CBS Announces Star Trek Series Focusing On Section 31 Starring Michelle Yeoh

The universe of Star Trek on television continues to expand with yet another announcement today of a show previously rumored. Star Trek is going black ops.

Michelle Yeoh to head Section 31 Star Trek show

Following a report from the Hollywood trades back in November, today CBS made the news of a Section 31 show with Michelle Yeoh official. This morning CBS announced that a new live-action series was in development for CBS All Access starring Michelle Yeoh, who has had a recurring role in Star Trek: Discovery. According to CBS the untitled series “will expand on Yeoh’s current role as a member of Starfleet’s Section 31 division, a shadow organization within the Federation, on Star Trek: Discovery.”

The series will be produced by CBS Television Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth will serve as executive producers. Aaron Baiers will serve as co-executive producer along with Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, who will also write the series. Kurtzman announced that Kim and Lippoldt will serve as showrunners.

“Michelle has shattered ceilings, broken boundaries, and astonished us with her grace and gravitas for decades. As a human, I adore her. As an actor, I revere her,” said Alex Kurtzman. “Erika and Boey are remarkable, exciting writers who bring a fresh perspective to the world of ‘Star Trek,’ and we’re all thrilled to explore the next wild chapter in the life of Captain Philippa Georgiou.”

“I’m so excited to continue telling these rich ‘Star Trek’ stories,” said Michelle Yeoh. “Being a part of this universe and this character specifically has been such a joy for me to play. I can’t wait to see where it all goes – certainly, I believe it will go ‘where no WOMAN has ever gone before!’”

Michelle Yeoh at New York Comic Con Star Trek panel in October (CBS)

Trek goes black ops

Alex Kurtzman has often been quoted saying that his goal for expanding Star Trek on television is to develop each show with its own unique tone and style. The announcement of this show notes “CBS All Access goes black ops” indicating this new show will be leaning into the action and espionage nature of Section 31.

Michelle Yeoh was originally part of Discovery as Captain Phillipa Georgiou, who died in the two-part pilot when her ship the USS Shenzhou was destroyed. However, she came back during season one in some flashbacks and most notably playing the Mirror Universe version of herself, Emperor Georgiou, who returned to the Prime Universe late in the season and began to masquerade as the not-really-dead Captain Georgiou. Her joining Section 31 was first revealed in a “bonus scene” revealed at WonderCon in 2018 and she has been featured in photo and video previews for the second season of Discovery.

Michelle Yeoh in a Section 31 outfit, from a preview image of season two of Star Trek: Discovery

The Section 31 series is the latest expansion of Star Trek on television. In addition to the already released Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Short Treks, CBS has officially announced the development of a new show focusing on Jean-Luc Picard featuring the return of Sir Patrick Stewart and an animated comedy, Lower Decks, being developed by Emmy Award winner Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty). There are also reports of other shows in development including a more kid-friendly animated series and a live-action youth-oriented Starfleet Academy show.


Keep up with all the upcoming Star Trek TV projects at TrekMovie.com.

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SWEEEEET.

Contact Starfleet Command!

Despite rumors of this, I wasn’t sure if it would happen as it sounded like they are wanting each show to be significantly unique and different from each other. While this sounds very intriguing, I’m curious how they will make it significantly different than Discovery in overall tone and feel.

They’re only doing it because of Michelle Yeoh, I’m sure. She’s a star internationally, and China is a HUGE market (yes I know CBSAA is not in China, but it’s on Netflix there, and a S31 series with Yeoh could help propel CBSAA into that territory)

Yep, we should not under-estimate what a well-renowned movie actress she is. Star Trek is lucky to a new series with her at the helm.

Of course, I have been a fan of her since her Hong Kong action days. She could and of course still can kick major butt.

She was in Marco Polo, too. Just sayin…

Still mad that Netflix didn’t figure out a way to do another season of Marco Polo or spin it off. Such a good show.

I agree.Poor move by Netflix.It was one of their shining examples of a quality programming

The question is; are China trying to make tv shows that appeal deliberately and systematically to the American and ‘western’ market?

Why would they, the west is going downhill.

So you think that we’ll be watching Chinese movies in 25 yrs or so? Hollywood becomes today’s Bollywood?

Some of us already are watching them. In spite of the political restrictions, some Chinese filmmakers are among the best in the world.

I watch a lot of asian movies on Netflix.

Why is that the question?

Netflix isn’t in China. And I don’t see it popping up there in any foreseeable time due to censorship. I don’t think that CBSAA had the rationale of “Michelle Yeoh is a big Asian actress, therefore we can make mega bucks in China.” Why? Not all her stuff works there.

“Crazy Rich Asians” was an international hit for her, but a flop in China. Additionally, Western science fiction can often underperform in China (i.e. some of the Star Wars films), so to build a million dollar series just for an untested market would be a weird business model. I also doubt that they’d launch CBSAA China anytime soon, for they’d probably have to censor certain Star Trek episodes. In general, Star Trek in China has the same nostalgic value as Star Wars in the Middle Kingdom–which is, to say, sadly very little.

In general, though, your instincts seem to be correct. I think they mainly greenlit this show because Yeoh has movie star status. And yes, her actual casting is a major coup for CBSAA. Star Trek has drawn in movie stars before, but usually they are past their prime and no longer in hit films.

“Crazy Rich Asians” wasn’t really an international hit.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=crazyrichasians.htm

It made nearly 3/4 of its total gross in the USA. Nearly half of the rest of the money came only from Australia, UK and Indonesia. I mean for a movie with such a small budget it has done great, but in most countries in the world it hasn’t really received any attention.

Well… I stand corrected on that point, Mel! Thanks for sharing that link.

Still, I guess those figures do further an argument that CBSAA does feel as though Yeoh has some appeal in Western markets.

No not in China but in the US!

And Michelle was killed off, unfortunately and way too soon!

Could work too as more of an anthology show, with distinct missions/mysteries from week to week. X-Files type. That could be another way to distinguish it from the others.

I think that would work better for this series. Show us multiple Section 31 missions instead of one single mission that lasts a whole season.

I have been wanting a sec:31 show since they first told stories about it. Does anyone know what show it was first mentioned?

Section 31 first appeared in DS9’s sixth season, in the episode “Inquisition.” It made several more appearances in DS9’s last season, and also in Enterprise’s last season. And then it ended up on the big screen in “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

It will be different being a spy show, the first show that won’t be about exploration but intelligence full time. We at least know they won’t be weaing the same uniforms lol.

Congratulations to CBS for green lighting the second Star Trek series that follows a character who commits acts of genocide. At least Archer didn’t brag about eating people.

Yeah, and for those who think the Star Trek world is only inhabited by good people (in spite of all evidence to the contrary), go watch Care Bears: The Next Generation. :-P

I think that the idealist view of the future is one of the things that attracts many of us to the Star Trek universe. That said, we also all know there were bad and questionable things going on in the Federation and Starfleet long before, during and after TOS and TNG. Just look at the plethora of questionable, misguided or evil Federation characters from TOS and TNG, like Captain Tracey (TOS), Lt McGivers (TOS), Dr Sevrin, Professor Gill (TOS), Commander Finney (TOS), Admiral Pressman (TNG), Captain Maxwell (TNG), etc., etc., etc. For those fans to deny the existence of these persons and their actions is a little short-sighted.

I agree whole-heartedly. I’m attracted to Star Trek because of its positive view of the future. But we know that it is not a future without flaws, and humans, in the end, will be humans. As Sisko once put it, “It is easy to be a saint in paradise.” And if the goal is to have variety within the set of shows, why not having an anti-hero show, that goes alongside the hero show in the same timeline? Let’s look at it with an open mind. Maybe is not a bad thing that the idealistic world of Star Trek gets, not pessimistic, but a bit more realistic…

If we look at the past several centuries then sadly the idealistic vision of humanity as depicted in TNG (it’s only 340 odd yrs away!) is somewhat unrealistic.
Just come to the UK and ‘democracy in action’ to see where we are at on our path to the future. It ain’t pretty.

Being a U.S. citizen, why would I need to visit the UK to see that? :-(

(Actually, I did visit London some years back and very much liked the place, for all its challenges.)

Indeed. For someone who joined the family of “western democracies” only recently (well, thirty years ago, but it feels like yesterday), it’s very much disturbing to watch your country being kidnapped by people like Sadiq Khan, Humza Yousaf and Magid Mah, using nothing but established democratic mechanisms. They’re using your own democracy to turn your country into their country, and they’re silencing any dissent using the laws that were made against them in the first place. It’s like some bizarre geographical twist on Invasion of the Body Snatchers: “My Britain is not my Britain anymore”.

But well, I guess it was inevitable…. after all, we DO need something to trigger the global cataclysm from which the humankind emerges reborn, refreshed and united. It’s right there in the Star Trek chronology. Before the phoenix rises from the ashes, it first has to burn down.

Holy racism, Batman!

Do you even listen to yourself?

The first two were born in London and Glasgow respectively, which makes them just as British as Theresa May and Nigella Lawson. By all accounts they have made respectable careers and served their constituents honourably.

The third gentleman is yes, an immigrant, but he’s a scientist, an environmentalist, and the elected Lord Mayor of Sheffield.

If you’re only just now waking up to the fact that Britons of brown complexion exist – their parents and grandparents having been welcomed as Commonwealth citizens, since after WWII – That’s on you.

It also says more about you that you don’t trust British communal values, the values these men were born into or chose – not enough to assume they have internalized them as much as the Queen has.

I thought Sadiq Khan was born in London?

Captain Ben Maxwell was a hero. If people had listened to him perhaps billions of lives could have been spared because of the Dominion War. Now, a series about Captain Maxwell (Bob Gunton) would be something worth watching.

I actually think Pressman was an undercover section 31 agent.

Yeah him and Admiral Kennelly!!

There is a big difference between a baddie-of-the week being disproven in a battle of wits by our heroes who are the firm focus and anchor of the series, and said anchor being a Dystopian outlaw organization helmed by a genocidal maniac, and you know it. This is disingenuous.

Section 31 recruiting Georgiou is not the same as Section 31 being led by Georgiou.

Don’t you worry – if she has not lost her mirror universe “ambition”, she will be helming it in no time ;)

I *choked* at this shade! Hahaha!! XD

Whilst you’re on that high horse of yours – you ( and I ) have absolutely no idea how the series will unfold or what Mirror-Georgiou’s journey will be.

You are always free to not watch the series when it comes out.

“Congratulations to CBS for green lighting the second Star Trek series that follows a character who commits acts of genocide.”

This is going to be interesting. I see two ways of handling her character. Either her journey becomes one of redemption and reformation, not unlike what they did for Xena back in the day, or her character will be this universe’s John Wick, remaining – to some extend – an enigmatic, primeval killing machine. Maybe this universe will virtually open her eyes to the light or she’ll forever be that brooding, sinister force of terror. It is an intriguing starting point.

The only downside of this: her character’s origins are deeply embedded in DSC’s storyline, so casual viewers will be having a hard time catching up with this convoluted premise…

> The only downside of this: her character’s origins are deeply embedded in DSC’s storyline, so casual viewers will be having a hard time catching up with this convoluted premise…

Unless they just end up ignoring most of it and soft-rebooting the character, which is what I suspect will happen.

Not a chance.

