Kurtzman: Section 31 Show Has A Writers’ Room & ‘Picard’ Is A “Modern Adult Drama”

Vanity Fair published an interview today with Trek on TV head honcho Alex Kurtzman and Julie McNamara (the executive vice president of original content for CBS All Access) where the duo discussed Trek on streaming, Picard, and briefly touched on a few other aspects of developing Trek in the streaming age.

Section 31 has a writers’ room

The Section 31 show starring Michelle Yeoh has still yet to be officially greenlit publicly, but as we’ve occasionally heard, progress is still being made on the show. Julie McNamara told Vanity Fair a writers’ room has been assembled:

We are very excited about the Section 31 show and Michelle Yeoh is excited to do it. She is in the current season of Discovery so she’s working on that right now but we have scripts getting written, and Alex has a writer’s room. We love what we’ve heard so far. It’s yet another tonality of Trek. As Alex has mapped it all out, each show has its own unique sort of voice and vision.

Section 31 is Georgiou’s Unforgiven

Alex Kurtman took an answer about the tone of the Section 31 show, where he likened it to Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western film Unforgiven. The film centers on an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job years after he had retired to farming.

What we don’t want is for you to watch one show and be like, well I don’t really need to watch that other Star Trek show cause I’ve already watched Discovery or whatever. So to me Section 31 is sort of like the black ops CIA division of Star Trek and it was established in Deep Space 9. Full credit goes to Michelle Yeoh for coming to me and saying in season one, before we even launched, “I want to do a spin off of my character!” With Michelle Yeoh, it’s very hard to say no.

This was like a year before Crazy Rich Asians came out and we had not launched Discovery yet. No one had seen it. So I was like, let’s have one show that hopefully people like and we can talk about it. Once Discovery happened, I brought it to Julie and she immediately said, great, let’s develop it. Erica [Lippoldt] and Bo Yeon [Kim], two writers on our Discovery staff, started writing a pilot and it’s really different. It occupies an area of the Trek universe that’s never really been explored geographically. It has a new mythology to it, which is very interesting. And it puts Michelle’s character to the test in a lot of ways that Discovery can’t. In some ways it will be her Unforgiven, I would say.

Kurtman says Section 31 show is like 1992’s Unforgiven

Stewart didn’t want to do what he had done before on Picard

Speaking to Vanity Fair about the forthcoming Star Trek: Picard, Kurtzman said that Sir Patrick Stewart had a mandate:

His constant refrain was: I don’t want to do what I’ve already done. Obviously it’s not a secret that the Borg were involved, and his first instinct was not to do the Borg. He was like, “I did that story. I don’t want to do that story.” And we couldn’t just say, “Yeah, but we loved you in it so much, we just want to do that again.” And what ended up emerging was actually as a result of that back and forth, a very unique and very different Borg story. Definitely not one that you could have told in Next Generation. And certainly not what I think anyone’s expecting.

Picard is a “modern adult drama”

Kurtzman also discussed the style of Picard saying:

The show is inspired by Next Gen, and it’s written by people who grew up loving it but it is very much not Next Gen. It feels like a modern adult drama in the world of Star Trek, which has not actually really happened before. It’s also singularly about a man in his emeritus years and there are very few franchises that would allow you to have an almost 80-year-old lead and tell his story.

Patrick Stewart as Picard and Michelle Hurd as Raffi


Keep up with all the news on upcoming Star Trek shows here at TrekMovie.com

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I attended my first Star Trek convention in 1975. Section 31 will be the first Star Trek series I will not watch. It is not, in my view, what Star Trek is.
A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. But calling something that is sour, even by the same name, does not make it sweet.

Oh you’ll watch.

Nice judging a book by the title (not even the damn cover). You know literally next to nothing about it and already “I don’t like this”.

If it is anything like the Section 31 stuff in DISCO, it will be pretty terrible.

Why so many haters here, why do you guys even watch Star Trek? 60s Trek is never coming back.

Why are we watching? Because we’re being deliberately misled by false advertising to believe that it is gonna be Star Trek! (Fun fact: twenty years ago, I used the exactly same reply when I was asked why I keep watching Voyager). ;)

It doesn’t have to be 60s Trek. It would be more than enough if it was a coherent, functioning story with interesting characters. Those traits aren’t really exclusive to 60s TV – in fact, they were fairly common in genre TV until recently. I don’t really know what happened, but it seems to be happening across the entire field, not just to Star Trek: suddenly, characters everywhere are shallow and unappealing, their adventures are contrived and of no consequence, and the shows are increasingly depending on cliffhangers and mystery boxes to lure the audience back every week. With Star Trek it’s twice as jarring, because we know what real Star Trek feels like.

There’s some truth to what you say. Characters in shows these days are very uninteresting.

It gets harder all the time to find a show that has interesting characters that I can really say “wow, this person is interesting.”

The same can be said for story-lines. I’m looking forward to the Crisis on Infinite Earths in less than two weeks but in general, the Arrowverse has become incredibly stale, with predictable plots and characters. That’s the way it is with lots of shows too I guess.

With Star Trek, I’m looking forward to Picard. And I trust that it’ll be good. Really good? Well we’ll see…I just expect that it’ll be good enough that I’ll like it. I’m not gonna try and love it. If I love it that’s great. If not, I’m not gonna be dissapointed if I don’t get my hopes up. My goal is to go in hoping I’ll like it, but expect not to. I find that I enjoy a show or movie more if I expect it to suck. It’s not like there are NO good shows or movies anymore at all. Looking at the Marvel movies you might start to feel like they’re all the same, but what was it only a year or two ago that “Logan” came out? Excellent movie. And this year’s Joker was pretty good too. Wish he was the Joker in the DC Extended Universe. But he isn’t…and that’s stupid and annoying but oh well…his movie was great, so I won’t complain.

There’s still good Trek out there, it’s just something some of us might have to wait longer for. I’m looking forward to Picard the most; and of course Lower Decks. Section 31 might be great….so yeah…why not wait and see…it might be great. Here’s hoping anyway.

I have a friend who works on Picard. He signed an NDA out the ass, but says: While it may feel a bit different to us, it is essentially- Trek

You can say the same about Discovery

This guy gets it!

The shows got smarter. You did not keep up.

Who said 60s? Stop making s@it up.

