CBS Wants New Star Trek Shows All Year Round On All Access

The weekend saw big news at Star Trek Las Vegas with the announcement of a new Star Trek series featuring the return of Sir Patrick Stewart in the role of Jean-Luc Picard. Over the weekend there was also a big event with network executives in Beverly Hills for the Television Critics Association, where Deadine interviewed CBS TV Studios president David Stapf, COO Marc DeBevoise and EVP Original Content Julie McNamara, who talked about the future of Star Trek and CBS All Access.

All Access, All Star Trek, All The Time

The biggest news from the interview comes from David Stapf, who spoke to the scope of their ambitions when asked how big of a Star Trek franchise they are seeking to build:

My goal is that there should be a Star Trek something on all the time on All Access. We know it draws an audience, and Discovery has done quite well.

Later in the interview, Julie McNamara spoke about what kind of shows they hope to create:

We’re looking at limited series for some Trek shows and we are looking at ongoing series for some other Trek shows. We’ve obviously announced the one that’s coming next with Sir Patrick Stewart but we have more in development there.

Disco spinoffs under consideration

When asked if they are looking to spin off a show with Michelle Yeoh, McNamara said they are looking for Discovery spinoffs but nothing specific for the actress who has played both regular and mirror Georgiou:

We’ve really talked about virtually all of the characters who popped in Discovery as potential spinoff shows. It’s obviously very much driven by our conversations with Alex Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout and the other creators involved. I wouldn’t say at this point that we are actively pursuing a Michelle Yeoh series but it has been discussed.

However, she seemed more open to the idea of a show built around Rainn Wilson’s Harry Mudd:

He definitely falls in that category of it could be interesting to build around this character. But, I will say, it hasn’t progressed any further than that.

Wanted to do something around TNG

David Stapf also discussed why they decided to do a show that brings back Patrick Stewart:

It came to us, as do all things Trek now, through Alex Kurtzman, with the idea of, wouldn’t it be cool to do something Next Gen-oriented, and/or get Patrick Stewart and/or any of those iconic Next Gen characters. As Patrick himself has said, he was of the opinion that “I’ve done that character,” but he got a meeting with Alex and some of the other guys and they won him over. The deal didn’t take that long once he decided to do it.

Stapf specifically said there weren’t any other Trek series they were looking at now, but when asked about William Shatner he responded with a laugh, adding, “I would say, never say never.”

What about Netflix?

No international partners have been announced yet for the Patrick Stewart Star Trek series. Deadline tried to get details on plans for future series but the execs didn’t get into specifics, with Stapf saying, “It’s complicated.” He indicated that they would have an obligation to work with Netflix on any shows that were deemed as Discovery spinoffs.

However, regarding the Patrick Stewart Star Trek show, he noted “that’s a new series. Which I think is important to distinguish,” so it’s possible that they could find other partners for that show besides Netflix. One obvious option would be CBS All Access itself, which has now expanded into Canada and Australia, with more countries planned. Regarding All Access in those markets all Stapf would say is, “We’re looking at all of it and have the ability to do that.”

All Access up to 2.5 million subscribers

Also during their presentation at TCA it was announced (via Broadcast and Cable) that CBS All Access now has 2.5 million subscribers with an average age of 43. The stated goals now are 4 million subscribers in 2019, and 8 million in 2022.

They also announced that the Twilight Zone reboot will arrive in the first quarter of 2019, following the debut of the second season of Star Trek: Discovery.


Keep track of all the upcoming Star Trek TV shows at TrekMovie.com.

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I’ll take a Disco universe Captain Pike series please!

I want an Aqua Teen Hunger Force Star Trek spin off. Master Shake as Captain, Frylock as the Science Officer, Meatwad as Helmsman, and Carl as Chief of Security. Willie Nelson as OPS officer.

OH and a Captain Georgiou show. Just do the show before Burnham joins the crew.

That could be cool if done well. Maybe his appearances on Discovery are a kind of pilot for that?

Honestly a Pike show just doesn’t interest me that much. But I would certainly give it a chance. And I think if Pike on DIS is a big hit then they may end up doing a show around him. It would just be nice if not EVERY show is based around known characters, which oddly, one of the the biggest pluses to me about Discovery.

“Honestly a Pike show just doesn’t interest me that much. But I would certainly give it a chance. ”

That is exactly how I feel about a Picard show. I’m not all that interested but would check it out.

As I said in the past, I don’t really want a Picard show either so much as I just want a show in the 24th century again. But if they announced a show about the adventures of Quark and Rom, I would watch the hell of that if it got me back to the 24th century. ;)

I hope I’m wrong, as I’d like to think getting Patrick Stewart on board isn’t just stunt casting, but no real details of the story have been revealed, which suggest to me they don’t have one yet. Like everyone else, I’ll give it a fair viewing but really I wish somebody would just try to do something new, (ideally set post Nemesis, where they’d have a clean sheet), and thereby establishing a totally original cast of characters before trying to integrate the Trek mainstays.

To me, the time frames that are rife for a series are perhaps something to do with the Romulan War (Pre-TOS), the 70 year period between TUC and TNG and post Nemesis. I suppose they could go back to the Enterprise time or the birth of the Federation too. But I personally would find the other eras mentioned more interesting.

Sounds good to me.

It sounds like that’s what season 2 of Discovery is going to be, albeit with a different ship.

Yes, yes, yes

I’ve said here before that CBSAA needed to have new Trek on year round to keep subscribers but I didn’t think they’d actually do it. This is indeed exciting!

Not everyone likes star trek.

Especially on this site! jk

Very true.

“Especially on this site!”
Not true, I think pretty much everyone who posts here loves Trek. Some have problems with Discovery, understandably imho.

Yep!

To be honest everyone seems to have an issue with at least one show lol, but all seem to love Trek in general though.

And the Picard show news has brought this site together in a way I haven’t seen before and I been here 7 years lol.

+1

Yep. Everyone here seems to like at least ONE of the Trek shows/movies over the years. Most like most of them. Just because Discovery is one of the shows that some are not a fan of doesn’t mean they are not fans of the franchise at all.

*sarcasm goes right over head*

Well everyone should like Star Trek!

I think it will be hard to produce good and original content at that rate in the same franchise, but I hope I’m wrong. I think it probably means though that even if there are cancellations some content will survive rather than the whole thing folding.

It depends. Are you going to have Kurtzman run everything? If he hands over shows as Berman did with DS9, it could be fine. Speaking of DS9, bring in ISB, RDM, and some of those producers to do one of shows, at least limited run.

Seeing a limited run series around Garak and Kira would be interesting I think.

On a rewatch of DS9 at the moment. Garak’s hilarious! Bring him back for sure.

The reason Enterprise went off the air and Nemesis failed was in part due to oversaturation. Star Wars is already struggling we too much too quickly. They ought to be cautious. Sometimes less is more. Always leave your audience wanting more.

Oh, and I’m only interested in a Yoeh series if it’s not the Mirror universe version of her Georgiou.

Zero interest in a Harry Mudd show.

You no like Mudd?

I have already asked you to stop replying to my messages. Please do it. You have already been warned for trolling. I am not interested in more of it.

Thank you.

So you don’t like Mudd.

I don’t like him (either). Han Solo is the much better scoundrel. There, I’ve said it ;-)

Still trolling I see.

Has anybody pitched the idea that hn4 is, beneath all the not-really-klingon-but-baroque-ugly makeup, actually some sacred CBS cow, and that is why he is still allowed to post?

@El Chup,

They were given many “final warnings” for trolling and still here, guess they have immunity or something! :)

El Chup, if you want to shut the troll up, just remind him another 24th century show he swore up and down for months would never happen again is coming and he will move on. ;D

He lost, he know he has. DIS will no longer be in the lime light as the only show around and it’s killing him for some strange reason. He has nothing to do here BUT troll now. Sad but true.

Yup. Very sad.

Here to. Only interested in Georgiou if it is Prime Phillipa. I also have no interest in a Harry Mudd show unless it’s a comedy. I’d like to see something in the universe we haven’t seen yet. Maybe set in a Starbase or in Federation headquarters or the Embassy on Qu’nos or something… Just something different.

Set in a starbase like Deep Space Nine?

OK. Fair point. I was thinking more like what we saw in TOS like Starbase 11 or something, but I think my point was still made.

Oversaturation of too much of the same thing. Enterprise course-corrected itself but by then it was too late. TNG, VOY, and ENT all felt really similar. I think the key is to do different things and tell different stories in different ways.

@MattR — “Oversaturation” is a myth.

Riiiiight tell that to the legions of Star Wars fans

Solo didn’t do very well and it wasn’t *bad*, just unable to distinguish itself.

Not to mention Last Jedi backlash.

That’s the problem. I think Last Jedi was not well received by fans was because it was different. They did things with Luke that were not popular. TFA did well because it was a rehash of what was already done. People were comfortable with it. Last Jedi was uncomfortable for them. Hence, apprehension towards it. This does not bode well for future franchise innovation. I really hope I am wrong.

It is kind of similar with TREK. During ENT’s run (or even VOY) people were complaining that the shows were too similar and kept repeating the same stories. However, when the JJ Abrams movies and Discovery came along, some people started complaining that they were too different. If you look at the reception the Picard news got or at the discussions around Orville you see that very clearly part of the fandom (I don’t want to guess how big a part) actually wants more of the familiar. They don’t want franchise innovation.