But they wouldn’t be wasting her an entire season of Discovery if the point was to reboot her. I suspect the COMPLETE opposite and that they are going to build S31 up on Discovery and create a story line on this show that will lead directly into the new show. Kind of like what they did with the Maquis on TNG and DS9 before we saw them on Voyager. But in this case I suspect other the S31 characters on Discovery like Leland (who recruited her) will transfer over.

My theory is that her evil MU DNA will slowly get eroded away until she sees how great the “good” side is.

Yeah its just weird that would happen while she was a member of S31 lol. I did think before we knew she would join them that we would see her this season getting closer to Burnham and understand how the PU works and in time accepts it. I thought that was the direction they were going to go. Instead it looks like they are going all in with the antagonist side. Maybe you’re right though.

It’s VERY difficult to have a lead character be 100% evil. We’ve had bad guys lead shows before but we see that they aren’t really ALL bad and that leads to the hope among viewers that they could be redeemed in some way. Personally, given the nature of the MU I would think such a thing is not possible. But the show runners can make it possible if they want I suppose. I wouldn’t find that credible but it is their show…

From what we know she is worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined. Her death count should be immeasurably higher. Do people really want to see her redemend and reformed? I rather see her punished for all the things she has done.

Who said anything about redeemed and reformed? She’s going to be a counter-intelligence agent.

The person I was answering to presented two options, her being redeemed and reformed or her being presented as a enigmatic, primeval killing machine like John Wick. Both options are crap. Someone like her has done too much to be redeemed, but if she stays a bastard like before, it will make the Federation look even worse than they already do for hiring her.

@Living Rektajino — I’m rather starting to see where the concept of Admiral Marcus came from in STID … I was blaming Orci, but it may have been Kurtzman all along.

I always suspected it was both Orci and Kurtzman.

@ Tiger2: Lindelof was also a writer on that movie. Hard to know who contributed what to the story.

Good point. Forgot about Lindelof….now we can pass the blame farther. ;)

NOW that I think about it, I think it was Lindelof who pushed for Khan the most and convinced Orci to do it. I think Kurtzman was always on board with doing Khan.

So that people will complain again how DSC-Trek is “too dark”.

While convienently ignoring that DS9 was just as dark.

No one ignored it about DS9, the difference was it wasn’t the only Trek show on so it was a balance. And DS9 wasn’t always dark, it had tons of light characters and episodes and provided tons of comedy relief in the process.

We have seen 15 Discovery episodes so far, compared to 176 DS9 episodes. It’s a little early to say that Discovery is always one thing.

Also, people who claim that DSC is “dark” or has no “light characters” seem to be missing Stamets, the party they threw, the Mudd episodes (which were a lot comedy) and Tilly, who is the textbook definition of a light character.

All of this, an entire war, an exploration of the Mirror Universe and a deep questioning of the values of the Federation (and their final affirmation by Burnham) in half the episodes other shows had in one season.

I could respond to all of those, Stargazer but I will only say this here. The questioning of the values of the Federation was done in the most shallow and weakest ways possible. There are other episodes in other Trek shows that examined such things in much deeper ways.

And while season 2 is looking like they are changing tones, we have had one full “season” of Discovery. DS9 had enough time in their seasons to throw in more character and lighter episodes.

@Mel
Darth Vader slaughtered Billions, his story ended in redemption. I think you are missing the idea that people want to believe that no one is irredeemable.

Vader isn’t redeemable in the slightest, no matter what he does. The fact he doesn’t even have the capabililty of, say, Newman’s character in ROAD TO PERDITION to say, ‘none of us are going to see heaven,’ is proof of inferior writing and conceptualizing in SWU. Cramming Campbellian mythology into SW may work some of the time, but bringing stuff full circle doesn’t make the thing immune to valid criticism.

Does anybody thing Trump is redeemable (for his personal behavior or his performance as Flake-in-Chief?) And if so, WHY?!

They may have to do a 70s/80s style voiceover on the opening credits to fill in casual viewers: “Snatched from a universe where she ruled as an empress, Philippa Georgiou must survive in a world that lives by laws alien to all she knows…” *cue big orchestral theme tune over montage of explosions and spinny-round kicks*.

This suddenly brought the opening of A-team to my mind. I don’t think this show will be as lighthearted as the A-team.

I concur. Maybe she’ll a spit roast a few underlings in the 1st episode? Millions of viewers will follow her every move, wanting her to right moral wrongs every week!

You know western civilisation is doomed when unfathomable insanity like this has been green lit as Star Trek.

What, are you talking about Dear Doctor? I don’t think its really fair to call that genocide. Archer just decided that it wasn’t his place to map the future of their civilization. He wasn’t stopping them from creating their own cure, or finding one some place else.

I agree with you. He made a tough decision and it was a decision that he didn’t look completely happy with

Not on board. Dark and nihilistic stories should be a rare treat, not an entire season. Used sparingly, they’re a wonderful and fascinating contrast to the rosy Rodenberry Federation world view. Produced as a season these stories are just reconfiguring Star Trek and imho not in a good way.

How do you know that it’s dark and nihilistic? It may turn out the exact opposite.

True, but the fact that we have a genocidal psychopath in the lead coupled with the on screen track record of section 31 should be ringing alarm bells..

CBS creative decisions continue to boggle the mind.

Love the idea of a Section 31 show, but wish it was set in a different era. Why not an early 24th century show, with a young Lt. Sloan?

Perhaps we could delve into the Past and the shady history of SECTION 31 through Mirror-Georgiou’s eyes?

Not a lot of people would watch that show.

Yeah I am skeptical too but am willing to see if they can prove me wrong. Also don’t forget Michelle Yeoh is a huge global star and I think there is a massive market overseas that might be willing to give it a shot.

It all depends on how you approach it. A series about a young Starfleet lieutenant recruited by a clandestine organization to take part in rogue operations to undermine enemy governments? Sounds exciting to me, and probably to many.

That it’s a young Sloan is just a perk for us diehards.

Because a Sloan series wouldn’t be as interesting.

Sloan isn’t as ruthless as MU Georgiou is and that guy is pretty ruthless lol. And we know the entire point is to keep Yeoh around so it makes sense.

But I wouldn’t be shocked not to see S31 pop up on the new Picard show. A member had a great theory they could even be involved in the Romulus explosion. I doubt it will happen but it shows how far they can go with this group.

Would be something if we get a Sloan in this series and it turns out that he has been a series of Section 31 clones.

So… You want to copy Weyun then?

This is so exciting. Aside from learning about the underworld of Section 31, I hope we get a rich character exploration of what it’s like for someone from the mirror universe to exist in ours.

I have a hard time imagining a “rich” exploration of a character that’s a one-dimensional cartoon by design.

@Living Raktajino — Here’s the thing, the Mirror Universe is by its very nature campy. It was created that way. Regardless, at least two one-dimensional characters emerged from “Mirror Mirror”. Both Spock and Marlena are just such characters, both capable of growth and rich character development. I would love to see a series about how Mirror Spock and Marlena proceed to use the advice that Prime Kirk gave them, to facilitate the overthrow of the Empire. I’m also equally interested in seeing how Mirror Kirk, Bones, Uhura and Scotty were discovered and apprehended in the Prime Universe, and by extension how Yeoh manages to do fit in. DS9 apparently did it all the time, and managed some well received stories, so I imagine it’s possible here too.

I’m not thrilled about a series focused on Section 31, something I consider is one of the worst ideas ever broached in the Trek franchise, along with the Temporal Agents, and explaining the Klingon forehead differences in TOS. That said, I love Yeoh and am looking forward to seeing how they develop this interesting twist on an organization I find otherwise unpalatable. I think there’s a lot of potential here, assuming they are able to step up to the plate.

It’s a realistic depiction that says that you cannot have an utopian society without making some shady deals along the way. This is a show that will allow big questions to be asked about the price of utopia, about moral grey areas and about hard decisions that form people. This is a show that shows you that Picard can only be as noble as he is because others are willing to compromise for him and the show will ask if that’s worth it.

This is a very grown up, mature concept that takes a campy idea (the Federation) and injects a dose of reality into it, making it deeper in the process, not shallower.

Just wait and see how the show will play out before you complain.

Or… it’s something else, entirely.

The message will just be that an utopian society doesn’t exist in the Star Trek universe. There is nothing grey about hiring someone like Georgiou to work for the Federation. It is just pitch black darkness. It will make the Federation look worse than most current countries.

You have no idea how this plays out, especially since it will lead to the Federation you know from the Kirk and Picard era. This is a decade before Kirk, this is uncharted territory. Give it a chance and be positively surprised, maybe?

I rather see each series on its own and don’t sully TOS and TNG with this Section 31 crap. DS9 came up with Section 31 and it was already a very bad idea back then. And instead of forgetting this mistake, stupid producers/writers who seemingly just hate portraying an utopian future and love making the Federation shady and immoral, have to use them again and again and each time their use is getting worse. Now Section 31 agents are such immoral assholes that they don’t even hesitate to hire someone like evil Georgiou.

Well they did use Khan as well. I don’t think Khan ever ate another sentient species but he was pretty pro-genocide as well.

I think you are spot on in your evaluation Mel, but instead of complaining about it I just won’t be watching it. I believe the target audience for this is a type of Star Trek fan that secretly hates the Federation’s inclusive values and would love to see them turned upside down. The kind of person that believes the end justifies the means (rather than believing the means affect the end which affects the means again… and are actually inseparable). They probably want to see torture, murder and sabotage propping up a utopia because they don’t understand that this, by definition, prevents it from being a Utopian world vision (or don’t care). That doesn’t mean they can’t have their own show, but it is a shame that it bears the Star Trek name and logo. If I’m wrong about the show and who it attracts and how it goes, then good, but if not, it probably won’t last long anyway. Meanwhile, we’ve got the Picard show to look forward to and the second series of Discovery is shaping up nicely too :-)

It will be given a chance of course, but on paper sorry, imho it’s a further adulteration of Trek..

The best depiction of the moral costs of utopia that I know of is the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin. Somehow, I doubt that a Trek series about a murderous Section 31 operative will better it.

You’re singlehandedly creating new reading lists for this long-set-in-his-reading-habits 58 year old, thanks again.

“It’s a realistic depiction that says that you cannot have an utopian society without making some shady deals along the way.”

Yes exactly and why I never had problems with them being part of Star Trek. And it was really smart of the writers when they introduced them to say they have always been apart of Starfleet since its inception because then it would make sense how Starfleet has managed to thrive for so long without directly engaging in the dirtier work. They been doing it the whole time, just without any direct knowledge.

Of course that said it gets tricky when you are basing an entire show around an organization people in the 24th century never even heard of canon wise but Discovery has already done things no one should know now lol so we’ll see what they do I guess.

But the Federation is not ‘campy’ its mostly based off the U.N. model when all said and done, it just exists in a galaxy where the UN has direct governmental powers over its body and not just as a side function of them.

You, like many, lack imagination.

Yes. I don’t think you are wrong, Living Raktajino. Using a mirror character in the PU I find to be problematic at best. Just think about what the purpose of the MU is and it’s tough to disagree.

Thankfully, she’s not a one-dimensional cartoon by design, so you have nothing to worry about.

True, it’s the one dimensional EXECUTION on DSC that is more problematic than the design.

Sturgeon mentioned that he thought Kirk was kind of one-dimensional by design, but that Shatner added so much to it that it became immensely worthwhile. Kind of the opposite here, since there was the potential for so much more and it was all squandered right out of the gate.

That, and I have little desire to see what is inspirational about the Star Trek universe sullied by “the underworld of Section 31” all the time, every time.