(@MysticalDigtial…book by it’s cover) That’s not totally true. The Mirror-Giorgio character seen so far has been boring and uninspiring to watch and the Section 31 people that have appeared are even less so. Maybe they just haven’t had enough screen time to make it worthwhile (i.e. maybe they’ll pull off a DS9), but the idea seems like a concept created by the modern day Syfy Channel (and that’s not a compliment).

Yeah, the genocidal S31 from DS9 is so much better.

It is indeed a bit of pre-judging. But there are things that probably can be reasonably deduced based on what we know. We know that evil space Pol Pot will be involved in the super secret (or not) Section 31. Right there it is understandable that fans might have reservations. And if you include what we saw of Section 31 from STD season 2 it is not unreasonable to think that may be the kind of stuff we could see in the show. It’s not exactly looking like all that great an idea. Yes, of course, there is a chance that all the signs are false and the reality will be that it could very well be solid. But I’d say the odds at this point do not favor that.

Oh well.

Well, is not my case, I have already stop watching Discovery.

The one in NYC in February? That’s the one I went to. Where Gene Roddenberry announced a ‘deal’ with Paramount to make a movie. First time I saw The Cage.

I understand why you might feel this way. One of the great visions of TOS was to depict a Utopian future, at least with the Federation. Of course we conveniently looked away when we saw mental hospitals and patients, rouge Captains such as Ron Tracey and Merik, corrupted Federation representatives such as John Gill but everything was always tidied up nice and neat with a whimsical epilogue. Unfortunately, as we all know, real life doesn’t work that way. Later versions of Trek including Enterprise and DS9 depicted the need for a covert underground group known as Section 31. Taking that one step further to examine how such a group would operate IMO has a lot of potential and I really like seeing Michelle Yeoh as part of the Star Trek family, but I understand why some would not find this to be their cup of tea. Fortunately for all of us, there will soon be many options to choose from.

Utopian futures don’t make much drama. I really love the more realistic direction Trek is taking.

A34, let’s think for a moment about why ‘The Man in the High Castle’ had a rushed resolution in its fourth season rather than running through five.

As a recent Salon review argued, who needs or wants to watch a lot of extreme dystopia on television, in the current social and political environment. In 2015, when the show premiered, let alone 2013 when it was developed for television, no one saw the rise of the alt-right or extreme, intolerant populist movements. At this point though it’s a painful morality tale to watch – no matter how truly excellent and relevant the production.

So, as Kurtzman has been arguing for a couple of years, we are moving into a period when now as much as ever, audiences need to see the utopian Trek ideal portrayed in drama on television.

I suspect that we are also likely to see a shift in television audiences towards an experience that affirms optimism, and doesn’t continue the deep-dive into darkness in the name of realism.

More realistic… like magic mushroom instantaneous transport, sonar in space, 500m long ships having lots of internal space for hundreds of kms of turbolift shafts and hundreds of fighters?

Kurtzman Trek is an abomination. It’s not even consistent with itself. This Section 31 series should never see the light of day.

Disagree. DS9 was about saving said future from a nightmare, and the shades of grey along the way.

I guess if you deliberately block out the fact that the whole show is about a guy who is told he’s the Messiah, and then is actually the Messiah (a premise in direct conflict with Roddenberry’s view of religion) and that SiskoJesus’s path to ascension is intertwined with the genocide of the Cardassians and the shapeshifters… yeah, I guess you could see it that way. But you’d be wrong.

Hey Gary, I hear what you are saying, but there is always the bitter reality no matter how perfect something appears – The Original Star Trek Premise of a rosy glowing universe was not real it played out well to a war tired world and to an innocent childs mind but it wasnt a realistic concept considering human nature and behavior. There had to be some forms of discord, some secret ops-the ying to the yang- The concept was beautifully covered in DS9, the newer trek films covered it with the modern take on Khan. Discovery did a great job of setting the stage for Section 31 and its first fail…

As much as I love the TOS/TNG vision of the future, as been said countless times, it only made the point the Federation itself was paradise, the rest of the galaxy was as dangerous, divided and had some deep problems, not to mention all the big threats out there from the Romulans to the Borg.

It is ironic that people seem to love DS9 so much now by showing a more grey area even in the Federation itself when many people were saying that’s why its not real Star Trek when it was on. But I guess things does change with time, even the Star Wars prequels seem to be much more accepted today than they were when they premiered.

And of course its fitting its DS9 that introduced Section 31 in the first place. I don’t think it would’ve felt right if we first saw them on TNG. But yes not only do I like them, I do think they are necessary in that universe so I have no issues with that. I really liked them on Enterprise as well, especially since the organization was newer and we probably could’ve saw them grow if the show stayed on.

All that said though, I don’t know if they need their own TV show either. I love Q and the Borg but I wouldn’t want a show with them as well. Sometimes less is more. But I’m curious to hear how the show will work and maybe it will change my mind. Just based on what I saw on Discovery, it did the opposite of what it was intended.

In response to the Federation “utopia”… Watching TOS I never thought of the Federation or humans as becoming a utopian or perfect society. Only in that we as a species had grown beyond some things. It did not mean there was no want or greed or anything like that. Just that things in general were better. It was only in TNG where they started to really say that humans were perfect and have created a perfect society. Something I really never got on board with. I liked the positive viewpoint of the future where grow past some things in general. But the TNG environment was really hard to suspend disbelief for. One of the dumbest things I ever heard in Trek was when Picard told Lily in FC that there is no money anymore and was essentially replaced with personal growth or whatever. Total facepalm on that.

Well I never called it a utopia because I don’t believe that either. I just meant in terms of what we always talk about when it comes to Star Trek and that humanity had evolved and most of the biggest problems like war, poverty, racism, disease, etc (or all the things we all fight and worry about today) are basically gone. It’s not an ‘utopia’ but it’s a more idealized view of where humans will be in the future. But if you live in a third world country today or any place with strife and war the vision of Star Trek would basically sound like a utopia. Certainly a paradise compared to today if you erase all those problems and hence no such thing as a third world country by the 23rd century.