I will agree a little with you DIGINON. I think the issue with the Kelvin films is that people feel the characters and the stories don’t feel similar enough to TOS or Trek in general. It’s not just because its different people have an issue with it and so much that it feels like a pale comparison to the show and characters its adopting. And for the record I like the movies.

As for DIS, yes its a little more complicated for sure. I do think it being different is part of the problem. I also think making it look so different in an era people already know what it looks like is another problem. If Star Wars prequels changed up the entire look, made the technology more advance, etc people would be complaining a lot. In fact the original prequels people DID complain about it.

They said everything looked too glossy, ornate and clean because they had gotten use to the run down, greasy worlds of the OT. And of course they had things that felt more advance than what you saw in the other movies too but not too much. But I think people gradually accepted it when they understood what was being presented was a golden age of the galaxy before the Empire took over and everything just fell.

In DIS case it just looks cooler because it is. I think people who like and accept it thats fine but they had to know many wouldn’t. Its their show they can do what they want but they can’t be shocked if others have issues with it.

The problem with ENT and VOY was that they were badly written by people who clearly had a hatred for the original series. The continuity was terrible. But Enterprise couldn’t possibly be reconciled with TOS.

As for Abrams, his idea of originality were big explosions. Again, it comes down to plot. Abrams didn’t employ intelligent writers, or at least, didn’t choose intelligent stories.

DIS is not bad–better than VOY and ENT, but too dark. People want some sort of consistency. Changing the look of the Klingons was stupid. Having subtitles for half the show was stupid.

If you want an example of how to update a franchise without pissing on the classic version, see Doctor Who. They embrace their past, but brilliantly updated their work. Yes, the politically correct decision to cast a woman was not popular, and could be a shark jump, but time will tell. That’s also not innovation. That’s political correctness.

If Star Trek in general updated like Doctor Who did, it would be in much better shape. Nostalgia is important and should be incorporated into it, but that doesn’t mean repeat boring stories.

TFA did well because it was the first appearance of the original characters since ROTJ and it was years since the last movie. It sucked less than the prequels, and people were hungry for it. But it disappointed BECAUSE it was a rehash of ANH.

Different is only good when it is well done. TLJ was terrible. The decisions they made regarding Luke were awful. They wrote Luke out of character and killed him stupidly. It was a bad movie, and it upset people.

I’d agree with this. SOLO wasn’t a bad movie but never really manages to make itself seem important. If someone never saw it, it wouldn’t matter very much.

Exactly! And this is one of my BIGGEST issues with a lot of prequels, when the story is basically just there to tell you things you already know but not move the universe in any real way. Its nothing wrong to have a story for a story sake, but Solo really did feel like a movie that was made to give you a bullet point list of every quirk we knew about the character. I mean when he said in the movie to Chewbacca he had to give him a shorter name it almost felt eye rolling. We won’t even talk about how Han actually got his last name.

We got to see how he met Chewy and Lando, great, but what is exciting about the actual story for people who doesn’t care about these things? Why should people see the movie if they don’t care about knowing Solo’s background? And thats the problem, its only for hardcore fanboys who wants to know about stuff like that. The majority of people who watch Star Wars movies are enamored by the mythology as a whole, Sith vs Jedi, Empire vs Rebels, not about the life of one character, even if he’s a really popular character.

I mean I love Picard, but I don’t want a movie about his life as a cadet in Starfleet Academy just so I can learn how he and Boothby became friends. This is when studios think people will just watch anything because a character they like is in it. Solo proved that wasn’t the case thankfully.

““Oversaturation” is a myth.”
Curious, I can’t tell if you’re being ironic when you say that…

Myths are what we are currently quite oversaturated with. Also lies.

Well they felt similar being in the same time period but they were different shows. But sure I know what you mean, they were shot the same, similar music, etc, but thats because all the same people worked on them.

But I actually agree, I think it would be smart to spread them out time wise. Not every show has to be in the same era of DIS or they can do what they did in the past and have a station based show. We know one show is suppose to be around Starfleet academy. Don’t love it but it does prove they aren’t thinking just starships.

I agree that TNG and VOY felt similar but I didn’t take that as a bad thing, they were both Federation Starships.

I think ENT and DS9 both felt different (in a good way) Personally I think the shows all felt different enough from one another.

My suspicion is that the Picard show will be station-based and “very different” in that way. I doubt they will have two starship series on as the first trial balloons and the VOY/DS9 model worked fairly well in the 90s.

Well technically there is still that Starfleet Academy show around and he could be the President of that. I REALLY hope not but yeah it could even be an Earth based show.

But I do have a feeling it will be Picard doing something out in space though. Maybe he won’t be running the Enterprise but I can’t imagine a show where Picard isn’t out there exploring. That’s what made his character so appealing, because he considered himself an explorer and came from a family of explorers. But they could pull a 180 and have him run the family vineyard lol.

@Tiger He could be an explorer on an exploration station at the edge of the galaxy. And DS9 got a good mix of station and ship based action with the Defiant from season 3. Of course it would not be your run of the mill station but something pivotal like DS9 and the wormhole.

That would be cool! DS9 is my favorite show I would love if we got another station based story. I doubt it would happen though.

Honestly, I’m not going to overthink it too much. I’m still on a high we just have a post-Nemesis show!!!!!!! So I’m going to just trust whatever they do with him it will be cool. I can’t wait until we start getting any details.

Watching Discovery now will probably just be a way to pass the time away until we get back to the 24th century! :)

Maybe, but those shows felt similar because they had the same production teams. These shows too will have largely the same people overseeing it all.

I remember when the showrunners talked about wanting to do season one of Enterprise totally on earth as a buildup to launch and that it would have really been a different type of Trek show but the powers that be squashed that. All Access could really have truly different Trek shows running and expand what Trek really is rather than do ship show after ship show.

@El Chup,

Oversaturation is not an issue yet, after all there is just a single Trek show right now.

Producing multiple shows in different eras (the 23rd century, the 24/25 century and so on) and different formats (Full series, miniseries, TV movie..etc) will give people different choices.

Exactly Ahmed! Thats why I think the Picard show was a brillant way to go because it will be in its own time and its own canon from DIS. So you will feel like you have two completely shows.

The past shows they did try hard to seperate them because TNG had the alpha quadrant, Voyager the Delta quadrant and DS9 the edge of the Alpha quadrant but tied to the gamma quadrant as well. It was smart because each show had a different setting and their own set of aliens and conflicts. But a lot of it still over lapped by existing at the same time.

I think if they put different shows in different eras it would make that distinction even stronger like the TOS/TNG days.

Couldn’t agree with Ahmed more. Change the format, use the different time periods and you greatly mitigate the risk of over saturation.

Exactly! Spread out these shows by both time and location. They can certainly do a spin off Discovery show but I don’t think its going to attract many more people that’s already watching and so far that’s not very many. But if you diversify it enough and make the other shows feel vastly different it will attract others. Everyone still likes the idea of a post TUC show. That could be decades after DIS and before TNG. We could get a lot of cool stories, maybe even the first Cardassian war. ;)

I think if they did a Pike show, that would certainly draw interest though. I may not be too much into the idea but it would get the TOS fans more excited, especially the ones who still hate Discovery.

Maybe post-TUC is something Nicholas Meyer is working on? Still would love to see his new contribution to Trek after he got all but ousted by that disastrous pair of Fuller successors.

Honestly is Nic Meyer even working lol. I mean we just had a big comic con event a few weeks ago and the LV con this past week–I don’t think his name was ever uttered once in any way.

His is honestly the weirdest situation out of everyone. He probably came to DIS with the most fan fare, the show started, his name is on every episode the first season but you would never know he ever worked on it. And its even weirder given all the praise these people do for each other and poor Meyer never gets a single mention.

I truly think his days with Trek is over but who knows? Maybe his name will pop up again on one of these new shows.

@Tiger2 I think that was not his own fault though. Once Fuller left he was “promoted” to a creative advisor role who does squat in reality, similar to Roddenberry in the post-TMP movies.

Yeah I imagine when Fuller left his clout fell because he was all over the media when Fuller was still on the show. In fact the first time I remember hearing about DIS outside of Fuller was him at a convention. I mean reading about it.

Its too bad, I was excited to see what kind of stories he would have on the show.

I personally think Nick Meyer is purposefully staying away from the limelight and not talking about anything from the Discovery writers room because he probably has an NDA and doesn’t want to disrespect people in general, but I have a feeling he didn’t have the best of experiences working there. I am sure after some time he might talk about it. He is usually a guy that says what’s on his mind.

Citing VOY and Insurrection as a positive example of how to do Trek right is…well, fascinating.

@Temarc — Haha on this we are in agreement!

I didn’t say it was an issue yet. I’m saying they should be cautious and not count their chickens before they hatch. Too much too quickly can backfire.

It isn’t thaaat quick. Disco season 2 will drop before any of the rest of them. The Picard series is a ways away. The Short Treks will be but crumbs of a story between now and 2019. So yeah, they’re building up to year-round Trek, but it’s gonna be years before they get there. We might even get a new KT movie before it happens.

None of these shows are coming anytime soon though. Even the Picard show they have no scripts lol. They are in the very early stages. My guess its going to take a few months to cast it. So that won’t come out for another year earliest. Could be longer than that.

The other shows may not show up until 2020 the soonest. DIS will probably be by itself until third season. And by then it will have been on long enough to determine if its going to be a real success or not. And if its not, then its smart to have another back up by then.

Over saturation was indeed pry of it, but not in the sense that audiences were tired of it.
No, the issue wasn’t because it was the same group of producers and writers churning out assembly-line tv for almost 20 years.

