Information about Star Trek: Discovery has been trickling out almost daily from Entertainment Weekly, and the latest round-up article has a few details that haven’t surfaced in previous articles. More information is likely to come at San Diego Comic-Con, where we know there’s going to be a full Star Trek: Discovery panel, but in the meantime, here’s the latest scoop on the series.
The Klingons are important
EW says to expect “a lot of Klingons.” The time period we’re in is during the cold war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation, but things will come to a head at the beginning of the series, and the Klingon we’ll get to know the best is T’Kuvma, played by Chris Obi (who’s also on Bryan Fuller’s American Gods). T’Kvuma is a Klingon leader, and is determined to unite the Klingon houses “by any means necessary.” Ominous.
Game of Thrones is an influence
In a separate article just released by EW today, showrunners Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, talked about the way HBO’s Game of Thrones has influenced television and is likely to influence Star Trek: Discovery. Said Berg,
“Game of Thrones changed television. They almost made it difficult to fall in love with people because you didn’t know if they were going to be taken away from you. That show’s had an influence on all TV dramas that have come after it.”
Harberts added, “Death isn’t treated gratuitously on this show. It’s not for shock value. But when it happens we want to make sure that people really feel it.”
Thematically, this isn’t brand new territory for the franchise, which has seen the deaths of Captain Kirk, Spock, and Sarek and the departure of Captain Sisko, but perhaps most closely echoes Tasha Yar, who died early on in The Next Generation‘s run and thus had an impact on the ship’s crew for a long time afterwards, or Jadzia Dax, who was killed off late in Deep Space Nine’s run and deeply affected everyone left behind. (And yes, we’re assuming this is more about the effect death can have on other characters and viewers as opposed to referencing beheadings and squishy-sounding swords-in-the-guts deaths.)
The U.S.S. Discovery is a science vessel
According to EW, the Discovery is primarily a science vessel, and that’s where Lt. Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green, the show’s star) will find herself after the “difficult choice that sends her life on a very different path” described by Aaron Harberts, who added,
“That choice leads her to a different ship, the USS Discovery and there we begin what [co-showrunner] Gretchen [Berg] and I call our second pilot.”
The Discovery will be more modern than the Shenzhou, and it’s especially interesting that EW is calling it a science vessel; we hadn’t heard that yet and it does seem to be at odds with the information that Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs) is a brilliant military tactician. This could lead to some of the in-crew conflict that’s been talked about, or it could be a detail that isn’t quite nailed down yet.
Harry Mudd won’t be quite so outrageous
We already know that Rainn Wilson (of The Office) will be playing Harry Mudd, and that he’ll appear in at least a couple of episodes. EW has given us just a little bit more information on him–the Harry Mudd we meet will be “a more grounded version” of the one we know from the original series episodes “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd.” He’ll be younger of course, due to Discovery‘s time period, and if this is a calmer version of Mudd, we can expect fewer shenanigans from him, although he’s still a con man who operates outside of Starfleet.
Expect to see some retro tech
This is always a big topic for Trek fans. Do they base the tech on what was created for the 1960s show to stay within canon? Are we talking about the James Kirk era or the Captain Pike era? How does Enterprise‘s tech affect the way everything will look? Likely EW has had a closer look at some of the images and footage from the show, and they say we should “expect some retro ’60s design in the new show, complete with old school phasers, tricorders, and communicators.” What we’ve seen in several of the recently released photos seems to confirm this.
More “lower deck” storylines
Since Martin-Green’s Burnham is the star of the show and NOT the captain, we will be getting a different perspective than we’re used to in our Captain-centric Star Trek shows of the past. EW says,
“And as the first non-captain Trek lead, focusing on Burnham takes viewers off the bridge, into more parts of the ship, and explores lower-deck story lines.”
For anyone who’s a fan of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Lower Decks,” this is good news, as it means we’ll see life on a Federation starship from a point of view we may not have seen very much in the past.
Stay tuned to TrekMovie for all the latest on Star Trek: Discovery, including the news that Jonathan Frakes is directing an episode.
I’m not a purist, but please don’t “Games of Thrones-ize” the show. People have watched Trek over the past 50 years for a reason. We have enough death and misery in the real world to keep us occupied!
I think they can add more drama to the Star Trek without ruining its optimistic vision of the future. It’s all about balance.
@Mo — I think as the article suggests this will be more in terms of creating real drama and peril for the cast. There was plenty of death and misery in Trek — but unlike the anonymous red shirt deaths which nobody seemed to care about, now for the first time these smaller episodic arcs and large ensemble casts allow principal character to be hired for shorter story arcs which result in meaningful deaths that actually matter to the story and the audience. The biggest problem with Trek was that every episode hit the reset button, no matter what. We all know that nobody is going to kill off the main characters, unless there’s a publicized contract dispute. Now, all bets are off. There will be real suspense and concern for our favorite characters as they go into battle, or go on away missions, where the reality is anybody could die at anytime. I think this is an amazing development in serial television.
Yeah I also don’t like the deaths where they ‘kill’ people for dramatic attention but they were never going to really die. Kirk in STID is the latest example. At least when they killed off Spock in TWOK the plan really was to kill him. That’s why it felt more raw. Sure they brought him back but he was really meant to die. Even though people hated how Kirk died in Generations, I love the fact that once he was killed off he stayed dead.
That is the problem with things like sci fi and superhero stories, it never feels real because you can always bring characters back and they do often. They ‘killed’ Superman in BvS but we already knew that guy was going to be in the next 13 movies DC has planned so it just felt like they did it to have a somber ending but it didn’t feel real because clearly its not. So I always respect the ones that kill off an important character and its for keeps. Star Trek rarely does it and as you said usually its because an actor wants off the series the few times its been done just to do it like Kirk has had an impact.
I take it to mean add more serious stakes and drama to the series. I don’t take it to mean death all the time. I think most will agree that all of Trek has been short on consequences. The ship will be crippled or damaged one week, and no trace of that will be evident the next week.
I meant “a lot of Trek”. DS9 and latter Enterprise being the exceptions
@MattR — I don’t think DS9 & ENT were exceptions — at most ENT would be disabled for a 3 episode story arc, but miraculously, they would somehow have everything repaired a few episodes later. I’m not a DS9 fan, so haven’t seen all of them, but I sure don’t recall any long term consequences on that series … first season episodes and late season episode feel exactly the same.
The ship was progressively damaged throughout the Xindi arc.
But my overall meaning was the reset button in general – not just ship damage.
And DS9 certainly had long story arcs and rich storylines where episodes and stories mattered from episode to episode. Stuff like Sisko as the Emissary, the Dominion War, and even just following the overall arcs of side characters like Dukat, Damar, Winn, Nog, Rom, etc.
@MattR — I know they tried to demonstrate the ships progressive damage in the Xindi arc, but it never worked out that way. Somehow, whatever debilitating damage they took on, they always managed to repair it. I never bought it. And pressing the reset button isn’t really the right terminology for continuing canon. The reset button is what happens when they kill a character and bring them back by the end of the episode, etc. They never killed a central character, or destroyed a major component that they had to deal with the consequences. So there was no real drama in that sense the way it’s being contemplated here.
Yes, they managed to repair things because they would find stuff in subsequent episodes, like Trellium or whatever. And the episode where Archer had to sacrifice his ideals and cripple another ship by taking supplies from them.
Continuing canon is something totally different. Reset button is where conflicts and stories were almost always self-contained, and had little to no impact outside of the episode.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reset_button_technique
There were exceptions of course like Picard after becoming Locutus. But how interesting would it have been to have some follow-up on Picard’s torture in Chain of Command, or Geordi’s torture in The Mind’s Eye, etc.
DS9 was testint the ground. It was only because Voyager was on, that DS9 could experiment and do its own thing.
Agreed! I think Trek with consequences and a true long form story would be exciting. One of the brightest spots on TNG was the story of Worf’s discommendation, which carried over into future episodes, and affected the character beyond one episode.
Exactly! “Death isn’t treated gratuitously on this show. It’s not for shock value. But when it happens we want to make sure that people really feel it.” That can be said about ANY good TV Drama. That’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s Grey’s Anatomy, The Sapranos, Lost, even the BSG reboot.
They are using GOT as the analogy because it’s what people know and it’s not TWD (where one of their stars come from) and it’s not another sci-fi show.
To be fair, budget is an issue. Sets have to be built, makeup and hair done, so many things, that were much more difficult in the 90’s than they are now. CGI was still very infant, especially on television. Discovery has a lot od potential to really become a show that evolves constantly. Hope it works out!
Then why are they sticking Car Floor Mats on the walls of the transporter set?
Even the original series wasn’t that embarrassingly cheap & would have at least painted them lol. Sigh. This is all depressing.
Not the feeling I usually expect from Star Trek.
I don’t know why you people even watch star Trek if you hate everything about it & want it to change, be all death & dark & Gritty.
It’s a Utopian Future to counter the dark & gritty & negative (Supposely More Realistic post 9/11 alarmist views) we live in.
Go watch other shows & let Star Trek be Star Trek for Star Trek fans.
Star Trek was successful for 25 years before they started to change it with DS9 & make it darker, to make it more relatable to the Non Fans who have never & will never support the show no matter how Dark, Gritty & Sexy they try to make it
Look at the Ultimate Fail, NEMISIS the trailers & promotion didn’t resemble Star Trek at all & nobody watched it.
The JJ Reboot only succeded on goodwill from the promise to Return to the Original Star Trek but updated & a big budget & when They didn’t deliver the familiar Star Trek elements (instead giving us earthbound/planet bound terrorism stories) people started to abandoned Star Trek again.
So what do they do? Instead of giving us a Traditional Prime Universe Star Trek show they go & reboot it again, going even farther away from what Star Trek was.
Its so frustrating being a Star Trek fan watching it slowly be torn apart by people who want it to be something else, their unremarkable, common, limited vision.
& we Trekkies get the blame for it all like were all stuck in the past wanting a Star Trek Continues style copy of the show when we just want it to evolve in time naturally within its style & format not perverted into being something else considered more commercially viable.
Well-said, Mo Ped. I agree completely.
I agree. However, I think there’s room for a bit more drama and strife, while still maintaining the key tenants of Star Trek. I don’t like how some shows and movies trivialize death and murder, so hopefully they manage to stay away from that with Discovery.
As others have said, I don’t read into it as meaning DSC will be as gratuitously violent as GOT. It’s just meant to highlight how strongly character deaths feel in GOT, and with that Saru guy going on about sensing death, it better feel potent and real when it finally comes in DSC. Some of the strongest feelings I’ve ever experienced from television has been watching characters die on GOT. One ep in particular I will never forget for how it made me feel. That is the height of drama. This is actually the most reassuring comment I’ve heard about DSC so far.
Got was not the first show to kill of main characters on a regular basis. Mi5/Spooks was doing it since it premiered in 2004. Only Harry Pierce survived the series’ run.
Except that if he’d said “it will be like Mi5/Spooks” nobody would have known what he was talking about.
Amen! Television has plenty of bleak, gritty, violent shows. I watch Trek for the optimism.
Same, so no point watching this Reboot. save your money.
I guess that’s what they meant when they said it would be “grittier”.
I agree with you, Mo Ped.
I agree, this is the most bothersome thing about the new trek to me, it looks way too much like depressing and bleak game of thrones, and just because that is popular does not mean it is right, they are going to lose a lot of long time fans with this direction, similar to the tnt dallas.
I agree 110%. Game of Thrones is bleak, sad, and terrifying….the exact antithesis of Star Trek.
But its popular & Moonves thinks if they make it like that it will be more successfull.
Just about all of this sounds promising. Does it ensure a great series? Of course not. But I’m reasonably encouraged.
All I want to hear is “These are a special, unique species of religious Klingons. Don’t even sweat it, dog.”
No joke, hearing this would go a long way towards easing my anxiety about this show.
@Bob — that’s too bad you need that. The way the Kingons look is the last thing on my mind when anticipating a new Trek series — honesty; what does it matter if the stories are good? I kind of like this take on them, they’re more real in a certain sense as an alien species. Trek has always been constrained by sfx make-up technology and budget. Who knows what many of the alien species would have looked like in Trek if they had capabilities we have today in the 1960s? It’s a fact most of the species are humanoid BECAUSE they couldn’t afford to do much else in a realistic way. I really couldn’t care less if these Klingons are the same we’ve been seeing for 50 years or not. Some hard-core fans have absolutely ruined Trek by compelling stories like those in Enterprise which felt the need to explain the appearance difference between a 1960s sci-fi TV show and high budget modern motion picture filmmaking.
It’s pretty sad that fans need those kinds of justifications and assurances. I remember the days when they’d change things, or retcon something, and fans would have fun coming up with justifications in our head, but in the end we didn’t really care.
Well, at least I didn’t. It was fun to spot inconsistencies rather than stressful to see them make changes.
True. At the end of the day, it is just a TV show. It’ll either be good or bad, either way not the end of the world. I’m cautiously optimistic so far.
Well said Curious Cadet. I feel the same way. This is 2017, not 1966. Even Gene’s initial sketches for the Klingons looked closer to those in DISC than to those he had to go with due to budget cost and the abilities of the effects artists in the late 60s. Someone in another thread posted a pic of those sketches. I wish I was able to find it.