That’s all I mean. What’s funny is TNG never showed a utopia either than what TOS did. We still saw plenty of humans IN Starfleet doing questionable things. So I never got on board with this idea of ‘perfect humans’ either because its just not true. That’s very much a misnomer as much as suggesting TOS is a utopia. Tasha Yar and her background is the perfect example of that. She came from a Federation colony where the government broke down into civil war once it broke away from the Federation and became a place of anarchy and violence. She is the one that gave the infamous line of ‘fleeing rape gangs’ in the pilot episode.

I think people overstate the ‘perfect human’ thing as well. Yes in a society like the Federation you can STRIVE to be perfect I guess but it didn’t mean A. ALL humans would strive to become this or B. That they were perfect by default. All Roddenberry was suggesting that by the 24th century the Federation would be a place where you can be the best of who you wanted to be, but people themselves can still be just as vindictive, violent, greedy and selfish in the end just like any of us can be on this board. We just (or at least I hope lol) try to be good people even if we still have problems. But it doesn’t automatically mean you will even if you are given the option to do it. This is NO different in the world of Trek in the 23rd or 24th century.

Or there wouldn’t still be colonies like Turkana IV in the 24th century, right? That was a Federation colony that just couldn’t get its act together even when it was part of a ‘perfect’ society and still subsumed to the worst of what we are.

And why DS9 is so good, because it basically made that clear, that the Utopian Federation values didn’t apply to everyone, even in the 24th century. TNG simply ignored that issue, but it was always baked in from day one on the show.

and the prime directive- and a peace treaty- tied the federation’s hands as cardassia committed near genocide on bajor.

Admittedly I have only just started rewatching TNG. But what I recall over the course of the show was not so much that they outright said Earth is a Utopia. But there was the subtext quite often that humans were the most amazing and wonderful beings in all the galaxy. Some may be smarter or stronger and whatnot, but only humans had the best of everything. Then, as much as I loved DS9… On DS9 they outright said that Earth was a paradise. So Federation colonies may break down and have problems. But if you were on Earth, you were just fine. And then there was the “no money” line in First Contact.

Anyway, that is where I am coming from when I said what I said about the Utopia. We both seem to be in agreement that humans as a species has evolved beyond some of our weaknesses. But still have a long way to go in the Star Trek time.

That’s fine and we agree that humans have certainly evolved for the better while still having a ways to go. As far your other points, I know people interpret things differently, especially when it comes to Star Trek. All I can tell you is someone who has watched TNG countless times over the last 30 years and been rewatching quite a bit of it since the Picard show was announced I have never once got the notion that humans considered themselves to be the best thing in the galaxy or ‘perfect’. Nowhere in 176 episodes did anyone ever suggest that from I can recall. Any time the issue of what humans are and their place in the universe, its almost always just how much they have evolved from today, which again is what Star Trek has always done.

Picard certainly feels humans are better today but he’s also the guy who is quick to point out their flaws and why he’s constantly going up against someone in Starfleet. You can’t be a perfect species if people in it are constantly going against their own values which is called out constantly on the show. And I can’t think of a single time someone has flat out implied they were the best species in the galaxy (but certainly better than Ferengi, but that’s only because its 100% true ;)).

I think the ‘perfect human’ thing became this talking point on the internet when it came to TNG but it was always a misnomer. Yes, they are more progressive than TOS era but that’s how it is in every new generation. We are much better people today than we were 100 years ago, that’s not even a question, but we’re still very flawed obviously. TNG has had flawed humans from the first season on just as TOS did. Every season that show had humans turning their backs on the prime directive, being petulant, selfish, committing crimes, being prejudice, unreasonable, paranoid or greedy. And these all came from Starfleet officers.

As far as the ‘paradise’ line from DS9 (and one of Sisko’s best speeches), listen to the words he actually says: “On Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet headquarters, you see paradise.” I mean haven’t all that already been established by the TOS era? That sums up Earth progress in the 23rd century. But he also says in the very next line “It’s easy to be a saint in paradise,” which implies people are simply better when they don’t have to struggle as much, but once you take that away then it can fall to the same problems as before, as DS9 showed time and time again.

It really drives home the point, yes society is better but by no means it’s perfect either because end of the day humans can always resort to the same violent, vindictive behavior once things gets bad again. There is the powerful speech Quark gives to Nog in ‘The Siege of AR558’ which I’m sure you remember that makes Sisko’s words even more pointed. I would cite it but this post is long enough lol.

I think you may misunderstand. No character SAID or claimed humans were the best thing ever. That was just how they were often presented in the context of the show.

Regarding Sisko’s speech, no I would not say that was already established in TOS. In fact very little of Earth was ever mentioned in TOS. I think there was even a writers rule that they would never go to Earth in TOS with the exception of time travel. They implied that we had evolved but there was no detectable subtext about Earth being a paradise. It’s quite hard really to deduce much about life on Earth in TOS at all.

For the record (yes, I loathe TVH but am forced to accept it is still canon) when Kirk said “They are still using money” my takeaway was not that there was no currency at all. That would be ridiculous. I figured that since they already referred to “credits” as a form of currency earlier I figured he just meant cash. Physical money. Which DOES make sense. It was the Berman era that decided there was no currency whatsoever in the future. Although how they can maintain a society under such circumstances still baffles me. It’s a fairly major change (at least I consider it a change) that the TNG era did. Again, TOS already established the existence of “credits”. So they DID have some sort of economic system.

I never got that impression at all. That’s my point and why I said that people can interpret things differently. But I never remotely felt that at all. But you did, so OK.

We have seen Earth PLENTY of times in the TOS movies. It does seem like a pretty nice place lol. I mean are you suggesting Earth still has poverty, crime and war in the 23rd century?? Isn’t the point that Earth has gotten over its problems when it went out to explore the galaxy? Earth sounds pretty nice in the 23rd century IMO. Another 100 years it would be even nicer if progress kept up, which it obviously did right? So no, none of this is really a surprise. Earth has never been presented as anything but a really nice and great place to live.

As for TVH, the joke at the restaurant about not using money in the 23rd century makes it abundantly clear they don’t use money. Even in 1986 everyone had credit cards, so its not like he couldn’t say they just use some OTHER form of payment as we already were as well. This is pretty obvious it was meant they don’t use it at all anymore. But yes that said I always maintained there is probably some form of credit system in the Federation because even in the 24th century they still buy and pay for things in non-Federation worlds, just not on Earth and Federation worlds themselves.

