Star Trek All Access Seeking Out New Life In Toronto, Canada

Will Riker may not have been a Canadian, but it looks like everyone involved with the new Star Trek show could be. Pop culture news site Pop Goes The News reported this week that the as yet unnamed series, which we’re calling Star Trek All Access, will start filming in Toronto in September.

One hopes that production begins on exactly September 8, the 50th anniversary of when the first Star Trek episode, The Man Trap, aired on TV.

While no cast members have been revealed, the new series will be helmed by from executive producer Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman, and Rod Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Nicholas Meyer, director of Star Treks 2 and 6, will also have a major creative role.

Toronto itself is an enormously popular city to film in for a variety of reasons. As Wikipedia says in its article detailing the hundreds of productions shot there, “Due to the city of Toronto’s diverse architecture and its midwestern climate cityscape, many movies set in cities like Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C., packaged for the American market, are filmed in Toronto, only subtly acknowledged.”

Toronto is also no doubt cheaper than Southern California. Regrettably, Toronto lacks the popular Vasquez Rocks of northern LA.

Canada has produced some of Star Trek’s greatest contributors, including William Shatner (born in Montreal) and James Doohan (born in Vancouver). With production based in Ontario, Star Trek All Access could give rise to many more talents from the True North Strong and Free.

The show is expected to drop in early 2017. What are you more excited for: Star Trek Beyond or the news series? Be sure to vote in the poll on our website at the top of the page (right column).

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Starting filming on the 8th of September would be a nice touch!

Should also be noted that CBC actually broadcast Star Trek a day or two before NBC did… Star Trek was seen in Canada first!

Hello. Nice try, but in actuality the original “Star Trek” series made its world television debut on the CTV Television Network in Canada one night before debuting in the United States on NBC.

It was CTV for ST: TOS but after the new DOCTOR WHO’s debut in the U.K., if you lived in Detroit, you would have been able to see CBC’s broadcast of the first episode, “Rose,” before anyone else in the U.S.

Well, they have all those spiffy sets up there from STB, and repurposing then is a great way to save some money. We shall see….

Phil – STB was filmed at Vancouver Film Studios…quite a long way from Toronto…

They may use the same sound stages, but sets? They’ve already said this will NOT be in the movie’s timeline, or at least not on that Enterprise, most notably due to rights issues (CBS it sounds like is not allowed to or doesn’t want to use characters/situations created by Paramount/movies, either for legal reasons or contractual fee reasons).

So no, they probably won’t be repurposing movie sets, although it’s a remote possibility they could re-dress them like they did for the various TV shows in the 90s.

@ Phil: Star Trek Beyond was shot in Vancouver (west coast), while the new series will be shot in Toronto (east coast). They are about 2000 miles apart. In fact, Vancouver is almost as far away from Toronto as Los Angelos.

Had not intended to get into the logistics of moving them, if it would even come to that. There was also enough ambiguity in the posted rumor of the post-TUC story arc to suggest they could produce future series from any series or film. As I recall TNG sets were redressed for The Undiscovered Country, so who knows…

Not going to happen. STAA and STB are owned by completely separate entities…CBS and Paramount. No reason to repurpose anything, plenty of $, and with the new series being post-STVI/pre-TNG, what would be the point?

Didn’t even know STB was filmed in Vancouver. Yeah, quite a trek (and no, that pun was actually not intended, only realized it after I typed it).

Americans think that Canada is like one big city, and if you know two people from Canada, they must know each other.

I live in Toronto, so this should prove…..(wait for it)…….fascinating!

Come on, Harry, get on one of those registries as a production extra…this could be your big break…

Well this is sad. The first (official) Star Trek TV series not to be filmed at Paramount Studios. And STB the first movie as such. Seems the days of Trek being shot at its birthplace are truly gone.

As long as the quality is up to snuff, they can shoot Star Trek on the moon as far as I’m concerned.

That would be pretty cool – and make any low gravity shots look great ;)

It’s still a business, and you go where you get the best price for your work.

Oh yeah I get that totally. I’m just saying it’s the end of a massive era, that’s all.

The Cage was shot at Culver Studios. Where No Man Has Gone Before was also shot at Culver as well.

Star Trek was born before it started shooting at Desilu/Paramount.

It’s a big universe, homeboy. Don’t be so parochial.

If the cost-cutting helps the production I guess its a good thing but I just hope it doesn’t look like stargate with every other episode filmed on planet canadian backlot.

It will probably look like Battlestar Galactica(also filmed in Vancouver) but with a slightly higher budget and slightly less grit.

I’m hoping for a lot less grit. No Steampunk Star Trek, please.

Given Toronto’s proximity to Stratford, Ontario, I can presume a pipeline of top-notch Shakespearean talent, continuing another great Trek tradition.

Now THAT might be an inducement to Shatner, as he is Stratford-trained.

I know, I know, I’m reaching … also, the quality and approach to acting by Shatner this century seems like a different performer altogether. His methodology on BOSTON LEGAL is the opposite from what he was known for in the 20th, the comments on the disks are about his being spontaneous, whereas everything about his workflow before was how he would just run lines over and over and work out every bit of his stance and movement beforehand – it seems like he finally shrugged off all his training and was able to reach for some kind of in-the-moment truthfulness, and I honestly wonder if that would mess up him doing Kirk again.

Interesting question. Reminds me of Nick Meyer recounting how he’d typically do many takes with Shatner on TWOK and TUC in order for Shatner to “stop acting” and just react in the moment. It could be that Shatner learned over the years, or that the BOSTON LEGAL directors likewise did many takes with him, or both.

Perhaps with age and experience he decided he didn’t need as much “work” on his parts. I for one loved his Boston Legal stuff. It was tremendous and he was duly awarded.

As a Canadian, I’m reluctant to re-enforce a cliched stereotype, but seeing as this is going to be shot in Canada, perhaps it will be the adventures of the “NCC-1701-eh”.

Quite frankly, neither excites me at the moment. Not enough information for that…

Apologies if this was posted before… new ST:B pics at IO9
http://io9.gizmodo.com/everyone-is-scared-of-something-in-these-new-star-trek-1773830947

Nice new pics, thanks for the link!

Nice shot, shows the director has a decent eye for frame composition. And Kirk’s field jacket is slowly growing on me…still lamenting the loss of the black collars though. The little, layered V-cut collars on the regular tunics just aren’t working for me. Also hope McCoy’s blue tunic won’t be so purple when the color timing is complete. Nothing but minor nit-picks, can’t wait!

I like the pic. Didn’t someone point out that Pegg did research on “NX” ships? Someone refresh my memory, what NX ships were ever used, Enterprise and, I think Columbia… any others?

My guess is they find a crashed and damaged Franklin but it can be repaired enough to launch for their escape.

Give me classic Trek interior ship designs 1966/79-2005 anytime. The BR Apple© ship interior design is an eyesore.

I really like Kirk’s field jacket. Very smart.
Yes, Spock’s uniform (although you cannot see it in this picture) having the red colour is a quandary, when clearly all the other officers are wearing the colours that we expect to see a TOS crew wear. Questions, questions…:)