Sullied!

The horror!

Then… don’t watch it? That seems like the easiest option, no?

I’ll watch episode 1 at least, but I know what I’m expecting and it ain’t gonna be pretty. If true, I’m out after that…

Man if you are going to watch season 2 of Discovery you are basically getting a taste of what they might do with the show. Watch that first and see if it sways you. My guess is this was all timed on purpose. They announced the new show ahead of Discovery run so it helps build more promotion for Discovery new season and will give everyone a chance to see how they will be portrayed. Maybe everyone will still hate it but it might surprise you too.

The truth is, I’ve watched every iteration of Trek, collected the novels, the books, the toys, the dvds, the blu rays.. It’s only been since the cbs all access version started airing that I feel a sense of sick dread as I start to view each new episode.. I am worried..

As someone who has not loved Discovery much either, I hear you. But I say this all the time, most Star Trek shows people had problems with. Everyone knows this, its discussed over and over again and yet we somehow act like this show or others simply can’t improve. It’s been 15 episodes, there is still lots of time to get it to the level many of us remembered.

I have been accused of hating this show when that’s never been remotely true, I’m just critical of it. But I been critical of ALL of them lol. Now I like all of them but those shows been off for decades now and we have the entire show to judge them on. Not so with Discovery being brand new. And nostalgia is a powerful tool. I hear people wax on about TOS like its the greatest show ever and that show had some pretty big stinkers, you only think about the good ones today. And thats most of Star Trek, you will find just as many bad episodes as you find good ones but the good ones are REALLY good. That’s what I keep telling myself, they all improved in my eyes and some even surpassed my initial expectations like Enterprise ended up doing.

I never had any problems when people say they think the show sucks. As I said I have been accused of believing that when I have never said once, ever! But yes it has loads of room for improvement. I Just have faith it will be based on precedent. But if you still feel as bad after next season, OK, you gave it a real shot but as we also know most shows didn’t really improve until their third season. Hopefully it will improve before then though.

Starfleet made a lot of terrible decisions in Discovery season one and conscripting the fugitive Terran Emperor into Section 31 was probably the worst, most ridiculous of them. Michelle Yeoh, the actor, is an excellent choice to lead a Section 31 action/intrigue show, but this character leaves only two options:

1. Remain true to the premise of the character, which means Georgiou scheming harder than Lorca to seize power, thus completely distracting from the premise of the show

or

2. Remain true to the premise of the show, which means Georgiou playing nice with Starfleet, thus utterly selling out the premise of the character

If there’s a way they can be true to both, I’d love to see it, but it doesn’t seem feasible to me. Hopefully, Kim and Lippoldt can surprise me.

Well, it’s not like Section 31 was ever nice, is it?

I don’t expect them to be nice, but I do expect them to be smart enough to have even the slightest instinct for self-preservation. Empowering a loose cannon like mirror Georgiou is just flat-out suicidal.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first bad hire in the Universe, would it? :-P

“Empowering a loose cannon like mirror Georgiou is just flat-out suicidal.”

I khan’t help thinking of the Kelvinverse Section 31 at this point :-)

Weird, isn’t it, that a secret service would hire a woman who become the most powerful person in the universe that is based on betrayal, espionage and backstabbing. Oh, wait…

There’s a difference between hiring someone who’s ruthless and immoral and hiring someone who has demonstrated a readiness to kill anyone and anything that gets in the way of her personal agenda- an agenda that’s directly at odds with that of your organization.

Section 31 is a shadowy organization that sees people as tools, regardless of their personal opinion about Starfleet or its ideals. This is very well within their established lines of behaviour.

An organization can see people as tools without being foolish enough to pick up a circular saw when what they need is a pair of tweezers.

Everything we’ve seen about her so far shows her as a highly competent leader. I’d argue: her capabilities make her worth the risk.

Highly competent at ruling through fear and killing everyone that steps out of line… I think that’s about the only competency she’s shown so far. It’s not exactly tactical genius.

Now you’re starting to sound like a Social Justice Warrior. It’s a TV show, not based on real events or real people.

You mean like Captain Kirk? That guy who flew around the galaxy fighting for oppressed peoples, saving the whales, turning the other cheek to the Klingons, defeating actual and presumptive gods, forging alliances and brokering co-existence with alien species, putting his life and career on the line when the system treated people unjustly?

Whatta hippie!

Good one, Fredster. Maybe we need to rewrite the words to SHAFT and make it about JTK.

Who’s the cat that won’t beam out, when there’s trouble all about, Kirk – can you dig it.

He’s a complicated man, but No one understands him but his executive officer

(last part needs work … badly, as TMP Kirk would say.)

The thing here is that S31 thinks they can control her. Either they actually can, or Georgiou herself, as was hinted at in the deleted scene, winds up appreciating the organization, and their willingness to break rules– moral and legal– in the name of defense.

I’m willing to bet it’s a mix of the two.

Living Raktajino,

By that, you mean you prefer something MORE suicidally realistic, like the US and the USSR joining forces to end Nazi tyranny only to employ numerous Nazi agents and scientists against each other after the war’s end?

Agreed. It was an awful idea, but then (and much as I love DS9 overall), Section 31 was an awful idea.

Good analysis. I agree.

They haven’t learned from past mistakes. “Franchise fatigue” was blamed for the box office failure of “Nemesis” and the eventual cancellation of “Enterprise”.

You CAN have too much of a good thing.

You have to remember that MCU has 3-4 movies each year for the past 5+ years. The reason why they are successful is that they keep each story interesting and exciting while playing off of what has or will be coming next. If Star Trek can model that same approach, I do not think we will see the same fatigue that we saw in the early 2000’s.

Star Trek isn’t the MCU not does it have that kind of reach or broad appeal. It’s limited by its current platform.

I’m not as worried about franchise fatigue as long as they limit the seasons to 10-15 episodes per series.

I agree with this. As long as I have SOME Star Trek to tune into weekly, I am happy. 10-15 episode arcs from different shows is a great idea in my opinion.

I too would like small runs. I love the fact that Discovery is only 14-15 episodes for I find it hard to invest a lot of time into all the shows that are out there right now.

IMHO, I think CBSAA should limit a Section 31 series to 6 episodes.

Franchise fatigue is a myth. Produce high quality, diverse entertainment and it will continue to be successful. Law and Order thrived for decades with 2, 3, and sometimes 4 shows on the air. Same for CSI, Stargate, Doctor Who.

The problem is when the shows are mediocre.

I wouldn’t say STARGATE thrived with two shows on the air. Atlantis and Destiny both got cancelled prematurely, and we never got the SGI-concluding movie. All the Stargate made-for-TV movies were disappointing.

@The River — I’m not sure that can all be blamed on franchise fatigue at all. SGU in particular was a radical departure from SGI and SGA, and didn’t sit well with the fans. Also, I never really got that the fan base was ever as big as Star Trek even at its height of popularity. Then there’s MGM … STARGATE could definitely use a healthy reboot, and the poor-man’s way they handled it with STO is not it …

L&O, CSI and Stargate all stretched their respective franchises a bit too far and with varying degrees of success. Of the many L&O spinoffs only SVU managed to thrive and the rest of virtually forgotten. Atlantis was marginally successful and Universe failed to click with viewers. CSI is no longer a presence on televisions and I doubt few remember CSI: New York.

Dr. Who is in a class of it’s own.

Especially considering the fact that even Law and Order had a series that was cancelled after the first season and CSI Cyber sure didn’t last long

Who says these shows are all going to be broadcast at the same time?

Correct. All these shows are announced, but that doesn’t mean they’re in production, and that doesn’t mean they’ll all be released at the same time. Quite the contrary, the entire point is that there will be some kind of Trek content on throughout the year. They want things spread out and they want different flavors of Trek to prevent issues of fatigue. Remember, they aren’t bound to normal broadcast TV seasons (i.e. shows run September to June).

https://trekmovie.com/2018/08/06/cbs-wants-new-star-trek-shows-all-year-round-on-all-access/

The more important thing to me is that they have their own writing and producing teams with uniquely different visions and ideas, to prevent the franchise from getting stale.

Yes, that too. You’re right, that part is very important.

That’s why DS9 worked. They were let loose into the wild as the series progressed.

Well, I’m catching up on the Marvel Netflix shows and they are now starting to pretty much all run together. After the first season of “The Punisher” I think I’m done. They are getting tired. I’m glad Disney made them stop at this point.

Disney didn’t make them stop (at least directly); Netflix cancelled them.

I can guarantee you the cancellation had a lot to do with Disney and their new service. Nothing else explains their complete and total lack of promotion of Daredevil Season 3 and Punisher Season 2. I actually had to SEARCH to find DD3.

No show, once all the money was spent to be produced, would NOT be shown on their home page on release day, unless they had a reason not to.

That reason is Disney.

No, that has been debunked multiple times. Marvel was just as surprised Netflix cancelled the shows and it wouldn’t go on the new service anyway because they already said only PG 13 movies and shows will go there and the Netflix shows are all rated mature for obvious reasons lol.

Netflix has even said Disney can’t make them cancel their shows, so it has nothing to do with that. They pay to license them literally for this very reason! That’s what a licensing contract does, give them complete autonomy to control that IP until that license runs out other wise what’s the point if another company can end it any time they want?

I do think it is partly out of bitterness that Disney is ending their relationship with them and hence taking away all their shows and movies to move to that site, so if you mean THAT then yes I agree actually. But The Defenders are Netflix shows Disney has zero power on what Netflix did with them.

The answer is kind of convoluted. It is indeed partly about the bitterness of pulling all their content. It’s also about marketing, if some content was left on Netflix and the newer shows on Disney+, the shows would end up basically being an advertisement for one another, since the properties would be split between Disney+ and Netflix, neither side wants you to go off their service to find the other shows.

But The Defenders are Netflix shows Disney has zero power on what Netflix did with them.

Not so sure about that, Netflix pays money to produce the Marvel shows, but they don’t own the actual intellectual property. Disney could easily flex their muscle and insist they end the shows. Not saying that’s what happened, but don’t underestimate the 100 lb. guerrilla of Hollywood that is Disney.

Yes but a contract IS a contract. That’s why licensing is so important in Hollywood, it does give you power over other people’s property you normally wouldn’t have.

A great example (and another Marvel one) is what is happening between Universal Studios Orlando and Walt Disney World over use of Marvel characters in the theme parks. When Marvel licensed their characters to use at Islands of Adventure (the second Universal theme park in Orlando), it gave them exclusive usage of those characters not just in Orlando but also any theme park East of the Mississippi river which means even though Disney now own Marvel they can’t put their own characters in WDW (but can in California another parks worldwide). But Disney can’t even use the word Marvel in ANY of its theme parks and that contract is indefinite as long as Universal pays on time. They would love to get around it but can’t.

These companies aren’t stupid. They sign these iron clad contracts to make sure they CAN’T lose control of them unless there is some kind of time stamp when the license simply expires. If that was the case Disney would’ve gotten Spider-Man back from Sony years ago. They know that just isn’t going to happen so they agreed to work together, but that’s probably the extent they will ever get SM back unless Sony decides to sell him back one day (good luck).

Sure they can buy these companies out, ie, 20th Century FOX, but if the others don’t want to sell back its really hard.

Netflix canceled them because of Disney. Who has rights to Marvel and is going to start their own streaming service.

LOL I just said that is not true. That has been debunked. An actor on one the shows (I think Daredevil but can’t remember) said Marvel was just as surprised Netflix cancelled the shows. No one knew or was told Netflix was cancelling them until they did it.