And anyway it doesn’t really matter anymore, it’s been established long ago money has been gone since the 22nd century. I don’t write for the show but Earth is basically a much more idealized place to live by then. Isn’t that the entire point of Star Trek?

No no… Not the TOS Movies. From the show. Quite a different thing. Even in the movies we saw some backgrounds and it did look nice. But that’s about all we could deduce. Just because humans started exploring the galaxy doesn’t mean other Earthbound issues were 100% solved. The way I got it was merely that things were better. That’s enough for me because that’s not really what the show was about. It’s a nice side bar. But the show was really about the people on the Star Ship and the incredible things they find.

Regarding TVH… We can just chalk up the money thing to yet another inconsistency it has to the rest of the Trek universe. I don’t think it was obvious they didn’t use money at all. It was pretty obvious he didn’t carry cash and his 23rd century equivalent of a credit card (perhaps the credits referenced earlier) would certainly not work in 1986 Earth. And there would still need to be some sort of currency even within Federation worlds. I cannot imagine how things could function otherwise. They were for sure using “credits” in the 23rd century. And sometime in the next 70 years they stopped that and used some other form of currency that has not been explained in any movie or TV show. At least, that is how I am reconciling it.

The movies are canon, so it doesn’t really matter. The only point is everything has always shown Earth to be an idealized view of it from today in a positive way. I don’t even understand what the argument is lol. The world has progressed by this time. No one said it’s 100% better but compared to today clearly MUCH better. That’s all that is being said. I think you took my ‘vision’ line a little too seriously. I was not implying it was utopia but clearly that Earth has become an idealized place to live and where people are generally happy and thriving, hence Starfleet itself. The fact there is no longer a military on Earth anymore (and oddly how this whole discussion started lol) tells you everything. We can argue the minutiae all day long but it’s not the Matrix, Blade Runner or Terminator view of the world most science fiction dwells on. Its always been held up the complete opposite of that.

Star Trek always had a very positive outlook overall of where humans have come, even if its still not perfect as been discussed in BOTH the 23rd and 24th century. But clearly Earth is a great place and only got better even if there are still some issues.

And as I said money is still used in the 24th century as well, we just know Earth itself doesn’t use it. It’s not really contradictory to anything. Yes you can imagine them using money in the 23rd century, you can also imagine them not using it. Eitherway none of this matters anymore. It’s been well established they don’t today.

Fair enough.

Regarding the money thing… All we really know is that Picard told Lily that the economics of the future were different and there is no money in his day. A lot can be inferred from that. The context of the comments suggest to me that there is indeed no currency whatsoever. That nothing has monetary value anymore. Which honestly doesn’t make any sense as there really is no way for a modern society to function without some form of currency. But in the end you are right. Such minutia doesn’t really matter much as it doesn’t really have anything to do with the stories at hand. But for fans it can be fun to retcon this stuff and flesh out the fictional universe a bit more. It kinda falls in line with the “how can the Klingon Empire exist as the society they are shown to be like?” We fans can have fun working out how it might.

”The context of the comments suggest to me that there is indeed no currency whatsoever. That nothing has monetary value anymore. Which honestly doesn’t make any sense as there really is no way for a modern society to function without some form of currency.”

ML31, Tiger2:

I’ve been quietly following your discussion with interest ;)

The explanation is actually pretty straightforward. Firstly, the Federation is a post-scarcity civilisation, so the abundance of resources would make the cost (not the value) of most things comparatively small, especially by our standards.

Most significant, however, is the ubiquity of replicators coupled with effectively free energy. This eliminates the need for money because you no longer have to literally buy anything. Replicators can simply covert energy into matter and manufacture whatever people need, depending on available design specs for the required item. Presumably there would be “industrial replicators” for larger items too.

So the main factors become power consumption, technical design/expertise, and legality, not cost of the object or financing of staff. That’s why you no longer need money. People don’t need salaries, at least not payment in currencies, if Federation state-supported mass access to replicators mean that everyone’s basic needs are covered (shelter + food + clothing) and they can simply manufacture whatever else they need/want, within reason, or they can simply order it for free from distributors (especially when it involves larger or more specialised items).

Having said that, Trek has also shown some demand for handmade stuff — see the Picard family’s wines, the Sisko family’s restaurant, Garak’s bespoke tailoring etc. No explanation given in the shows, as far as I know, but you could speculate it’s simply for the same reasons that some people in real life may sometimes prefer “handmade” or “bespoke” stuff rather than mass-produced stuff.

All this actually shows how brave Starfleet officers are, especially those involved in military functions. As Federation citizens, they could easily spend their entire lives relaxing in some tropical oceanfront home, just pursuing their hobbies and enjoying other people’s company. Instead, they’ve chosen to go into deep space, pursue an extremely demanding career, and sometimes literally risk their lives.

OK. The existence of replicators sure can have unknown effects on the economy. But then there are other things that people will wish to afford themselves. Some might want to own a nice home in the hills or a place overlooking the city. How can the difference between that and a one bedroom apartment in the nice clean city be rectified? Do replicators create land parcels, too? There are still things that are going to require currency. The idea that their currency is the desire to improve oneself just doesn’t fly with me. How does a society equate that to value? Is the Federation a Communist State? Is it a Constitutional Monarchy? Does the government just give stuff to the population for free? If they do then where do THEY get the means do do this? How do they decide who gets the better stuff? Regarding the bravery of Star Fleet we kinda have that already. There are, thankfully, people who choose to engage in risky professions. I can’t imagine that would not continue to be true 300 or 400 years into the future.

Not being argumentative here. I just find the lack of currency in TNG time to be an odd contrivance. And would be nice to make some sort of sense over it. And again, it’s not important in any way. Just fans talking about the extended fictional Trek world.

And what about gold-pressed latinum?

You have to have something to use when you’re buying non-Federation goods and services, right? Other societies who are not members of the Federation may be sought out to trade with if they have, for example, dilithium.

And who gets to live on the hills above San Fran and have the big apartment, and so on? Perhaps you trade off your fine apartment and put your stuff in transporter buffer storage for when you go live on a tropical island, and someone who’s just come in from a 5-year deep space mission can live in the fine apartment for awhile, or on the tropical island.

