in his Podcast sounded a looooot different!
lol this isn’t a dissertation, it’s a fanboy/fangirl website. Fans don’t need to “source” reasonable speculation.
I think perhaps your romanticising your perception of Nick Meyer because he oversaw your favourite period of Trek. However, when Meyer came aboard Star Trek 2 he wasn’t on a one man mission to uphold the values of TOS , in fact he completely overhauled it. Therefore it’s not realistic to believe that he would be championing old Trek, nor is it likely that he’d want to retread his footsteps from 35+ years ago. If anything Meyer would probably be one of the voices pushing for them to tear up the rule book and do something different.
Now I like Meyer’s Trek so it’s not like I would be up in arms if they ever put him in charge of a project. I just don’t see it happening given the the way his tenure on Discovery panned out. It’s doubtful the studio want him back and I wouldn’t be surprised if Meyer himself has lost interest.
I’m all good with an overhaul if it screams “Horatio Hornblower in space”.
You are right in that if Meyer had let the missed opportunity of some dramatic starship battles brought on by war with the Klingons and let “magic mushroom” slide let alone subspace communications taking away from the drama of Trek all go unopposed, he totally was disinterested and brought little to the table.
Was that the Nick Meyer from the Mirror universe. Because our Nick Meyer is not a crazy fanboy.
I think Nick Meyer left Discovery exactly because of the reasons Cmd.Bremmon mentioned, that his ideas or “changes” probably weren’t being accepted by the so called higher ups.
I see more what you’re getting at. A director with those kinds of creative chops that doesn’t just execute the vision but defines it is a pretty rare thing. Frakes executes extremely well. There is a place for both, I suppose. But if I was a Star Trek writer (or actor), I’d feel very comfortable and confident with Frakes. He’s not going to mess with what’s on the page, and he relates well with everyone. Call that “safe” or “bland,” but I call it being “professional.” It respects the role of the writers and the actors and recognizes the role of the director.
I do think that being “comfortable” is why everything now is TNG lite or a want-to-be even when the whole set up acknowledges that they have to go exciting action/adventure on the new frontier.
That’s why I think the need an outsider that wants to make a good exciting relatable action/adventure that will rewrite the script if need be to ensure it makes sense and is fun to watch.
Ultimate example was ENTERPRISE where in the first hour they had to have peace with the Klingons, phasers, transporters and time travel because it might mean totally different stories. How uncomfortable would no phasers on stun be in hostage situations, having to use shuttles because no transporters, a Klingon Empire that wants Earth conquered, first contacts gone wrong, difficult near inhospitable planets needing to be colonized and a Starfleet with primitive ships needing dilithium crystals?
Nick Meyer rocked because he came in, read the scripts and went “Horatio Hornblower in Space” and then rammed everything into a super fun script in line with that.
I think they need new blood, almost someone with no connection to Trek, that we get back to the roots of wagon train to the stars in the final frontier.
Should Strange New Worlds turn into TNG lite, not even the big E 1701, exciting functional bridge and strategic limitations nor the more exciting conflict and frontier filled setting conductive to story telling will save the show.
Isn’t Nick Meyer the one who started Discovery down the path of a season-long Klingon War? Not that I hated it, but I am under the impression they had to get rid of him just to salvage the remainder of S1 so it could introduce the mirror universe, make it to a 2nd season and introduce us to Pike, Number 1 and Ethan Spock. I am sorry if this is an error but please correct me if this is wrong.
I’ve not heard that one Dean, I’d just assumed the Klingon War was inherited from Fuller but the key word there is assumed so quite probably I’m the one that’s completely wrong!
Ah yes that rings a bell. Thanks for the clarification!
… If we had seen a real Klingon War with D-7 cruisers going up against Kelvin, Connies, etc.. the invasion of Federation worlds, battle of Starbase One, battles over newly discovered planets and privative races… a Starfleet counter offensive, the impact of Klingon governors ruling over colonies, prison worlds, etc.
A shame what we got instead of what could have been, it would have been glorious done right.
Instead we got a map on a computer screen which ironically was still pretty much more exciting than all of TNG.
I suppose we also have Axanar??