If each show has a different set of producers, a different writing staff, and doesn’t have the mandate of 26 episodes every year, over saturation will not become a problem.

But the fact that head writer Beyer is handling both DSC and STP (Star Trek Picard), does worry me.

Yes but its a different world today. I mean do people here ONLY watch Star Trek???

There are currently THREE NCIS shows on CBS right now. They make 70 episodes a year and NCIS has been going on for 15 years now and they are all top shows.

I’m an MCU fan. You have any idea how many TV shows are on that franchise? There is literally 10 MCU shows running today. Only two of them has been cancelled. That doesn’t include the 20 movies they have released and also all big hits.

Its not the 90s anymore. How people watch TV is just different. People are use to watching tons of content from one property. The CW Arrowverse has four shows on and all being run by one guy. Those shows are big hits. THATS what CBS sees and think if those shows can do it, why are they not doing it with Star Trek?

They failed because they were were both crappy Trek products produced by a tired-out team who was repeating the safe stuff over and over for a decade-and-a-half…nuff said

Actually Enterprise was fantastic, you must’ve missed seasons 3 and 4.

Nope, it got worse every year, which is verified by the ratings graph over time — the number of fans watching kept going down still in Seasons 3 and 4, and even within those seasons — a continued downward trend.

The supposed Many Coto improvement in Enterprise in Seasons 3 and 4 is revisionist history…an urban myth if you will.

Well that’s one opinion

I like how he seems to think it’s a ‘myth’ that others just thought the show improved lol. It’s weird. If he didn’t, that’s fine, but clearly others did. I’m one of them and I stopped watching after the first season. In fact that’s why I’m still invested in DIS because I don’t want to make the same mistake I made with Enterprise.

Again, people kept checking out during the supposedly improved seasons 3 and 4. That simply is counter-intuitive if you must insist that, all of a sudden, the show is vastly improving — at the very least, one would then logically expect a stabilization in the ratings…exactly like the stabilization that occurred in Voyager when 7 of 9 and Borg stories started in Season 4 (that stopped the ratings bleed).

But in looking at the ratings graph, the continual downward trend of fans abandoning the show continued unabated in Seasons 3 and 4 — the graph shows not even the slightest uptick one would expect from viewers all of a sudden appreciating the show more.

I have statistically relevant numbers backing up my position. You have, “trust me and the small, but very vocal crowd on the internet who all insist it got better.” lol

Again, just because it lost ratings doesn’t mean it didn’t improve. That’s just a simplified view. DS9 lost ratings EVERY season as well, but everyone said it improved a lot after third season and yet it still dropped. It had about half it’s audience in seventh season than it did in the first season.

Many shows gets better and still lose people, especially today. I watch Agents of Shield. Its is easily one of the best comic book shows around. It has around 2 million viewers now lol. It started with around 8 million in season one and it was BAD in the early part.

So its not just ratings alone man. And then you also seem to forget a LOT of people has come back to the show long after it was cancelled to watch those episodes. Again, I’m an example. I only watched the first season when it aired. I didn’t watch the rest of it until 2013. And I HEARD it was better, I was just over Star Trek as a whole by then. Many people who watch the show today probably never saw it when it first ran. There are probably way more people who has watched that show today than when it was originally on.

In fact that’s kind of the point of this whole discussion. But you can’t just look at ratings as ‘proof’ something is good or bad. With that criteria Beyond bombed because it was just a bad movie, right?

All of what you provide is subjective opinion on both the show and subjective opinions on why you don’t accept statistical, factual data.

Good for you for really believing in all that well-meaning conjecture and also for believing in this show that you obviously love! Keep standing up for this show!

Because ratings falling doesn’t equal the quality of a show no more than bad box office equal the quality of a film.

I’m not saying that can’t be taken into account, of course it can, but its never that simple and you know it. Other wise The Expanse wouldn’t have gotten cancelled in just it’s third season. But no one watches it, so that means its a terrible show. Clearly there is nothing else to argue since the statistical factual data proves that’s the case. Certainly not ‘conjecture’, so its cut and dry!

That’s the subjective spirit!!!

According to you its objective. So yeah.

Borg K you neglect to mention, Enterprise was buried in the death slot in its last season. I suspect that the ratings were more reflective of that, rather than the quality of the show, which I agree with you Tiger, was pretty damn good.

Wow I didn’t know that! Oddly enough I heard that’s how TOS got cancelled in third season, by being moved it to one of the worst nights of the week as well. It was clear UPN lost faith in the show by then and the network was changing in demographics in general but its really silly to suggest it was only because no one liked the show. But I don’t doubt a lot of people have simply given up on it by then either. I certainly did.

But most fans do seem to think it got better in the third and fourth season which is when all the spin offs strangely seem to get better for some reason. I think if it got its full seven seasons it could’ve been one of my favorite shows and I’m the guy who hates prequels. The stories they had for fifth season just sounded amazing. You add the Romulan war which it sounds like they planned you would’ve had a show, especially if it lead directly into the founding of the Federation.

Too bad we’ll never know.

I heard some of the script ideas. They were diving more into Trek lore. They had a script about Starbase 1. And it was indeed planned to eventually lead up to the Romulan war. Which had the potential to be epic. And there’s a lot of creative freedom there. All we know there was a war and nothing of the causes or circumstances or who was winning or losing.

Since when is viewership the sole measure of the artistic and entertainment merits of a TV show? That’s the looniest idea I’ve ever heard. Enterprise also happened to air during the 2000s when TV viewership began its historic decline. This whole viewership metric is some really flimsy ground for your argument to stand on.

@albatrosity — this is the most important observation to be made about ENT ratings. In particular, I’ve read enough about this period, and ENT in particular to believe that the time-shift DVR viewing became a major issue, the tracking of which was in its infancy. Had ENT been on the air today, between social media and time-delay tracking, ENT would have likely managed a full 7 season run.

That said, the series was also a casualty of merging the UPN into the CW, and a changing focus on programming. ENT wasn’t really the show they wanted to launch the new network with. They likely knew it had a bigger audience than they had, but ignored it to achiever their goals, which also resulting in shutting down the Berman-controlled franchise, which was almost certainly a goal for a creative team that was arguably getting stale and not pushing the franchise forward.

You need to understand that B/K equates quality with the number of eyes watching it. Enterprise ratings dropped, therefore it MUST be because the quality went down. What you and I both realize that B/K does not is that popularity does not equal quality.

I agree. I fell in love with Enterprise by its third season. I’m hoping I feel the same way about DIS by its third or sooner. So far, not even close.

I would say seasons 1 and 2 were abysmal, season 3 incredible and 4 good at times great. But watching SF Debris commentaries has made me reevaluate the later seasons in context of the earlier ones and conclude that the characters and show overall were a complete mess lol

“…reevaluate the later seasons in context of the earlier ones and conclude that the characters and show overall were a complete mess.”

Agreed.

And yet I still disagree with your assessment above and consider ENT season 3 probably my favorite stretch of Trek in franchise history sooo yeah I’m glad we found some common ground but I still like Enterprise and don’t even watch anything pre-Expanse

I completely agree on the over-saturation and had the exact same thought as I read the article. STAR WARS is having issues with over-saturation, for f**k’s sake. I’m excited for a Picard series (…my money says mini-series, not full-blown show. But I’ve been wrong before), but I worry that if they keep adding stuff on we’ll find ourselves mired in too much shlock Trek. Like El Chup said, “always leave the audience wanting more”. First rule of show business!

Star Wars isn’t having problems with oversaturation. People just wasn’t interested in a Solo prequel and it bombed.

Marvel made 3 films in one year: Black Panther made $1.3 billion, IW made $2 billion and Ant-Man is currently at $425 million but is expected to make $600 milion by the time it leaves theaters. And they have 10 TV shows on top of that.

It’s not the 90s anymore.

@Tiger2

Agree with you on this one. The SW supposed saturation crisis is a creation of internet fanboy types and has no basis in reality. Ep 9 will make $1.5 Billion+ next year, and that silly fanboy theory will be soon forgotten.

There is a principle of economics called “diminishing marginal returns.” I suggest boning up on it before you confidently proclaim “over saturation is a myth.”

I’ll look at that, buy you should look at the last two SW trilogies and note the similar box office dip in Ep 2’s.

A Solo prequel that no one wanted is the product of oversaturation — the studios are pumping out more content than fans want to consume. No one wants a Boba Fett movie either. I certainly don’t want an Obi-Wan movie. There are like nine Star Wars movies in development right now, including Ep 9, the next trilogy, and something related to the GOT showrunners. It’s a lot to handle and it isn’t all welcome. TLJ and Solo did a lot to hurt the franchise and people are starting to question the logic of having big Star Wars movies coming out every six months to a year.

OK, I get your point but they could still just make a bad movie regardless how many are put out. What was The Final Frontier’s excuse?

But I don’t disagree they should assess the TYPE of films they make because I think Solo did prove audiences won’t just see anything with the name Star Wars anymore. But if the films are good, they will pack them in. Look at Marvel, it makes three films a YEAR AND 10 TV shows, and they are big hits. I know, I watch ALL of it lol. It’s become sort of a job but I’m hooked. A lot of us are.

