CBS All Access Adding New Dark Fairytale Thriller ‘Tell Me A Story’ + CEO Touts ‘Star Trek’ Success

A merger with Viacom could have a big impact with CBS All Access

Today CBS announced they are adding another original show to the CBS All Access streaming service, home to Star Trek: Discovery. The new show titled Tell Me a Story is a psychological thriller developed by Kevin Williamson, writer of the first two Scream movies and creator of a number shows including The Vampire Diaries.

Here is how CBS describes the new series:

TELL ME A STORY takes the world’s most beloved fairy tales and reimagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller. Set in modern-day New York City, the first season of this serialized drama interweaves “The Three Little Pigs,” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” into an epic and subversive tale of love, loss, greed, revenge and murder.

The show is based on the format of the previously aired Spanish television series Cuéntame un Cuento. A trailer for that can be seen below. [NOTE: Trailer is for original Spanish network show and not new CBS All Access show]

This is the second new series announced for CBS All Access this month, the first being a reboot of The Twilight Zone, which was announced on November 2nd. These shows join the previously announced sci-fi drama Strange Angel from Ridley Scott (coming in 2018) in an expanding catalog of genre shows, clearly aimed at keeping hold of subscribers who joined All Access for Star Trek: Discovery.

The second chapter of the first season of Discovery kicks off on January 7th. A second season has already been announced. The writers room has just started work on season 2, but no release date has been announced.

Moonves touts Star Trek success

As another sign of how bullish CBS is on Star Trek: Discovery, in an interview with CNBC CEO Les Moonves pointed to the new Star Trek show as an example of how the company is able to compete against much bigger rivals:

“Disney is six times as big as we are. Comcast is six times as big as we are. Netflix’s market cap is huge. Now Amazon, the number one company in the world, is producing content. We are sort of like an old-fashioned production company, we are a small guy. It’s a jump ball we’re never going to win. We have to continue to develop our own projects ourselves … like we did with ‘Star Trek’ on our over-the-top service, That’s how we’re going to compete.”

Star Trek free month of All Access promotion

Speaking of CBS All Access, there is a new promo going on for the next week (through December 4th) where you can get a free month. To get the deal CLICK this link and use the code “LETSGO” before 12/4

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This looks fantastic. I would probably stay around all year for more of these types of shows, which is what I wrote to CBS when I canceled my ALL Access membership while Discovery is on hiatus. This new show and the revamped Twilight Zone are just the tickets. If there was one more show, perhaps horror, it would be ideal, especially if these shows have gay male characters in them. I seek out these genres in TV, book and video game and would continue to directly support these All Access shows if they continue to reflect my world in part.

$6 really? lol

I’m forced to admit the Twilight Zone redeux has me intrigued. But since I’ll be paying for Trek for two months a year I’ll check out TZ during the time I subscribe for Trek. No reason to pay more money than I already do.

This seems like it might be a “Once Upon a Time” knockoff, kind of like all of those LOST knockoffs that came out shortly after the success of LOST.

What Lost knockoff?

There were a bunch. “The Nine”, “Invasion”, “Surface”…

Nothing to do with Star Trek. I don’t understand. I’m not being rude, I love this site and look forward to new articles and feel disappointed when I see irrelevant stuff like this and The Orville.

Moonves is directly quoted in this article saying “Star Trek.” So you’re mistaken.

No, Jane is correct. The name Star Trek is the only thing mentioned in regards to CBS being the little guy and attempting to deliver unique content. This has nothing to do with Star Trek but with CBSAA. And I’m sorry but any fan who know anything knows that Moonves is a pile of hot s*it when it comes to Star Trek, he’s never got it, he’s never liked it, he only likes that its successful and making money. And unfortunately that as good as we fans get right now with Star Trek. When Moonves talks about Star Trek it goes in one ear and out the other.

CBS All Access in America is anchored by Star Trek Discovery so its success in America is important for Discoverys survival. Basically trek fans are encouraged to stay subscibed and paying for the service.

Agreed. I care nothing for The Orville and do not understand its relevance on a Star Trek content site regardless that Orville is like Star Trek and the alumni involved. I would rather read Star Trek opinion pieces done by Trekmovie staff than Orville articles.

The company that makes Star Trek is absolutely relevant to Star Trek. You are aware Star Trek’s primary purpose is to make money for its owners right?

If they are giving out free months I want mine to start Jan 12.

…which I can see all of when I re-subscribe for a month to binge Discovery, and then cancel again. Sorry, CBS. You’re not getting into me for more than $20 a year. If you weren’t overly greedy and put these shows on one of your other channels I Already pay for all year, but…

So they will at least get $20 more from you than they would if they put it on some other channel you already pay for. So it’s a win for them. You may watch their other shows while you’re subscribed for Discovery and cancel afterward. Other people will subscribe specifically for other shows they create. Some will want to watch the shows right when they are released and not wait until some other show is on. In the end it doesn’t matter whether you are signed on for part of the year or the whole year. CBS profits from you while you’re signed on.

Exactly. It actually seems like it would be far more difficult to fail than to succeed. CBS, believe it or not, is not run by a bunch of idiots. They’ve worked out all of the possible scenarios and determined that their current strategy is a winner. They already have all of the money from Netflix, and we don’t even know if that deal is for multiple seasons (it almost certainly is). They get the money from those signing up for just the months Discovery is on CBS All Access, plus all of those people who don’t immediately cancel their subscriptions (which is probably quite a large number). They get all of the publicity from Star Trek being on CBS All Access, which gets their over-the-top service some mind-space with the average viewer, making it more likely people will sign up in the future. This entitled sense of being “screwed” by CBS is non-sense anyways, either it’s worth it for you to pay for or it’s not, like most pieces of entertainment.

Showtime?