The concepts of property and “stuff” and economic scarcity will surely change, and one hopes humans will become more enlightened and less selfish, so there is abundance for everyone, not just a very few.

I bet there is some college professor who has written a book on the economics of Star Trek ;^)

Now we are getting into deep rooted human traits and what will we “grow beyond” and such. The thing is, greed is currently a tremendous motivator. It always has been since the dawn of time and remains so to this day. Some may call it something else but when it comes down to it, the reason people produce anything is mainly because of greed. Remove that and humankind needs another motivator. I suppose it’s possible but I have a hard time thinking about what that might be. And the concept that “bettering ourselves” becomes that motive is tougher for me to accept than the concept of a transporter.

Yes I think you hit it on the head Jai!

Star Trek is based on a post-scarcity model of the future. I also think we are suppose to believe once World War 3 happened and basically saw all life nearly destroyed over pettiness and hate, a major tide started to turn and that humanity couldn’t just look at things with the same cynical tribal eye and everyone basically out for themselves (and this applies on a macro level in terms of countries self interest which has become a huge debate in the real world since a certain someone became President).

Let’s all be honest, hunger and poverty could literally be wiped out tomorrow if we really wanted it to (starting the process at least). There is more than enough food to go around, we waste enough of it every day of the week in all the wealthy countries. There are trillions of dollars just sitting in banks collecting interest and little else. But obviously that would mean all the governments, corporations and personal wealthy would have to let go of a lot of it but everyone could live at least comfortably if still modest if they did that.

But obviously that will never happen. At least in our world.

But that’s the difference, somewhere in the Trek universe someone decided having wealth and money is not where life is if others are still suffering. There was a collective decision to change everything, from how we govern to basic economics but still find ways to progress and innovate while all being unified in the process.

And yes I think the replicator played a huge role in that as you stated. Once you invented something that can make virtually anything (at least in reason) then yes that solves a LOT of problems, at least on an economic scale. I mean end of the day, when its ALL said and done, the only thing people have to work for to live is to eat, a roof over your head and staying healthy. But everything beyond those are just luxuries. But once you figure out a way to feed everyone and give them the basics to live on with all the medical needs, you solved the biggest problem of poverty at least.

But of course I’m not suggesting that somehow just wipes out money or anything. There are still be TONS of issues of how things are just done in general. But as you said, people don’t need salaries in reality IF everyone is willing to pitch in and work if they feel their work is benefit enough for themselves and everyone else. In the world of Star Trek that’s what we are suppose to believe. Yes its a complete fantasy in our world today but this is why I don’t treat Star Trek like its reality. It’s not. But same time its not implausible either, its just all we know as a civilization.

But look at all the other species on this planet that work together. Ants and bees don’t get a paycheck but yet they work tirelessly for each other. They haven’t built mega cities, cars or broadband internet but they all work for the basics to make sure everyone eats and lives. This is basically the philosophy of Star Trek on a grand scale and it extended once we finally got into space and now have the resources to build practically anything.

As I said though, I don’t think the no-money thing could TRULY work for us because yes we would have to start thinking like ants and bees do and clearly we’re NOT programmed that way. But in Star Trek they are and I just go with it because it’s a science fiction show and it’s also canon now so it just is.

I don’t disagree the no money thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but you can say a LOT of things about that in Star Trek lol. For me, it is what it is. It’s a science fiction show, its not real life. It’s just interesting to see this version of the future, and such a positive one at that where people have set aside things like racism, division and greed and all work towards a shared goal to better humanity as a whole. That’s a beautiful statement, but yeah utter fantasy just like the no money thing lol.

I imagine when we get to our version of the 23rd century, hardly anything will be like Star Trek’s version. And yes I have a feeling will still be using money as well.

Oh forgot, but as far as the ‘no money’ thing, that wasn’t established on TNG first by your favorite Star Trek movie of all time, TVH. ;)

I think that was the first time it was clearly established the Federation didn’t use money (or at least Earth) and they continued that theme in TNG and the other shows. Another example that was something already happening in the 23rd century although Voyager went farther with it and suggested money would be gone by the 22nd century. But that would make sense because by that time, United Earth was formed creating a single world government and probably when money went away.

I always took the ‘no money’ thing in TVH to be facetious. It’s hard to take Kirk at face(palm) value anyway in TVH, as he tells Gillian ‘we’re not in the military,’ which so far as I know is an outright lie.

As said before, I consider the line to be more along the lines of having no compatible cash. Just as a time traveler to Germany in 1982 would say, “They are still using Marks in this time.” Or when someone today says, “I don’t have any money.” That normally means no cash or in some cases, cards. Kirk said “They are still using money”. It makes sense to think of that as cash currency especially since a mere 15 years earlier people on his ship were bartering in invisible “credits”.

a paradise until the dominion struck and earth almost slid into a police state with armed guards everywhere.

Yep! Another reason why DS9 is so great. DS9 was also the only show that showed a successful attack on Earth as well.

eh, does the xindi probe attack in ENT still count?

LOL you’re right I forgot all about that and the Xindi. Yes, I stand corrected. But we can say DS9 was still the first. ;)

you people sometimes are just so weird…

I fella ya. I’m sure I’ll still watch it but I really have zero interest. Everything Section 31 related since DS9’s originally conception, has been nothing but sloppy fangasm nonsense. This will be the Voyager of the current crop of shows.

Hey, don’t dis Voyager! I grew up as a second-generation trekkie watching and loving Voyager. I still do. When I was a little girl I would pretend that I was 7 of 9 and my mom was Janeway. There are a lot of beautiful episodes in it. Shattered in the 7th season, explaining that no matter what hardships you endure, they’re worth it if you have people you love to go through them with, is one of my all-time favorite Star Trek episodes. It might not be your cup of tea, but don’t use it as a slur.

Thanks for weighing in Total-Trekkie2.

Voyager really has stood the test of time. I appreciate it much more having rewatched it as our middle-graders saw it for the first time.

For one of our kids, it’s their favourite of the first 5 series. Janeway is their hero too : as I found out by reading one of their school projects.

I really wish that some of the folks here dissing Voyager would give it a rewatch.

Yes, Voyager is uneven, but it has some of the all-time most innovative episodes: e.g. ‘Oblivion’ following up on ‘Demon’.