But I don’t think it can last forever either but if you put out stuff people like and know, they usually have no issues watching it over and over again. Netflix has SIX Marvel shows now. They all do just fine, even the bad ones. I don’t know why 2 or 3 Trek shows a year will do any worse? Unless they suck. ;)

Okay I do see your point that by comparison with Marvel, which is the most saturated of the saturated yet still comes out on top every time, Star Wars may have just faltered a bit recently. So I’ll concede it can’t be oversaturation alone. But in contrast to Marvel, it really does *feel* like Star Wars is being wrung out for every last cent. Maybe that’s just the nature of its universe — when you have everything connect back to the original characters and storylines, it feels like a microscopic universe that’s been played to death. Star Wars desperately needs to come up with something new.

It’s always nice when I can get someone to see my side of things online. Believe me, it rarely happens in real life lol.

But yes, Marvel proves the point WELL if you deliver a product people like and you do it in a way they feel they are getting something different and new then it doesn’t matter how much content you make as long as its diversified enough to reach multiple segments of your fanbase. What MCU has done in both film and television is a thing to behold. The movies for example follows certain formulas but they each create different characters, genres and settings where you feel like you are getting a completely different movie from the last one. But same time they all overlap the same story elements so it keeps people immersed in the mythology.

So it never feels old the same way watching a Star Wars film can be for example where it’s fighting the Empire over and over again. And it comes back to the same story line we have gotten literally since 1977 and that’s where SW is faltering because it DOESN’T expand it’s universe the way Marvel is doing it. The Force Awakens was a rehash of A New Hope, they just replaced literally the names of stuff lol. It worked THAT time but they can’t do it for every film. I have said it many times (on another board) that Disney just going back to the OT well is going to feel stale after awhile. They have all these prequels lined up from Rogue One to Boba Fett and sooner or later its going to just feel like a cash grab of pushing fanboy nostalgia instead coming up with ways of going a new direction.

It actually happened sooner than I thought but Solo finally hit that wall and proved you can’t just recycle old story lines, you have to think bigger at some point and it sounds like they are at least getting that message and movies after Episode 9 will FINALLY tell other stories beyond the Empire and the Skywalkers.

It’s not too much of one brand that’s the issue, it’s repeating the exact same themes and plots in the brand that becomes the problem. Same with Star Trek obviously. They can’t just make a bunch of TOS spin offs for the next five TV shows. You’re only attracting one segment of your base.

Rick Berman actually said the reason why they made DS9 was because TNG was on at the time and they knew if they had two shows taking place on a Starship then it would feel recycled no matter what they did with it. It was a risky, but smart movie. That’s the reason why TNG was so different from TOS. They got into trouble with Voyager because it DID feel like TNG but only because UPN wanted it that way.

That’s why it was a smart move to do a Picard show when Discovery is on because the time periods are so different it will feel like its own thing with its own setting, conflicts and issues. It will feed nostalgia but hopefully go an angle no one is seeing yet. Maybe the next one after that is completely different than those two and go another direction we haven’t seen.

Feed the base by giving it something they never tasted before. If you give them the same thing all the time, of course they will get stop eating it after they had it over and over again.

” If you give them the same thing all the time, of course they will get stop eating it after they had it over and over again.”

I think Marvel is currently stretching that. While their movies continue to make money the last handful of their films were of lower quality. They really are starting to get repetitive. I see it already and I think if they don’t up their game the general public will begin to see it as well. Marvel may be preparing for that as Avengers 4 may be the swan song for most of their original Avengers. I truly do want to see something different from Marvel. But I guess there is only so much one can do with the super hero genre.

BTW… For me Rogue One worked because it was brand new characters, the writers made me care about all of them. And it tied in pretty darn will with A New Hope. All in all, very well done. Solo, while kinda fun to watch, was just ticking off the Han Solo character boxes. In fact, I found myself wishing the movie was a Lando movie. Glover was the best part of it!

Well according to both audience and critics scores the last four Marvel films have scored well.

But I don’t disagree in terms of the FORMULA, you’re right it is very repetitive, especially the origin story films. They all follow the same story beats. But why they are still popular is because the settings and genres are all vastly different from each other and why people stay so glued. I mean this year they released Black Panther, Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp. None of those films were like the others. They all felt completely different from each other. And because Marvel is always finding ways to introduce new characters, story angles and settings it keeps the fanbase on its feet.

The next one will be Captain Marvel which is set in the 90s and will introduce the Skrulls which is a prominent alien race in the comics. And she is one of the most powerful characters in Marvel so many people are excited for that film and suppose to tie in to Avengers 4. And it will be the 21st film.

And I loved Rogue One as well but it just felt like an excuse to recap ANH. It was a good film, but it was just there to capitalize on the original and a way to bring in the Death Star and Vader again. That’s the problem with those films, its just constant nostalgia. They aren’t trying to move the needle in any real way. Solo proved that as well. Not an awful movie but it just retold us stuff we already know, we simply got all the fan geek details (“So THAT’S how he got his blaster…woah!”). It was interesting that Han actually fought for the Empire though but I’m guessing that was already part of the EU somewhere.

And its the Empire/First Order stuff over and over again. At least Marvel and Star Trek has multiple villains and motivations. With Star Wars it basically comes down to the same one and its going to feel VERY old in another 10 years they are still fighting the same people but just another variation of them. They have to eventually come up with something new if they plan to make a movie a year and now a live action TV show.

I know the latest Marvel films continue to dominate box office. It’s just that the quality has been waning for the last handful. None of them have been particularly innovative. And all the recent bad guys have been pretty darn interchangeable. They have become formulmatic. The audience can tick off every plot point from miles ahead. The only real difference in the movies is the setting. Outer Space, Wakanda, San Francisco… But it’s essentially the same story every time. I really think eventually audiences will see this if Marvel doesn’t already. And they do have a certain style they demand the scripts and directors follow. They are given some leeway but a Marvel film HAS to have a certain overall look and feel.

I know RO was dealing with a story element from ANH. But what set it apart was the people in it. They came up with characters you cared about. And it worked, for me at least. Solo? Kinda fun but in the end, I really didn’t care about Han all that much as I already knew his fate. It was really just where was he before that bar scene. Again, I was far more interested in Lando. A character we really don’t know as well and he was played fantastically by Glover.

I do see your point regarding everything is about the Empire/First Order. Galactic stakes are nice, I guess. But it’s something that does get tiresome. And I agree… It’s a well that future Star Wars films ought to start weaning off of. Come up with something else for our heroes to struggle with.

Nope. There was bad press on the Solo movie for a year, following by Disney inexplicably waiting until the last minute to market it. It was a pretty good movie actually, doomed by kind of “piling on” internet fanboy virtual word of mouth nonsense that created a momentum of its own that the mainstream media then got in a feeding frenzy on…thereby giving the public the misleading impression that it was going to be a dud even before it came out.

Very similar to another underrated movie that had a similar thing happen to it: John Carter

…and all those folks who weren’t interested in a Solo prequel (about Star Wars’ most endearing character, to boot) are going to flock to a Trek series about Harry Mudd. Gotcha.

With Star Wars, I think Solo’s lesser than desired Box Office was more due to the fact it was a movie no one really wanted and that was plagued with production issues from day one. I think we need to go a couple more years before we can really see if Star Wars suffers from over saturation. Also, I think over saturation can exist even if things are going well financially. I have been thoroughly underwhelmed by the last 4 Marvel films. I feel like creatively, they need to slow down as they just are not all that unique or clever anymore. But people are still flocking to them at the Box Office. That doesn’t mean they are still good. It means other people aren’t tired of them yet.

I don’t think peoples issue with Star Wars is over saturation, it may be one point, but not the main point. I think the separatism between the “older” fans and the producers is the biggest issue they are currently facing.

There are a LOT of issues with Star Wars. Has been for decades. People thought Disney was going to sweep in and present a new golden era where the movies were done ‘right’ and a new unified fanbase that had a company who was willing to give them all their fanboy wet dream stories between now and when the sun imploded would create a beautiful new relationship.

How can this not be great???

That lasted for about 6 months lol. Now it’s back to the usual infighting, name calling and declarations of how the franchise is once again dead. Of course, look what we’re talking about lol. I will say at least we haven’t driven anyone off of twitter…yet. ;D

BTW, it wasn’t that long ago people were hoping Disney buy Star Trek because in their mind at least they would be doing something with the franchise which CBS at the time seem to be doing nothing with it but collect the merchandising money. Well, those days are definitely over at least. ;)

I completely agree. HBO, at least, had better sense than to try and become the GAME OF THRONES channel. Too much exposure will kill Trek, just as surely as it’s killing STAR WARS now. Issues of quality aside, there just isnt an infiite appetite for this stuff with an increasingly fickle public.

It’s not ‘killing’ Star Wars. One movie bombed, calm down.

Last Jedi drastically underperformed at the box office compared to what they were predicting. The internet is in flames over how divisive TLJ was, and Solo was obviously a series low. So like there’s plenty of evidence and plenty of discourse surrounding the fact that SW has stumbled recently. I’ve watched like thirty YouTube videos about fan reaction to the current state of SW and they all point to the same thing: people are concerned about the future of the franchise.

But that’s not because of ‘exposure’, fans simply didn’t like the film. The prequels were considered worse than Satan and divided the fan base horribly. They still made money. And SW fans are worse than us lol. You’ll be lucky if you can get half of them to agree more than three of those movies are even good.

I understand what you’re saying but quality is not the same issue as overexposure. And you guys are only pointing out literally the biggest franchises on Earth. Look much smaller. Look at OTHER TV show franchises out there now. I pointed this out Marvel has TEN shows, ten! They all got renewed. NCIS franchise gets an average of 12 million viewers. Its been on for 15 years and currently there are three shows. Look at CBS other channel, the CW. That has 5 DC shows and all are hits. Another one is coming next year. You guys are taking ONE franchise and somehow simplifying it because people didn’t like the last two movies.