The Berman Trek blandness was mostly attributable to Berman himself, who preferred all aspects of production to be homogenized and all stories to be tried-and-true Roddenberry Trek concepts/cliches.
They are not going to recreate the Berman era, even with shows set in the TNG time period (STP was the litmus test of that), no matter which alumni are brought in to direct their episodes. Director’s have limited creative power in TV land anyway because the series producers/showrunners set the overall style.
They need better writing though. They can burn through ten episodes with just a couple hrs of story, and everything else is just a bunch of filler moves and forgotten ideas. Or fifteen episodes with a story that never develops beyond the “We’ll come up with one” stage, until the last episode when they’re suddenly pretending to wrap everything up but it’s now obvious there’s been nothing there are along.
And after three years I still don’t even know if Kurtzman and Goldsman see this as a problem or not.
“They are not going to recreate the Berman era, even with shows set in the TNG time period”
They took Enterprise, set after first contact, and made it TNG within less than one hour (full subspace comms, peace with the Klingons, transporters, illogical time travel and phasers on stun). ONE HOUR. How was that even possible?!?
Because that’s simply what the studio/network wanted. Berman originally wanted something closer to the The Right Stuff and spend the first season on Earth preparing for Enterprise maiden flight. The studio rejected the idea and we got the show we got (which I liked…eventually).
But yes I think the original idea for it was a lot more creative but interview after interview has made it pretty clear UPN themselves never wanted a prequel show at all, they just wanted more TNG since that was the biggest Trek show at the time. It’s also why they created The temporal cold war, because the network wanted fans to be reminded of future events. They just didn’t believe a straight forward prequel would work.
Why the studio keeps this feedback loop – no audience because of TNG blandness, we must go exploration classic Trek style, oh wait too outside our comfort level go holodeck time travel technobabble bland, bland, bland is beyond me.
I was (am?) hard core Trek fan and I can’t stand the unique combination of blandness with anti science anti conflict technobabble, I can only imagine how lousy the general audience must find it all.
Bremmon we you PLEASE stop gatekeeping! Your posts are so annoying because besides the fact they are usually based on odd assumptions and false information, you keep trying to speak for the rest of fandom. Guess what, I’m a fan too, probably a longer fan than you been a fan. I LOVE TNG as I know many people did. I still watch a few episodes every month of it as I have for 30 years now. I watch it more today than I did a decade ago. I didn’t find it bland, the complete opposite in fact. It’s still my second favorite show after DS9.
If you don’t like it, FINE, but stop suggesting your issues with it is what all fans had with it.
And that’s obviously not true because TNG had 20 million viewers a week at its height in America alone, which is where your false information comes from. How is there ‘no audience’ for if its probably the most watched Star Trek show in the entire world, including today? And a show YOU yourself watched all seven seasons of?
Do you not see the flaw in your own logic? If it was so bland and boring how did you manage to watch all 176 episodes??? If someone like you who writes for ten years now you thought the show was horrible, then imagine the people who actually watched it because they liked it? But why not just turn it off like I turned Enterprise off after season one?
But the entire reason Picard is a show because of the popularity of TNG. If CBS had it their way my guess is we would just have a TNG revival show now. The only reason Worf, Riker, Crusher and Troi is not sitting on the Enterprise bridge in the first season because that’s not what Stewart wanted. But if he did, that’s what we would have today and it would be VERY popular as well (if it was good of course and I will admit that would still be questionable ;)).
Either way if you don’t like it, fine, but will you stop speaking for the rest of us please?? This is why your posts are annoying. I know English is your second language so maybe you’re not doing it on purpose but it’s gatekeeping man. Speak for yourself, NOT for me or others. I love TNG and always will as millions of others do. I know because many are here and everywhere else talking about how much the still love the show today.
And to put a final pin on this, I saw this straw poll on another Star Trek board a few days ago but its no doubt for many fans TODAY what show is their favorite and this was with over 11,000 people voting:
https://strawpoll.com/r6p2xfd8/r
The only point I’m making is people like you don’t speak for all of us, not by a mile. TNG is still a HUGE fan favorite among the base and especially for newer/younger fans.