Would be an interesting article if someone on Trekmovie staff could do a history of the Klingons on screen with an addition of thise sketches.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=roddenberry+klingon+sketch
http://blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/2016/04/12/caliban-inspires-klingon-makeover/
There ya go! Thank you Calastir. In my opinion, they are inspired from that.
It is way down the list in terms of importance to what makes Trek good, but at the same time all it takes is one simple line to placate the fans who are bothered by the redesign. Are people so hell bent on arguing online that we can’t all agree that it would be a very simple way to deal with the issue? I haven’t see anybody called for a long winded explanation or stories explaining the change. I;m sure one lousy line is not too much to ask from the writers.
Let me put it this way, El Chup– are you so hell bent on arguing online that we can’t all agree that the changes aren’t really that important, and don’t require any explanation? Are you that hell bent on arguing that you aren’t willing to wait to see if there even IS such an explanation in the actual show– considering we’re still 3 months away from its airing?
As for your reasoning, I think if I were a creator or writer of a TV series, my first goal would be to produce a great piece of work, and “placating the fans” would not be on my radar. Now, if there’s a writer that wants to, by all means, great, but if they don’t want to, I completely respect that.
Frankly, asking anything of the writers just to make *you* happy is asking too much
And remember, they’ve already given you their explanation: they’re updating the visuals and style to fit with modern programming and entertainment for todays audiences. For 30 years we didn’t know why the Klingons had ridges (it was because of improved FX!), we were never told why Romulans had them on TNG, we never had a line explaining every single retcon or change that was usually made for the betterment of the series.
I suggest for your own good you come to terms with this before the show airs Because if you truly want to enjoy Discovery, you’re likely going to have to let that stuff go; my gut tells me this show isn’t going to spend time explaining these changes, because there is no in-universe explanation, and in the end IT DOESN’T MATTER TO THE SHOW.
If that hampers your enjoyment, i’m really sorry. The rest of us will be keeping an open mind and deciding if the show is good or bad on its own merits.
Next thing you know fans are going to want new dialog added to TOS to explain the improved special FX on the remastered editions.
“Captain, we’ve entered a parallel universe where everything looks crisper, sharper, and Gorns have eyelids!”
Well, we did know the real-life reason Klingons had ridges. Gene Roddenberry said after TMP was released that it was because he finally had the budget to show how they really looked.
@ Torchwood
In other words your position is “my way is right, all those who agree are true fans and all those who like Trek for differing reason are nutters”. Noted.
No, we can’t always “all agree” and that’s my damned point. Don’t presume to speak for “the rest of us”. No matter how many times people like you swan around the internet telling people what sort of fan they should be it is not going to make them carbon copies of you who think the same and like Trek for the same reasons you do.
There is no reason you cannot create a good show and great stories and, as a secondary measure, throw in one lousy line that will satisfy a great many fans. I find your implied argument that you can only have one without the other illogical and the suggest inherent in your post that people are putting equal or more value on such a line than great stories to be thoroughly disingenuous.
If CBS expects people to pay to watch the show, then yes, they should be explaining these issues to the fans that are concerned, or risk people not bothering to pay to view.
@El Chup — because it doesn’t matter and in the long run creates far more problems than it solves for a tiny segement of the Trek fan base. Look at the mess “one lousy line” caused in DS9 about Klingon appearances — it led to an absolutely stupid and pointless episode in ENT. And they raised the issue about uniforms colors changing, but never explained it. Etc.
Well, we’re human, and we certainly don’t all look the same. Trek always has diversity in the crew, why not the Klingons?
I’ve always agreed with that! Humans come in many shapes, sizes, and colors, so it’s nice it a crazy thought at all. In fact many times throughout history foreign people visited new lands and described natives (and the visitors were described by the natives) as looking almost alien.
I personally don’t mind the look of the new Klingons, but that “we certainly dont look the same” argument is not valid IMO. The problem is: yeah, there may be ten different ethnic groups among the Klingons, and a hundred different sub-cultures. Some may have red skin and yellow eyes as in STID, some may employ piercings, some may be pitch-black as in the DSC trailer, some may not even have impressive forheads as in TUC etc…
But if that is the case, those different types of Klingons would exist parallelly… so you would have seen some of them in TNG or DS9 which showed hundreds of Klingons over their 14 year-run. But all of them LOOKED THE SAME! And now, on DSC, the Klingons look different, but no traces of other traditional Klingons either! That doesn’t make sense!
Anyway, it’s not as important as the series’ tone. And I’m rather worried about that than forehead ridges and Klingon hair pieces!
I think you’re really over-analyzing these things, Smike. I think that’s a problem with Trekkies, we love to dissect these things. Which is fine when it’s for fun, but when it becomes a hinderance to enjoying the show, just let it go!
What if the intricately created universe is one of the reasons some likes the franchise?
You know, I always hate it when fans (not just of Trek but other franchises as well) decide what should matter to other fans. At the end of the day we are talking a franchise of 800 plus hours of content. Not every fan came to the table for the same reason and what may seem to be trivial and inconsequential for you might be a deal breaker or an annoyance for someone else. That’s just the way it is, and is there is one thing that Trek fans SHOULD have in common is that they should be tolerant of and understanding of the fact that there are different types of fans rather than insisting that all fans be in their image.
@El Chupo
It’s less about what should and shouldn’t and more about “why are you stopping yourself from enjoying this? And if you are no longer enjoying this, why are you still here?”
It seems to me like fans are nitpicking this to death before even watching it. Once they see it, if they dislike it– for whatever reason– fine. But critics like Smike have decided they hate it before even watching it, and it’s clearly making a lot of people miserable.
You may hate this, hate that, hate people like me saying stuff like that, but i’ll say this: I don’t hate Smike or his point of view, i’m simply imparting some wisdom to help him enjoy something he clearly WANTS to enjoy.
I am clearly NOT hating it for the Klingon make-up! I really couldn’t care less about “canon” at this point as long as this series stays true to the spirit of Star Trek, which – at this point – I have serious doubts about. Again, it’s not even the producers are writers to blame. This series is up against an entire batallion of TV-MA shows and if they want to sell this product, they probably have to go where they’re going with this. The mere fact that this is necessary these days is what troubles me!
“But critics like Smike have decided they hate it before even watching it, and it’s clearly making a lot of people miserable.”
Okay, sorry for making you feel miserable. But again, it’s not about nitpicking! You have no idea how much I hate nitpicking. During the early days of the internet, I absolutely disliked people for picking VOY and ENT continuity bloopers apart and I couldn’t care less about those tiny little aspects such as “Vulcan has no moon” or “The Klingons have no devil” or “Warp 10 is not possible” that kept people discussing for ages.
Throughout my MANY posts on this page I’ve abundantly tried to make clear that this is not about the quality of the show that no one has seen yet. It is not about disliking it for not delivering whatever it’s supposed to deliver. I cannot do it before watching it.
My rant is all about the CIRCUMSTANCES this show has to deal with, the legacy of bloody, gritty TV that this Star Trek show has to somewhat live up to if it wants to find its audience. I get why the producers chose to accept that challenge but it doesn’t make me feel relaxed about it.
My rant is the complete opposite of “nitpicking”. I am looking at the greater whole of contemporary genre entertainment and yes, my first and foremost fear is that I might actually be seduced into liking this show DESPITE its potential gruesomeness. No, I’m not afraid of disking it, but I already feel guilty for probably liking it once again, as it had happened with NuBSG and GOT. Once again lowering my moral standards, once again paying tribute to the inevitable because after all, I can’t change the current state of entertainment and the human condition as a whole. If I want to stay a fan I have to subscribe to this, literally and figuratively speaking.
Sorry Smike, perhaps I misunderstood your comments. But there ARE plenty of fans here and elsewhere who have prejudged the show before even the first trailer was released!
@torchwood
“Imparting some wisdom”. How insufferably pompous and arrogant. I don’t agree with everything Smike said, but one thing I will never challenge a fan on is them expressing what they’d like to see, which is what he’s doing above. Furthermore he flat out states in that post that the Klingon issue is a secondary issue after the tone of he show. So clearly as he is NOT putting it top of the pile and treating it as a dealbreaker as your post is designed to implying with it’s claim that he’s out to hate it from the off.
A Trek Walk of Shame. Hmmmm….
Sounds exciting. Bring it on!
I See what they are trying to do because the Klingons see the Federation as a threat to them was one of the reasons for the 4 Year War Not to mistake form the 1 Year War (Gundam) lol that they want to try show us more Klingon Culture before they were United after the Praxes Incident in 2291 that lead to the First Peacetraty with them So I kind a wanna see how they turns out
In English, Data.
Best use of this quote ever
Anybody who thinks Harry Mudd is a comic foil wasn’t watching “Mudd’s Women”. There’s a lot of danger, and darkness in Harry Mudd. It was frankly a shame to take the character where they did with “I Mudd”. If they do it right, and I’m not sure Rainn Wilson can, Mudd will be as scary and dangerous as any bad guy. Maybe worse because he’s physically disarming.
I believe Rainn Wilson can pull off a “more grounded” version of Harry Mudd. I recently rewatched “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” in which Wilson had a small role as a self-absorbed astronomy professor. He made quite an impression with his pomposity, and it’s a very far cry from Dwight and “The Office.” I believe DSC is going to reveal that Wilson has an acting range not many of us knew about. I’m looking forward to his performance.
I hope you’re right Edzo
Rainn Wilson’s performance in “Super” walked a line between humor and darkness exceptionally well.
Prediction: DSC is a second Trek reboot, which will be confirmed at SDCC. The project Meyer is working on is a reboot of TOS for television that will launch in 2 years if DSC is well-received.
@Superman — I hope not. I’m all for a second Trek series, but they really shouldn’t revisit TOS again for a while. There’s so many other ways they can give us that experience without revisiting it exactly.
Not to mention there’s no way they’d announce a project that would only be made if something else is successful.
That scenario seems unlikely. TOS was already rebooted in 2009 and it seems unlikely that Paramount would agree to a CBS reboot for television.
@Denny C — Paramount likely doesn’t have any say in it at this point. They would only have a say if the license CBS granted them allows that provision. What we’ve heard rumored is that Paramount had a non-compete clause that prevented CBS from producing a new TV show until now. It’s unlikely such an extended clause would persist beyond that moratorium and continue to apply to TOS for some time to come. The only caveat to that would be that Paramount might have continued exclusivity until they chose not to make another TOS movie, within a specified window following the previous TOS film. Assuming Paramount hasn’t already notified CBS of its intent to move on from TOS Trek movies, the clock is certainly running, just like after NEM. It’s only a matter of time for CBS to give Paramount and ultimatum. In the meantime, CBS could be have a TOS series in development ready to go. I hope they don’t, but Paramount likely has little say in the matter.
Paramount has the rights to make movies only. They still have to license Star Trek from CBS to do so therefor Cadet is pretty much right on this.
Whether they have a legal say in it is not the point.
I think there would be a legitimate grievance from Paramount; not from a legal perspective, but remember that these are two companies that need to maintain a good working relationship, so there’s little point in either of them doing something that pisses the other one off. This of course is assuming they intended at all to continue with the film series.
But even if they decide not to, neither party wants to confuse the brand, and having two reboots with the same set of characters either concurrently or while one is still in the public eye– and popular– is not a good idea.
If Paramount opts to move away from Kirk and co, I could see a TV reboot, but i’d be surprised if it was this soon.
I also don’t think they’d want to beat TOS into the ground. This isn’t a universe like Spider-Man predicated on one well-known cast of characters.
Despite all of the above, however, I do think we could see a seires about the Enteprise B, C, or F. The USS Enterprise *IS* something that is sort of synonymous with Trek (more than characters, and they’d be foolish not to want to exploit THAT.
@Kirok — correct, add to the fact that CBS owns TOS — and they have not been happy with Abrams, BR, or Paramount for that matter trying to take a bite out of the TOS chuck wagon in rebooting the merchandising stream in their new image. There is no love lost between CBS and Paramount, the former of which will most likely be running Paramount in a few years — Moonves has a close relationship with the co-head of National Amusements, and may well be the defacto head of Paramount through that relationship. Absent a legal agreement, if CBS wants to produce a reboot Prime universe series of TOS, then Paramount will definitely be out of luck to the extent CBS wants to avoid any conflicts. The Kelvin Universe had its shot, and Abrams chose to jump to Star Wars rather than compete with CBS. CBS is unlikely interested in continuing the KU unless they’re legally bound to do it.
Enough of TOS already!
Trek is about the future. TOS was made in 1960s.
The next Trek series should be about a brand new Federation ship and its crew venturing out into another galaxy and exploring it, going boldly where no man has gone before. That’s what we need! We need that thrill of the exploration again, similar to what TOS and TNG had, not rebooting old stuff.
Into another galaxy? If the show is to remain at all scientifically grounded, it has to stay within our galaxy. Do you know how much space is in between galaxies?
TOS reboot? No thanks. JJ Trek was more than enough.
Let Meyer do The Next Next Generation. Lets get back to exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilisations.
If you want to know what i’d like, its a complete and total reboot of Star Trek. No Kirk, no Spock, no alternate timeline nonsense– just pretend the past 50 years of entertainment never happened and START OVER.
You can keep the U.S.S. Enterprise name if you want, but i’d love to see STAR TREK completely re-booted from the ground up. Total storytelling freedom. Keep the hallmarks like transporters, shuttlecraft, phasers, communicators, keep the essence of exploration, discovery, diversity, social commentary– but start over story-wise from scratch!