And yet look at all those other film and TV franchises that pumps out WAY more content then Star Wars does and thriving. CBS is paying attention to those models, especially for streaming sites whose dynamic is very different from movies and TV.

Excellent point, it is kinda unfair to single out Star Wars on this

I’m always surprised how these crime procedurals get so many viewers and run for such a long time because they don’t interest me AT ALL. But there obviously is an audience.

Here too. It seems like 80% of all TV shows are about lawyers, doctors or cops or some combination of them.

LOL me too. I DID watch all the Law and Order shows though. I was a big fan of them, especially the original and still watch SVU, but not a big priority anymore. In fact I’m just now starting to binge watch last season since I got behind. I did watch some of the CSI shows but it was only the original I stuck with through the end and I got bored of that as well.

But it does prove that if people like a brand and a formula they will watch it over and over again for an eternity. As much as we love Star Trek, I doubt DIS would get half the audience that NCIS: New Orleans get if it was actually on TV.

Every second movie in the previous two SW trilogies took a similar dive, even the great ESB…but then the third movie in each made more $, though not as much as the first. This is all an internet fanboy made up issue that just happens to look kind of possible because the Solo movie under-performed…but that was due to 1 year of bad press an inexplicably bad marketing more that anything else.

Ep 9 will make $1.5B+, and then this silly made-up SW crisis will be largely forgotten.

Again I don’t really care about how much money or viewers a movie brings in. Fans of the SW franchise were turned off by the last two films, a lot of them. Even if Ep 9 breaks the bank, that won’t undo that sentiment any more than if Beyond had outperformed ST09 it would’ve erased the feeling that STID was a catastrophic misstep. Right now Star Wars is in some turmoil. Will it last? Tune in next year

LOL. SW is just fine.

As long as they aren’t competing with each other, it shouldn’t be a problem. Discovery from January to April, the Picard show from May to July, and another new show (Starfleet Academy?) from September to November, something like that. Those would be three very different kinds of shows, and I don’t think they’d oversaturate the market. Replace Picard’s show (if it is a one-and-done minishow) with a TNG-era show spun-off from the Picard show (Enterprise-F with a new crew?)

Actually, they failed because the quality wasn’t good. There are like 60 Law and Order shows. I agree that you don’t want to overtax the writers, but with a good writing team, it would be fine. Think 4 Trek shows of 13 episodes each.

I openly laugh every time I hear someone say that season three or four of enterprise was incredible. They were vast improvements over the first two but neither season is anywhere close to the best that trek has had to offer over the years.
In fact I’d say that there were large chunks of season three that were out right terrible. This CXindi storyline wasn’t great. It was just an interesting change of pace to see an ongoing story line in that show. The execution was pretty bad. At best those last two seasons of enterprise are average.

Overall, I enjoy enterprise for what it is, but I would never say it’s great TV. It’s biggest weakness is not even the writing. It’s the acting! Awful characters inhabited by awful actors!

I agree that Enterprise at it’s best was not quite DS9 when it was above average. But it was a drastic improvement. I also agree that Bakula was amazingly miscast as Archer. But every other character in that show was far more interesting than anyone on the Ent-D (save for Worf). That was even going back to season 1, too.

I don’t think any season of Enterprise was incredible. I think Season 4 was decent, but the problem was that they finally got better writers, but it was lipstick on a pig. Had those writers been tasked with writing a prequel from day one, it would have been a much better show.

This is a very good point, I think. But Hey, let’s see what they come up with. Personally, I don’t see myself being interested in a Khan or Harry Mudd show. But I’ll certainly be tuning in for the Picard offering. It’s up to CBS to impress us – let’s see if they do.

I think, with the way TV seasons have shortened drastically since the Trek hayday (20+ episodes to 13ish episode), over saturation won’t be as much of an issue. Especially if CBS is able to schedule it so that only one Trek show is airing at a time – unlike when TNG and DS9 both aired on the same night, and DS9 and Voyager aired at the same time (I think it was different nights)…but you get the idea.

DS9 and TNG were both syndicated. So when they aired was up to the independent stations that broadcast them. Where I was they were aired on back to back nights in the same time slot.

The funny thing is they had two Trek shows on at the same time and they WERE popular, thats what gets missed. Yes ratings declined, but thats true of most shows, especially after five seasons. But clearly fans were either watching one of them or both. I certainly was lol. I think Enterprise proved however that people was getting tired of Trek because it was the only show on and yet it got less viewers than all those shows which tells me there was less hunger for it.

By the time Enterprise came on, it was already 15 years of Star Trek and nearly 500 episodes. And even then if Enterprise was a better show I think people would’ve stuck it out because it still got 12 million people to watch the pilot. Only 10 million watched Discovery. What I’m saying is IF they took Star Trek off the air after Voyager a few years and then put on Enterprise, it probably would’ve lasted as long as the other shows. It just didn’t start off very good and it was just easier to move on. And it being a prequel, it was even easier.

“What I’m saying is IF they took Star Trek off the air after Voyager a few years and then put on Enterprise, it probably would’ve lasted as long as the other shows.”

I’ve felt that too. In fact, when I heard UPN was starting up yet another Trek show after Voyager’s run, I, a large Trek enthusiast, felt they ought to wait a year or two before starting another. It really felt like it needed a breather. Yet I still watched Enterprise when it came on.

Wow exciting news!!!

None of this surprises me of course, we already know most of the possible shows coming but the fact that they are probably making more shows tells you they know Star Trek is the end game and its probably the ONLY new show on that site that is making any real waves. I mean I still have AA, I haven’t even looked at the other shows. I couldn’t even tell you what they are outside of The Good Fight.

As a fan of course, this only excites me more. I mean I want more Star Trek all the time lol. And they can go BIG with it. Give us shows in multiple time eras! I’m happy we are getting the 24th century again but they can go even farther in time.

But man, AA only has 2.5 million subscribers lol. That’s peanuts. I thought it was around 4 million? Or maybe its at 2.5 million currently after people stopped subscribing after DIS ended. But if that 2.5 million is correct, assuming EVERY body who has it watched Discovery that’s nothing in terms of viewership. Enterprise in its last season still had over 3 million viewers which proves my theory all along that DIS is easily the lowest seen Trek show by a mile. In America at least.

So I can see why they want more Trek shows. They get that Picard show going ASAP that will easily sky rocket the subs. Certainly more than Discovery.

@Tiger2,

2.5 million subscribers is rather pathetic number but not surprising considering the limited content they have on CBS AA.

I agree Ahmed,

But this proves I was completely right this entire time. I have been saying over and over again that DIS is probably doing well BUT not great. I, like many people, have always suspected the show just didn’t pull in the subs CBS hoped and this basically proves it. Before DIS started, AA already had 1.5 million subs so IF this is correct, the show has basically only pulled a million more in, which is frankly tiny.

BUT its successful because my guess is no other shows on there has pulled in anything close to DIS combined. So it adds up to what I been saying, DIS proves that Star Trek fans will sign up to watch Star Trek but this show alone is CLEARLY not enough to get anywhere close to the subs they want in the next year or two. And if the other shows aren’t attracting much then it makes sense to put on more Trek.

And I suspect this is exactly why the TNG show was announced first before the others because that’s really the only one with an iconic character that the fanbase still loves and my guess is CBS is hoping will pull in other Trek fans who is hesitant to subscribe to it if they have no interest in Discovery as a show.

It’s a no-brainer! It will definitely get more than a million subs.

You guys need to be careful throwing about the 2.5 million number…if that is recent, say June, then that is probably way off given so many of us suspended our memberships until DSC starts again…plus The Good Fight wrapped up in May as well, so probably a lot of suspended memberships there.

I heard someone else estimate 10 million subscribers during DSC’s run. Don’t know if I believe that or not, but certainly we would need more info on what month this 2.5 million number was derived from before we make claims that that this DSC’s audience. And remember, it’s on Netflix overseas, which dwarfs AA numbers for Trek fans internationally.

They should star remastering DS9 and Voy and premiere eps from those over a multi-year period on AA when new Trek series are not on (like summer) — that would be a genius marketing move to keep us paying for the AA membership year-round…I certainly would keep my account active if DS9 HD eps were being premiered in those off-months.

I don’t really buy that though. As I said, these people usually spin things to sound the best. If AA got 10 million subs then they would’ve just said that. And many people suspected for a LONG time that the subs was low because we never heard once through DIS entire run how it was doing. If AA was really at 10 million there would’ve been weekly press releases from CBS crowing about it.

Now maybe you’re right and they are talking about the current total but my guess is even if that’s true its probably not more than what it was before. I never thought DIS had high subs because there are still people who has never even heard of it and I live in L.A.

And I still have my AA account.

Yea, it sounds very high. But the 2.5 sounds low.

I suspended my account and will renew when the DSC shorts start up. A lot of my Trek friends have done the same. That’s why I think the 2.5 number may we much lower than say in January at the height of DSC viewership.

And I agree that could be the case. We just don’t know unfortunately.

Once again: CBS is a publicly traded corporation. It does not get to blatantly lie about numbers, and it faces the challenge of meeting the Street’s expectations. CBS would not be proceeding with this Trek boomlet if DISCO were underperforming. They either see this as a way to turbocharge growth (whether it works is another matter) or to smoothe earnings by stopping subscriber churn.