You and others can certainly hate it, think its the worst show ever, but don’t speak for the rest of us please. As much as I love these boards, they don’t represent the overall fan base today, thankfully.
I definitely do not speak for anyone who enjoyed TNG nor have I ever pretended to.
So please don’t speak for me when I say I did NOT enjoy TNG like the millions of people who did not participate in a poll of 11000.
I said, TNG fans can have comedies like Orville… but give the rest of us some wagon train to the Stars / final frontier / strange new worlds.
Orville was only about 1/3 comedy only in its first season. The 2nd season they dropped that aspect completely.
I don’t even get what you’re saying here, quoting me out of context. You’re acting like what Berman did with ENT somehow blatantly disproves what I said about modern Trek not recreating the Berman era.
ENT isn’t modern Trek. ENT *was* the Berman era. Of “course” it evolved into more TNG. Berman only knew how to make TNG style episodes (what it now seems he wanted with all his TNG spin-offs, only Behr defied him on DS9).
(And yes, UPN ruled against Berman’s better instincts, such as initially pushing for yet another Next-Next Generation series with Even Skimpier Uniforms and Even Faster Ships).
“And yes, UPN ruled against Berman’s better instincts, such as initially pushing for yet another Next-Next Generation series with Even Skimpier Uniforms and Even Faster Ships.”
Even though I HATED the prequel idea I too think it was probably the better way to go AT the time since UPN clearly just wanted another show on the Enterprise G or something a century into the future. I probably would’ve loved it personally lol but yes I can also admit it probably would’ve felt like the same ole same ole at the time and needed to mix it up. That’s exactly why we got TNG in the first place, Roddenberry didn’t want the new show to just feel like a TOS redux and he was 100% right.
It’s an odd argument to suggest going farther into the future again would’ve felt like another TNG redux but that’s probably all the studio wanted. They just wanted something they knew worked. And as much as we all seem to love DS9 today the reality was it WAS the least popular Star Trek at the time. I had friends who happily watched TNG and VOY but avoided DS9 like the plague and probably why UPN was adamant they don’t get too experimental.
I’m not as hard on Berman as you and others are here (but I’m not as hard on ANYBODY as others are here lol). And I generally liked what Berman did with Star Trek. I wouldn’t have an issue if he was running it now (but I’m NOT saying he should be). He wanted to do different things with it, its why we got DS9 in the first place; but that came with problems as I said. So yes once Star Trek went to UPN, clearly their view of it was much more narrow minded BECAUSE it was on a network and a new one that had certain goals out of the gate.
Trust me, Discovery and Picard feels a little different now because like TNG and DS9 its on a platform they can experiment on. If Star Trek was on CBS instead, it would be a lot more generic as well too. Look at Kurtzman other shows on that network? They all have the same cookie cutter feel and that’s because CBS want those shows to feel as familiar as possible even if they are still different shows. I actually thought the new MacGyver show was one of his as well since it looked like the others. I was shocked to find out it wasn’t lol. And exactly why I’m glad its on AA even if I have to pay for it.
What’s distressing is that Berman Trek (even the UPN stuff) still holds up better than any of the Kurtzman Trek stuff. And if pulling Patrick Stewart out of semi-retirement wasn’t motivation enough to fix that, then what?
What’s made me more dismissive of Berman himself was this youtube video I shared previously https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSz2gW8IsE. Most of what’s presented in it was stuff we already knew, so it’s not like I’m just subscribing to anything on youtube. I had previously developed a sympathetic respect for him after watching him and Braga reflect honestly during interviews on the ENT Blu-Rays (as opposed to the older DVD content, which always felt sickeningly self-congratulatory when talking about any of the Berman-era productions).
Also, both of my Berman-related comments above were in response to the OP. But regarding a post-TNG era, I think it’s easier to imagine what that COULD look like after you’ve abandoned the Berman Trek mold (STP being a good re-starting point). I think both visually and conceptually, Berman Trek was stuck at an evolutionary dead end. For all the Even Faster Ships that we got, things just somehow looked increasingly tacky the further they got from the TMP influence after crashing their ship in the desert.