@El Chup — right, because that’s what TNG did? Then why do I recall all those tedious episodes involving the Klingon’s, Romulans, and the Borg, trending over the same old ground season after season?
So I guess those are “modern” Klingons after all. I can’t say I have much interest in political squabbling among the Klingons — I wouldn’t mind if we never heard about the Klingon houses again — so it’s disappointing to hear they’ll be a big focus. But I can understand why they’re going with that angle in a time when GoT is so popular. Maybe they can deliver on the concept in a way the previous shows haven’t.
I like the description of Harry Mudd. He could be like a darker version of Han Solo. Make him charming but also treacherous — always looking out for himself over everyone else.
Fingers crossed the storytelling lives up to the cinematic visuals.
Definitely agree with you on the GOT premise parallels. It’s almost like they designed DSC by looking at Trek specifically to find the GOT story in it, and naturally settled on Klingons because of their houses.
@albetrosity — ugh I didn’t think of that … I really don’t want this to turn into GOT with Klingons …
This. I’ve been greatly looking forward to DSC so far, but I really don’t want to see a GAME OF THRONES clone.
That’s funny because Trek GOT is literally exactly what I want to see — a compelling, intricate story borne out of conflict and mistrust. Trek just needs to add a positive message to the formula and it’ll be golden.
Trek GOT is the least thing I’d ever want to see! Storywise, okay, but the level of violence, nudity, despair and visual gore is far too depressing to imagine of a show like Star Trek. Adding “a positive message” to something like that would be really hard. I already has my issues with the second half of DS9 seeing the deaths of billions and all-out war, but at least they didn’t visualize those attrocities. But it’s 2017, a plenty of shows have done that, so Trek is probably bound to do that as well…
albetrosity, I really don’t see how Trek could or should be like GOT. I don’t really know how you fit Gene’s philosophy into that. GOT, at the end of the day, is basically a soap opera in a fantasy setting with some gratuitous violence and sex thrown in. I relies on conflict and pretty much only conflict to maintain interest. That’s not what I want out of Trek. I want Trek to give me something to think about and give me a feeling of positivity. I see enough misery in the world when I go to work. I want Trek to still offer a way to counteract that.
I mean the analogy can only go so far, right? When I say “Trek GOT” I’m not envisioning rivers of blood and petty conflict. I’m talking about an expansive, sweeping scope, incredible breadth and depth of characters, tightly-woven and intricate plots, intrigue, a sense of realism, and punishing deaths when the time comes. That’s really all I meant. All of those things can certainly be applied to Trek, and with a positive message to boot. GOT, even though it’s a fantasy, feels way more “real” than Trek’s campy scifi sensibilities. I think a GOT-like facelift can bring it into the realm of reality. And I’m certainly not advocating for gratuitous nudity, but it would be nice to see some more romance between characters.
I, OTOH, am advocating for gratuitous nudity. :-)
The Walking Dead has been killing off characters that people like for seven seasons now. I think that is all they are trying to say. Don’t get too attached to anyone… they might not be around too long.
Whether you compare DSC to Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead doesn’t really matter. I don’t want DSC to come too close to EITHER of these shows. At least TWD doesn’t have nudity, but the amount of violence and gross scenarios is incredible.
I stopped watching it after the episode in which Carl lost his eye! That entire sequence simply was too much for me… a small kid, a teenager and a woman being killed and the youngest regular cast member, the only one I really cared about, losing his eye… that moment I knew I had to stop watching this show!
Most interesting is that some people seem to think of TWD as not nearly as gross as GOT while my country’s rating authorities gave TWD an 18+ and GOT a 16+. I guess it’s the nudity that doesn’t really matter in Europe that much whereas violence and gore gets the maximum rating. I personally have problems with both, especially since the violence is fake while the nudity is real.
I stopped watching TWD when I realized the heroes are the cause of their own despair almost without fail. Every season we see a family or community that has been surviving for a while, but once our heroes show up it is only a matter of days before they bring in the chaos with various levels of meddling. After about the 4th season it was jut too annoying to watch.
This show will be terrible.
jesus…
So will your religion!
You came back just to tell us that?
“Harry Mudd won’t be quite so outrageous”
I guess they could dial him back a bit, but I think that’s what most people love about him. I did. I kind of look at it as the brave face one must put on in life to go on. Being outrageous was kind of what Harry Mudd was.
@Andy — that was “I Mudd”. Go back and watch “Mudd’s Women”. That’s the distinction here.
BSG (stakes) and The Expanse (realism) meets GOT (dealt and sex) and gives ST a Mad Men (betrayals at work) sensibility in a way that appeals to fans of gorgeous ST:TMP. Oh and if done well also throws down some seriously intricate sexuality.
Cool.
It seems not many BSG fans liked their finale , but I did ! And no one in streaming television today is going to beat the drama and reveal of The Expanse (except maybe Westworld?)!
Expect them to pay with our expectations…
I mean play with
Do you mean the other Shows I mentioned -or Discovery ? Either way , I hope not , Trek In A Cafe !!
Commander Michael Burnham in her birthday suit will be magnificent , Trek In A Cafe !
“Commander Michael Burnham in her birthday suit will be magnificent”
Uhm…well…nope! The moment that happens I’ll be out. The world of TV is crazy enough at the moment and least thing I would as to that mix is full nudity on Star Trek.
Now, you may argue that nudity isn’t a big deal and definitely not worse than violence and gore!
Yeah, you’re right. In the real world, sex and nudity are certainly a lot less problematic than real violence!
But in movies, there IS NO real violence! It’s all make-belief, it’s all CGI, artificial blood and pratical FX. No real heads are chopped off, no real people are shot, stabbed or gutted.
But nudity IS REAL! They don’t use CGI body parts or prostetics… these are actual human bodies. And there’s the problem. I don’t want that on Trek! Full stop.
Nudity is a wonderful thing , Smike ! It represents openness , freedom , truth and connection . I believe it’s not only true on screen but in the real world too !
@Darfyn — I agree. Can you imagine if TNG had been produced with these parameters — I’m not sure I would have wanted to see it, but it sure would have changed how Troi’s mom, and the Ferangi women were allowed to be presented!
Back in the day, I had actually been hoping to see some of these “goods” on Trek. At the age of 16 or 18, I would have loved to see Troy, Seven or T’Pol to strip down.
But then the internet came along and destroyed all my appreciation for nudity. It has been reduced to a gateway drug for worse, far worse. And all of this smut is only two clicks away for everybody to watch, including kids and teens on their “smartphones”. It’s so voting-inducingly sick!
“Nudity is a wonderful thing , Smike ! It represents openness , freedom , truth and connection . I believe it’s not only true on screen but in the real world too !”
There was a point in history, somewhere in between 1968 and 1993, when this used to be true. This was before the internet forever compromised it with its smutty filth. I’ve seen too much horrid stuff out there to ever appreciate beauty in nudity again. I’m sorry, but once you get started on this, you cannot draw a line you’ve already crossed it! Call me repressed, tell me to “get laid” or “get a live”… but that’s the way I feel about it.
I’m done with nudity as a form of art. That is a lie. It doesn’t exist. It is nothing but a gateway drug to far, far worse…
I have no problem with nudity if it’s not overly sexualised or used in the course of overly crude sex scenes like you see in GOT. GOT goes waaaaay too far in that regard.
@El Chup. But that’s exactly the problem. What is “non-sexualized” nudity? Where do you draw the line? I don’t think you actually can, not anymore, not after 25 years of public internet. There is always a sexual dimension to it, even if it’s not presented that way on the show…
Imagine Cmdr. Burnham meditating in the nudes… per se, a non-sexual content, but still it’ll create the same sort of arousement that’ll make teenagers or sorta repressed single adults turn to the internet in search of satisfying those urges.
Of course, most of them would have been looking for smut anyway, but now, if that happened, it would be Star Trek directly responsible for it. Trek would be a direct stimulator, no matter how tasteful and tame those scenes may actually be presented.
If we were living in a world that had no hard stuff available online 24/7, nudity could be appreciated as something beautiful. But that’s no longer the case and before you’re even able to reflect upon the psychological implications of online smut, you’re caught in a vicious circle of guilt, withdrawl, shame and habbit. Trek only having the smallest part in it is an extremely unsettling concept.
You know you can sexualize just about anything? A pair of shoes? Long hair?
Uniforms? Cosplay?
That there is a whole world of science fiction erotica (including Trek), regardless of nudity in movies or on TV?
You’re talking about fan-fiction and fetishes, not OFFICIAL Star Trek! There is a HUGE difference between some 18+ fans doing erotic cosplay or a smutty adult spoof on the one hand, and official, legit Star Trek released by CBS as a contribution to the primary legacy of the franchise!
Once you cross that line, you can never go back, you can never unwatch it, you can never erase it, be it too much fake gore or real nudity. It would be part of the official Star Trek legacy.
Yes, once upon a time, I used to be opposed to these “old-fashioned” moral values. And yeah, back in the 60s or 70s, people deserved a shot at overcoming these values of having to have to cover your breasts and genitals. But look where it led us! The internet flooded with gazillion upon gazillion of “short movies” showing the most unspeakable abuses of sexuality. And – apart from age restrictions in front of the camera – absolutely no one can nowadays define a valid line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Against that backdrop, I painfully have to admit that “keeping your shirt and panties on” is an absolute must in regular, non-adult-exclusive entertainment. I wish it was different, I wish I was still able to appreciate innocent nudity, but that’s just not possible for me anymore.
“And – apart from age restrictions in front of the camera – absolutely no one can nowadays define a valid line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.”
Here, let me try. “Would this action I’m contemplating possibly be harmful to another human being?” How’s that for a definition?
““Would this action I’m contemplating possibly be harmful to another human being?” How’s that for a definition?”
Good definition, but again, this leaves us with the intricate question of how to define “harmful”. Physical harm is easily defined but even that threshold has been crossed gazillion times in online smut, let alone hyper-risky behavior concerning STD (no, I’m not talking about DSC :-))
But there is also psychological harm to both the consumers and the participats… addiction, withdrawl, emotional blunting, you name it… especially with all of that stuff being available for tender teens and kids due to the inherent lack of online age control.
And in response to another one of your posts:
“I, OTOH, am advocating for gratuitous nudity. :-)”
Well, that says a lot… I consider everything “gratuitous”, be it nudity, gore or SFX, as a major distraction. If something is not meaningful, it has no place in a good production.
With nudity, it’s even worse. Not only do I consider it a major distraction but an all-out nuissance in a mainstream movie or TV show. If I’m committed to watch a good sci-fi or fantasy story and all of a sudden I have to deal with THAT… sorry, but I just hate that, the same way I hated when they hired a stripper for my 18th birthday back then. I just don’t like to look at that when I’m not 100% voluntarily committed to it. And that’s never the case while watching a genre flick or episode.
But I guess, to each his own. I have to suffer through it because many of you enjoy it…so it sells…
Let me further elaborate why I draw I direct connect between “innocent” nudity and internet smut (I used the word “smut” because the p-word needs to go through moderation I guess)…
I know, looking at represenative statistics that most of kids aged 11-14 don’t need “televised nudity” to become curious about more. The problem is that nowadays, they can easily access that stuff with a few clicks and protective software can easily avoided by most of them. Yeah, that problem is there, given the unrestricted nature of some of these depictions. And no one can tell me that plenty of that material isn’t harmful to them!
Remembering my own puberty, it was Star Trek that first got me hooked on eroticism. Those scantly dressed alien women on TOS, and of course Troy, Kira, Jadzia, later Seven and T’Pol as a young adult. There was no internet around at our place yet that could have searched for smut fakes and stuff.
Imagine a contemporary 13-year-old attracted to beautiful Soneca MG, now probably appearing topless on Star Trek! And he has the entire internet at his fingertips…”Well, if there are naked women on Star Trek it’s okay to look at naked women…” But online, they AREN’T just naked! You see my problem?
Now, that happens. Boy falls in love with beautiful naked acretess and ends up on a freely accessible smut site introducing him to the least desirable abominations of what once upon a time was called love and beauty.
Not possible with Star Trek yet, but definitely with GOT’s Emilia Clarke. But in 1 or 2 years, that could be the case with Trek and I feel very bad about that possibility…
“But nudity IS REAL! They don’t use CGI body parts or prostetics… these are actual human bodies. And there’s the problem. I don’t want that on Trek! Full stop.” – This is untrue.
@Captain Sheridan: Huh? What is untrue? That I don’t want it on Trek or that it it’s real?
1) That I don’t want it on Trek: okay, you got me. Of course I want it, or rather parts of me want it. But the rest of me refuses to give in to those urges because that part of me wants Trek to be pure and above those primitive urges. But then, I know, I’ll never come to terms with that issue…it just hurts to even have to contemplate about it…
2) You think they use CGI body parts and prosthetics? Maybe for sex scenes… they fake that in non p… productions. But the rest is real. Have you ever heard of a nude scene with the actress wearing a green-screen shirt to later project CGI boobies on her? Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s just not happening… Body double…yeah…but that is also REAL, even if not the same person…
I don’t understand your statement…sorry…
Prosthetics and CGI painted on nudity (the lower bits) is commonly done on GoT and other shows
What you are calling “cool” is a nightmare! BSG, Expanse, GoT, gratuitous sexuality…sorry, but if that’s what Trek is about the become, I’m gonna beam myself off-board.