Actually, I think this is being done specifically BECAUSE STD did not bring in the subscriber base they had hoped. Far more people bailed out than they anticipated and suddenly realized that people tuning in for Star Trek would tune out when there was no Star Trek. The solution was simple. Add more Trek. That the bulk of the subscribers would bail was a no brainer but it feels like CBS didn’t think it would be this massive. So now comes the announcement of a STEU on CBSAA.

A million viewer-subscribers is tiny *for an American live-action network(ish) show*. By way of international comparison, the Japanese anime series “Space Battleship Yamato 2199” and “2202” are happy with 10,000 buyers of the Blu-Ray edition. Count your blessings you’re part of a fandom that can support an undertaking of this scale. :)

(I use SBY because structurally it’s similar to ST:DSC — space opera, 40 years old, has an existing fanbase, updates the aesthetics and storytelling, uses a newfangled funding/delivery method, ~20 episodes.)

They estimated at around 4 million subscribers after the pilot of Discovery. I read it somewhere at the time but can’t remember where.

@Enough already,

That number included Showtime. Until today CBS was always combining Showtime & CBS AA numbers and never gave numbers for each service. The trades were always pointing out that Showtime tends to have the large number of the two services.

No Ahmed. It was a just CBSAA numbers, not combination.

@Enough already,

That’s not accurate. All media reported the same thing. Les Moonves told investors that they have 4 million subscribers for both Showtime and CBS AA.

===================
Variety – September 25, 2017

To date, CBS has said that its All Access and Showtime standalone OTT services are poised to top 4 million subscribers by year’s end. Showtime is believed to account for a higher percentage of those subscribers, suggesting that CBS All Access is somewhere around 1.5 million subs.

https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/star-trek-discovery-premiere-ratings-cbs-all-access-1202570092/

Ahmed. I am telling you that they said 4 million for CBS AA alone. Combined they were saying something like 6 or 7 million. They were talking about CBS only.

@Enough already,

You don’t have to believe me, I’m not CBS CEO who said that.

=========================
Per Deadline

CBS is eying digital subscriptions and international expansion, at least based on CEO Les Moonves’ comments this morning at the Goldman Sachs Annual Communacopia Conference.

He did not factor overseas subscriptions into his prediction that CBS All Access and Showtime’s digital platform will together have more than 4 million subs by year end and 8 million by 2020 — a forecast that he says may prove to be “rather low.”

https://deadline.com/2017/09/les-moonves-cbs-all-access-launch-australia-company-boosts-digital-international-1202169571/
==============================

Today, Marc Debevoise, president and COO of CBS Interactive gave the CBS AA number and it is just 2.5 million subscribers.

You’re welcome to accept these quotes from CBS bosses or continue to argue that the numbers are wrong.

OK I guess I’m here to be the tie breaker lol, but it looks like you are BOTH right in a way.

This is a quote from Moonves on March 7, 2017. It came from Trekmovie:

“On All Access, we were well over one million subs before we put on any original content. We just launched The Good Fight, which is The Good Wife spin-off. It has done very well and we are very pleased and it’s only three weeks in but the subscribers are going up there. Once Star Trek comes on – which will be late summer/early fall – we expect the subscribers to go up considerably. We think as we keep adding original content, that’s going to be easy to get to four million there…It’s not even optimistic – we are confident we are going to hit those numbers.”

So it sounds like they DID expect to get around 4 million the first year based on AA ALONE. Again, there was no talk of any Showtime app, this was solely what they expected for AA to bring in once DIS came. My guess for the year.

Now what Ahmed quoted sounds accurate, it just sounds like they shifted gears later on and probably determined they weren’t going to get that 4 million UNLESS they added the Showtime combination deal which they later did and then quoted.

So Enough Already was right. At one point, they very much intended to get 4 million on AA alone.

@Tiger2,

Found the article. And you’re right; they thought that ‘Discovery’ would get them to 4 million but it didn’t and that’s why they always conflate Showtime numbers with CBS AA.

No worries. I would’ve just posted the link but a lot of times it says it has to be viewed by the moderator and several times in the past the post just never show up so I don’t really bother much.

@Tiger2,

Yeah, that’s an annoying feature of the comment section but there is a workaround.

You type a regular comment without any link and submit it. After the comment is posted, you use the edit button and add a link; the comment with the link will be posted without going through the moderation.

Oh, that’s a great option! Yeah its always links to stuff I want to post but I just get discouraged over it. But thank you, I’ll just do that from now on!

OK I just went and checked! And TM did an article and yes Moonves said he expected around 4 million subs after DIS premiered. Now I don’t think he meant once the pilot aired, it sounds like he meant after the first year of the show and then when other shows were added with it. So if that’s true they are NO WHERE close to their goal considering DIS was launched 11 months ago.

Or it could just mean the 2.5 million is just what they have now and that people dropped but seem like if the number was higher at one point they would’ve went with that number to spin it. So yes, this proves all along that DIS just didn’t pull in what they hoped, at least the first year.

“Or it could just mean the 2.5 million is just what they have now and that people dropped”

Which could mean that they did approach the 4 Million number at the peak of DSC’s release, assuming the 2.5 number is the current “low summer membership” period. As I mentioned, my membership I’ve suspended right now, and most of my Trek fans have done the same.

Maybe they didn’t hit the 4 million goal, but I bet they were within spitting distance of it.

And let’s say that on average for the year they have 3 million subscribers per month, paying and average of $8 per month (some of us like me pay extra for ad free). That generates revenues of nearly $300 million per year…that’s fracking major when you consider they are only paying for one expensive series an a few inexpensive series, plus some web/IT streaming back-office costs. So if you eventually get up to 10 million subscribers, you are talking about nearly a $1B enterprise (pun intended). And this is just U.S. only CBS AA.

When you add in international Netflix, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to compute that DSC is likely hugely profitable already, and that an expanded set of Trek offerings, plus other new AA content, could generate astronomical revenues.

Moonvies should have grabbed The Expanse before Bezos…that would have been huge for AA.

Again you could be right, but why didn’t they just say that? We all know how this works. If CBS wanted the highest figure out there, that would be reported, not just this number. Now its going to be reported 2.5 million when they have been saying for a year they expected higher.

But I’m not saying they aren’t making a profit. No one is going hungry over there lol. I’m only saying it doesn’t sound the numbers they originally wanted. But maybe they are still happy with what they have. It’s still super early so as long as they think AA is viable and won’t cancel any shows then all that matters for us. And if we get 10 more Trek shows over it, even better. ;)

I assumed DIS is doing well on Netflix given the size of subscribers and because we know all the other Trek shows do well there.

Even if 2.5 is the number, that is still approx $200 million in revenues per year for AA in the US…PLUS nextflix international, which one could make a conservative wag at another $100 million…so let’s say $300 million total. That’s hardly the “pathetic” situation that another poster proclaimed earlier today.

Going to literally repeat what I said: No one is doubting the site is making money. If they gave it another season, clearly it’s making something. But its still much lower than what they claimed they wanted. No one is saying it’s not profitable but you know how this works. People are on this page arguing TLJ slipped and that made $1.3 billion. We’re simply talking expectations here. AA didn’t meet it. But even then I SAID they are probably happy with that number for now. Not sure what else I can say?

And it’s Star Trek it ALL make money….eventually. ;)

You didn’t say, “pathetic,” another poster said that. And I thought I made that clear in my post, so I am not getting why you are being so defensive on this?

I think you and I are actually fairly close to agreeing on this issue.

Ok, fine. I’ll leave it there.

2.5 million subscribers is pathetic anyway people look at it and when you consider that there were expecting to have 4 million.

‘Discovery’ failed to bring them to that goal of 4 million and that’s the reason they rushed to make Picard show and brought back iconic TOS characters to ‘Discovery’.

I’m with you, Ahmed. If you were looking to make $4million and were telling investors that was what you were planning on making, and then you only deliver $2.5 million… It’s a failure. $2.5mil is still great. But it’s not what was sold to the board.

And yes, I think fans can thank the lack of subscribers for the upcoming Picard show.

THANK YOU lack of subscribers, THANK YOU! ;D

2.5 million IS small, you can’t really spin that. But yeah its early so maybe in another year they can get it to over 4 million at least. But hardly anyone is watching this show, especially since that is the only avenue they give people. A lot of people just don’t want AA, period. And maybe the show itself doesn’t feel strong enough to get it. I’m a fan I would easily spend twice the money to see it but people like us are the exception.

But yes it’s probably the real reason we are getting a Picard show and another 12 shows in the next five years. And why Spock and Pike is coming to Discovery as you said. They are trying to boost those subs any way they can. In many ways AA not hitting its goal is probably a good thing for us lol.

“But hardly anyone is watching this show, ”

That’s almost as silly as the “pathetic” comment. There are tons of cable shows that would love to have 2.5 million viewers in the U.S. And you are ignoring international Netflix, plus you are assuming that for every AA account, only on person in the household is watching the show.

I think the way you and Ahmed getting carried away with your dramatic, over-reactive descriptors (i.e. “pathetic”, “hardly anyone”) distracts from what are the main, reasonable points that you both make here about the viewership being not as big as it should be.

You both make good points. Just maybe drop your “the sky is falling” dramatic use of exaggerated descriptors?

Compared to the previous shows which were getting 10-12 million their first seasons. And obviously I’m talking about in America, calm down. But it’s easily the lowest watched Star Trek, right? Enterprise was getting 3-4 times that in its first season and people called that low.