That’s fine, we just have to agree to disagree. I had no issues with the look of Star Trek in that era. I know because I still watch all the shows now happily (in fact I’m literally watching an Enterprise episode now, the 3 part Vulcan story! Currently on The Awakening.). It was fine for me then, it’s fine for me now even if its a bit more dated.
But as far as its better than Kurtzman version, I very much agree. ;) But as I always say these shows are still young, I had problem with EVERY Star Trek show EXCEPT Voyager oddly enough (but never loved it either). And I loved how they did Picard. I thought it did a great job of continuing that era while feeling like time has past so things changed. That’s WHY going forward is just more easier production wise.
Unlike Discovery, I loved the look of the show from the beginning and felt like it honored the TNG era well. I know some people are divisive on how ‘dark’ the universe felt or the portrayal of Seven of Nine, etc, but not me. I was fine with all of that. It’s the writing overall where it really just disappointed me.
As far as that video, he wasn’t perfect and yes made plenty of mistakes. I think that can be said of anyone that ran something for 20 years. Neither was Roddenberry and how we got Chaos on the Bridge. I still think Berman did way more good than bad for Star Trek, but you don’t and that’s cool. And YES, it probably was time for someone else to take over the franchise and I have no issues someone else has.
And I’m rooting for Kurtzman to hit out of the park and be BETTER than all the previous Star Trek because I’m hoping in 20 years time I’ll be popping in the current stuff regularly like I do classic Trek now. That’s really the only way I can gauge if something is truly good to me, how much I want to rewatch it years later and I still watch all the Berman shows very regularly. Judging by all the streaming sites these shows are on now, I think a lot of people still do.
But if I’m watching the new stuff in twenty years, it will probably be through Virtual reality then. ;D
With respect to popping in current Trek like it’s Classic Trek in the future, I don’t see that happening so long as they continue with hyper-serialized season long stories. I actually enjoy the format, but the joy of “bottle episodes” is that you can pop in the blu-ray disc and watch a self-contained story for an hour. There are few episodes even with ST: Picard (my favorite new Trek) that I would pop in and watch on its own. Frankly, DS9 seemed to strike a pretty good balance as did the Enterprise three-part stories.
I’m pro story arc (the best series are those with a long arc but with each episode being some what self contained). I think the real trick is making sure your arc makes sense (Game of Thrones) which is why novels make the best mini series (it’s all thought out).
The penultimate example is X-Files. At the time you are emotionally invested in the arc. You need to know what happens – black oil, aliens, doomsday, how is it all going to come together?
How sad was it then when it never was going to come together. The arc made no sense, no resolution, no nothing. X-Files goes from epic success story to tragedy.
Go story arc, but make sure your arc makes sense.
ENT is the biggest missed opportunity in trek. Could have been an arc of humanity proving itself, building the Federation, first contacts gone wrong, first colonies, first starbases. How do we go from WW3 Earth to the UFP, how do the Vulcans go from seeing us illogical and Andorians seeing us as push overs to best friends? How do we go from machine guns and nuclear weapons in ships that can’t communicate with Earth and go missing all the time to TOS? SpaceX to 1701? Season three tried to bring this arc to life but retroactively it was too little too late.
So, what are you trying to say?
That’s an awesome comment. TOS is Trek, primally.
Gene Roddenberry really didn’t like Nick Meyer’s take on Star Trek.
1990s Roddenbery quite frankly hated TOS that it’s no surprise he hated Meyers take. That being said, 60s Roddenbery I think would have loved it.
TNG is him pretty much 90s I’ve-got-metoo-issues visionary Gene trying to take out everything fun about TOS/movie era being Wagon Train to the Stars / Horatio Hornblower in space – colonization, conflict, dilithium crystals, fighting the Klingons, etc. Perfect TNG humans have nothing to learn from the unknown, why all the aliens including the Q should learn from perfect enlightened humanity. Space is so tame we put kids on our exploration ships where we don’t need to.
A far cry from the TOS writers guide – Enterprise is like a US cruiser, phasers are like guns, we’ve got lots to learn but we are going to make it, etc.