And they can’t stream on Disney+ because that site will only allow PG-13 fare. Discovery wouldn’t even be streamed on that site, certainly not the Netflix shows.

Here’s the weird part about the Marvel Netflix shows I’ve seen. They can but super violent. Knives, blood, fights… But until the first season of The Punisher there have been zero F bombs. In Iron Fist, the nurse even said “effing”. She said EFFING! As if something kept her from saying the word in an already ultra violent show. I found that bizarre. They dropped a couple on The Punisher but they were very soft and pretty much mumbled. I didn’t even fully recognize it until I went back with subtitles to confirm it. Why is a word so much worse than beating people up to the point where they die slow and horrid deaths?

Actually there was an F bomb in the second season of Daredevil and Marvel’s first. And yes it was said by Punisher lol. It’s from this scene (still one of the best scenes in the entire series.) It’s around the 1:55 mark and he says it pretty fast and muffled so I can see how people missed it but it’s definitely there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWh6A6ZIpfo

But I agree with you, I don’t understand how a word is SO bad it’s literally censored but it’s fine to chop someone’s head off in a scene in a movie or a show. Everyone seem so shocked Tilly dropped the F bomb but I haven’t heard one person say how shocked they were over the graphic shootings and stabbings on the same show. It really tell you the warped priorities we have on this stuff. And after rewatching that clip, man I am going to seriously miss that show! :(

I’m just going to put up my pet peeve here regarding most of these “hero” shows and movies. The good guy claims he doesn’t want to kill anyone and poo poo’s anyone who doesn’t have a problem taking a life. Even those who do it as they see it as a necessity but would rather not. Yet they themselves punch people to bloody pulps. Leave them to potentially bleed out. Or toss them down stairs and through walls which could very easily leave them very dead. Or brain damaged at best.

Well I don’t want to derail this thread too much more but I will say SOME do that, but most really just try and capture them until they are down. And you also have to remember most of these guys they are fighting usually have crazy super powers on their own so its not just a matter of detaining them, they are usually trying to do something that takes out a mass full of people and cops are usually rarely enough. They have to beat them to a pulp to literally stop them from what they are doing.

And someone like DD is much more grounded like Batman and lives by a moral code, so while he definitely gives people a good beating, its still not taking someone’s life. He’s only hitting them to stop them from doing the crime. Outright killing them would be something else for him as he explained.

And once you just start killing people like PUnisher does then you look just as bad to a lot of people (although many will appreciate it too).

See, DD has done stuff that would actually kill a good portion of people. Yet he specifically says, no killing. Yet much of his actions would result in people doing just that. Perhaps if he loosens his stance some. But yes, enough. It was just a pet peeve that was reinforced while watching those Marvel shows on the Netflix.

They won’t They don’t have to for a franchise to start losing steam.

I ave some concerns about that as well but if they space the shows so that there is always only one show on the air at any given time, then IMO that will work. The reason I didn’t watch Voyager AND DS9 was because the shows were concurrent and I didn’t like going back and forth between stories from week to week. Let’s see if this will work.

Franchise fatigue is bogus. Sorry, but we’re looking at a competition that still does A LOT more at the same time.

DC’s having two movies a year, an Arrowverse consisting of five shows including Batwoman, a DCU streaming line-up of another five shows, four annual animated movies as well as Gotham, Krypton and Pennyworth.

Marvel is churning out three movies a year, and countless new shows are around the corner, plus the reinvention of the X-Men and F4 within the MCU.

As long as you have a steadfast fanbase and don’t bore them to death, you’re save. On the contrary, I used to be mad at them for not taking that chance while all the others were thrieving. Now, we finally get to swim in our own pool of new material again…

DISCOVERY
PICARD
SECTION 31
LOWER DECKS
ANIMATED KID SHOW

Just the way it’s supposed to be!

I’d also love to see that proposed Khan movie series inbetween TOS and TWOK…I want to see Zahn McClarnon in that part (Akecheta on Westworld, Longmire, Fargo, Midnight Texas)… Imagine: ZAAAAAHN! ZAAAAAAAAHN!

It would be safe to argue that each Star Trek series will perform about as well as the Arrowverse shows but you’re still looking at content focused on a very specific audience. If the MCU is to used as a model (or even the Arrowverse) you take your time to nurture it and grow it as it starts to break out. You don’t go all in by announcing every product coming down the pipe over the next 12 months.

Zahn McClarnon as Khan? That would be a fantastic casting decision!

I agree franchise fatigue isn’t as much of an issue as people think, as we have many franchises that proves that point. Take DC as you said, in one month they had a 3 show crossover in the Arrowverse with Elseworld which had got those shows some of their highest ratings in years the same month Aquaman debut and now has crossed a billion dollars. DC is on a roll right now. People even seem to love the final season of Gotham so far.

But sure people CAN get sick of stuff, its not like the two are mutual. I think for now its probably fine to have a lot of Trek shows but the longevity will just depend on how good they are. Maybe this new rebirth of Trek will go 20 years like the last time or maybe just half that. All I can say is I LOVED watching Star Trek every week from TNG through VOY. Never complained. But even I admit by the time Enterprise showed up I wasn’t as excited and being a prequel even less so. I gave it a chance, I stopped watching after the first season. Did it have to do with fatigue, certainly. That said if I loved it from the beginning I would’ve watched that every week as well, maybe just not as enthusiastically. So its a little of both.

I know Star Trek can handle two shows on easily as we saw that for literally years and more episodes to boot. Three shows might be pushing it but probably fine. It’s when it hits four shows in a year I’m not sure about yet but if they roll them out once a year and none overlap (and they are GOOD) it will probably be fine long term.

I do believe franchise fatigue is a thing. But it’s not guaranteed. It can be avoided. Trek was unable to avoid it. Will the Arrowverse avoid it? Arrow is in its 7th season. The other shows are much younger. In 7 more years if they are all still on and all thriving, then we can say they have eluded franchise fatigue. Or they may all be tired and could be time for them to take a break. IMHO, Supergirl is already the weakest of the four main shows on at the moment.

Yes thats what I mean. It isn’t absolute and every situation is different. I find it funny people say Star Wars is now going through ‘fatigue’ which is crazy because there has only been 10 films in 40 years. And while they have released a movie a year since 2015 that’s only been four. That’s peanuts compared to Marvel which has released, drum roll please, 16 movies in nearly the same time span. That’s when you count both MCU and other studio properties like X-Men, Deadpool, etc. That is four times the movies and YET all of them were a success except Fantastic 4. The latest, Venom, is nearly at $900 million. So there is literally no real barometer to any of it. If you make something appealing enough you can get people to always come back again and again.

With shows you are a lot more committed but sure I’m guessing at SOME point people will get tired and as they gone through every story line they can. I imagine the Arrowverse will go another 5 years easily and maybe some shows will start go get cancelled but others will continue. Batgirl is now being added, so yeah that train isn’t stopping anytime soon lol.

And its not like a show is suppose to go on forever. I’m guessing when TNG started in 1987 no one told themselves it was meant to start a new TV franchise that was suppose to go for 20 years. I’m pretty sure they would’ve been happy if the show made it pass five seasons and called it a success since it did better than TOS. Now its like everything is being designed to go on forever and set up multiple spin offs from the start. We just live in a different age today.

Back in TNG’s day, 100 episodes was the goal for nearly every show. That was enough for syndication. Which became pretty lucrative.

Yeah true. Back then it was really just about hitting the 80-100 episode mark and anything beyond that was considered a bonus. I still think its crazy knowing Star Trek probably would’ve died out completely if TOS was cancelled in season 2 and therefore didn’t make enough episodes to enter syndication in heavy rotation. That’s what really kept it alive. Maybe someone would’ve found it again years later and remake it like Ron Moore did with BSG, but I’m sure it would’ve been nothing like it is today.

Now if CBS gets its way this thing will be going on indefinitely.

You can also have too much of a mediocre thing. Which is a much closer description of what happened before.

Kurtzman is making the exact same mistakes he made with the UCU.

mehhhhhhhh……………
I really like Michelle Yeoh. I am not sold on the need for a “Jack Ryan in Space” show in the Star Trek universe, which is what an Alt-Georgiou/Section 31 show sounds like to me. I like that they’re expanding the tonal palette of the the universe, but this particular offering seems a bit ham-fisted on a conceptual level. But alas, we shall see. I hope I’m wrong, if only so that it keeps encouraging them to expand and grow the universe.

If these are 10 or 12 episode seasons I don’t think we will see fatigue.
This is a good opportunity to bring Prime Lorca back in to the show….

Exactly.

Star Trek is growing up. Awesome.

…and like so many creative, imaginative children, with age, it seems to have lost its creative edge. Not only is it growing up, it’s growing old.

I think that pretty much sums it up. The latest incarnation is also not being given time to grow up.

They need to flood CBSAA with as much Trek as they can as fast as they can to give it a shot to survive – for one (of many), Disney’s service is coming out this fall with a ton more (quality/popular) content for the same price. Things are about to get much more crowded in the streaming world, and CBSAA as it stands now just doesn’t have enough to make it, imo. One of the reasons I see that Discovery isn’t getting the time it needs to stand out and find it’s own footing (which I agree, it’s not).

Look at the Disney+ service– they are planning no less than SIX live action Marvel series’.

Exactly! They know where their bread and butter is. Star Trek is the ONLY big brand on that service. The Twilight Zone is coming but that has never actually proven to attract an audience outside of the original. Star Trek has, over and over again. It only makes sense to put more shows as there are 50 years of Star Trek fandom who wants more, not less.

And Disney+ is sounding amazing. I want to sign up for it now lol. Its a no brainer for Disney fans, you already have tons of classical movies and shows but now you have Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel on top of that and NEW content from all of those as well. AA is just a joke, seriously. No movie library to speak of and a few shows, none anyone seems to care about outside of Star Trek, so what else can do they do?

Things are really heating up in the streaming IP world in general. Everyone is trying to use iconic brands to draw people in. We already spoken about Disney. Amazon is bringing a LOTR show at a billion dollars. Hulu is using Stephen King adaptations and more Marvel shows (site partly owned by Disney) and Apple is planning tons of new shows and movies for its upcoming site including the Foundation novels.

Its a whole new world out there and CBS has to compete. They know people will come to Star Trek and that site needs all the help it can get. I do agree Discovery isn’t having the chance to stand on its own but I suspect these shows will do tons of crossovers with each other, especially since S31 will be using DIS to launch its show.

Yep. I’ve been saying that is the reason they have not given STD time to find itself first for quite some time. CBS is desperately trying to get their slice of the streaming pie before it gets more crowded at the table. It think this obvious.

THIS! (what A34 said, not the reflexive negativity underneath it)

Wow, I get some lunch and check out Trekmovie and there is another new story posted. Even though I am a fan of Discovery and a big fan of Michelle Yeoh, I am more than a little skeptical about a series about Section 31. That said, getting a big name star like Yeoh to commit long term is a big coup. She probably comes with a pretty hefty price tag and may be the reason, and much to my chagrin, she was killed off after only two episodes of season 1. Getting Yeoh long-term is very cool and I hope the producers can prove me wrong about Section 31.

My prediction is that they will alter the character a bit. The haminess of mirror universe characters can only be taken in small doses. Because she’s headlining a show, they’ll likely make her more a subtle, no nonsense, covert ops type, rather than melodramatic, sex crazed, murderous, melodramatic empress. The mirror universe will barely be mentioned with any luck.