Voyager was never my favorite but its still a really good show despite its flaws and I watch just as much as the others. And its probably the only show I didn’t have any issues with its first seasons like the others.

While I loved Capt Janeway, I didn’t enjoy the first couple of seasons during the original broadcasts, and dissed the show for years.

Until I gave it a rewatch last year. I really like it a lot. I think it’s hard for me to pick a favorite Trek show from that era. Probably DS9 rates highest for me.

But in every Trek show, I love all the characters, or if I don’t love them at first [Neelix, Quark] I grow to love them.

Trek teaches tolerance ;^)

Join the club, I gave up after coming to accept just how awful TNG was. There is hope though..
For me DS9, the potential of ENT, the potential of discovery and now. Pike/Number One/Spock on the 1701 bring me back in for a couple months at a time. .

I’m not going to watch it either. In fact, I will cancel my CBSAA subscription during the months the new Sec 31 show is on just to further the point I am totally against this show existing. I’m happy for the audience that will watch and enjoy it, but it’s not my Star Trek. I loved new versions of Trek like DS9, JJ Trek, etc., but this is just not for me at all.

Not sure how much of a message you will send VZX if you cancel without even watching the pilot.

Why not just post a video of yourself masturbating? Seems more efficient.

I HAVE to ask this, but what IS Star Trek? Because that optimistic idealistic utopia isn’t Star Trek, it’s Starfleet and the Federation’s story. That’s not the story you’d tell if you were focused on the Klingons for a show (as some fans were calling for years ago) or the Dominion (which would be so militaristic of a show). So how is doing Section 31 NOT Star Trek? I’m not trying to be snarky or whatever, but it’s been a legit question of mine for so long. Star Trek has many faces and is a prime franchise wear so many different hats. It’s how you can easily have all of these spinoffs on tv and in film and not get stale. Tell one story in this pocket of the universe and then tell this story in another pocket from a different point of view. You can’t have the Star Trek Universe but only always focus on stories about the Federation or the positive sides of the Federation. Where’s the expansion?

Pretentious pearl-clutching. DS9 pissed on Gene Roddenberry’s legacy from Episode 1, and it’s celebrated ‘best episode’ takes a big steaming crap on his idealism. Yet we recovered. A less pretentious person would have read the article and noticed that it’s being compared to UNFORGIVEN–is UNFORGIVEN a defense of murder? Of course not. Keep your shirt on.

[Obviously it’s not a secret that the Borg were involved, and his first instinct was not to do the Borg. He was like, “I did that story. I don’t want to do that story.” And we couldn’t just say, “Yeah, but we loved you in it so much, we just want to do that again.”]

Are these writers in the wrong profession? Basically they were saying, “yeah, but we can’t create anything new, we are an uncreative bunch and need to copy the stuff from before”

Hopefully Patrick Stewart was able to pull something creative out of them at least a little bit.

The writers know that the fans love the Borg. It’s really not that hard to understand why they wanted the Borg.

I think you’re misreading what Kurtzman is saying, Jeff. He’s saying they DIDN’T just decide to repeat what had been done with the Borg before; they’ve come up with something new.

Jeff, as David Mack recently put it in an interview on Literary Treks about Destiny, his stellar Relaunch Trek-lit trilogy, the Borg are the biggest toy in the Trek sandbox.

Mack says that he was amazed that he was permitted to write the alpha and omega story of the Borg, but that Simon & Schuster had asked him to develop an ‘epic’ trilogy publishing ‘event’ that spanned across multiple Trek series. Mack says he tried out many ideas, but in the end it was the Borg that resonated with TPTB at the publisher.

So, although I still see Mack’s Destiny trilogy as the final word on the Borg, I completely understand – especially given Picard’s personal history of assimilation – why a new Picard series needed to include the Borg. For now, they are the epic touchstone for 24th century Trek.

I think it just illustrates the lack of creativity coming out of Hollywood now days. Instead of seeking out new life and new civilizations and going where no one has gone before, they are constantly just trying to revisit the hay day eras and most popular story concepts. Then we get excited by a reboot only to realized, despite being a reboot, they might also be planning to take an old story line and slap a new coat of paint on it.

I’m expecting Picard to still be good, but based on this interview it sounds like any originality is because of Patrick Stewart and not from the writers.

That’s not giving the Pulitzer Prize winning showrunner who has written some of the most inventive and original novels of the last 30 years very much credit. I think it’s totally appropriate for Patrick Stewart to be very skeptical of any pitches, but that doesn’t mean that the writers were only pitching old stuff.

It really sounds like it went something like this…

Stewart: I’m done with Picard.
Kurtzman: Here’s a truckload of money.
Stewart: Looks like Picard is back!
Kurtzman: We want to do a Picard/Borg story.
Stewart: I’d like to do something different.
Kurtzman: Here’s some more money.
Stewart: When do I start?

Yeah the Borg were the biggest no-brainer to include in this show. I said a year ago I expected to see them on this show. I didn’t think the first season since I assumed it would deal with the Romulans and the fall out from the super nova but I figured most likely second or third season. Of course it never occurred to me they would somehow combine the Romulan story line with the Borg so that IS intriguing and different.

So I’m totally excited to see how they do it. I’ve always loved the Borg so I wanted to see them back at some point and expected it to happen once we had a post-Voyager show again. But your praise over the Destiny novels have gotten me interested so I may end up reading it in the future. And obviously we can’t discount whatever happened in that story won’t be included in Picard in some way like like Control was from the S31 books.

We need to keep in mind that CBS OWNS all the IP from the books, not the writers-for-hire authors.

Any storylines, characters or concepts in Trek-lit are absolutely available for use in the television series.

Mack has noted that CBS isn’t even obliged legally to give it’s Trek-lit authors a ‘based on the story/character by’ acknowledgement in the credits.

I can’t wait. I’m way more excited for Section 31.

I’m with you, I love this exploration we’ve got going of more Trek and more stories than ‘here’s a ship/station, follow it’s crew on adventures each week that don’t matter in the end (DS9 being the obvious exception)’

“…follow it’s crew on adventures each week that don’t matter in the end”

I have to disagree. Separate adventures matter, they are far more what I expect from a TV show than a dragging storyarc. THAT story arc is what doesn’t matter in the end of the ending is bad and so far, there hasn’t been (and probably never will be) a TV show whose ending pleased everybody or even the majority of fans…

Individual episldes on the other hand can be rewatched and cherished for decades to come, no matter if the ending is any good. I guess most modern TV shows just don’t work for me because of that. Lost, NuBSG, GoT… so many GREAT show ultimately failed to deliver upon their promise.