And I have said its a success for AA, but its clearly not a show watched in the masses due to the platform it’s on. Never claimed the sky is falling over it and I have said multiple times the show is no danger of being cancelled a few seasons either. But this is just basic facts, not sure what else you want us to say? Stop taking it so personally.

So, you admit your exaggerated with the “hardly anyone is watching the show” remark then?

Are you 12 years old are something? Get a grip. Why do you come off so offended at everything? Hardly anyone IS watching when compared to the other shows, and it could even be lower than 2 million but I’m guessing it could at least be that. But that could get you canceled on the CW. You are entitled to disagree though. Move on.

Why do you have such a tough time both answering a direct question with a quick response, and why is it such a freaking big deal for you to say, “yea, I over-reached a bit” on saying 2.5 million viewers is not exactly “hardly anyone”…especially when nearly everyone on this site and the majority Trek fans we know watched the show??? I mean, who really in anything involving media would say 2.5 million plus viewers is “hardly anyone”…no offense meant, but what a moronic descriptor to use.

And what is with your habit of every time somebody legitimately asks you to defend or reevaluate something you yourself said here, you act so offended and start getting personal? Please spare me the fake exasperation and personal insults, and just admit that you over-reached with that remark? Sheesh! Just say, “You have a point there,” and move on. Ditch the misplaced pride and be accountable…and move on. Seriously!!!

PS: And it’s probably closer to 5 million viewers anyway if you would conservatively assume that for every account, 2 people are watching the show…two other people is my house watched it on my account.

Dude, it’s an opinion. You can certainly disagree with it. But stop sounding so offended and making a petty fight over it when it has nothing to do with you. There is nothing to take back because that’s how I feel. You got my explanation, accept it or don’t, I don’t really care. Honestly. Moving on now.

A word like “pathetic” for most peoples’ definition would be vastly nonperforming…like meeting only 10% or 20% of a stated goal…”that performance is pathetic.” Achieving 60% of a goal could be called “disappointing” or “under-performing,” but calling it pathetic, like it’s a complete failure, is not accurate by most peoples definition of that term.

Heck, even that “reverse groupie” of mine here who follows my posts and always makes sure to support people who disagree with me responded to you and said this 60% performance is “still great.” LOL

Yeah I think AA knows there is an audience out there, I would imagine many signed up for one or two months to binge watch Disco and then left. The 11 month break between seasons doesn’t help. Delivering new shows virtually all year around would solve that problem for them. I would like to know how the show is doing in other markets. I hear it did really well on Netflix international and set records on Space Channel in Canada.

…that’s exactly what I did, paid $20 total for both halves of season one, then dropped it.

I got two others to go in on one month. Started watching the end of January for about $3+ each. Needless to say, neither of my partners were interested in doing it again. Looks like I will have to shell out the full $10 next time.

Not surprised to hear it did well on Space. Probably would have had a ton more eyes on it if it were on Showtime here. But CBS is only looking to get AA to blast off. So they are willing to take fewer people seeing it in order to get their foot in the streaming door.

I also think it might not be a bad bet that a lot of their current subscribers are Trek subscribers who just forgot or didn’t bother to end their subscriptions on top of that. I sincerely believe this STEU thing is a direct reaction to the number of subscribers who bailed out when STD ended. Something that was one of the easiest things to predict ever.

CBS needs to be careful here. I understand Discovery is mighty expensive to produce, oversaturation could be a problem if quality suffers.

My guess is the Netflix deal makes it worth it though. Star Trek is guaranteed to make money worldwide and let’s face it, what ELSE can they put there that will draw the interest as Star Trek will? They know next year Disney is launching its new site with new Marvel and Star Wars shows. Amazon is going to do a LOTR series. Warner Bros is launching a DC streaming site JUST for all its shows and movies. Everyone has their big geeky fantasy franchises to attract their fanbase.

For CBS its Star Trek. So they are going to milk it to stay competitive. I wouldn’t be shocked if there are 3-4 shows on a year in the next two years.

So far we have Discovery and now the Captain Picard series. The only other series I want to see is the Early Voyages with Captain Pike, Number One, young Spock, and the Enterprise that would spin off from Discovery.

There is the Worf show and the Captain Sulu series that has lobbied for years. CBS All-Access is safe haven for Star Trek as it would likely not survive the current network TV landscape.

I use to think something like a Captain Worf or a Captain Sulu show is crazy. But now, knowing how badly CBS wants more Star Trek, nothing is out of the realm of reality at this point.

Many Star Trek stories to choose from for TV and animation.

True. Honestly I was afraid we were going to be stuck in TOS era for another decade lol. The Picard show gave a LOT of us relief that they are wiling to expand the franchise again and go forward. And with that it opens up a LOT of avenues and hopefully not just shows where everyone is related to someone on the Enterprise. ;)

What they need is animation. Animation animation animation.

The original series once more.

That ship sailed in 1969

I was gonna suggest the idea of making a new Captain Sulu series with John Cho in the lead and perhaps George Takei can play his father.

It makes perfect sense to make more shows and give people more choices.

They finally gave us CBS AA subscribers number & clearly they need a lot more content to attract more people. Their other shows like Strange Angel are not making any noise on the web. Star Trek is really their “family jewels”

They should star remastering DS9 and Voy and premiere eps from those over a multi-year period on AA when new Trek series are not on (like summer) — that would be a genius marketing move to keep us paying for the AA membership year-round…I certainly would keep my account active if DS9 HD eps were being premiered in those off-months.

Can you imagine for every week this summer, two newly remastered DS9 eps are released every Friday night, with a corresponding 20 minute panel attached discussing the eps. That would be extremely cool.

That actually is a really fantastic idea — DS9 is like peaking in popularity and would be a great justification for spending the money on the HD upres.

I just don’t see this happening right now. They lost a lot of money with the TNG boxset and fans were saying the same thing about how great it would be if TNG was in HD. And yet sales were pretty low. Everyone just watched it on Netflix.

Again this whole “they lost money” argument is bunkum. Lost money over what period of time? Remastering TNG was an investment for all eternity. The day will come when they will make every cent back that they put into it. TNG HD is worth a lot more than TNG SD, and will keep the series relevant for a lot longer.

Who woulda thought we’d have our very own Star Trek channel?

They should reboot DS9. It would work perfectly with the darker cinematic production Discovery is doing.

CBSAA is still a maybe in Australia, they recently bought our Network Ten, but they haven’t made a move as far as launching a streaming service yet. I hope that the Patrick Stewart lead show is not their launch title.

The ‘Worf Chronicles’ series back on maybe…..

It was never “on” in the first place.

If they are going to do something with Shatner, that brings back Kirk prime, post Generations, and establishes the character a happy ending, I would absolutely pay for All Access. I would even commit to a year if the movie is good. But it clearly needs to be soon, and it should involve some CGI.

Totally agree. They should be doing this ASAP. I While they did not rule out when asked about Shatner they didn’t sound like it would happen soon. I would also pay a years worth price for that one event.

They should have done such a TV movie (an old format, folks) years ago. It’s hard to believe eighteen — eight-teen — years passed between STVI and ST2009’s solo Nimoy appearance without anything being done with the remaining TOS cast. Frankly, I can’t see them doing anything now, even a one off. Anything’s possible, though. Let’s see how they handle Picard first — will there be an Enterprise? Who knows. Hope for the best.

@Kev-1 — about all they can do with Shatner in my mind is a SPACE COWBOYS kind of approach. Let Shatner be the comedian he’s become, and hopefully deliver the serious stuff when needed. But I would totally watch that.

It’ll be interesting to see if the concept of the Picard show changes from now till when it airs.

I’m thinking of the series that was at first supposed to turn Shatner into a character actor in 1982. Originally it was called THE PROTECTORS, I think, and it was basically THE ROOKIES but with Shatner in the Gerald S. O’Loughlin/Lt. Ryker part, overseeing the development of young cops. Somehow the first installment turned into TJ HOOKER and had Shatner jumping on the hoods of moving cars just like every other 50-something cop might do in the real world (snicker/snort/gag.)

…in other words…people are canceling left and right after Discovery ended its season…even the fans that like the show have dumped the service with plans to re-up when the new season starts. So keep a staggered schedule where new Trek is playing year round. The logic is sound…my only concern is it’s more Trek…all coming from the same sausage factory. As I thought Discovery was an abysmal failure, what are the odds that the same team can deliver another Trek series that is worth my time? Regardless of who is starring in it. The odds aren’t very good, I’m afraid. But there is a good chance of keeping fans, that liked STD, on the hook year-long with this new business model they’re adopting. So, they get props in the customer-acquisition dept.

“my only concern is it’s more Trek…all coming from the same sausage factory.”

THAT is my concern about all this.

While I love the idea of year round of Star Trek, it troubles me to hear them stayed it so unequivocably. If this is a mandate to just produce more Star Trek programs I am very concerned for the quality. I absolutely loved discovery, don’t get me wrong, but one of the things that I think contributed to its overall quality was the fact that CBS gave the producers and writers time to create what they felt was the best possible programming. Again, if this becomes a man date just to produce more content, I am very worried.

Hoping for a quality animated Trek show. Lets show Clone Wars that they’re not the only kid on the block that can do it right.

Looks like CBS might have finally learned what I thought was amazingly obvious from the start. The only way to keep the subscriber base is to have new Star Trek year round. Of course, it would help if the shows were good. I don’t know if there are enough Trek fans like me who will watch even if it is low quality like the bulk of the first 15 episodes of STD were.

A limited series about Captain Robert T. April would be nice.
Born in the year 2195, Captain Robert April was the first commander of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 when it was launched in 2245 for its initial five-year mission. He was succeeded by Captain Christopher Pike.