I am wondering if this show will end up as a redemption story for the Georgiou character. I hope they don’t go there because that will be against her mirror universe upbringing. I think she needs to stay the anti-hero all through the series run. This will probably be the darkest of the currently airing series, which I am sure will rub some purist Trekkies the wrong way. Perhaps they should get Kiefer Sutherland as the villian and have her duke it out with Jack Bauer :))

This is great! Star Trek is really pushing the boundaries on this one. Imagine, back in the 90s, we would have been getting a series focusing on Intendant Kira joining Section 31 alongside Sloan… Back then, that would have been totally absurd. Now, it is reality to some degree… Regina Andor getting her own show :-) Just when Cassian Andor is getting his one in a far, far away galaxy…

THIS is what will keep the franchise from feeling fatigue. In the 90s-00’s, all 4 shows were about a Starfleet crew exploring the galaxy. Ultimately they all felt largely the same, with minor differences.

But a show about a villain? A series about an aging classic character? I think these are the genesis of a potentially diverse set of shows.

Don’t worry, it STILL is totally absurd! Somebody is spinning in his orbit right now…

Terrible idea, and a major strategic misstep.

1. There is too much Star Trek being announced, and no one is going to keep up with all of it. And yet there is only so much total available market to expand the franchise by capturing new fans.

2. Quality will suffer. Who is going to oversee this “universe” and keep it a coherent whole? Kurtzman?

3. If they had wanted to keep Michelle Yeoh involved with the franchise (and yes, that would be wise, both from a creative point of view and to enhance the appeal of Star Trek in China), they shouldn’t have killed her character off.

4. The Mirror Universe gives actors a chance to ham things up, which works occasionally, as in “once or twice per series.” The DS9 mirror universe episodes were plodding and distracted from the main storyline. An entire series of a hammy, oversexed character? Yuck.

> 1. There is too much Star Trek being announced, and no one is going to keep up with all of it.

Wanna bet?

> 2. Quality will suffer. Who is going to oversee this “universe” and keep it a coherent whole? Kurtzman?

Hey, look- you got it in one!

> 3. If they had wanted to keep Michelle Yeoh involved with the franchise (and yes, that would be wise, both from a creative point of view and to enhance the appeal of Star Trek in China), they shouldn’t have killed her character off.

And thus, they didn’t.

> 4. The Mirror Universe gives actors a chance to ham things up, which works occasionally, as in “once or twice per series.” The DS9 mirror universe episodes were plodding and distracted from the main storyline. An entire series of a hammy, oversexed character? Yuck.

Now this, I completely agree with. The mirror Emperor works (more or less) as a cartoonish adversary for a couple of episodes, but not much more.

“1. There is too much Star Trek being announced, and no one is going to keep up with all of it. And yet there is only so much total available market to expand the franchise by capturing new fans.”

They don’t need too, and that’s the point. They want different shows appealing to different groups of fans, so there’s a wider net cast, and people subscribing all year– whether it’s the same group, or different groups.

“2. Quality will suffer. Who is going to oversee this “universe” and keep it a coherent whole? Kurtzman?”

That is a false assumption.

“3. If they had wanted to keep Michelle Yeoh involved with the franchise (and yes, that would be wise, both from a creative point of view and to enhance the appeal of Star Trek in China), they shouldn’t have killed her character off.”

They didn’t. Mirror Georgiou is around and a part of Section 31. What you’re referring to is what YOU wanted to see, not objectively what is best or not. In fact, I’d argue a series about the mirror version is more compelling because it offers us something different.

“4. The Mirror Universe gives actors a chance to ham things up, which works occasionally, as in “once or twice per series.” The DS9 mirror universe episodes were plodding and distracted from the main storyline. An entire series of a hammy, oversexed character? Yuck.”

Another big assumption, and worth noting Georgiou will likely be the only Mirror character in the series. And who’s to say a whole series set in the mirror universe would be bad?

People seem to love The Orville hamming it up!

This series represents to me the opposite of what Star Trek should be. It should be about a positive future and not about a negative one. Georgiou shouldn’t be allowed to run around free and Section 31 shouldn’t exist. Season 1 of DIS was already way too dark and depressive and instead of trying to rectify this, they make it even worse. They make a series focusing on a mass murdering, genocidal, Federation members eating asshole working for the Federation, which will automatically make the Federation worse than current North Korea. At least the latter doesn’t pretend to be in any way moral.

Well I for one am glad Trek isn’t solely what it means to YOU.

This is pigheadedly wrong. Even democracies have secret services who sometimes do what is necessary. Sisko compromised in order to save utopia and everyone loved that show. It’s a sound concept that a.) is sufficiently different from previous Trek shows to be fresh and b.) it allows them to crystallize what makes Trek Trek even more by looking at it from the other side.

No current democracy or even dictatorship is employing someone with her death count. And eating intelligent life forms for fun tend to be frowned upon, too.

That you know of. I would not be surprised at all if they do. The US trained and worked with the Taliban and many other terrorist groups over the years. They recruited Nazi scientists after WWII.

Not the same, but what you’re talking about really isn’t that far fetched.

Georgiou as the Empress of the Terran Empire is responsible for the death of billions. I would have noticed if suddenly so many people would have been killed off. Even the amount of people she killed personally should be immense. She is in her own league of evilness. Just the scale of the blood on her hands is extreme.

And you think Starfleet knows everything she’s responsible for? And do you think Section 31 cares, either way? Let’s wait to see how it plays out.

I think the crew of the Discovery reported what they know about the mirror universe. So yes the higher ups should know what she has done. And Section 31 obviously doesn’t care as they hire her. Which brings me back to my initial point. It makes the whole Federation look really bad. Nothing utopian about its society.

Very good argument and comparison. USA and Germany for exampled hired Mr. Gehlen straight after World War II, because he had run the spy service on the Eastern Front against the Soviets. Enemy of my enemy.

Also, the US supported Pinochet, it helped Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Israel had its commandos trained by Otto Skorzeny, an ex-SS officer who participated in the Holocaust.

This is a pretty realistic depiction of how politics work.

“Also, the US supported Pinochet, it helped Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. This is a pretty realistic depiction of how politics work.”

Um, no, it’s actually not, because you’re discussing the upgrading of relations between two sovereign states, not asking the (genocidal) leader of a hostile foreign power to lead your clandestine intelligence service. Pinochet would not have been given access to classified material.

(Incidentally, I’m not engaging in idle speculation here; have worked in foreign affairs roles before in DC. I know a little more than the average bear about this subject.)

I should also note that it is far from self-evident that ideology is unimportant in forming alliances. Stargazer is taking the position of hardcore realists, and of course s/he is correct in saying that democracies ally with non-democracies. But there are few, if any, examples of democracies going to war against each other, and it is striking that in every major global conflict the democracies have all lined up on the same side.

I’m lining up here behind political scientist. No way “our” Federation makes this move. You cage and question her like Hannibal Leichter. You buy her snacks. No way she walks, powerful and free. It’s almost suicudal.

You missed the scale here. It’s potentially genocidal, not just suicidal. It’s like electing a neurotic immature narcissist to a position that can dispense planetwide self-proclaimed ‘justice’ with nukes any time he feels sufficiently threatened or in a position to lose face.

But this is not yet “our” Federation. This is a decade before Kirk. Trump’s USA and Obama’s USA are less than a decade apart and feel very different and do things very differently (independent of which you think is better).

This *leads* to “our” Federation and it shows that “our” Federation is not a gift from the Gods. It shows the cost of utopia, which is a core tenet of Trek ever since TOS!

@Stargazer – It takes more than a decade to build a set of laws that are applied and respected. Time, law and application of the law won’t go much faster in the future. Or it will become something like a Kurt Vonnegut satire. The only thing that Roddenberry indicated in terms of the other ships in the Federation was that they saw tough times and Kirk was perhaps the first of the 12 ships to return after the five year mission intact. Not that the laws governing the Federation changed.

Bringing Werner von Braun into the US space program is hardly the same thing.

It would be the same thing if, uh, we had rescued Hitler from his bunker and made him head of the OSS. Or something.

I urge you to read the part where I said “I know it’s not the same thing.” Reading helps!

@Stargazer — “pigheadedly” is kind of strong language. I don’t disagree with you with respect to our current society. But I do disagree about the future Trek purports to present. Roddenberry was wrong that Trek should be conflict free because it diminishes the drama of entertainment. But in terms of presenting corruption in our own society of the future, I think it’s a mistake. Let Starfleet root out corruption in other societies and organizations — something TOS did so very well — but leave it out of our own future. The promise and hope of Trek is that we can rise above the petty corruption that infests governments today. THe occasional bad actor, sure, but wholesale secret conspiratorial organizations? Nor so much. So in that sense I agree totally with Mel. Section 31 is tool of lazy writers who couldn’t figure out how to write compelling drama without resorting to the dark underbelly of what makes modern political thrillers so compelling. However, the metaphor is recognizable enough represented in other organizations, and dramatically compelling enough, without it being part of Starfleet.

By the 24th century people don’t know Section 31 exists. The trailer seems to indicate that in Pike’s time people not only know about it, but respect it (look at his reaction to her Section 31 badge).So, this could very well become the show about personal redemption for Gergiou while also explaining how Section 31 had to hide in the shadow, paving the way for the utopia you’ll see in Kirk’s and Picard’s time.

Again: This does not ruin the utopian vision, it gives it a depth and ambiguity needed to make it more fleshed out.

Section 31 has already played a role in several Star Trek shows. So has the Mirror Universe.

Star Trek IS about a positive future but that doesn’t mean that they should play it save. That utopia needs to be challenged to really prove itself.

BTW: There have been dozens of initially “evil” genre TV characters eventually going on some path of redemption, some even getting their own show along the way: Xena, Angel, Spike, Rumple, you name it… Just because MU Georgiou starts out evil doesn’t mean she will still be evil by the end of Season 1 or 2…

She is worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined. Her death count should be immeasurably higher. She shouldn’t get redeemed. They should put her in prison and not let her run around free.

But the utopian idea here is that *everyone* has a shot at redemption. This is not limited by our 21st century values.

Redemption without any kind of punishment for the things she has done? It is not like she goes to prison for her evil deeds and repents there.

South Africa had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the idea that healing is needed, not punishment. Also, she has committed crimes in the mirror universe. So it’s not even clear if these would be punishable in the prime universe.

I am sure South Africa after the apartheid still put mass murderers into prison.

And what kind of redemption it is either way to work for a shady immoral organization? I bet we will see her comitting crimes in the prime universe, too. Arguably we have already seen one. Pretending to be a Starfleet captain can’t be legal. Not to mention she was willig to commit genocide in the prime universe, too.

But she is working for Section 31. And they don’t care about this. In fact: They are there for people to commit crimes without being punished as long as they, overall, further Starfleet’s causes.

Let’s put it like this: If he had been an asset, Section 31 would have hired Suder and made sure that he wasn’t punished for his ‘personal problems’. Because he’s useful.

Again, that is hardly the same thing. This would be like the ANC putting Eugene Terr’Blanche in charge of the new South Africa’s intelligence service.

Who says that Georgiou is leading Section 31? From all we know she has been recruited as an agent. It’s possible Section 31 is keeping a very close eye on her, ready to rein her in if she goes too far.