Back in 2004, I hated the very concept behind NuBSG… the reboot aspect, the level of gritty drama, the tone and style. I refused to watch it for about 18 months before I finally gave it a try after the demise of ENT. I happened to like it, but it still struck me as a once-in-a-lifetime experience I never wanted to reprise! I was fin with it as an isolated work of art on its own, but I really, really hoped it would not spawn more shows like this…
Well, look at what has happened to the entire genre over the last 12 years… There are almost 50 TV shows out there that are far too brutal, gritty, bleak, gratuitous and seemingly “mature”, promoting sick scenarious as “quality” TV…
Looking back, all I can say is that I really regret that I gave NuBSG a chance back then, and all the other “adult” TV shows that followed. This “mature quality” TV has destroyed the sort of innocent escapism TV and cinema once stood for. Had I known what would become of TV one day, I probably would have never become a Trekkie and TV afficionado back in the early 90s.
I just feel very, very uneasy about most fellow geeks who have embraced the works of Robert Kirkman, GRR Martin or Neil Gaiman… these people have turned television into an ongoing nightmare that psychologically devastating if you are somewhat faint-hearted. And now, Star Trek is finally turned into one of these shows… Just sad, profoundly sad…
Have you seen an episode of DSC yet? No? Then how do you know what Trek has been ‘turned into’?
Breathe, and settle down. September ain’t all that far off.
Unfortunately, there is no reason to “settle down”. Not this time. The quote by Harbarts is quite unsettling:
“Game of Thrones changed television… That show’s had an influence on all TV dramas that have come after it.”
I think this nails it. DSC will be influenced by GOT. I don’t have to watch an entire episode of DSC to know that now.
I still regret having given NuBSG a chance back then. Unseeing NuBSG, GOT and TWD would be bliss. Maybe it’s time to not watch DSC this time round. I never thought I’d say this about a Trek series.
Well, that’s unfortunate. NuBSG wasn’t perfect, but was better than its source material by a mile in just about every respect and at its best was meaningful storytelling with important things to say about the human condition. Likewise, GOT. I have little interest in zombies, and thus have not sampled the pleasures of TWD. Based on the gruesome description I read of the season opener, I’m thinking that’s just as well.
I do understand what you’re getting at about darkness in the arts, though. We live in dark, cynical times, and our media are bound to reflect that to a degree. And we all have to draw the line somewhere — mine came several seasons into Sons of Anarchy, when I realized that a series which started off with an interesting premise had degenerated into little but a study in human depravity. But I haven’t seen any indication that the DSC producers intend to go that route. With respect, it seems to me you’re jumping the gun.
@Michael Hall: Never seen “Sons of Anarchy”, but I think I get why you stopped watching. I’m only into sci-fi and fantasy shows, so I have blissfully ignored further “mature” TV such as Breaking Bad or Spartacus. But with genre TV it is hard for me to restrain myself from watching it, and I have given most of it a try.
My problem is that on the one hand I am very well able to see the quality of an individual show such as NuBSG or GOT, but all of these shows together appear to me as an overwhelming phallanx of gloom and doom. It especially hurts when previously family-friendly franchises such as the X-Verse or the MCU is “expanded” by more mature material, and this is why a potential TV-MA Star Trek show is a thousand times more emotionally irksome for me than an isolated original show such as GOT or TWD.
But be it as it is, after the cancellation of ENT, I have tried to expand my interests in other genre franchises and I also tried to get all of these into one giant systematic approach to subgenres, franchise-building etc… This is maybe the main source of my current tribulations. I have forgotten how to look at individual shows separately. They are all part of a giant megaverse and with each new “mature” TV show or movie franchise, this megaverse is getting darker and grittier, offering less escapism and joy. For over ten years, I’ve forced myself to look at the big picture, and now this big picture is all I can see…
BSG and GOT are about as far away from TMP as you can get in my opinion.
Not about sexuality, if Gene Roddenberry had had his way. The whole idea of Ilia’s shaved head was to convey a sense of nudity. The sonic shower scene was intended to be nude, but wasn’t for whatever reason.
It is a nude scene in the novelization that Roddenberry wrote, however.
The Great Bird of the Galaxy would likely approve having more sexuality in Trek (Risa, anyone?). The TMP novel also mentions Spock going to an alcove to ‘listen’ to V’Ger and noticing a couple engaged in intercourse in another alcove.
Good point, but GR was a child of the sexual revolution. He was up for this stuff at a point in history when it actually made sense to do away with “old-fashioned” moral values. I don’t blame anyone active in the 60s, 70s or 80s trying to push boundaries.
But that was before the internet. Nowadays, there simply are no boundaries to broken anymore. There are gazillions of pictures and “short movies” out there that have stripped nudity of all its natural innocence. At this point, I cannot accept the simplest nudity within any popular franchise that is supposed to be suitable for younger viewers…Not on Star Trek, not on Star Wars, not on any Harry Potter spin-off…you name it!
These franchise are the last fortresses of decency against the backdrop of a relentless internet that makes the grossest materials available for everyone including minors of all ages. You see, I always look at the “big picture”…
While the potential portayal of nudity on DSC may be tasteful and decent enough to be regarded as art, it is still a launching point for far worse…
Once you’ve gone there, you can never go back. It would be an official part of the Star Trek legacy and Trek would forever lose its moral integrity.
I dunno. If GR had known what the internet has done to sexuality, I can hardly imagine he would have condoned that!
At this point, who knows WHAT Gene would create given full and total creative freedom. For all we know it would be super violent and full of gratuitous sex.
Anyone who claims they know anything about what Gene would do if he were still around are fooling themselves. Even between 1966 and 1986 his vision of what Trek was had changed, so who knows what it would be 30 years hence.
“For all we know it would be super violent and full of gratuitous sex.”
Are you kidding yourself? While Gene may have been a daredevil concerning women and had a thing for sexy stuff, he also made abundantly clear what his vision for Trek was. The only times he was in almost full control of his creation… TMP and early NextGen, it was an utopian, almost cheesily naive vision of the future with almost no conflicts, hardly any violence and definitely no zippers!
Berman later blured that vision with the help of Ron D. Moore, Brannon Braga etc., but there is absolutely no indication Gene himself would have gone for ultraviolent gore… nudity maybe, but that was before the internet. He died around the time the internet went public, so we never know what he would have said to these developments, but if he was a good man at heart, he would have not condoned most of these developments…
@FLB — there wasn’t any nudity, because they wanted a G rating to get kids and their families into the theaters.
I gotta say Discovery… stop spoiling your own show. Hold back a bit on the details. Let your show tell us your story, not bit sand pieces of texts weeks and weeks before it starts. Is that how you really want to tell the story? I’d like to think not.
Also, try not to be TOO influenced by Game of Thrones. The inordinate amount of deaths in all manners gross and gruesome has actually turned me off a bit. What’s the use of investing in characters when so much are going to be killed anyway?
GOT is one of the cruellest shows there is , but their casting has been truly outstanding . It would be sad to see Star Trek revel in that brutality !
Such great actresses and actors in GOT , Gerry . What a catch for Discovery that would be !
That’s the point of drama — to get us invested in the characters and story. There are still plenty of great characters left standing in GOT. If there’s to be any realism in drama at all, it is in the cold reality of death. Also it’s great to hear all these little details about the show. We haven’t learned any substantial plot details. If we weren’t hearing any news, we’d all be complaining — oh wait, we already are.
you trollin right
Wait boromir dies???!?!!? Talk about a SPOILER!
Only a Mexican Jumping Bean can answer that , Albatrosity !
Sheffield Jumping Bean old chap. ;)
No doubt a Bean with some Thrust , El Chup !
I want Star Trek. not ‘Game of thrones in Space’ I really hope that my concerns about this show turn out to be unwarranted but its not looking good
The series that had the greatest impact on science fiction television now finds itself taking inspiration not from Star Trek but from another series altogether. Go figure.
Star Trek was pitched as “Wagon Train to the stars”. I’ve never seen Wagon Train, are there similarities? Or was Gene Roddenberry simply working the television executives to get the series greenlit?
Charles – Yes, that’s a good point about the “Wagon Train to the Stars” pitch. It was also heavily influenced by “Forbidden Planet”. Also, Star Trek The Motion Picture was Paramount’s reaction to the box office success of Star Wars. TWOK was “Horatio Hornblower” in space. JJ was trying to make Star Trek more like Star Wars with the first reboot movie. STID storytelling was supposedly a reaction to The Dark Knight – they even used the word “Darkness” in the title for this reason. And Beyond was supposed to be influenced by Guardians of the Galaxy at Paramount’s request. There’s a long history of Star Trek being shoehorned to fit trends in television and film, going all the way back to the beginning. I wouldn’t worry about the “Game of Thrones” reference, it just fits the template for the way Star Trek has been pitched since day one. If the show is good, people will watch.
You’re right. Star Trek has always been heavily influenced by other movies and TV shows and there would be nothing wrong with that per se. My problem is that there are far too many TV shows focusing on “mature and adult” themes, employing hilarious amounts of gore, nudity and despair… trades that would have lead to them being banned 20-30 years ago…
Now THESE SHOWS, be it Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, American Gods, True Blood, NuBSG, Hannibal, Spartacus, Vikings, the Marvel Netflix line-up, Gotham, Blood Drive or American Horror Story, take a direct influence on Trek and I’m not sure I really want to see the outcome of this! Grindhouse Trek? I would feel ashame of my favourite franchise, while at the same time – and that is so profoundly sad – today’s teenagers wouldn’t even understand what my issues are – because they are so used to this sort of “mature” entertainment, even at a very young age, they don’t know any better. For them it’s normal, standard TV – for me, it’s an ongoing nightmare!
There isn’t that much resemblance, truly. “Wagon Train to the Stars” was a convenient bit of verbal shorthand, to be used to sell the show to idiot network executives, and little more. There are much greater influences in “Horacio Hornblower” and FORBIDDEN PLANET, trust me.
@Denny — actually no. Nobody said anything about inspiration. They’re drawing on a concept where members of an ensemble cast, no matter how beloved, can be sacrificed now. That’s something the economics of television preohibted until now. And as other have pointed out — Star Trek got its start being compared to another successful TV series, that’s a Hollywood thing, and Trek in no way turned out to be “Wagon Train”, but it sure helped networks and potential viewers understand what they might get.
Why they don’t just spin off the Klingons and do BATTLECRUISER VENGEANCE I will never understand (oh, right, franchise title bonus, never mind).
I am concerned that there is even a discussion of whether Discovery is going to be a science vessel vs. a military vessel. This shouldn’t even be a topic at all. Star Trek was about exploring and seeking out, not about having purely military vessels. In fact, I remember reading that the Defiant in DS9 was the first Starship meant for primarily military purposes. While Starships have extensive military capabilities, they are meant primarily as science vessels. It really worries me that Trek is going to be altered and turned in to just another show about fighting. I hope I’m wrong.
Well there were rumors that Discovery could be a Section 31 ship, ala The Vengeance in STID and that it looked that way because it was a covert ship in nature. Now that seems to all be false but I don’t blame anyone for doing something different with Trek. But sure I get people thinking it could be a military vessel would sort of fly in the face of what Star Trek was intended for. That said it always seem bizarre to me that an organization that has all the dangers and enemies it does DOESN’T have military vessels. Even Switzerland has a strong military.
So I get your point but it never really made much sense when you TRULY think about it. In fact thats why I liked that the Defiant was introduced in DS9 because the Borg woke them up and realize they can’t all just live in peace and harmony all the time. I would think in ANY century there would be a vast military to combat all the stuff out there, especially the stuff they DIDN’T know about like what happened with the Borg and Dominion until it was too late.
But yes all that said the show doesn’t have to focus on that naturally and it doesn’t sound like it will. There will be the constant skirmiches Trek does all the time but oddly enough its the peace loving 24th century where all the wars broke out lol. In the 23rd its mainly a lot of cold war stuff and I suspect it will stay basically like that minus some fights here and there.
@Gary — they clearly had a militant aspect of Trek from the beginning. Axanar was required military reading for instance. There were the Romulans wars. So there clearly is some aspect of Trek history that must be exclusively military. Telling a story that reconciles those ideas with the exploratory missions that we’ve come to define as Trek, but haven’t seen for years might be compelling, especially in the current social/political climate. But I don’t think that’s what this will be, so you likely have nothing to worry about. Treks been acknowledging its military history since the beginning, and that’s likely all this is.
“Game Of Thrones” they say. That top image, I’m REALLY getting a “Knight king white walker” vibe with that image.
If I want Game of Thrones, I’ll watch Game of Thrones.
In a couple of weeks!
IMHO all our opinoins don’t mean as much as “the payoff” — what we get, as audience members out of the show. Then we will know whether it is or not genuine Star Trek. For exmpale, I hold that NEMESIS failed because it inverted Star Trek and what Star Trek means.
The original style of Star Trek – the set-ups, the pacing, stuck hard even until Enterprise. That won’t make a great show now. Unless it outright stinks, will we fans give it time to get up to speed? STRANGER THINGS, for me, wasn’t great unil the third episode and then once it got going was hard to put down.
What makes television great now? It’s surely that the stories and the characters are deeper than we’ve seen on television before. We all want to be THE WIRE. In general, I love good films, not shit films – because they try to do something different, heartfelt, or with a twist. But a lot of that creative impetus is gone now, maybe even also inverted. A lot of industry people believe that the experimentation and advances in the art form are only happening in TV, not films, which are too short and precariously funded and distributed.