That might be sufficiently removed from TOS that it might work better.

I would love that. But not with a production team that doesn’t want or understand how to present imaginative and fun adventure.

The days of clever and inventive writing are mostly gone, replaced by the all too familiar formula storytelling using the guise of “a new twist”
In other words, we don’t have any original ideas of our own so lets rely on what’s been done already.
Occasionally they come up with something great.
The new generation of Trekkies aren’t interested in cerebral storytelling (boring for them), it’s all bring on the next new alien baddie and kick ass.
Disc is already rehashing the Klingons yet again…another new twist to show the different type of Klingons.
Stop already!

Now, here’s something interesting. If CBS All Access has 2.5 million subscribers, that means that the viewership for DSC is less than 2.5 million, as it stands to reason that some portion of All Access subscribers don’t watch DSC (they watch sports and other shows, lord knows what). A market data blog, nScreenMedia [sic], estimated the DSC viewership at a maximum of 780,000 back on January 30, 2018. Prior to DSC, the smallest viewership for any Trek series was 2.9 million for Season 4 of Enterprise (after many viewers had given up on the show), and the ratings go upward from there for TNG through ENT (Season 1 of ENT had a viewership of 5.9 million). Whatever the actual number is today, we know that DSC has a substantially lower viewership than any previous Trek series. So, what does this mean?

Well, the business model for All Access being dependent upon paid subscriptions would comport with the DSC marketing strategy being deliberately narrow. Rather than trying to appeal to a broad audience (which DSC clearly doesn’t have), CBS needs to keep Discovery’s relatively small audience satisfied enough to keep paying their monthly fee. This may explain why CBS’s marketing strategy for DSC has had such a specific focus on “diversity” in lieu of a broader appeal based on the dramatic content of the show. Apparently CBS chose a relatively narrow demographic slice and went all-in on that slice. I’m not saying here that it’s a good or bad strategy (though, I did complain about it during the initial marketing run), but just that it’s interesting. And it will be interesting to see if the marketing strategy for DSC changes going forward, in light of CBS’s stated intentions to greatly expand the viewership of that show. Will CBS just focus on appealing to more of the same demographic, or will they change their marketing strategy to have a broader appeal? We shall see.

Yes I can buy this easily. That 2.5 million number really confirmed everything I have been saying and that DIS is probably the lowest watched Trek show ever. I say this because there are people who literally never heard of it. When all the other shows were on, people at least knew there was a show called Voyager on even if they never watched it. I can tell you personally how many empty blank stares I still get when I asked people have they watched Discovery and while they are in the minority they have actually said, ‘Is there a new Star Trek show on?’

And that’s because DIS basically lives online. You can’t just run into it the way you can the multiple reruns of TNG, TOS or Voyager on a station somewhere. There are no traditional ads for it. I mean on a TV show, they would run ads every week to promote the next episodes. Serious question, how many times do anyone see an ad promoting Discovery? None. You literally have to go to Youtube (or AA) to see one. That is the one draw back to a service like AA, these shows can literally feel like they don’t exist if you don’t have the platform and the buzz isn’t bigger than the usual geek circles.

And I don’t know anyone that has AA. There are still people who doesn’t know that exist either. DIS basically is being watched by the most hardcore fans right now. That’s why I find it hard to believe its being watched mostly by a ‘new’ audience because unless there is something about the show interested you beforehand, most people who are going to spend to watch it monthly are people who are already fans. Yeah some people will try it, but the majority are the same people whose been watching for decades.

Now if this was on Netflix or traditional TV, thats different, because so many has those. But a site with under 3 million, I would be shocked if it was more than 2 million who watches this show.

Tiger2

Right, and all of what you said is due to CBS trying to use DSC to grow All Access. If they’d done a deal with Netflix for the US like they did for outside the US, then DSC would have had more exposure by this point. Whether and by how much the show’s viewership would be larger at this point, as a Netflix show in the US, we can’t know. But, it stands to reason that greater awareness of the show would probably lead to greater viewership, to some degree. Even people like me who have given up on DSC would be more likely to re-visit the show if it were just a click away every time we were on Netflix, which is pretty much every day for me.

What’s kind of ironic about the whole thing—to me, anyway—is that, before DSC was marketed, I had assumed that the narrow viewership of All Access would bode well for the show. I figured that, without the pressure of a diverse, national viewership (and the variations in taste intrinsic thereto), DSC would be free to be a top-notch, “cerebral” type of show, in the best tradition of Trek from TOS onward. But, what has actually happened is that the narrowness of DSC’s audience has led to a narrow marketing appeal that has nothing to do with “cerebralness,” but rather with “diversity” as a cultural/ideological issue. In other words, instead of selling DSC to nerds, like Trek did in the old days, CBS decided to sell DSC to social justice warriors, for lack of better psychographic terms. And, again, I’m not saying that this was a good or a bad marketing strategy—time will tell. But, I am curious as to whether CBS is going to stick with it as they aim for a 1,000% increase in All Access subscriptions. It will be interesting to see how it all develops.

Agreed, Cygnus, and that was a fine summation, imo. Cerebral this is not, thus far.

No doubt if this show was on Netflix there would be way more viewers. Not just because more people have Netflix but because Netflix is more ingrained in the culture. Everyone knows what it is and usually viewed as pretty positive. And even if you don’t have it directly you know SOMEONE who does so its easy to watch someone else’s. If no one has AA (which is definitely my case) then even less of a chance to try it. And its just more content on Netflix so people will give it a chance because there will be other things they may want to watch.

I think AA makes people a little more hesitant because it’s just not much on there at the moment. So DIS has to really sell you on trying out AA while Netflix doesn’t have that problem. And they give people free sign ups for a month. I think AA it’s a week. It really should be longer.

Of course that’s why DIS is there, but I don’t think the show is strong enough yet to bring many people over to the site and more than likely why Picard is showing up. I think once CBS realized the show wasn’t bringing in enough then they decided they needed a ‘name’ go with the next one. It still may not work how they want but I have a hard time believing having Picard won’t do much better than Discovery at least.

I think the logic is sound when thinking a Picard show on CBSAA will move the needle towards people knowing it exists far more than just a brand new Star Trek show. In fact, I think the thing that would move the needle even more would be an announcement that Shatner is coming back.

Yeah, the name recognition from Stewart/Picard and hoping it rubs off on All Access and brings subscribers would seem to be a big part of CBS’s strategy with the new show. It is curious how Shatner seems to keep getting passed over when producers are looking for a popular Trek icon to bring audience to a new Trek movie or TV series. Orci & Kurtzman did write a scene for Shatner for ST09 (I can’t remember if Shatner declined it because it was too small, or if Paramount and/or JJ put the kibosh on it, or both), but the main role obviously went to Nimoy as Spock. And now this new show is going to Stewart as Picard.

Well, Kirk DID perish on Veridian III. They would have to come up with a resurrection story for him to return. It was also my understanding the Shatner had little interest in such a small cameo back in ST ’09. Spock was the choice not because Shatner was passed over. But because his character was dead and Spock was still alive post Nemeses.

ML31

Yeah, but as Shatner is fond of saying, “It’s science fiction. There’s any number of ways to bring Kirk back.” The Genesis Planet resurrected Spock. They could find a way to get that technology in hand and use it to resurrect Kirk. And dozens of other ways. He was opposed to doing a cameo, though.

I agree, you’re always just going to get a lot more attention when you bring back iconic actors. It was exactly why they brought back Nimoy for the Kelvin films. They needed to get the attention of the fanbase and it was exciting to see an actor who hasn’t been in the role for fifteen years come back to it. And it was to tell fans they can accept these new actors in the old roles. If Nimoy is fine with it, you should be too.

I think in Stewart’s case he’s killing two birds by having a familiar face in the franchise again since Nimoy return and bringing back a time period many Trek fans been wanting to see for so long. Or just wanted to go forward again.

And yeah who knows, if Stewart’s show really does energize the Trek base in a way Discovery couldn’t then this may bring in other actors like Shatner and their own Trek projects. I mean I don’t want a revolving door of just old characters either but end of the day CBS is going to go for what works, especially for a streaming site many still don’t think is worth the money or have much interest in signing up for.

If we’re going to be following the Discovery model of a smaller number of episodes than in the past – or even less with the Picard show potentially being a mini series – that’s quite a number of programmes they’re going to have to have on the go at any one time. So long as each has its own ring fenced creatives attached though that should hopefully avoid burnout.

So much concern here for CBS well-being. It’s touching really …

LOL!

Anybody else not see a problem with this? This is the definition of milking a cash cow.

We been discussing the ‘problem’ since this been up. Yes, others see it too lol.

Actually gives is more reason to pay and as long they are good the n it’s all good.

What about a post first contact but pre enterprise show? A show about the C that actually starts on the B?

Have Manny Coto do a Scott Bakula-based ENT mini-series on the Romulan War so we can finally all get it our of our system…

Now THAT I could get on board for. I’d LOVE to see a good rousing Enterprise mini series and give them a proper send off.

Agreed!

Would DEFINITELY watch that too! I would take a fifth season of Enterprise over a second one of Discovery IF we got the Romulan War.

Love it or hate it, Disco continues to trend on Netflix here in Japan. Either CBSAA or Netflix would be logical for the East Asian market…

Another limited series I would love to see is the story of the USS Constellation in its final weeks or days investigating, encountering and fighting the planet killing Doomsday Machine.
One can only hope.