I’ll take 60s Gene and 80s Meyer over 90s Roddenbery/2010 Orville Trek any decade, anywhere in spacetime.
“Perfect TNG humans have nothing to learn from the unknown, why all the aliens including the Q should learn from perfect enlightened humanity. Space is so tame we put kids on our exploration ships where we don’t need to.”
This, right here, was the problem with TNG at its core. Perfect humans led to boring characters. Fortunately they nearly ignored the children and families on board. Which I always felt was the a monumentally CRAZY concept. Unfortunately every so often they reminded the audience the children were there. Which caused a facepalm each time among the group of fans I was watching it with.
The good news is the other shows of the era all learned from the mistakes TNG made and the way I see it, all of them, DS9, VOY and Enterprise were all better shows as a result.
Families on interstellar ships make sense if they are seed ships (i.e. they will never return home) period. This wasn’t the case in Trek, it was totally unethical to put all those children in danger only to crash them on Veridian III.
Yep. I could not believe anyone besides GR was OK with the concept of children and families on board a starship that could get fired on or destroyed at any moment. I guess they thought it opened up more story possibilities but the reality is it was senseless and every parent who brought their child on board should be arrested for child endangerment.
And while I’m on it, I found a disturbing underlying theme throughout TNG was that humans are the greatest beings in all the galaxy and everyone else should aspire to be us. Even Data wanted to be human. He didn’t aspire to be Vulcan or Andorian. He wanted to be human. Why? Because humans were the bestest creatures in the galaxy!
And again, I’m not 100% down on TNG. I appreciate it for what it did. I just think there were a ton of mistakes in it.
I don’t really consider Frakes a contributing factor to TNG’s “blandness.” If he had his way, there would have been a lot more conflict between the characters. He has done a fine job directing the new iterations of Star Trek.
From what I can tell if nearly everyone involved had their way the characters would have been more interesting. It was my understanding that the blandness came 100% from GR.
The time to blame GR was the first and second seasons of TNG when he was around while bashing Meyer/Benett regardless of their success. They need to stop blaming a ghost and move on. Call on the spirit of 60s GR, whatever works for them.
He should direct every episode.
Strange New Worlds is living up to its premise.
Damn, that is one fancy crystal ball you have there. Not a single frame shot, yet an artistic and financial success, it says.
Snark aside, Faze Ninja is probably right. There’s a lot of excitement surrounding this series.
There was a lot of excitement surrounding Picard, as well. But look at what we got.
It is obviously far too soon to claim SNW any sort of success and foolhardy at best to claim anything like that. I love the concept myself. But loving the concept doesn’t mean the final product will be any good.
I sadly have to agree with this. Obviously people can be excited about the shows but at this point its probably better to be a little more cautious first. I think too much hype can also bring disappointment when it doesn’t match it.
I rewatched that first Picard trailer and I remember how psyched I was watching it. Again it was still a decent season overall but the ball was dropped hard in so many aspects of IMO.
I can’t take another Picard disaster. Please, Frakes, and everybody else, don’t screw this one up???
Studios are free to resume production work in California. Can’t speak to the Canadian side of the border, though.
Harry, that’s your cue.
Studios are open for business in Canada. They have their own guidelines to resume production.
Actually, it’s province-by-province in Canada, and in Ontario it varies by region.
Toronto (where Pinewood Studios is located) and Mississauga (where the new CBS Studios is located) are not part of Ontario’s Phase 2 reopening next week. The virus rates are coming down more slowly there.
However, location shooting outside the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) sounds like an option depending how far along preproduction work is done.
The bigger issue is that the border is still closed. There are new, additional exemptions for immediate family members, but film and television production aren’t listed as essential travel to Canada as far as I know,
Boarder closures are going to be the issue going forward.
I suspect that Ontario and BC would want to ask the federal government to negotiate some kind of industry work around for film and television production. They are large sectors in both economies.
That said, given that the border closure is reciprocal with the United States, who knows how that would go. It’s not like shipping motor vehicle parts back and forth across the border.
Dropping a line here to say that workplace safety regulators in British Columbia are now advising “no yelling or singing by actors”, filming outdoors, different camera angles to permit greater physical distance and the actors have the right to refuse kissing or other physical contact in filming.