I would love to see an episode of Star Trek directed by Jean-Luc Goddard. I might hate it, but I’d be glad for having seen it. Here’s to hoping this brew of writers and studio execs found a good combination that is also truly it’s own thing.
Stranger Things is just another example of what’s wrong with today’s pop culture… It arguably is a neat hommage to the 80s and early 90s genre movies, especially the ones based on the works of Stephen King, but those King movies back then were at least clearly labled as adult material, they were out of reach for most kids and younger teens and were often banned in countries with strict youth protection laws. Also these R-Rated horror and action movies were kinda “niche” and did NOT represent mainstream entertainment, which was dominated by PG (and later PG-13) installments.
Nowadays, shows like Stranger Things are mainstream culture being watched by entire families. Same for TWD, GOT, Gotham etc… Nobody between the age of 12 and 17 can be “protected” from stuff like that anymore. They just watch it as we used to watch TNG, Knight Rider, ALF or SeaQuest back then.
And this makes me feel uneasy, ashamed and guilty of sorts, because as a genre fan I have supported these changes for far too long by getting the Blu-Rays and other merchandising. For far too long have I ignored those subtle changes until I recently realized the magnitude of those developments.
The thing is: regarded as individual TV shows, most of these shows are actually very good and if they weren’t part of an ongoing wave of similar stuff, they could easily be treated as exceptional achievements. However, they aren’t isolated events anymore. Shows like this have become the mainstream and other, family-friendly shows have been marginalized. Which genre TV shows out there can still be called kid-friendly by traditional standards? Arguably Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time and some of the tamer comic-based shows such as Supergirl and The Flash.
But those now expections to the rule that successful TV has to be bloody, brutal, gritty and “mature”… Torchwood, Class, Gotham, Netflix-Marvel… even the more traditional TV shows have gotten “adult” companion shows, while GOT and TWD are the most successful TV shows EVER, being watched by entire families including junior high-aged teenagers and older kids. They can be watched everywhere, streamed, downloaded onto tablets and smartphones 24/7… and most parents obviously dont give a dime anymore, because they have realized they’ve already lost that “battle” or maybe, because they are fans of these shows themselves…
And so we got young kids starring in bloody horror shows on Netflix. We got people being eaten by a Goddesses genitals on TV and people being used as fuel for cars… and almost everybody seems to be happy about this mature and adult quality entertainment…
As an American 12 year old, I never understood those restrictions and did all I could to break past them and my restrictive parents.
Now, as an adult without children, but an adult who works in the industry, I think your experience is 100% true but I wonder if because of the structure of the industry, you have been provided with false choices. I don’t hold programmers in high regard. They censor whole subjects even for adults. They are slaves to ratings.
But I do wonder how European families deal with these issues when trying to administer their children’s media diet. Surely their sensibilities are at least slightly different. If Netflix is hoping Star Trek will become worldwide family viewing they migt not have the same problems as you do?
BTW Dr who’s new companion is gay and out and this had been part of the new Dr Who consistently. The truth is that science fiction must be pushing boundaries.
But I am Not sure if this is an adequate or even a direct response.
“But I am Not sure if this is an adequate or even a direct response.”
Well, I think it’s a perfect response. My contributions aren’t always fully “on topic” either. So yeah…
First of all, there is no “European” sensibility when it comes to age control.
The UK, Ireland, Germany and probably Spain have got rather strict rating systems, with Germany (my country) being the worst. They still banned certain uncut movies, other are put on an index.
In countries like The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden all movies are available 16+ or 15+, in France even the hardest horror and action movies are normally rated 12+. Austria doesn’t even have a rating system for home entertainment.
But all these rating systems have been rendered pointless anyway. As a teacher I work with kids and teens 11-17 and there is hardly anyout aged 13-15 who hasn’t seen GOT or TWD, although these series are rated 16+ / 18+ in my country. Most parents either don’t know about it, don’t care, have given up or deliberately watch these shows with their kids.
“As an American 12 year old, I never understood those restrictions and did all I could to break past them and my restrictive parents.”
That’s where we must be completely different. I abided by those rules voluntarily and at the age of 16-17, when my friends started to watch harder stuff back then in the 90s, I was appalled. I’ll never forget the first time I watched “From Dusk Till Dawn” at the age of 17.5… Only half a year left before I could have watched it “legally”, but I was so shocked I really left the room and my friend’s house when the action in the nightclub started!
Of course I have seen many, many hard R or unrated movies since then, but I’ve always felt a bit uneasy about it. Still it was okay, because these movies had been clearly branded as “adult” horror movies with no mainstream mass appeal.
All of that changed when TV was covered in darkness during the last 15 years. Now, these productions are “mainstream”, much more popular than family-friendly genre productions. At even at the age of 37 I feel very bad about these developments and I also feel guilty for having sort of supported these changes by consuming them.
“BTW Dr who’s new companion is gay and out and this had been part of the new Dr Who consistently. The truth is that science fiction must be pushing boundaries.”
I’m absolutely fine with that. Change is not wrong per se and the overcoming of discrimination is a righteous path. As long as we don’t see any explicit details, people should be portrayed as gay. I’m neither religious nor homophobic. But when it comes to graphic details – be it hetero or homosexual – in regular mainstream shows and movies, I just don’t want to see that.
But “pushing boundaries” for the sake of it…that’s been done too often already. Star Trek going down that same path shows like NuBSG, Lost, TWD, GOT, American Gods or Westworld have gone… there is nothing “fresh” about that idea. After a 12-year-hiatus I hoped that Trek would be back as some sort of “counter programming” to today’s TV standards, something you can watch with a good conscience. Unfortunately, it’s not what they are rolling with… And that’s sad!
I have a feeling we — everyone here – are mis-reading how GOT-like DSC will be. I think all producers were trying to say is that in space exploration there will be death. I don’t have a problem with that. I believe in stakes. And also, I believe that within Roddenberry’s vision, and in the novel of TMP Kirk explicitly says that the Enterprise was the first ship to return intact after it’s 5 year mission. So, clearly, before Kirk, people died a lot. The crew of TOS knew this, instinctively and knew their lives were on the line and could feel fear. Honestly, by the time TNG came along, it felt like a mall in space. I never felt emotions about the stories the way I still do about TOS.
That said, probably from age 20 I started falling in love with 70s art horror films by Dario Argento and others. The really good ones just do take you to another world that isn’t far away and even though you come for the shock, they aren’t just about the gore. But this is the kind of filmmaking you had to absolutely get out of your way to find, even in the world of VHS rental stores.
So if you are looking at present day TV and I think that you may be right about the prevalence of gore and shock death. But the culprits that made it mainstream are detective shows and police procedural dramas – and CBS has many. They have had NCIS for 10 years or more. I especially HATE Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit for it’s over the top, histrionic , performances. Even though I am not a trauma victim I can’t imagine real victims would want to watch it. And what’s the worst one? CSI. That show is only gross. And Dario Argento and all the other Italian horror directors wouldn’t even get interviewed to direct an episode – now that style is too tame! And they present the matters at hand in such a cold way. And this was the number one show in America for a long time.
If Star Trek does go over the edge for most people’s tastes they will have a low bar to climb under. I think they won’t. But I do think it’s a much better direction than Voyager which got all teched out of every plot line and insults your intelligence and Enterprise, which was basically comfort food.
“But the culprits that made it mainstream are detective shows and police procedural dramas…”
You’ve got a very interesting point here I havent given much thought to. The thing is that I don’t watch any crime-related shows or police prodecurals. I have never even bothered to watch a single episode of shows like Breaking Bad, Dexter, Castle, CSI/NCIS or anything like that!
I’ve only followed the developments in the genres of sci-fi and fantasy closely and in retrospect, these tendencies are not what I signed up for 25 years ago. I just miss the semi-innocent escapism of earlier genre outings, as campy and goofy as they may have been.
“But this is the kind of filmmaking you had to absolutely get out of your way to find, even in the world of VHS rental stores.”
Exactly. As long as these adult movies were part of an isolated subgenre and locked away in a controllable environment with working age control, I was pretty fine with that genre.
But nowadays TWD or GOT dominate the market for kids and teens along with R-Rated blockbusters such as Logan or Deadpool.
Good God, Jim, I was afraid of that salt vampire from TOS’ first episode broadcast at the age of 12! Now, these kids are watching The Walking Dead at that age!
I have to admit I only watched TWD for fifteen minutes. About he same time I spent with The Apprentice, which may have the same themes – and who knows – may appeal to the same audience. Totally boring.
I do think that “survival” shows that rely on death to somehow prove who is a moral winner are kind of pathetic, and it dismays me to see that method of story reign over both fiction and non fiction.
I know plenty of people who wanted to be documentary makers at the start of their careers but the money from “reality TV” became the only way they could support their families. And now this style of using documentary footage has spilled over into many of the doc films that networks buy. Again, a kind of aside. Or maybe a parallel.
But even with further thoughts here – kids probably won’t be paying for CBS all acces – so it will be up to their parents to make the buy. I just can’t see CBSAA having the cool factor that Netflix or HBO does. I guess they know that. Interesting thought if their plan really is to re-invigorate franchise- and the networks are nothing if not data driven.
“I have to admit I only watched TWD for fifteen minutes. About he same time I spent with The Apprentice, which may have the same themes – and who knows – may appeal to the same audience.”
Okay, now you’ve lost me completely. I don’t know The Apprentice but isn’t that “hire and fire” show your POTUS used to host? How does that compare to a gritty, bloody genre series? Thematically?
I don’t watch “reality TV”, never have, never will, because I consider non-scripted TV a waste of time. So, no, I have no idea which kinds of formats are out there. Most of these “shows” featuring C-rated celebs have been copy-pasted into German TV as well, so I guess, they do watch them over here as well, but I don’t and never will.
I’m only interested in sci fi and fantasy and I’d like to have it back the way it was, without buckets of film blood and gratuitous nudity… but that’s too much to ask for these days. One has to adapt, I take it…
I guess I am more of an all genre person – so I can see how the same sorts of values can be in both TWD and reality TV – and I’m not saying that is good.
ST at its best is always counter culture programming – and from our conversation I think we can both agree that we need counter programming now just as it was needed in the 1960s.
“I think we can both agree that we need counter programming now just as it was needed in the 1960s.”
Oh yes! Absolutely. I wholeheartedly agree to the fullest extend. Unfortunately, we won’t be getting that I’m afraid. I’ll have to adapt once again, I’m afraid.
I’m tired of them saying that Burnham Green is the first non captain MC. Benjamin Sisqo (Avery Brook’s was). He was a Lt. Commander till season 2 where he got a promotion.
He was still the leader and the star. It’s about Burnham being second in command. The DS9 pilot set up Sisko as the lead although it did turn into much more of an ensemble show as it went along.
Sisko was a full commander in season 1 and was promoted to Captain at the end of season 3 when they officially gave him the defiant.
@Matthew — not being a big DS9 fan, I guess I never really knew that. But from everything I’ve heard from behind the scenes, Brooks was negotiated with as the star, and everyone else’s salaries fell in line behind his. I’m not really sure why they would only make him a Lt. cmndr, other than to make a break with Trek tradition and try to make it more evident as an ensemble show. I can only surmise they promoted him to captain at Brook’s behest, so it was evident he was the star of the show as the supporting cast gained presence. Otherwise why do it all, or why do it so quickly? And that’s the failure of the promise of DS9, just like VOY failed. The producers didn’t have the spine to stick to their vision.
I think you’re wrong in saying DS9 and Voyager failed . Both were long-running and enjoyable journeys for the fans . Voyager maybe fizzled in it’s last gasp literally calling it quits as they arrived home . And DS9 which had given us the warmth of a close Starfleet family who were thrown to the winds in the last episode .
@Darfyn — you’re taking my term out of context. Both series failed to deviate from the Berman formula, the producers being unwilling to allow the consequences of death and destruction to continue through the series. There was always a cheat that returned most everything to the default state, unless a cast member called it quits at the end of their contract. VOY became stagnant and predictable by the end.
While I wouldn’t call either of them failures in any way, neither were they really big successes. Neither achieved anything close to the success of TNG, either critically, commercially, or with viewers (Trekkies and beyond).
Guys , I still think this is that thing of fans nitpicking too much , which every fan can do too . It was a great time , with the success of TNG , the Franchise spending big and producing 3 other Series , before realizing the returns were getting smaller . I for one , am one happy fan . And I honestly believe , that the continuation through series will become a rare event in the modern day .
As I said above, he was NOT a lt. commander– he was a full commander. The OP was wrong in that regard. Stations do not have captains, but once Defiant became permanently assigned to DS9 at the end of the 3rd season, he was made Captain.
Yes, the in-universe explanation made sense. He was the Station Commander, thus, rank of Commander.
I’m honestly not surprised, only a tad devastated that Star Trek DSC is supposedly to become the space version of Game of Thrones. The writing was on the wall. Many aspects pointed in that direction.