Agreed Mel, Section 31 shouldn’t really exist as such in Star Trek, let alone a whole show about them. It goes against the ‘aspirational vision’ of Gene Roddenberry and really kills my enthusiasm. I do enjoy edgy ‘realistic’ stuff in my political dramas, but not in my Star Trek.

So relieved that Bo Yeon Kim and Erica Lippoldt are the two main writers for this show. The section 31 concept has the potential to turn into a diluted, juvenile campy mess in the wrong hands, but with these two in charge I’m a lot more confident about this show as a fine addition to Trek and doing justice to a fine actress and icon.

OTOH so far it IS all the same people running most of these shows – Discovery’s showrunner and writers. Which is exactly what is said to have led to franchise fatigue in the 1990s.

The other shows announced are not being showrun by Kurtzman. Kurtzman is tasked to oversee the new CBS Trek universe, not run them all. He wasn’t even the showrunner for Discovery until the nasty stuff went on with Harberts and Berg.
Now yes, the Section 31 show, which is a Discovery spin off after all, is being showrun by writers who started on Discovery, but that’s kind of an obvious thing to do in this case.
The rest of the announced shows do not have have writers from Discovery. The Picard show is being written by James Duff, Michael Chabon and Kirsten Beyer. Lower Decks is being showrun by Mike McMahan from Rick and Morty. We don’t know details of the kid focused cartoon, but you can bet it’s someone new with experience in that genre. Even the the other rumored show that it seems like may be in the works, Starfleet Academy, has showrunners attached that are not from the Discovery staff.

It’s still amazing how all the other Discovery writers are given so much to do and even help run other shows and Nick Meyer got fired after a single season of just being a consultant. I wonder if we are ever going to hear what happened there? There was so much fanfare to bring that guy on, literally the first one hired out of the pack. They are making a dozen shows in the next few years they can’t bring him on for any of those?

I am just speculating but Mr Meyer might have been too on the nose or old school for the newer producers. It could have been an issue of clashing ideologies or ways of doing things. In any case I highly doubt we will ever learn the truth.

Yeah that’s a good point and I have hinted about that at times too. All said and done he only worked on the TOS movies and those had a certain style and rhythm Discovery clearly doesn’t have. The people working on these shows are mostly relatively young and seem to have a cross section of Trek knowledge. They are probably just more open to a multitude of ideas and can work in any setting.

I just wish we could’ve seen at least one story from the guy but that’s life I guess.

Reading between the lines of things he’s said, I think that’s basically it.

Also remember Meyer is not a Trek expert, he’s never claimed to be. As Tiger rightly points out he worked on 3 TOS movies which were from a certain point in time and a certain style. At the time things were far less mired in Trek canon, because the wider Trek franchise we know from the ’90s literally didn’t exist at the time.

My point was that with Kurtzman co-creating all of these shows and many Discovery writers or former Discovery/Short Trek writers (Beyer and Chabon belonging to those) also writing for the new series, new people is the exception rather than the rule, and that stands in contrast to Kurtzman’s point that these shows should be as different from each other as possible, and the observation that 90s Trek was all run by the same people. I will say on the contrary that in terms of staff, 90s Trek was not any less diverse than these new shows – Berman largely relinquished control of DS9 in later seasons and Behr had as much to do with Voyager as Braga had with DS9 (read: nothing).

What is obvious in particular, as Tiger points out with Meyer, is their apparent dislike for hiring Berman era or even TOS era Trek staff, apart from our Man Riker. Whatever the differences, or lack thereof, between the new series, they sure like to emphasize the break to anything pre-2009!

I agree and why I don’t really buy too much of what Kurtzman is saying. Like Berman he’s already employing the same people from Discovery to create and produce the other shows just like Berman did with DS9 and VOY and staffed people from TNG to work on those. And I don’t think its bad, you build a working relationship with people, you trust them, you know they already get Star Trek (which we can all agree is not exactly easy lol) and it helps keep canon in order when the people running the show are the same people who ran the other shows, so its all a short hand thing.

This happens in EVERY TV franchise. L&0, Arrowverse, CSI, you name it all do the same thing. We don’t pay enough attention to those but they have the same writers, producers, directors, etc all working within the various shows because it keeps consistency and everyone is up to speed when you have SO many characters and story lines to juggle. Very few of these spin off shows have completely different productions that is alien to one another. And of course the irony is this is CBS we’re talking about. Usually they want ALL their shows to basically look the same. Watch any NCIS show, the only way you know you’re watching a different one are the actors or location. But they all look about as generic as the others. But it works, they all get ratings Discovery would kill for lol.

And yes as said they have so many other Trek producers at their disposal they ignore. But to be fair they did have a few along with Meyer but one jumped to Orville and yes Fuller. I think now they have their own circle and that’s it.

To be fair, older folks love the consistency of what CBS churns out. They love that NCIS is all just more of the same, it’s comfortable. It’s a different demographic than what All Access and Trek is going for.

Yes that definitely true. And for many TV is comfort food for the eyes which is why so many TV formats have stood the test of time.

You’ve got some flawed criteria there.

Chabon is not a Discovery writer, never has been. He wrote a standalone Short Trek which was effectively an audition piece for him to work on Picard. I notice you didn’t mention McMahan, but he did the same before moving on to Lower Decks. You can’t lump them in with the standard Discovery writer’s room. They were brought in to do separate short form stories before they moved on to their respective new Trek shows.

So no, new people is not the exception.

Of the 4 announced shows, 3 have new people who have never been on the Discovery writing staff, only one (Section 31) has writers carrying over from the Discovery writers’ room.

Of course there are some producers in common, that’s not surprising and doesn’t necessarily doom things the way you seem to think it does.

Hey, it’s his standards, not mine! Kurtzman said DS9/VGR were too similiar (as many fans have elaborated, they were not; not behind the scenes, not in front) and he said the new shows should be as different as possible. This obviously rubs with what you guys said about CBS shows being as similar as possible. And the reality is that apart from Kurtzman three staff writers from Discovery (Beyer is also one of them) are now working on the new shows already, so it seems there’s more words than action once again. But I’m more miffed they are not using anyone of the old guard (although, yes, Fuller probably burnt them).
And the point is also in the quantity. We are not talking about two shows now, one political-religious, serialized and station-based and the other one an episodic lost in space ship series, but five shows four of which only exist on paper and are completely unproven. I’m rather astonished that CBS thinks this is smart business not to at least wait for the reception of one or two of them, given that Discovery’s critical reception was anything but universally positive. Although if this does not pan out financially for AA rather soon after their premieres, I think they could all get the ax rather quickly. As someone else said – as for Trek TPTB seem to work in extremes, they either starve us or they flood us, rather than find a sound middle.

To me s31’s appeal is due to complexity of motive, so putting a cartoon villain into the proceeding would undermine it. You need a character with psychological complexity to make s31 work properly (oh, to ride my old hobby horse, somebody like John Vernon’s character in THE QUESTOR TAPES), but the idea they are even going here gives me hope that they will retcon the character into something more compelling.

Bingo.

kmart, you’re ksmart.

Thanks, but I just had a thought that totally contradicts what I suggested above.

What if TPTB just want an excuse to do a 23rd century secret agent show, and are just hanging it on s31 as a convenient rung? Michelle Yeoh was considered for a spinoff film from her Bond character in the godawful TOMORROW NEVER DIES (which had an uncredited Nick Meyer rewrite, so there is a slight Trek connection), and they could just cut her loose as an older slightly less athletic version of her wannabe be Jane Bond self from that film.

I certainly hope that isn’t the case, but who knows?

Yeoh’s performance as Wai Lin was good. The script, not so much. Elliott Carver revealed his Big Plot in the first ten minutes. If that’s what’s on offer here, well, it’s not exactly the next Tom Clancy.

Yeah. But a no-look pass kind of show, I’d love to have a chair at that table.

Yes, Tomorrow Never Dies was indeed terrible. For a number of reasons. But I like to repeat the tale Yeoh said when her agent told her she could read for a part in the next Bond movie. She said she asked, “Do I get to play James Bond?”

I like her.

You are right, This IS the case. When CBS announced new “family jewels” shows five (?) years ago I wrote here, thinking about NCIS. I thought they would replicate that success through ST. They basically wanted SWAT ST, Chicago Hope ST, etc.

Not a mention of Strange New Worlds in any of these pitches which is supposed to be our branding.

Which is why I like Dr Who more. Is the current Trek audience just too in love with big crews who have no character to tell an interesting story that doesn’t devolve into opera? Maybe this Yeoh show will have no regulars besides her and a sidekick or something – so at least the show will have its own eyes.

Pretty sure if S31 finds any strange new worlds it will be for a threat assessment against the Federations or set up a new secret base!

More interested in Prime Phillipa but I’ll definitely still watch.

Yeah, but don’t be disappointed. I expect Prime Georgiou to show up at some point. Doppelgänger is a Star Trek trope since The Cage. And they have written her out in a way she can return.

A Prime Georgiou series would just be “yet another Starship” show. This is something different, which is why it has a chance to succeed.

If some of you remember, on an episode of After Trek Michelle Yeoh asked a question about if someone like Mirror Phillipa Georgiou could be redeemed. I am betting that the long arc of this series will be about (1.) the costs, external and internal, of Georgiou’s choices; (2.) how she copes with it and seeks, however slyly, seeks redemption; (3.) vindicating Roddenberry’s utopian vision. If done well, this could be quite good without ever being a repeat of any other series.

Absolutely. Don’t forget MU Georgiou grew up in a different universe. Now she’s confronted with an utopian future she used to loath from abroad dimensions. That might change her – even though it didn’t really change Lorca… But then, who knows. It’s an intriguing premise! It all depends on the execution.

Lorca had every intention to get back to MU and finish what he started. Here, Georgiou might have accepted her fate and is just in the prime universe now and knows she’s here to stay.

Also just the character of Gabriel Lorca makes no sense at all at this point. He was a great character until MU reveal.

Here’s the thing. There is nothing Utopian whatsoever about giving an utterly evil mass murderer the chance of redemption, a second chance so many honest and innocent people never get, just because of her slyness. Utopianism is about the primacy of the rule of law, that the law is universal and stands above all people however rich, sly or powerful. None of us lives in such a society, obviously, but Star Trek was the beacon of hope that in the future, we just might. Maybe that was always escapism, but I take that over Section 31 “realism” any day!

I have to agree about Georgiou. It’s like trying to give Hitler a ‘redemption’. The guy started a massive world war and killed millions of Jews in the process in the most heinous ways possible. The only redemption he was going to get would be death or life behind bars. Georgiou is someone who not only owned slaves, but ate them. I know its fiction but who would WANT to redeem someone like that? And especially when all her crimes was in another universe, they should decide if she deserves redemption or not, thats where she committed all her crimes.

I’m wondering this:

If she can neither be redeemed nor punished as several here suggest, will the character herself discover this paradox? If so, how will she react? Will she hold a mirror (ahem) to a utopian Federation that nevertheless deigns to dispatch a clandestine counterintelligence organization and call them on their hypocrisy? Will she grow a conscience or be totally Machiavellian?

Or will it be a Space Spy action show and little else?

That, and I would question the entire Section 31 braintrust that they would see a person like that and think, “now THAT is a person we could use in our organization.”

The great news keep coming in. This may be the most exciting Star Trek show yet. SO much potential!