Writers are reworking scripts and directors will need to block scenes differently.
So, I’m wondering if the preproduction work for SNW is looking ahead to this so that production in Toronto can roll out asap once Toronto and Mississauga studios are cleared to reopen.
Oh, I wonder how these regulations are gonna effect fight scenes in the films in the long run. As a person who enjoys action filmmaking, these might have a negative effect.
Going by what TG47 said actors have the right to refuse physical contact in filming. It’s not forbidden. So if the actors (or stunt people) are okay with it fight scenes can still happen.
Most of these rules are probably temporary anyway so I don’t think you have to be afraid that you’ll never see a new action movie again.
You never know, the USS Zheng He on return from Coppelius may become involved in a time travel incident that brings their acting captain face to face with Pike’s Enterprise.
Ugh no time travel. Do we really need to wonder why Riker is so inhuman he doesn’t go back in time to stop world war 2, world war 3, the death of his kid, etc? Let’s leave that for comedies like Orville, along with the majority of TNG.
Uh you do realize time travel has been a staple in Star Trek since first season of TOS. And I don’t get your point? We already know why they can’t time travel that way because it’s illegal for ships to time travel and change the timeline. They even have temporal investigations to keep the versions of the past the same. Not that that has stopped them before lol.
But with that logic what stops Kirk from traveling in time to do the same things? Instead of going back to Earth in TVH to pick up some whales he could’ve just time traveled to a few days ago stop his own son from dying right? Why do you make this about Riker only? And why is he ‘inhuman’? Everyone suffers lost man, no one can do much about it but grieve.
You have some strange posts sometimes.
Time travel sucks across all Treks. And quite frankly WAY over done.
IV was the most tolerable in that it had comedic value and tried to pretend it was a circular loop. Still nonsense though in why Kirk didn’t use sling shot to right the wrongs of history, save Edith Keeler, etc
I love the time travel stories but I do agree it can be overused. But its some of my favorite episodes. In fact just yesterday I rewatched Trials and Tribbulations, which is still a great episode. Like TVH, the best ones are the fun ones (but most of them are fun in general).
And as said there are RULES in terms of changing time. That’s why they can’t just go back and saved family members. We know how strong the butterfly effect is in Star Trek. The irony in your post is you know the reason Edith Keeler had to die was because it was going to ensure Germany would win the war. That’s the issue with time travel, stopping one thing from happening might just make things even worse in the end. They make that point over and over again on these shows.
In my younger years I was a complete sucker for time travel episodes and even any movie that dealt with it. I dug it. But as I got older I started to become less impressed with time travel anything. It had to be a pretty darn good story to get me to like it. One of the bit problems I have with time travel is you cannot give characters control of it. If they have it, there is absolutely no tension. That was the problem with Generations. STIV might have worked had it actually been sharply and cleverly written. Where the situations and lines were amusing and fun but the characters still remained themselves. Quite frankly the only episodes (or movie) of ANY Trek that was intended to be be light and on the fun side was The Trouble with Tribbles (where Shatner showed he had a knack for comic timing with the right material) and Trials and Tribblations. Where the DS9 writers managed the same feat. Fun while the characters fully remained themselves. Two episodes out of scores where the humor actually worked. Entire episodes or movies done humorously in Trek seems to be a VERY difficult nail to hit.
Sometimes I read these boards its like everyone is 50 years old lol. I hear you man, but yeah.
Generations is the worst. Picard balls about his family being dead, then half an hour later doesn’t go back in time to save them despite being able to go back in time. And that is on top of an old 50 year old BOP less sophisticated than the one the ENT-A destroyed nearly a century earlier (with the same stock footage as salt on the wound) destroying the Federation flagship.
The time issues in Generations was a giant problem. There are a lot of things they could have done differently. First off, when they go back to stop Soren when it looks like things are not going their way just let the Nexus come and go back and try again. Or, go back earlier and have a couple of security guards shadow Soren everywhere he goes. They could keep him out of the transporter and shuttle bay, too. Or, as you mentioned, go back even further and warn the brother about the future fire. So many issues.
