The new Star Trek CBS All Access series has its first director: David Semel.
Semel will be executive producing the pilot episode as well, set for a January 2017 premiere on the CBS Broadcast Network. Subsequent episodes will be streamed via CBS’ premium service, All Access. A source close to the production tells us that he will arrive in Toronto next week.
Semel doesn’t have any Trek-specific credentials, but he’s an Emmy-nominated director and has a history of doing single episodes of successful series. His work on the pilot of Heroes in 2006 got him his first directorial Emmy nomination, so he knows what it’s like to work with visual effects and high-concept storylines.
He directed the pilots for Person of Interest, The Man in the High Castle, Legends, and Code Black, as well as multiple episodes of ensemble shows American Dreams, Dawson’s Creek, and Beverly Hills, 90210. Semel brings a lot to the table, as well as familiarity: He also helmed an episode of Hannibal, created by Bryan Fuller.
Semel has an overall deal at CBS, and directed the pilots for three other shows airing this fall. He’s definitely on a winning streak.
I’m not very familiar with many of those, but the pilot for Person of Interest at least was beautifully done. Optimistic.
Again… Nu Trek seems to be getting some promising people involved. Too bad the platform to make the show available doesn’t hold the same optimism.
Still waiting for CBS to announce that the show will be available for rental on discs….
I hope we get a cast and a premise soon.
His AMERICAN DREAMS were excellent ensemble show episodes based on a circa 1965 teen girl’s family and her dream of dancing at the local Philadelphia based New American Bandstand show.
I think Dick Clark must have produced this as one of the show’s gimmicks was the black and white TVs and studio monitors in the era would all show Clark’s BANDSTAND as it actually aired and in the “real” world of color on the show would have the AD show’s hired actors (many stunt casted) duplicating on the “live” BANDSTAND stage what the B/W show was airing.
‘Pilot?’ Surely you mean ‘first episode?’ I was under the impression Star Trek All Access had a full season order already.
Whatever the case, the first Person of Interest and Man in the High Castle were excellent. Looking forward to this series. I wonder who will be doing the score. Crossing fingers for Bear McCreary.
Aren’t pilot and first episode virtually synonyms for TV? I thought that companies typically order several episodes at a time but based on the pilot, that helps determine how many more episodes are ordered.
I changed the text to “pilot” to help clarify. Semel has been both a producer and director, so they’re leveraging him to do both on the pilot episode.
Bud, Re: pilot and first episode They can be the same thing, but as a matter of course on TV, no they aren’t synonyms. Pilots are things that are put together with one goal in mind: to sell the idea for a series to a corporate outlet or source of financial backing to get a series of episodes made. Once it accomplishes the goal of getting a series’ commitment, a number of requests for changes or recasting can and usually occur and if changes are indeed made rarely does the pilot make it to air as part of the actual series of episodes. Elements of it may be edited in to several future episodes but rarely does any of its original story, as a substantial part of its original whole, make it into those future episodes. Take STAR TREK’s first series. Its original pilot, THE CAGE, was good enough to get NBC’s interest but they wanted to see the concept with an entirely new cast. So they agreed to finance a second pilot, unheard of at that time for a show. They also most specifically wanted to lose the Spock character/actor. Roddenberry put up a battle for both Spock and the female first officer, Number One. NBC eventually relented but told him he had to pick one or the other but could not carry over both. That’s how Spock became first officer. And the second pilot, WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE was made with William Shatner as the Captain. NBC was sold and a series commitment was made. But the pilot “movie” WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE that sold the show was too long to air as an hour episode so had to be edited down to fit the time slot. It was. And a few more episodes were in the can by the time of the show’s first day on NBC’s air. But even at that, NBC felt that of the episodes that were ready for air, MANTRAP and CHARLIE X were the stronger and decided to air those first and NOT the “pilot” episode which it aired later third. And later on with budget problems galore and an episode commitment deficit looming, Roddenberry got the brilliant idea of how to minorly alter THE CAGE and get its story to air as part of two more of those episode commitments, THE MENAGERIE parts I & II. Now I told you all of that so that I could tell you this: HEROES & ICONS will be airing ALL the episodes of ALL the TREK series OTA unedited down to accommodate modern commercial “hours” starting 8PM Eastern and 6PM Pacific: http://nypost.com/2016/07/22/heres-your-chance-to-see-rare-star-trek-episodes/ “At the time that the original ‘Star Trek’ was produced, network shows ran much longer than they run now, and longer than what syndication allowed when the shows reran on local stations.” — Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which owns Heroes & Icons. “I can’t definitely say that these episodes haven’t run uncut since they aired on NBC, but most people haven’t seen them [uncut] unless they own the series on DVD. These are good shows and we hope to bring some new people to the ‘Star Trek’ franchise.” — Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which owns Heroes & Icons. “We plan on leaving the shows on for a couple of years. ‘Star Trek’ is the centerpiece of our programming.” — Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which owns Heroes & Icons. “We want to get a jump on the ‘Star Trek’ bandwagon. The new movie comes out this weekend, so why wait? The ‘Star Trek’ fan base is very strong.” — Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which owns Heroes & Icons. “The {MeTV} Twittersphere {on Saturday nights when it airs the 1st STAR TREK series.} goes crazy.”– Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which owns Heroes & Icons and MeTV. ”But, starting Sunday, digital network Heroes & Icons will give viewers the chance to watch the entire original “Star Trek” series (79 episodes) — and its four spinoffs — unedited and uncut. … Also airing uncut and in their original entirety — as part of the network’s “All Star Trek” programming slate — will be “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.” Here’s how it will work: The first episodes of each of the five “Star Trek” series will air consecutively this Sunday from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. to get the ball rolling. Then, starting Monday (through Friday), episodes from the original “Star Trek” will air nightly at 6 p.m., followed by episodes of “The Next Generation” (7 p.m.), “Deep Space Nine” (11 p.m.), “Voyager” (midnight) and “Enterprise” (1 a.m.). No episodes will air Saturdays; the “Star Trek”… Read more »
Woah I didn’t know that channel existed, sadly Comcast isn’t carrying my local affiliate right now. So I might need to find an antenna…
Whoops that’s 5pm Pacific. Commencing shortly.
Bryan Fuller tweets new Star Trek series captain’s chair
http://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2016/07/20/bryan-fuller-tweets-new-star-trek-series-captains-chair/
That chair just needs a hibachi full of brats and a beer cooler.
With the hints of ‘multiple crew’ storylines featuring in this new show, there’s a good chance that some of the new characters will prove popular.
But one of my biggest hopes for this show will be the way that music is incorporated – I really hope we get a memorable main theme/credits intro. that grabs the attention from the off, and that the episodes are accompanied by lots of great scoring throughout.
According to rumours the series will be called “Star Trek Discovery”.
The Man in the High Castle was pretty well done.
The Man in the High Castle credit piques my interest.
Finally caught the first part of MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE last night. This guy did a helluva job directing it.
They must have created some awful promos for CASTLE, because my wife and I both saw spots that turned us off from it completely for all this time.
In spite of how it ended up, “Heroes” had a fantastic pilot. Likewise “Person of Interest” and “Man in the High Castle.” The guy clearly knows what he’s doing!