“Individual episldes on the other hand can be rewatched and cherished for decades to come, no matter if the ending is any good”

Agreed, agreed, agreed!

For all their faults and their underdelivering, I liked B&B’s concept of treating episodes as ‘a movie every week’ and the diversity in storytelling that enables – and modern production values, plus the longer episode times on streaming, could actually deliver that!

I’d like to drill down more on the idea that the CBSAA senior executive put out there : series TV equals better streaming drama.

I too have real issues with this mainly because buried in the series television formula we are seeing is a notion that the ‘star’ character’s personal transformation is essentially linked to saving the world/universe. Worse, in this formula, there is a kind of hidden ‘golden child’ with a destiny to be uncovered.

It works with series that are not linked to a broader franchise universe. The Man in the High Castle and Carnival Road are fine with this.

However, it’s a lousy fit for a ‘boldly going’ franchise about exploring the outer and inner universe. Force-fitting Discovery into this mould has grated against long-time Trek fans.

And heading into a third season in which Burnham seems to be slated to be the key to saving the universe/Federation as well as getting the most lines and screen time, it’s increasingly untenable.

It also, as I’ve noted before, undermines the significance and value of having Burnham as the first black female Trek lead. It completely flies in the face of the 90s logic that it was crucial that Sisko and Janeway come from ordinary backgrounds. Avery Brooks has said more than once that it was crucial to have a human African-American lead – with no bumps on the forehead.

Burnham is the Heart of Star Trek Discovery. Picard is the Center of Star Trek Picard, and Georgiou will Own Star Trek Section 31. The time of cardboard star trek crews are over.

These are very, very good points.

Streaming — and the desire to induce binging (I actually read that Netflix justified the cancellation of the latest MST3K revival to its producers by saying it didn’t get people binging content) — really does impose a sort of crude teleology on narrative. Every part of every episode is “supposed” to be hyperpalatable, and get the viewer to turn off the part of their brain that suggests getting off the couch and doing something else for a bit. Focusing on a single anointed hero, saving the world/universe/etc, is an easy shortcut to such hyperpalatability.

One could argue that well, that’s just the nature of narrative. But there’s a difference: it’s usually the latest Tom Clancy, or Stephen King, or Danielle Steele book that’s praised as a “page-turner.” I.e. stuff that’s fun, sure, but won’t generally be mistaken for high literature. High literature has episodic moments within its narratives — digressive chapters that point to other ideas, other worlds; chapters that reflect on the complexities and nuances of the world and narrative depicted, letting it “breathe”; chapters that flesh out characters rather than merely advance the larger plot.

Thanks for this Logician.

While there’s some 19th century literature (Dickens) that relied excessively on cliffhangers due to newspaper serialization, it’s great to see someone else here that views over-adherence to the serial format as being as a general rule less rather than more supportive of good writing.

Frankly, the worse of serialized streaming dramas make me think of being obliged to listen to ‘The Shadow’ (knows) as an elementary school exercise in understanding what radio meant to our grandparents generation. All I could think of was that the advertisers had come up with a good way to hook people in, as daytime TV soaps did later.

For me, the best serialized streaming shows have been based on novels. I really hope that having Chabon and Beyer, who are novelists first, in the room will turn out to be a strength for Picard.

You’re right about the adventures that didn’t matter. I’ve watched TNG episodes multiple times back in the day and now I can hardly remember any of those episodes. DS9 on the other hand is hard to forget.

SECTION 31 sounds like the weirdest idea a traditional, well-established franchise can probably come up with. Murderous Ex-Emperor from the Mirror Universe, currently stranded in the 31st century, becomes the 23rd century’s most pivotal secret agent… Even if they get her back to the past in a conceivable manner, it is the weirdest background for a main character ever written for TV, muddled and messy from day one.

PICARD being a “modern adult drama” also kinda gives me the creeps. The benchmark is Q’s trial of humanity from “Encounter at Farpoint” which is the starting point of NextGen and ultimately defines the visionary concept on which Trek is based upon: Overcoming the inherent flaws of the human condition. Would this TV show be able to convince Q of humans having evolved beyond being a grievously savage race? Even DS9 would have had its issues with that, though being a more or less traditional Trek show. But the terms “modern” and “adult” hint at a level of edge and intensity that’s terrifying.

Ironically it is the producers of the franchise with one of the most conservative (tee hee!) fan audiences there is, where “changing the formula” is concerned, that steadfastly REFUSE to go down the nostalgia route a la Marvel or Star Wars, and just give people what they want to see.

IT. MUST. BE. DIFFERENT!

It should be different.

I’m hoping Q drops in for a little judgment call.

You mean you’d like Q to show up and just spoon feed Picard everything again?

You rather Picard to be a kiddy show?

Oh I see that God Emperor Troll is back.

This is why I think the S31 concept fails. Can you even imagine writing this series from scratch and choosing to come up with a character who already has that backstory. It would read like really half-@$$ed fan-fiction (which I now suppose is what STD is). Trying to visualize this show as something that exists apart from STD should be the test of concept, and I don’t believe you can.

It’s not been greenlit yet? That’s moderately reassuring. If fans absolutely must have their Pike series (which I also think would be a mistake), then this would be the one to sub out.

Sam, the interview implies that S31 is effectively greenlighted.

The pilot may be getting polished, but it sounds like it’s mapped out and the writer’s room is moving forward.

This suggests casting is going on below the radar too.

The one thing we haven’t seen yet is for a new CBS studios project in preproduction in the listings for Toronto in the Ontario director’s guild sheets. Could be that CBSAA wanted to get a media story out ahead of a new show showing up in Toronto Guild sheets, even under a pseudonym.

Looking at Discovery having a typical 2-3 month preproduction period, they may not be ready to shoot S31 immediately after Discovery wraps in February in any case. Or it may mean that Discovery S3 may be extended by an episode or so (again).

I re-skimmed the comments and they said the same thing as last time. “We have a writer’s room.”