1. It was Bryan Fuller’s brainchild, the guy responsible for shows such as Hannibal and American Gods. Even if he’s out now, his DNA is still within that “vision” behind DSC…
2. The casting of Soneca Martin-Green already indicated that they want to attract fans of The Walking Dead…
3. The move away from network TV to their own internet streaming service and Netflix internationally already showed they want to go the Marvel road. Marvel’s Netflix shows are far too brutal and depressing to fit the MCU and now Star Trek follows their lead…
4. The focus on the Klingons and their monsterous new appearance indicates that CBS sees them as their very own version of the Dothraki. Coming with an own invented language and an already established culture of brutality and relentlessness, they already provide the justification for fully going GOT. Expect heaps of chopped off heads, brutal blood orgies, skulls and bones kept as trophies etc…
5. Nick Meyer! Yes, his two TOS movies are nothing but brilliant, but at the same time they are responsible for Trek taking a darker turn when compared to Roddenberry’s original vision. The obsession of directors and producers with copying TWOK time and again has proven that Meyer’s vision, while masterful on its own, have had a very negative impact on Trek on the big screen. And now he’s helping to turn Trek on TV into a “mature” experience. Shudder!
Honestly, this whole talk about “mature” and “adult” themes in contemporary TV makes me angry. Maybe it’s because I originally perceived TV and cinema as a sort of innocent escapism when I became a fan 25 years ago. I just don’t WANT to deal with these bloody, gritty scenarios, now at 37 even less as at 12 or 17. And now TV has turned into something truly ugly and everything I liked about it has been stripped from me over the last decade.
And now, even Star Trek is being twisted and contorted into something undesirable just to fit with the likes of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and American Gods.
“And yes, we’re assuming this is more about the effect death can have on other characters and viewers as opposed to referencing beheadings and squishy-sounding swords-in-the-guts deaths.”
I hope you’re right, but honestly given the last 15 years of television history, I wouldn’t bet on it. The thing is: when you try to keep an open mind and give this sort of stuff a chance, you can never unwatch it. The brutalization of TV hasn’t happened over night. NuBSG may have been the first genre show to fully go dark and gritty, but it wasn’t GOT or TWD yet. But by supporting NuBSG or Lost, people have indicated demand for dark and gritty TV and those paved the way for worse to come. I have done it myself! And therefore, I feel guilty! When you are looking back 13 years later and fully realize what has become of TV, you just know its wrong. The shere number of “mature” TV shows is devastating. And all of this happened because people “kept an open mind”, because I among many others, demanded for that…
Not this time! The line must be drawn here. DSC is under major scrutiny and I am NOT willing to compromise yet again…
Why don’t you wait until it airs to make your decision on whether it’s good or not? Why not go into it with an open mind? Maybe you’ll hate it, but forming an opinion of something before you experience will usually wind up being self-defeating.
As Guinan said, “a man who believes he’s going to die tomorrow will usually find a way to make it happen.”
“Why not go into it with an open mind?”
That’s the thing! That open-mindedness is IMO responsible for what has happened to television over the last decade. Of course I LIKED most of these “mature” shows. After a long inner conflict I gave into watch NuBSG and I liked it a lot! I liked Lost. I like GOT. I was even able to cope with TWD until recently. That’s not the problem!
The trouble is that I just DON’T WANT to like stuff like that. I feel guilty and ashamed for having supported this. And now it’s happening to Trek and of course I’ll be watching it, and I’ll happen to like it because I can’t help it. And that makes me feel afraid of myself.
At least certain franchises should be kept clean. But I guess, since you call yourself TORCHWOOD, you are fine with that sort of mash-up. Torchwood (and Class) are for Doctor Who what DSC is gonna become for Trek: the dark side of the franchise. And that very idea troubles me.
Here’s the thing though: there are still PLENTY of family friendly shows that are successful. Doctor Who, Supernatural, the Flash and Arrow– I think it’s absolutely ridiculous for you to be feeling “guilty”.
If hollywood produces something dark and grim and gritty and it’s not what you want, it’s THEIR fault more misinterpreting your viewing habits, not your fault for watching good shows like Lost and Game of Thrones.
Doctor Who and The Flash…yeah, those or some of the few remaining family-friendly shows, but Arrow and Supernatural do not fully qualify. While they aren’t as over the top as TWD, GOT or Gotham, they are hardly suitable for younger kids. Plus, these shows only pull in 2-3 million viewers, while TWD and GOT get regular ratings of 12+ million viewers, excluding the record-breaking illegal downloads and streaming rates for these shows!
Regardless, the point still stands. You have nothing to feel guilty about. We’re in a period of adult skewing dramas, rather than family friendly dramas. The trends will swing back at some point.
“Regardless, the point still stands. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
I wish I could help it. I’m just torn apart by these emotions lately. I’ve been watching “hard stuff” for 20 years now, and while I had my minor issues with some productions, I was pretty much okay with most of it.
But once I realized how much TV has changed over the last 15 years, I couldn’t get these thoughts of guilt and shame out of my head. As some sort of uber-geek I have invested a lot of time and money into these genres. And now I realize I’ve probably helped to create a monster…
While most other geeks and nerds seem to be VERY happy with this outcome, I can’t even look at my students wearing TDW or GOT shirts without feeling personally responsible somewhat. I know, it’s stupid. There are millions of genre fans out there. I feel so miserable about all of this.
“The trends will swing back at some point.”
I cannot imagine that anymore. There has been a clear development from the campy, goofy and harmless materials of the 50s – 80s, to the borderline experiments of the 90s and early 00s to the full blown guts and gore shows of the present. I dont see any force on Earth that could ever reverse that process.
The showrunners and authors of the present grew up on early horror movies and graphic novels…and are now pushing the boundaries to outscore their predecessors.
The next gen of creative minds will have grown up on TWD, GOT and AG… forcing themselves to go even further. It’s an unstoppable force at this point and there is no pendulum to swing back. It’s a bullet at full speed!
“he trouble is that I just DON’T WANT to like stuff like that.”
I’m not asking you to. But we really don’t know if this will be influenced by the elements of GOT you don’t want to see. Or it may take those elements and present them in ways that are not dark and gritty.
“At least certain franchises should be kept clean.”
Going back even to TNG there have been plenty of “unclean” moments by some definitions. Roddenberry objected to the grim, dark tone of “Conspiracy.” DS9 was full of adult themes and serious drama.
I do agree that I think Trek should stay relatively above that fray– I don’t want a ton of sex and violence, even if done tastefully. I, like you, value Trek as a relatively family-friendly drama.
I don’t think it needs to be kid-friendly though, and I would be ok if they infuse it with some more impactful drama and grit here and there, as long as it doesn’t stray too far.
That said, even if it does go “too far” I, unlike you, am willing to accept a more serious, adult-skewing Trek if it’s high quality.
But backing up, what I mean by an open mind is simply waiting until it airs to decide whether you approve or not.
Family-friendly, or kid-friendly, that’s beating around the bush. Thematically, “Conspiracy” or the entire war arc on DS9 were adult-THEMED! Yes, and I have no problem with those more mature THEMES. It’s not those topics I’m worried about the most, it’s the way they are presented.
This article’s heading promises “Game of Thrones death”. Yes, it does relativate this notion later on, but given our experience with television programming over the last 15 years, I just doubt it’ll be presented in an acceptable manner. There are just too many shows that have crossed the line lately and I highly doubt Trek can resist the lure of darkness.
In another comment I explained why I doubt that. Conceived by Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, American Gods), starring TWD’s Soneca Martin-Green, being on a web channel far off conventional network regulations, primarily focusing on the Klingons as a race of blood-thirsty warriors… I can do the math here!
I so much like to be proven wrong, but after almost 50 “mature” genre shows churned out over the last 15 years, and a large number of “borderline” TV-14 material in addition to that…why would I have any reason to expect otherwise?
“Family-friendly, or kid-friendly, that’s beating around the bush. ”
Not in the way I intended- “kid friendly” i’m thinking of age 6 and below. I think “family friendly” is generally ages 7 and up. It doesn’t mean it is aimed at age 7, but a 7 year old could watch it without their parents freaking out. Doesn’t mean some of it might not be a little much for them, some of it a bit over their heads, but it’s “reasonably acceptable” for a 7-10 yr old to watch.
“This article’s heading promises “Game of Thrones death”. ”
But we don’t know exactly what they even mean by that. It could simply mean that nobody is safe, that there COULD be a character death of a main character at any time– not necessarily that they will be gore-y or gratuitous or that it will happen every episode.
” given our experience with television programming over the last 15 years, I just doubt it’ll be presented in an acceptable manner.”
Maybe, maybe not– but it seems that’s your pessimism talking. Most of the writers involved are not known for that kind of dark, depressing, adult-themed storytelling, so i’m optimistic they’ll take the right lessons from the likes of GOT.
“Conceived by Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, American Gods), starring TWD’s Soneca Martin-Green, being on a web channel far off conventional network regulations, primarily focusing on the Klingons as a race of blood-thirsty warriors… ”
Bryan Fuller who got his start on Voyager and is an unabashed fan of TOS, starring Green, who was just as likely cast based on her work on “Once Upon a Time” (a highly rated family friendly show) as her work on TWD.
It’s appearance on CBS All Access was not to give them more leeway in terms of dark stories, but to give them more of a chance to succeed– as on a network it would have required enormous ratings to succeed.
The Klingons were an obvious choice for an adversary given their mass recognition, rather than their tendency for violence; as far as considering them “blood thirsty warriors” let’s remember they’ve been depicted in a family friendly manner for more than 50 years at this point.
Now, I agree that the above is all looking on the extremely optimistic side, but I make these points to counter your extreme pessimism. The reality is– as anything– likely somewhere in between.
For your own good, I urge you to remain optimistic, and if it turns out you were right and the pilot is dark, grim, and dour, you can swear off the show then!
“For your own good, I urge you to remain optimistic, and if it turns out you were right and the pilot is dark, grim, and dour, you can swear off the show then!”
Thank you for your well-intended advice but honestly, I need to do this here and now. Because IF I’m right (which I’m not hoping for at all), at least I am already fully aware of the implications and I’ll much easier be able to cope with it.
If I’m completely wrong, I can still enjoy that family-friend show to the fullest. Where is the harm in being cautiously pessemistic for now?
I don’t want to make anybody feel miserable about DSC. But I can’t help being miserable myself about the current state of (genre) entertainment. And I do feel the urge to express these thoughts. Sorry, if I am annoying anyone!
“Not in the way I intended- “kid friendly” i’m thinking of age 6 and below. I think “family friendly” is generally ages 7 and up. It doesn’t mean it is aimed at age 7, but a 7 year old could watch it without their parents freaking out.”
Okay, you’re talking U/PG vs PG-13 here. I get it. Trek was never “kid-friendly” in that U/PG sense. The early stuff may be now, because kids are used to much more these days, but still, the ratings for Trek are constantly at 12+ in most European countries (but France, where it’s “for all audiences” as almost everything!)
But over here, shows like Gotham, Arrow or Supernatural are rated 15+ (UK) and 16+ (Germany, Spain), so this is not “family-friendly”… and I guess DSC will be 15/16+…whether any older kids will freak out about it is doubtful… as 11-14-year-olds already watch GOT and TWD without being obviously harmed by it. Actually, they are quite able to deal with it much better than I am at the age of 37, which keeps me thinking…
Great, “Trek of Thrones”
Why can’t they just
Why can’t they just make Star Trek instead of trying to make it into something else, whatever is popular in the moment.
@Trekboi — because that doesn’t sell. There aren’t enough fans left who still cling to cardboard sets dirty makeup willing to watch a nostalgia fest.
Getting farther and farther away from what Star Trek is supposed to be about. Star Trek in name only, I thought JJ Star Trek was bad. This might last one season, nobody wants to pay to watch this.
@Jack Burton — “nobody”? I’d love to see you prove that.
I’m willing to bet money it goes beyond 1 season.
In all of this article about Klingons in DSC, not a word about why they don’t look like Klingons. The original redesign of the Klingons (in TMP) didn’t need any explanation, as it was an obvious improvement. But, I never thought that the first redesign needed any fundamental improvements. Tweaking the quality of the make-up—-technical improvements—-sure, that’s to be expected, and the reason for it is obvious. But, I don’t recall people ever saying, “You know what’s wrong with these Klingons in TMP, TNG and DS9? They shouldn’t have hair…and their bald heads should be more angular on top.” I don’t recall any such criticism. So, what’s the deal? Is every subsequent production team going to hit the reset button on the Klingons’ appearance? And, this new design doesn’t even jibe with the TOS Klingons, which ENT was good enough to give an explanation for, btw. Is there an in-story reason for this Klingon reset? I really hope there is. . . .
Im still hoping for an in-universe explanation. Because I agree, a significant departure outside of make-up effect improvements deserves an explanation. The traditional rigged design is fine and if they wanted to make the Klingons more frightening looking, I think there were ways to do that within the confines of canon.
So, hoping for an explanation.
If the significant amount of Klingons in the story is a hold-over from Fuller and Fuller specifically chose this time frame for a creative reason (which has been stated) it makes no sense that these are expected to be the same Klingons from the post TMP-universe.
Obviously, Trek can no longer stand on its own without being infused with whatever is popular right this second. It really begs the question as to whether or not they set out to make a Star Trek show or simply leverage the name so they could make a knockoff of something else that’s making money right now. The old formula made money, no matter how campy you thought it was. And now it’s time has passed. That doesn’t mean we need reboots and prequels. What this will ultimately do is devalue the last fifty years. It’s so short sighted.
For those of you who have a problem with the purists, you’ll understand in 15 years or so when the cycle starts all over again and the things you’re getting now get “reimagined” into reboots. Because, money.