She was so bad in Discovery…which I don’t get, as she can be a fine actress…but boy, did she phone it in. This series doesn’t doesn’t interest me in the least. It would have to be so well written, I just don’t see the Discovery staff as capable of getting the pool of creative talent capable of pulling it off. Oh well, at least it’s a smart decision financially… the sets can do double duty filming one series while the other is on hiatus or gets canceled.

I agree. She is good in the right roles. Georgeau never suited her acting style. She was badly miscast. She was even worse hamming it up as Space Hitler. This show… Probably not for me. But again, I like that they are doing different things.

How can the sets do double duty? Unless she’s on the Discovery for some reason, I don’t see the sets being multi-purpose. I would imagine her adventures for the most part will take place away from Federation starships, considering she’s dead in this universe. But otherwise I totally agree, didn’t really care about her acting at all in Disco and am honestly not too intrigued by this show idea. I’m more into the kid cartoon series.

I have my doubts about a Section 31 show but let’s see how this plays out. No matter how altruistic a regime may be, there are always questionable leaders and decisions that are made. For the MOST part – good people are not ALL good nor are bad people ALL bad, no matter what the group. For example, as a Canadian, we learned that the allies (incl what was then Canadian leadership) during WW2 decided to firebomb certain cities in Germany which would kill civilian women, children and seniors in an effort to demoralize the Germans. As it turned out they eventually stopped the campaign because it only pissed them off and strengthened their resolve and mistaken belief that the allies were the ones who were evil. In other words, no matter how good the intentions are of any group, they are capable of horrific decisions. It will be interesting to see if this show tries to examine just such circumstances.

Great.

I wish they would start announcing when some of these shows will be airing. It almost seems as though they are just throwing ideas out to see the reaction, and if it is a good reaction then they’ll start making it.

They are not announcing release dates because they don’t have them. Remember how Discovery got pushed back several times because they needed more time to develop it? They have only given a rough estimate for the Picard show, and that one has a working writers room and a planned production start date. The other shows may not be much more than a pitch right now.

Sometime I think some fans are excited about new Trek shows so that they can have more of the same.
Not me.
IBRING IT ON!

From TSFS:
James T. Kirk: “Come, come, Mr. Scott. Young minds, fresh ideas. Be tolerant.”

I agree with those who say Trek needs to expand and diversify to survive. That said, of the 5 shows now featured/in development I’m personally only interested in 2 (Discovery, in a mild way – the Picard Show, very much), and that is absolutely fine. I hope the Section 31 show finds an audience and is successful. I’ll probably check it out at some point after its first season, binge the whole thing if it’s good. Good luck to all involved.

Why? How much depth do you need to explore with space hitler?

@budbudford… You do realize that it is a fictional character on a tv show, right?

People seemed to be quite interested in Thanos. As far as I remember he killed half of all living beings in the galaxy, and still they gave him some depth.

Yeah but Thanos isn’t getting his own TV show either. We know he’s going to get his in the next film. People love villains as much as they love the heroes but rarely do you find one who has literally caused mass genocide that is treated like everyone else. Thats the other problem for some, she’s not being treated as a monster, she’s going to be working as an equal partner in Starfleet. Thanos is still the villain in the story. Technically she won’t be.

Especially a boring character.

Oh I will watch the HELL out of this! Michele Yeoh is having quite a year, and I am so happy for her success. But DAMN, Star Trek is having one helluva year!

STAR TREK LIVES!

Re: the final paragraph of the article that mentions other Trek productions already announced or in the pipeline: Let’s not forget whatever that thing is that Nick Meyer had been working on for the past three years. Wonder if that will ever see the light of day.

For some strange reason Nick Meyer all of a sudden has become persona non grata in this new Trek universe. I highly doubt we will see his version of the show. If it ever comes out, it will probably be a different version of the same idea.

Maybe if they were resurrecting the Assignment: Earth idea and Georgiou was Seven’s nemesis, his Joker so to speak, it might catch my interest. But can’t say a Section 31 show is for me.

Fortunately, though, they’re creating so much Star Trek television now there may be something for everybody. Well, hopefully.

I LOVE that idea, that maybe Gary Seven is somehow involved in an adventure with Georgiou at some point

Seconded on that. If they want to set a spy series in the Trek Universe, Gary Seven is the way to go, not this.

Just for fun, who would you cast as Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln if the show was made today?

Before seeing him screw up Sarek so badly, I’d think Swain would have been good as Seven.

Wyatt Russell or Armie Hammer as Gary Seven and Emilia Clarke as Roberta Lincoln.

Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman.

Interesting choices. Thanks for the replies.

I don’t know who would play Roberta, but I do think Jon Hamm would be a cool Gary Seven.

My suggestion was more tongue in cheek as the Gary 7 thing had similarities to Dr. Who.

Maybe they could go ahead and do the Gary 7 show that never materialized in the 60’s. That would be more interesting than this Section 31 show with Georgeau at the lead.

As a mega fan of Discovery, I am actually looking forward to anything even tangentially related to DSC. So I have hopes for a Section 31 Emperor show. I think it would have been wise to wait for fans to watch Emperor 31 in action, but hey… I guess they have a good sense for where they want to go.

As I stated elsewhere, I presume that Michelle Yeoh’s star power was the reason why this has been greenlit. Additionally, I’m assuming that the announcement was meant to bolster publicity for DSC’s season 2. CBSAA has been on a media blitz recently, so I can see this tying into those efforts. In that respect, this seems to make sense.

Ugh. Now this, I have to say, I absolutely loathe. And I love Michelle Yeoh.

And thats the point. Look at these comments. Half the audience seems to like it or willing to keep an open mind. That’s a good starting point for a series.

Starting at half is never a good jumping off point.

It’s half of the internet fanbase, which isn’t even the majority anymore of the fanbase. Discovery has brought Star Trek out of North America and Europe as the only ‘real time’ release and the rest of the world gets to see it in parity now.

You have to remember, for all the complaining and griping about CBS AA and Netflix, most of the world has a small Netflix Library. there are people who signed up for Netflix just for Discovery.

The funny thing is Netflix wanted a new Trek show so badly BECAUSE of how well all the Star Trek shows do worldwide. Same reason Moonves got the idea to put one on AA. Streaming sites aren’t perfect but they do give access to shows and films on a level we never had before. Sure there has always been cable, etc but not where you have an entire library you can watch anytime and in your pocket. It’s still quite an amazing thing when you think about it.

And yes now you have the advantage to show your entire library in just one app. That’s why so many want to do it now. Distribution has never been so seamless and when you have an iconic brand like Star Trek you can introduce it to more people in a way you couldn’t do before because you had to depend on third party licenses. Now everyone on the planet can watch Star Trek. I remember living in Korea and the only Star Trek I could get was the U.S. military station that would run DS9 and Voyager but you couldn’t find old Star Trek anywhere in that country. Now if you have Netflix there you can watch it all anytime.

There are certainly people who signed up to CBSAA just for Discovery. (And unsubscribed when the show ended) I doubt there are many who did that for Netflix.

I needed to see this part of Trek explored about as much as I needed Han Solo’s backstory…..and, yeah, I’ll probably watch it initially.

I do understand it from it being good business, though. Michelle Yeoh is a substantial draw in foreign markets.

Michelle Yeoh needs to be in *more* things, but I have to wonder what happens in the Secret Hideout offices when someone dares to pitch a show set in the Star Trek universe that’s *not* based on any characters or situations we’ve seen before. There’s not one drop of originality in any of the live action projects and TBD on the animated show(s). Not worrisome, but par for the course these days. Viewers have a very low bar for quality that retreads and remakes seem to clear very easily.

We’re going to go from 5 Trek series total at the 50th to 10 series total for the 60th. Pretty crazy stuff!

I like it by the way. The idea of a diverse set of shows to appeal to all kinds of fans seems really fun! It’s like Star Trek a la carte. Don’t like Discovery? Here’s the Picard show. Want to get your kid into Trek, here’s two different animated series for your child and teenager to watch.

I’ll be very interested to see what works and what doesn’t.

Wow, what a great idea! It’s so great that we could do the following, too:

– A spinoff of THE SOPRANOS based on Jackie Aprile’s wacky uncle Herman, who’s an amusement park operator in Palm Springs. That will expand THE SOPRANOS fanbase beyond people who like Mafia movies.

– A spinoff of MY BRILLIANT FRIEND featuring Lenu and Lila’s third friend, Carmella, but make it a raucous teen sex comedy, because that will draw in teenage guys as viewers and expand the Elena Ferrante novels beyond the female fanbase.

– A spinoff of THE AMERICANS where Paige decides to become a Nascar driver, because hey, that will bring in the Nascar fans. Plus, girl power!

Good grief. Half of us here were probably teenagers when we first got hooked on real Trek. I didn’t need some Bevis and Butthead ripoff-cum-parody to become a Trek fan back then.

I won’t lie I would probably watch the Paige spin off show and I don’t even like Nascar.

Zinda, his face black, his eyes red.

None of the spin-offs have been off brand or introduced something that doesn’t belong. And you have the ability to not watch it, which is the point I was making. I became a fan off of TNG before Kindergarten and NO ONE I met watched it too. At least now maybe a Trek fan can have a friend growing up who watches the same shows.

OK. Now we haven’t seen this yet I’m forced to say that this is the least promising of all the new Trek shows mentioned. A Section 31 show doesn’t interest me all that much but it would be a lot more interesting WITHOUT Mirror Georgeau. Now of course, not everyone will like very show. So I am still happy they are going for shows of different genres. This one just doesn’t speak to me. That said, being a Trek fan, I will probably still tune in. But if there are personal time restraints (ie, I don’t have the time to watch all shows), it will be the one that gets cut first for me.

It’s going to be really different having so much Trek to watch.

Well considering you don’t like anything about Star Trek these days, i’m not sure that means anything.

OOOH BURN you really live up to your name

It seems you never get tired of being wrong and smarmy.

I’m excited that we are getting so much Star Trek on tv. I loved when DS9 and Voyager were both on the air at the same time.

I cannot understand how any fan could enjoy the idea of something that is so antithetical to Star Trek in all its previous forms. Then again, I can’t understand how Trumpsters and other fascists and bigots like Star Trek, so mysteries abound!

I guess the Star Trek I loved never really existed. I seem to remember it being a show about humans becoming better in the future, not just more of the same hatred and evil we have now. The 1960s were as turbulent and scary as now, even more so, with the Vietnam War and all the various movements and battles going on, and it was a scary, chaotic time, but Star Trek chose to show us a future that was utterly different, where diversity was celebrated, human impulses were directed toward self-improvement and positive learning, and cruelty was a bad thing.

Now, we’re getting a show about possibly the most cruel human character in all of Star Trek to date, a monster who wallows in the darkest of human desires.

I hope you folks enjoy it, but I cannot even begin to imagine what you must think of Star Trek to want something like this done to it.

As a child I watched TOS and loved it (still do). Yes, it was full of hope and the idealistic future but there were Federation and Starfleet villains in TOS and later on TNG but depicting darkness and conflict was pretty basic when it came to telling stories in the 1960s. Writing and the audience both became more sophisticated and complex from TNG, Voyager and especially through DS9 where serial story telling and conflict within characters was regularly examined. Nothing is good or evil, nothing is either black or white. Now they want to take this examination to another level. I too have my doubts about a Section 31 show but am willing to give it a shot and maybe they can prove me wrong in my skepticism.

You can’t claim that the new kids invented this stuff. It was there, presented in DS9 and ENT, which means it existed in some form throughout all the Star Trek series. I think it is strange to accept all the other shows that presented this (and TOS did not explicitly, but look at The Enterprise Incident — that looked a lot like S31), and then call it blasfemy when they decide to center a new show around it.