I personally don’t have a problem with the ancient Klingon ship blowing up the Enterprise since they DID penetrate the shields. But upon analyzing it seems there are some things that could have been done. Like “modulate the shield frequency” or something. And it does feel like an old ship’s shields may not last long under constant phaser fire. Which they only gave small bursts of. But in this case I accept it because it resulted in the destruction of perhaps the ugliest Enterprise I have ever seen. (Although the E-J is pretty close…)
Or if Pike’s Enterprise goes into the future and encounters Worf’s Enterprise in an episode!
I even have a brilliant title for the episode. It would be called ‘Tomorrow’s Enterprise’. Can I cook or can I?
Things up here in the great white (green) north are slowly starting to open up although more rural parts of the province have approval to move onto the second phase of the re-opening, while the urban areas like Toronto and Mississauga (where the new CBS production facility is located) are still in Phase One of the re-opening and are being evaluated. Fortunately, things never got as bad as what we saw in NYC, but sadly the long-term care/retirement homes did not do well with the pandemic due to a number of issues – the resulting casualties have apparently made up 60-80 percent of the deaths up here, very sad. That said, we shall see when the production facilities begin to open up. Also any travelers from the U.S. currently face a 14-day quarantine when crossing the border, however anyone working here may be subject to separate or new more relaxed rules later this summer – we shall see. One good thing, it is nice and warm up here now, today it is sunny and 84F with a heat index of 89F – let’s hope they can start production SAFELY before fall. Stay healthy and safe everyone.
Well, while not surprising great news for us fans! :)
We all knew Frakes would be involved but for him to talk about it this soon may suggest they are really planning on moving on this show fast when things do get back to normal.
But it also seems to suggest something else and maybe the Section 31 show is dead? We heard over and over again they were going to start production on that as soon as they were done making Discovery. It could still happen of course but the silence from everyone over that show is deafening. Not a single peep about it since SNW was made official. Again IF its true its probably for the best, it was pretty clear most fans wanted this show. Or maybe it will still get made, its just been delayed to do this one first.
As for Frakes, they should just make him more involved in these shows like a producer or something and just involved full time. They already have 20 executive producers for each show, what’s one more? ;)
I think Frakes himself is just content to direct episodes and nothing more. I mean if he wanted to be a producer he would probably have asked for it many years ago. The man seems to like directing and doing it as a full time job.
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I am saddened to admit this: I’m not going to bother watching “Strange New Worlds”. CBS doesn’t seem to make Trek that I care about. Oh, it’s entertaining, made for the masses. Picard was an improvement over Discovery, but was still “Meh”. Long live DS9, TNG, VOY, and ENT reruns and streaming!!
STrange new world sis the first Trek show i have been excited about since Enterprise. PIcard didn’t feel like trek to me, Discovery was ok, but STrange new worlds seems like the first true TOS spin off.
Look, I love Jonathan Frakes as a director but regardless of how you say it (Jonathan has directed more Trek series) LeVar has directed more episodes of Star Trek than ANYONE ever.
Now if Frakes and Rebecca can just get Christian Kane to guest star (both worked with him on Librarians and Frakes also on Leverage, with Aldis Hodge who played Craft in Short Treks Calypso). He might be a bit busy with the Leverage revival recently announced (as will Hodge) but get him on the show!
”Leverage Revival” Cool. Thanks for the info. Enjoyed that show good to hear i’ts coming back.
They created a whole new timeline with the newer star trek movies and kirks younger self, along with spock etc. If they come in with this and it just won’t make any sense. I think stick with what works and concentrate on continuing whats been started rather than grasping at zombies to breath life into shows that are just needing to be let go
This man can do nothing wrong, he’s the best person to direct keep up the good work number one.
Is it just me? I loved TOS, TNG, and VOY (and ‘maybe’ bits and pieces of DS9). And the 10 TOS/TNG films, some more than others. But beyond that, to me, ST ceased to exist.
I am anticipating this show more than any other show or movie. Could be really good
Jonathan Frakes is the definition of a “class act.”
Wonder if somehow Burnham saves the Enterprise and crew in this series too. I am sure they are working on that.