@bassmaster22 — sorry, TOS and every incarnation of trek since then has always based its formula on pre-existing TV and film concepts. In the 60s it was the Western. TMP was influenced by 2001. TWOK by Star Wars. The only thing that matters is whether they create something compelling with these new adaptations. But it’s clear to me, you wait her didn’t read the article, or didn’t understand it. Hollywood has always been a place where they relate the unknown to something others will understand — or have you forgotten Gene Roddenberry’s pitch for Trek as a “Wagon Train to the stars”? “Stars” was about the only thing that pitch phrase had to do with Trek.
Star Trek was unique, even though he (Roddenberry) used “Wagon Train” to sell it. In 1966, Star Trek was billed as “the first adult sci fi drama.” Up to that point, serialized sci fi was for kids — Rocky Jones Space Ranger, Space Patrol — they were good shows but they were for kids. Outer Limits was great, but it was an anthology. Star Trek was a revolutionary and risky concept, which is why it almost didn’t get off the ground. It completely changed the ray gun, rocket ship and shoot em’ up iconography of tv space shows. Not to mention Roddenberry’s idea of an international crew. Check out “The Making of Star Trek” — Trek was always more C. S. Forester’s Captain Hornblower in space than any TV contemporary (1960s) show or Western. Still think Discovery could be good, but it’s going to be different. What the rebooters and new producers miss is that Star Trek has only survived because some elements are timeless ; no need to reboot.
@Kev-1 — I don’t see what’s being rebooted here that’s essential to Trek. “wagon Train” was a marketing term, which had little to do with Trek other than it was a popular series executives could relate to, and the story moved from place to place every episode. And you’re proving my point by relating it to popular sea movies of the era. TV had them too — Adventures in Paradise, Sea Hunt, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Victory at Sea, etc. and I know it pains fans to think of Trek as anything but unique, but it was as formulaic as any other dramatic series as far as characters were concerned — and it was that relationship that drove the show, and the franchise today. It’s the same relationships that drive a show like GOT, which benefits from the ability to place their characters in real jeopardy, not just the faux threat every week, only to have the character escape unscathed no matter how close to death. Characters the fans love might actually die, and that takes the stakes and involvement to a new level.
They are utter fools to be messing with canon.
@Mike — how are they messing with canon? I don’t see any evidence that they are doing that yet …
Game of Thrones? You’d think Fuller, Meyer, and the team would have set the bar for a bold new landscape of science fiction storytelling…rather than photo-copying the “style” of Game of Thrones. Please don’t become Game of Thrones in space…how about you become something that Game of Thrones wants to follow instead? With Nick Meyer on board I can’t believe they weren’t able to originate something fresh. And maybe they were, and maybe that’s why Fuller hit the road, CBS wanted Klingons on Thrones. Whatever.
And this lower deck drama sounds like soap opera garbage. Let’s get off the bridge, where the action is…where we’re in the heart of encounters with imaginative adversaries, pitting our brave, but fallible, crew against Greek Gods, strange and unknown, but deadly, phenomena along with time travelers and Doomsday Machines… and lets go down into the lower decks and deal with who is cheating on who, and who just got knocked up by an officer who was no gentleman and who is battling depression while another who grapples with substance abuse and gender identification….. All the wonderful intricacies of every day life. I know that’s why I tune into outer space adventure and escapism. And if EVER there was a time we needed optimism and escapism….
Pulse pounding adventure, encountering the awe and the dangers of the unknown with the bravest of the brave? Or serialized pretentious prattle that’s as old as the days of our lives? Time will tell. But so far, I’m not encouraged.
“And if EVER there was a time we needed optimism and escapism…”.
You’re so right I cant tell you. Those treats, especially ESCAPISM, were the features I signed up for 25 years ago when I decided to become a Trekkie and genre fan.
While I had my quibbles with hard horror movies at first, it was easy to appreciate them once you had overcome the initial shock. But those movies could easily be filed under “adult” material and were completely seperate from the rest of the mainstream genre that was still dominated by PG-13 material and family-friendly TV shows in the realms of Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
But now? Every genre has been taken over by “mature and adult” material… I could live with horror series like Hannibal, AHS or TWD, because after all, they are what they are and are clearly distiguishable from other genres.
But with GOT, Westworld, The Expanse or American Gods, it’s a different story… those series defy genre boundaries… sci-fi, fantasy or both of it, but combined with horrors you wouldn’t expect from these genres at all. I can still enjoy most of it, but only at the price of a very bad feeling about it!
And now they are about to do the same thing to my beloved Trek! Here is that red line I just don’t want to cross…
Keeping PG-13/TV-14 franchises clean is no longer possible it seems. The X-Verse has been “expanded” with adult material such as Logan, Deadpool and Legion. The MCU has got those bloody Netflix shows. Doctor Who has “widened” is approach with Torchwood and Class. And while GOT isn’t set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, it still appeals to fans of that very world.
Each and every genre realm has been cannibalized into something truly creepy. I didn’t sign up for any of that back in 1992 when I decided to become a full-time genre fan at the age of 12. I was alright with marginal extensions such as a seperate horror genre or hard action movies that I tried to grow accustomed to between 16 and 21. After some reluctance I was willing to embrace harder genre shows such as NuBSG or even GOT. I forced myself to keep an open mind and I happened to like it while I was still hoping this was just a temporary wave. Only now, at the dawn of a new Trek series that obviously continues this journey into darkness, I realize I simply don’t want to like stuff like that.
And therefore I feel guilty, ashamed and devastated. I have supported these changes for far too long, observing the creeping up of violence and gore without speaking put against it. Even PG-13 movies are not what they used to be anymore. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 showed Yondu killing dozens if not hundreds of humanoids being killed by his Yaka Arrow in a funny, entertaining way. We saw skulls and chests being pentrated in a supposedly family-friendly movie. And R-Rated movies are becoming more and more mainstream, tentpole material. This makes me hate my own hobby and I want to part of it anymore.
“… and lets go down into the lower decks and deal with who is cheating on who, and who just got knocked up by an officer who was no gentleman and who is battling depression while another who grapples with substance abuse and gender identification…..”
Exactly, jonboc. If what you said above turns out to be the norm for DSC, I’ll be out. Because that is not sci-fi and adventure. That is crap. I’ll be happy to move on to the five GOT spin-offs HBO is planning.
It’s a very crowded, high-quality playing field DSC is entering, today’s premium television offerings. We shall soon find out if it’s worthy to be there.
“I seriously hope the characters being played by 1990’s-born actresses are the first to go.”
Why? Because you can’t face up to your own ageing? I turn 40 this year. To me it’s horrific. I hate seeing youngsters out there with the energy and vigour I have now lost. But it is what it is, the world turns and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. So I deal with it.
Full disclosure : I’ve never watched an episode of Game Of Thrones.
That being said, I’m not sure killing off main characters is a good idea.
For myself, it was my interest in the characters of Star Trek that kept me coming back.
I always was interested in Kirk heroics, Spock’s Vulcan Logic any McCoy’s crusty humanity.
The love of characters forgave some not so great episodes and movies.
As I’ve always said, it’s show business.
CBS is just as interested in merchandising as they are ratings.
Dead or unfamiliar characters won’t sell figurines, posters and tie in books.
Leonard Nimoy,always gave the best synopsis about what Star Trek is about.
It’s about the characters using their wits, skills and relationships using the ship’s technology to solve problems.
I understand there is a huge competition out there.
If the show runners are reading this website?
Please us this death tactic SPARINGLY.
It’s good for the fans and the business to help us develop relationships with these new characters.
@dennycranium — “Dead or unfamiliar characters won’t sell figurines, posters and tie in books.” You’d be wrong about that, and you don’t have to look much further than your own Trek franchise to see it. Also, the nature of TV is such today that anyone jumping into a series later in its run — say TNG after Tasha Yar was killed, have the option to binge watch every episode from the beginning. TNG handled it by keeping the characters memory alive, and eventually bringing her back as a new influential character. They’re not going to just kill of an unfamiliar character that doesn’t make an impact on the series as a whole, and CBS All Access will make the history of that character available forever. Moreover, you’re worried about something you don’t understand without doing any research into the GOT reference. They’re not going to just kill off all the main characters, as that would truly be pointless — and nothing like what GOT does.
“The Discovery will be more modern than the Shenzhou” despite the fact the Shenzhou looks like it was built around 10-20 years after TOS. The Discovery design we’ve seen so far looks very much like it fits between Enterprise & TOS. The Shenzhou not so much.
Something that’s become obvious since Trekmovie came online is the fanbase has many people who seem determined to sabotage their own enjoyment.
The deaths on GoT aren’t gratuitous. A lot of the storyline is actually based on real-life world history, except the real historical events were often even worse than what the show depicts. GoT tones it down, believe it or not. Good people die, tragically and sometimes suddenly, because that’s a realistic portrayal of the human story. Actions have logical consequences, and unfortunately that can include things going horribly wrong despite the best of intentions. This is one of the main themes of GoT. It also happens to be a major lesson in life.
If that’s the message DSC’s showrunners are taking from GoT – and it sounds like they are – that’s a good thing. Trek needs to grow up. The alternative would look silly and, frankly, jarringly obsolete in 2017. You can have a fairytale, or escapist “science fantasy”, or mythology. Or you can have a realistic drama that has a clear-eyed perspective on life and says something significant about our species, which is hopefully what DSC will be.
I somewhat agree on the notion that real history was even far worse than what’s seen on GOT. But just because those atrocities happened doesn’t mean we have to act them out again with all bloody details. If GOT tones anything down, then I just don’t want to see your uncensored version.
GOT is a great show but DESPITE its gore and nudity, not because of it. They ARE exploiting the least desirable trades of humanity for shock value.
“You can have a fairytale, or escapist “science fantasy”, or mythology. Or you can have a realistic drama”
That’s why I’d opt for the escapist science fantasy. My main reason for having started to watch genre productions is the escapist aspect of fantasy and sci-fi, not the all-too honest look at the human condition, the very thing I’m trying to get away from!
Yes, TOS was full of those allegories about the shortcomings of humanity. But they did never revel in any bloody details when adressing serious stuff like Vietnam.
There’s a lot of hypocritical voyeurism on the part of the fans of all those explicitly violent shows that pop up everywhere nowadays.
TV production companies go where the interest is. And the interest of the vast majority is, sadly, about seeing humans being mean and petty and brutal to each other.
The internet has plenty of disturbing videos of deviant sexual acts or of real people shocking deaths. All a lot more intense than what any of those ”realism shows” can provide. Why don’t the voyeurs simply go for the real thing and leave the more optimistic escapism for fiction shows? Humanity, in general, truly disappoints.
True, true! Those people advocating nudity and / or gross gore on Trek simply overlook that they are interfering with people’s freedom of choice! I don’t have any problems with people who like to look at explicite stuff, be it nudity or more. And if you want to watch a Rob Zombie movie for its blood and gore, be my guest.
But when I want to watch stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter etc., I simply DON’T want to watch that within previously kid-friendly franchises. If they include nudity or graphic violence, they force people interested in watching “normal” sci-fi or fantasy to watch that “hard” stuff, too.
I remember that one-shot nudity in the pilot of SG-1. I was 17 back then and absolutely had no second thoughts about nudity back then. But I was instantly repelled by the inclusion of that scene in a mainstream sci-fi show.
Of course you can still swutch it off, but is that really an option for a Trekker finally getting some new stuff?
“You can have a fairytale, or escapist “science fantasy”, or mythology. Or you can have a realistic drama that has a clear-eyed perspective on life and says something significant about our species..”
Sorry. I’m not particularly thrilled with our species right now, I’d rather escape into something more imaginative and positive that offers hope and an escape from this every-day realism everyone seems to be craving. I see enough of that shit here in the real world and on the news… every. damn. day.
More thoughts:
Some of DSC’s “message” may not be pleasant, whether it’s about the human race or the dangers of deep space. But you can’t identify problems so that you can solve them and make life a better place unless you look at humanity’s reflection in the mirror and you’re ruthlessly honest about what you see. DSC may or may not use aliens to show our darker sides, but ultimately it’s an allegory for “us”, warts and all. And a more grown up depiction of space would be a good idea too. You don’t need to go to the extremes of horrific “Alien” stuff, but it’s not necessarily going to be all warm and cozy for us out there.
“Death isn’t treated gratuitously on this show. It’s not for shock value. But when it happens we want to make sure that people really feel it.”
If some main characters are going to die in DSC, it sounds like Michelle Yeoh’s character isn’t long for this world.
And given the mould of Jason Isaac’s head that we saw last week, it wouldn’t be surprising if Captain Lorca eventually gets Ned Starked at the hands of the Klingons too.
That’s actually a “PS” to another message I just posted, which seems to be in moderation for some reason.
@Jai — sort of how Pike somehow survived Nero’s torture in DS9 and then died a rather meaningless “manufactured” death in STID. Even blowing up Vulcan was poorly conceived, as it only impacted fans negatively as it was frivolous in Nero’s rationale. And frankly so was destroying Romulus — conceived only to give Nero a poor motivation to destroy Vulcan. Now it’s gone.
Very good points. But 09 and STID were both poorly written but guys who desperately needed a more experienced and talented writer to make sense of their stories.
Vulcan and Pike were especially egregious.