“You can’t claim that the new kids invented this stuff.” I didn’t claim anything remotely like that.

“I think it is strange to accept all the other shows that presented this…” I don’t accept those shows without complaints. Namely, I hate Section 31 in ANY Trek show. It weakened DS9 but fit the show’s general take on Trek as a contrast to the good guys, not AS the good guys. Section 31 was a bad part of ENT and utterly ruined Malcolm as a character.

Section 31 didn’t exist in TOS or TNG except thanks to much-later retcons that wanted to make everything Trek “darker.” Centering the show around Section 31 is like having a “Law & Order” spinoff where the bad guys are the heroes. No thanks! That’s antithetical to the idea of the franchise in the first place; same here.

Absolutely agreed Paul. Balancing moral decisions and so on is absolutely part of Star Trek, but deeply ingraining such an organisation into our future is against the spirit of the show.

I guess you have to look at it as more of a set of options for Trek fans. If this was the ONLY show on, then I would agree, it would feel very weird lol. But it looks like they are trying to spread various tones for all the shows. DIS started out darker but they have made it clear it will be much lighter going forward (although will still do dark stories). The Picard show MAY get back to the uplifting Utopian spirit that everyone seems to hint to (although now that we know it will involve the explosion of Romulus in the story line I don’t know how much that will be true). Lower Decks though is suppose to be a zany comedy and if the Escape Artist short is any indication then that will be just a fun cartoon to watch.

I think S31 is going to be the ‘dark’ show now but I suspect will have light moments and characters too. Hopefully its not just a lot of brooding and blowing up ROmulans every week but I think the plan is to give a different side of Trek in separate shows. How well it will work is anyone’s guess though.

But how light can DIS ever become with characters like Burnham and Saru running around who know of Georgiou’s evil deeds but still let her run around free? Not to mention they all were enslaving and torturing the poor tardigrade and the Federation planned to enslave and torture even more of its race.

The Federation and Starfleet really weren’t portrayed in a positive light in season 1. So many shady characters and immoral decisions. And thanks to this new Section 31 series we know that the Federation will stay shady and does’t become better.

Wait what did Saru do?? That guy is cool!

And I’m going by what the producers been saying. They basically been going on their ‘Discovery is going to be really different and fun, believe us fans’ assurance tour for months now and they point out it will be a lot lighter with the war over. And the trailers have highlighted that, especially the first one.

And yes they did enslave the tardigrade but they did let it go. And that was under the leadership of MU Lorca. One of the things they keep saying about Pike is that he’s going to be a very by the book officer who believes in the true values of the Federation, ie, think Picard.

Or maybe that guy is secretly a Romulan agent with the real one in trapped in a dungeon somewhere. With this show, literally anything is possible lol.

If this was to be a show about prime Georgiou I’d be very happy. Lovely character with the potential to be a great Starfleet captain. The talk of black ops though means this is almost certainly going to be about the mirror version.

Horrendous. Awful. Terrible.
These are words that spring to mind.

How can you base a show around an evil she-queen who is basically a 2 dimensional moustache twirling monster?

How are people going to be able to engage with that?

This is the true reality of Kurtzman’s reign. Make all the right noises in interviews and then piss all over the true core values of the franchise.

“She-queen”… ?

Slang word round my part of the world – bossy, cocky, horrible woman basically. Apologies, forgot it isn’t in international use.

DIscovery builds a more fun and rollicking tone and spins its darker and more devious vibe into another series, which, because it stars Mirror Georgiou, will still maintain some good humor. Good, dark humor.

I’m all in! Unlike many of you, much household laments the loss of Lorca and has moderate concerns that Discovery might get too light. (Mainly it’s my roommates who feel this way, but I don’t even entirely disagree.) This spinoff can help mitigate that.

I really wish they’d do a limited series of DS9 post What You Leave Behind.

That would be AMAZING.

I would pay to see that.

BSG 70’s had a dark backstory, leading to light, fun action TV. Moore’s BSG used that and made something with a million layers of ideas. Yes, it was dark, but dang it was interesting. If you’re saying Section 31 can be that, great. So far, though, it’s been a plot device with no particular pay-off. It’s also been a white elephant in the Trek universe. So, I really hope the producers know what they’re doing.

” I really hope the producers know what they’re doing.”

No offense but that’s the kind of comment you could leave about literally any upcoming show or movie. Kind of meaningless, ultimately.

another burn man you’re on a roll today

Amen! Did 70s BSG’s tone fit the premise? I mean…probably not. But you gotta respect the results, and I’d almost always rather watch something fun than something deadly serious, like reboot BSG. Of course in this example I’d much rather watch reboot BSG lol. I think Disco tried to emulate dark BSG and largely failed in that regard. I’m looking forward to its lighter tone this season.

“According to CBS the untitled series “will expand on Yeoh’s current role as a member of Starfleet’s Section 31 division, a shadow organization within the Federation, on Star Trek: Discovery.””

CBS has misunderstood what Section 31 actually is, or they’ve ignored it and are trying to retcon this too. Section 31 is not actually “Starfleet’s black ops division”. It’s not even part of Starfleet. Based on DS9 and ENT, “Section 31” is a euphemism for a deep state network that pre-dates the Federation, later exploited a loophole in Starfleet’s charter as legal cover, and occasionally uses Starfleet as a front for some of its activities.

Wrong. It was never fully defined, not by anyone with knowledge of the truth. Most of what we know came from supposition and speculation, half-truths, and gorilla dust. Points for anyone who gets that reference.

I’ll take my points. Nicely done.

I don’t think they’ve misunderstood what Section 31 is. Sure, if they take out the words “Starfleet” and “division,” it would probably be more correct. But the point of the press release is not to provide a deep dive explanation.

Its pretty obvious that S31 is already getting a slight reboot on Discovery though. The black badges was already the biggest hint as we never saw those before on the other shows. And then in a Discovery trailer its clear both Pike and Burnham knew what Section 31 was when Georgiou flashed her badge. In fact Pike was pretty nonchalant about it as if he was taught about them. Before the only people who ever knew about S31 are people who have previously come across them like Bashir, Kirk or Archer. They were completely ghosts in the past but now they may be changing them to have a closer role to Starfleet than previously shown.

In fact one of the reasons why I feel they are doing this is because of a potential show. If you make them Starfleets enemies all the time then that will just upset fans. But if you make them actually have a closer relationship with Starfleet then they don’t feel so nefarious and it will be easy to see them going on missions with them and not just hood winking somebody in the organization to help them like they tried with Bashir and Kirk in the KU.

Now what I think is super interesting is….in the bottom of the header image (which TrekMovie seems to only be showing cropped for the header)….we got a new phaser which seems to borrow elements from the phasers from DSC, TOS, Star Trek III: TSFS, and the Star Trek V/Star Trek VI phaser!

FYI: Those Section 31 “assault” style phasers were first seen in promo images (which is where our header image comes from) released earlier this month, the phasers were called out in the article.

https://trekmovie.com/2019/01/03/new-star-trek-discovery-season-two-posters-and-cast-images-first-episode-gets-a-title/

“Section 31 is an officially nonexistent autonomous intelligence and defense organization. It is presented as a special security operation, manned by Federation citizens, that is not subject to the normal constraints of Starfleet ethical protocols.

Section 31 operated separately from and usually without the knowledge of Starfleet Intelligence. It dealt with threats to Earth’s and, later, the Federation’s security. Its operating authority stems from a provision of the original Earth Starfleet charter—Article 14, Section 31, from which its name is derived—that makes allowances for “bending the rules” during times of extraordinary threats.

Unlike other secret police organizations in the Star Trek universe, such as the Romulan Tal Shiar and the Cardassian Obsidian Order, Section 31 is not an actual branch of government. Accountable to no one, Section 31 focuses on external threats, and pursues those it identifies by whatever means it sees fit.”

I think she will have a handler who will keep her on a short leash and a partner to rein her in when necessary, but she will bend the rules without cumpunction when she sees fit. There’s a lot of room in the above description of section 31’s mission for character development in dealing with threats to Earth’s and the Federation’s security.

Article 14, Section 31, from which its name is derived—that makes allowances for “bending the rules” during times of extraordinary threats.

Wow, extraordinary threats. So I guess the Federation is cool with putting up an Energy Barrier around the galaxy to keep all the illegal aliens out now. ‘Splains a thing or two about the TOS pilot, actually.

Closing in on 170 comments in just over 4 hours. With just three days to go before the Season 2 premiere of Discovery, you have to credit CBS from creating discussion and interest building up to Thursday night.

Whilst I love Michelle Yeoh, DSC and the occasional infiltration of section 31 over all the ST series, a full series on section 31would become a bit boring.
With all the new trek coming why not a tele movie to give Enterprise a decent send off or why not continue Enterprise and do a series on the Roman war as per the novels.
Don’t get me wrong anything new in Trek is better than no trek at all but why not mix new trek with some of the previous trek.

Yeah I am openly skeptical about the premise of the new show but as I said before, I will check it out and I hope the writers and producers prove me wrong. I also love Michelle Yeoh has committed to Trek so I am hoping for the best.

Some call it creating discussion, others, division ;-)

Yeoh is awful as Georgiou. Absolutely dreadful, in every scene. I watched the bonus features on the season one Blu-ray, though, and was very charmed by Yeoh herself, who is clearly a smart and witty woman. Maybe this new series will take advantage of that; Discovery certainly hasn’t.

Section 31 does not interest me even slightly, and never has.

Surprised I haven’t seen this brought up yet, but is anyone else noticing how Kurtzman & Co. seem to be advocating a ‘no consequences for your bad actions’ theme with Discovery and now this Section 31 show? Burnham, who was headed to jail forever as a mutineer not so long ago, now a ‘superhero’ officer and Mirror Georgiou, maniacal tyrant now the lead of a dark ops. show. Isn’t CBS kind of sending out the message that being bad is actually something to be rewarded for, to even aspire to?

You’re right I do kinda want to be a despot now

I took a completely different lesson from Disco’s S1. For me the thing is: you don’t abandon your principles, even if it is to save yourself. Burnham did this at the first episode, things went from bad to worse, and, faced with the same prospect 15 episodes later, she learned there are not shortcuts to righteousness, and no second chances. Her captain and mentor was dead for good, and that was the most important thing for her in episode 1. I’d say she paid a stiff price for that lesson…

What I noticed was: Every time Burnham went to ask someone else for advice and tried to implement it, complete disaster followed. She asked Sarek how the Vulcans did it instead of trying something innovative. She asked Mirror!Voq what he did to bring various species together, and then the Emperor destroyed the whole planet anyway. And she asked Mirror!Georgiou how they dealt wit their Klingons, which brought the very desperate Starfleet in on it.

She isnt a tyrant in this universe nor is she in hers.

Two of the loves in my life – Star Trek and Arsenal FC – are run by absolute imbeciles who have no knowledge or appreciation for them.

I am in an utter state of disbelief that some of my fellow Trek fans are celebrating this news. Another nail in the coffin of a once great universe.

Cannot wait for the golf season to start.

Well, at least we can all agree on Arsenal. :-D

Wow high horse much, they are expanding the scope of star trek. The story of about what going on in the shadows rather than the torch light star fleet.

Where I live it’s golf season nearly year round. :) And my football team is a dismal failure too.

Hey! Same! Regarding football anyway…