A pretty good thing. Star Trek always had a lot of death but not always the most impact or meaningfull. When somebody in GoT dies then it mostly has an impact on the story and characters. I can only welcome if that’s a thing for Star Trek now. I don’t want to think about the idiotic ending of Trip Tucker or most past Red Shirts. If they kill characters and if they make it count then please go ahead. It’s only logical to proceed that way.
@Shadow — finally someone understands it …
Agreed. IF someone has to die, don’t make it a meaningless redshirt moment. Death has always been a part of Trek (“He’s dead Jim!”). Red shirts, some main characters such as Tasha, Trip or Kirk himself. Entire planets have been blown to bits and pieces. Khan has killed the Regular One crew… Scotty’s nephew! Billions have died in the Dominion Wars. Millions by the Borg. The Xindi killed 7 million humans with their first probe!
But none of these deaths have been “Game of Thrones-type” as the heading suggests. You don’t have to mention the Red Wedding or any other particular mass killing, battle or execution.
The worst thing on GOT was the portrayal of the Dothraki early on. Kal Drogo holding council next to dozens upon dozens of freshly severed, blood-dripping heads…and THAT is the sort of visual exploitation I’m afraid will be included in DSC when it comes to the new Klingons!
It’s not the theme of meaningful death that worries me, but the atrocious way these themes are handled in recent shows, especially outside network TV.
You know – and that’s my last post for today – the thing is that I can really imagine clearly before my very eyes – that Fuller’s grand vision had the Klingons in mind as a monsterous version of the Dothraki. It’s not far-fetched at all to assume that we’ll be getting Batleth-style beheadings, enemies eaten alive by Targs and piles of severed heads as trophies for honorable leaders of the Klingon Houses and we may finally find out why blood whine is called blood whine! The Klingons are the perfect template to adapt Game of Thrones-like atrocities without even having to justify themselves for the fans. Thematically, the Klingons have always been fierce and brutal, to go one or two steps further doesn’t seem like a giant leap.
Even if they are shhoting for a TV-14 rating (which we don’t know yet)…We’ve had heaps of kids’ bones shown in the PG-13 movie Guardians of Galaxy Vol.2! We’ve seen EXPLICIT mass killings in the vaccuum of space and by that Yaka Arrow in that very movie and they still got away with a PG-13 rating!
All of this may be upon us as well, and there no indication to believe otherwise!
I’m very glad to see Star Trek start over on TV once again in the form of Star Trek Discovery.
This is going to be exciting
This is something I can get behind. My assumption about the GoT comments is that they were talking about the emotional impact of character deaths, not raw brutality; the idea that characters can die for in-universe character reasons instead of behind-the-scenes “her contract was up” or “he was demanding too much pay” reasons.
But if they were thinking GoT in terms of raw violence, yes, it would be a welcome addition to Klingon lore.
@Mario: “yes, it would be a welcome addition to Klingon lore.”
Well, that’s a matter of taste. I am rather afraid of that. The Klingons have always been my favourite species but that was back then, when the violence was toned-down and family-friendly. I never had any problems watcing any Trek with my late father back then, who was very, very concerned with graphic violence, probably due to his war experience as a kid and the suicide of his first wife!
I’m not nearly as sensitive when it comes to violence and gore but even though he’s dead now, I still remember his attitudes that have somewhat rubbed off on me. I’m somewhat haunted by these memories. Maybe that’s ONE of the reasons I feel so uneasy about gore sometimes, especially in mainstream productions.
So no, I cannot ask for or fully embrace this “welcome addition” but if it happens, I’ll try the best I can to find a way to adapt…
Not necessarily Fuller’s. It’s likely Nick Meyer’s as well. In his autobiography ‘I Am Spock’, Leonard Nimoy goes on (and on) about how much Meyer *loves* fake blood. The idea of having blood in a gravity-less envionment in TUD was Meyer’s (during the attack on Kronos One).
@FLB: Thanks for your insight. I’m glad some of you start believing me. It’s not that I want to spoil anybody’s antcipation of that show… and despite all concerns I AM looking forward to it, too. But I think we need to deal with the POTENTIAL outcome that this show might actually be lot more graphic and grittier than some of us expect it to be.
Being prepared for that possibility is IMO healthy in a sense that it won’t send some of the more faint-hearted over the edge. Looking at the people involved, the comments quoted here, the online distribution and the KLINGON focal point, it is more than likely that this show will AT LEAST equal NuBSG or Lost, of not GOT or TWD IN SOME SENSE!
Maybe it’ll use LESS violence than GOT or TWD, but WHEN it happens, it’ll be very graphic when compared to any of the older shows. And honestly, the bodycount is one thing, but the level of graphic depiction, even if used only rarely that way, is much more relevant for me…
@FLB — interesting, I’m surprised to hear that considering I don’t recall much blood at all in Time after time, which should have been full of blood …
Focus on a singular War Story instead of Exploration stories. Technology that is internally inconsistent & makes no sense. Characters Behaving differently … But it’s not a Reboot! LOL
@Trekboi — no evidence for any of that. Where’s your baseline for comparison? Can’t really say any of that until you watch a few episodes.
People who want to convince the rest of us of facts not in evidence. Unfortunately, most of those people arent smart enough to make the argument coherently.
Watch the show. Then complain. Thats how it works. This race to be the first person to decide the show sucks is hilarious.
It will be nice to never hear from all these people who wont watch it though. That’s sarcasm…because they will all watch it and even if it is great, they will still hate it.
This just keeps looking/sounding worse with each PR info drop.
@Vokar — it keeps sounding better to me!
The things the people producing this show say confirm, every single time, that they don’t really understand the Star Trek concept. This is going to be a slickly produced, modern show, no doubt. But it’s going to be Star Trek in name only. There is no real reason for it to be set in Kirk’s age aside from Kirk & Spock being the most familiar names in the franchise. This is a modern “reboot”. A new thing entirely.
I will not watch this. Not because I’m bitter, or angry. After all, the shows that I love still exist. But simply because I have no interest in this. Nothing the producers say or show entices me in the slightest to watch this. Most arguments I’ve heard in favour of its quality were “it’s too early to judge”. No, it’s not. The producers keep saying that this isn’t for me, as a Trek fan.
I just wish they didn’t pull the old bait & switch, and just call their new science fiction show something other than “Star Trek”.
So you have deduced what it’s about and decided it doesn’t appeal to you?
I mean, sure, ok. I see ads for new shows and decide I wont watch.
But you’re being ignorant when you say the producers keep saying its not for Trek fans. That’s a falsehood. Its a lie.
If you have decided based on the limited information we have that the show does not appeal to you, that’s your choice. Maybe your loss. But dont make silly statements to try and convince others or defend your decision.
If you dont want to watch, dont watch. At least we wont hear from you again, right?
@Henk — And that’s exactly why CBS will keep licensing all that old crap from those old shows you can’t seem to move on from — one way or the other, you’re paying for this new show that many of us long time fans are looking forward to! Enjoy living in the past …
So..what’s this called again? Oooh that supposed subscription type network thing, new something-like-trek, by name only, slap it together, hopefully the fans will like it cuz we really don’t care if they do or don’t..show? Right?
Well it’s been fun catching up with this topic to see the usual back-and-forth about what DISCOVERY will bring.
As far as I can see, there’s gonna be very different ways we choose to look on this latest show, that none of us will ever agree on –
In no particular order:
1. Yay! – It’s a new ‘Star Trek’ show which definately fits nicely into the ‘prime timeline’ just before the TOS show…no matter how different everything looks, or however much it turns out to contradict certain things – it’s now part of the official overall STAR TREK canon timeline which the ENTERPRISE show kicked off, and who cares what it’s tone or looks turn out to be? It’s ‘Star Trek’, and I’ll definately be watching.
2. Boo! – This looks nothing like the TOS ‘prime timeline’ whatsever, and doesn’t look like it’s set just before it. It’s a total ‘reboot’ or ‘re-imagining’ of how that era looks, pure and simple…and may as well have been set in the ‘J.J.-verse’ – I may or may not watch this.
3. Cautiously optimistic! – It’s a nice shiny new ‘Star Trek’ show back on tv, and it doesn’t really matter how things were in any of the previous old shows. It’s no big deal how many bald ‘Klingons’ are featured, as long as this supposed ‘prime timeline’ storyline is interesting and the effects look cool, I’ll be watching.
All of the above are fair enough, and there’s also likely to be a few little variations in addition to those.
But here’s the one I’ve settled on for myself –
A mixture of Yay! and Boo! – Great, a new ‘Star Trek’ show on tv. Depending on the characters and storyline, this may or may not turn out to be something I like. I’m certainly curious about how a modern-looking, ‘grittier’-in-tone take on the ‘Star Trek’ source material will turn out. But judging by the looks and tone that we already know about, there’s absolutely no way I’ll be able to look on it as fitting in to the ‘prime timeline just before the TOS show…no matter what the makers claim.
But I’m certainly curious about how a ‘grittier’-in-tone, modern take on the ‘Star Trek’ source material will turn out. However, as I don’t wish to look on it as just being a total ‘reboot’ or ‘re-imagining’ of the original ‘Star Trek’ TOS era…I’m simply going to ‘imagine’ that DISCOVERY is set in an ‘alternate universe’ to the TOS show altogether – something more akin to the one seen in J.J.’s 2009 movie which featured a ‘Kelvin timeline’. This way, absolutely nothing contradictory to the look and tone of the classic TOS show will get in the way of my own enjoyment of this show – so bring on the J.J.-like production designs…and the blood-letting..and whatever else, and have at it!
For me with Discovery there’s a renewed optimism and a reconfirmation that Star Trek Lives! As a fan since nearly the first episode broadcast back in ’66 this nearly 60 year old Trekkie has been waiting for a long time now for Star Trek to truly “grow up”. And there are hints this new show (that I used to refer to as TINTS…The Inevitable New Trek Series) may be it.
Though TOS appealed to intelligent and inquiring minds of all ages, it was an “adult” show in its day and Roddenberry and co. pushed the envelope and worked around the boundaries as much as possible to make that so. I want Discovery to be Trek’s 21st century version of that- yes, with sex and violence and social issues and more addressed. All of that and more but NONE EVER gratuitous and at the expense of smart and compelling science fictional storytelling and good drama. And humor as well. I believe a modern Star Trek show should be TV-MA. I believe if a young Gene Roddenberry were creating Star Trek today it would be.
With the ups and downs of the franchise over the decades most of it I’ve liked and much of it I’ve loved. Some not so much. And as much as I like the fan projects’ faithfulness to canon minutiae I personally do not need a pre-Kirk/Spock show to look exactly like TOS for me to except thAt it’s Trek prime timeline. I know well that Star Trek grows evolves and lives. And I believe it’s going to be here in one form or another for quite awhile to come.
I want fifty years from now for this new series to be fondly remembered as the beginning of a truly great phase of an impressive and adored science fiction franchise. One that my son(a Trek fan)’s children will smile and say “Grandad loved Star Trek from the beginning and told us all about it.”
LLAP
p.s. And I’m very glad that so much of the nasty, snarky negativity that infected this cite appears to have been cleaned up and cleared away. It had gotten to be no fun to come here.
“I want Discovery to be Trek’s 21st century version of that- yes, with sex and violence and social issues and more addressed… And humor as well. I believe a modern Star Trek show should be TV-MA.”
Why does everything in the 21st century nowadays have to be “mature and adult”? Why does Star Trek have to “grow up” by showing sex and violence? What’s so “adult” and “mature” about depiction the lowest instincts of human nature?
The (very) graphic depiction of sex and violence – to a certain degree – is always gratuitous because it distracts from compelling storytelling. Yeah, the THEMES can and should be “mature” and “adult” (to a certain degree), but the depiction should always be tamed down and not GOT-style or TWD-style, or worse…
Yes, of included such depictions will attract a certain “modern” audience that’s fine with guts and gore and / or nudity and graphic sex. But others will be turned off by it. Being an adult does not mean you automatically like sex and violence on screen. I personally feel uneasy about both – strangely attracted and appalled at the same time, an ongoing inner struggle between my Superego and my Id, if you get the Freudian reference. At the moment, my Ego is more than just a bit overwhelmed by this inner conflict that has been created by the gross nature of nowadays’ entertainment.
Just because I’m an adult who happens to live in the 21st century, I’m not quite willing to let darkness dictate the future of entertainment. The last 15 years have crossed far too many boundaries already and now Trek has to adapt to that level as well?
I think there is quite a missunderstanding going on of what “adult” and “mature” entertainment has to be. Why do have to sacrifice my sparetime to deal with graphic deptiction of sex and ultra-violence when I just signed up for a “normal” sci-fi show? I just don’t get it!
TV-MA for Star Trek sounds like an awful idea. I personally think that most TV-14 shows are nowadays far to gross to be a model for Trek. Gotham and Stranger Things, just to name two of them… Good shows but for Star Trek? This is the sort of “growing up” I cannot condone…
Actually I agree with you smike. I’m not super familiar with ratings these days since it’s been decades since I’ve had to be concerned with them (my son turns 38 in a few weeks). The rating I meant was what is closest to a movie PG13, which obviously is what TV-14 is. My bad. I guess TV-MA is what R is to movies. Though it WOULD be interesting I wouldn’t want that for Trek either.
I think they need to make up their minds on the Klingons. They keep changing their features. I think their faces look like horseshoe crabs.