I don’t know which series I’m more (less?) interested in. In the serialized world, both STD S3 and S31 will remain directly spun off of STD S1-2 no matter where their storylines go to try to scrub themselves.

Giving the “green light” means they have an approved budget, among a few other things I think. Shows can be in development without being green lit. They can also be scrapped after being green lit.

They’re bragging that Alex has a writer’s room. That sounds almost like a Mexican food place bragging that they have a salsa bar. Sure there are plenty of Mexican restaurants that don’t have salsa bars, and that serve only mild salsa (gringo sauce) along with very flaky chips, but they tend to not get a lot of repeat business from me.

Would you want this show officialized and budgeted before they figured out who was going to write it? Because I wouldn’t put it past them. It just seems like a delicious minimum requirement.

It’s really strange (read: not at all) how the knee-jerk critics of a not yet produced show don’t even bother to respond to … you know, the actual description of the show: as M.Georgiou’s UNFORGIVEN, a character’s moral reckoning after lifetime of sin.

You’ve got nothing. Go listen to the STD podcasts on this site, specifically for any S2 episodes Georgiou was featured in, and see how much potential the shuttlepodcasters perceive for her as the main character of a S31 series (read: practically none at all). And stop trolling. Nobody can understand what you’re randomly, sarcastically mumbling to yourself about.

I think you are giving Q far too much credit, Garth. It very much looks like Q was on Picard or human’s side from day one. There was no real trial or convincing at all. It might have looked that way from the pilot episode. (which I recently saw for the 2nd time… Ugh it was worse than I remembered) But that is not the route they took with Q.

Looking forward to both, but especially Section 31.

Quote: “Full credit goes to Michelle Yeoh for coming to me and saying in season one, before we even launched, “I want to do a spin off of my character!” With Michelle Yeoh, it’s very hard to say no.”

Well, that`s the line. I never heard him say this that clearly, so the spin-off I think was part of getting her as an actress. So we better start loving the idea of the show. Lets paste it with warm colors :)

Hey, I’m all for Michelle Yeoh helming her own spin-off! The Captain Georgiou show, the role model captain we all need in dark times ;)

Isn’t that Pike’s slot for most of you?

Unfortunately Pike is entirely too male and too white for certain circles (Picard still qualifies as a 80 yo protagonist treading somewhat uncharted terrority) so Georgiou seems like the perfect compromise candidate for the weekly episodic starship series. And you know what, I would be totally alright with that, because as an INDIVIDUAL and a CHARACTER she is intriguing, much more so than Her Highness St. Michael!

Michelle Yeoh is a goddamn world treasure and we are lucky to have her.

And that is a problem, Wehmut. Michelle Yeoh is a decent name but certainly not one you bow down to and cave to her every wish. She wants a spin off you can easily say “no” to the request if you cannot find a way to make it work. But my point is why does she HAVE to be in Section 31? That makes no sense. There are other options for a sci-fi show about a homicidal despot. Why not have her bouncing around the galaxy trying to find a way home? There are other, more appropriate vehicles for that character than sticking her in the secret-not so secret spy agency.

“As Alex has mapped it all out, each show has its own unique sort of voice and vision”, and none of them is Star Trek.

People like you proclaimed that TNG and later DS9 were not Star Trek either. Thankfully, most people disagreed.

Agreed Alex.

It’s getting hard to find words for how tiresome it is to have certain fans try to quash every new Trek offering by saying that it doesn’t conform to their narrow definition of what is Trek.

I recall watching the premiere of TNG in 1987 with my housemates of the day. We all had the question ‘Will this be Trek?’. Simple answer: ‘yes’.

But, as you note, there were and are those (including on this board) who still don’t accept 90s Trek.

Yes, I have questions about whether the S31 series will be Trek for me. But:

1). I have a lot of belief in the writing of Kim and Lippoldt, the showrunners.

2). It’s okay if this turns out to be the one Trek series that I don’t watch.

Your second point is perfect. It’s okay not to like everything in a franchise. I personally can’t stand Voyager, but I would never bash someone else who does. We all like Star Trek here in some form or fashion, and I think that’s worth celebrating.

DS9 is my personal favourite Trek. You, see it is much more complicated than telling me that I am a hater because I am a hater. ;-)

But Newspin, there were many fans that decried DS9 for ‘not being Trek’.

To the point that many of us wondered if the Defiant was added just to shut down the ‘but there’s no ship’ crowd.

So, you have had issues with Discovery which Kurtzman has struggled helm after Fuller’s departure and what is fairly universally viewed as the worse birthing of any Trek series. Many of us here, share that view without making categorical judgments about the new series.

We haven’t seen Picard or S31 yet : but somehow, like the ‘not Trek without a ship’ crowd, you ‘just know’ it will be awful.

And you wonder why many of us are seeing you as hopelessly biased?

TNG’s ‘birthing’ had to have been at least as bad as DSC’s, and lasted at least two seasons, which puts it on par with DSC. Personally I’d put ENT in the same boat, as Ent and Voy were the first wholly unwatchable trek series, though I did give up on TNG for a time early on. Clearly it gets easier to give up on stuff as things go on, going by my reaction to DSC.

Do you consider DIS unwatchable as well? Didn’t you stop watching that one too?

I sat through all of season 1 because my wife got semi-hooked — well, I was doing some work on a laptop during a couple of really bad mirror universe shows, but I was listening — and I thought the s2 opener was alright, but we haven’t been able to watch the rest. T

here doesn’t seem to be a way to watch CBS All Access for us because our viewing devices aren’t recognized as valid, not through Amazon and not through Comcast either apparently (my wife does all the tech stuff.) I guess we might be able to get it to work through my iMac, but I don’t watch anything except DVDs on that due to the size issue. I’m not losing any sleep over it, though, because the look of DSC — not just the glare-y and overlarge interiors, but the space vfx as well — is so unappealing that even if they started telling good stories, I’d probably still not enjoy it much.

And I’m not just picking on DSC here … the look of nuBSG impacted watching and rewatching massively, as the show manages to look both under- and overexposed in the same shot, plus, in the case of the Cylon interiors, manages a digital equivalent to the hokiness level of scenes aboard the Bigfoot alien ship in SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN.

OK that’s fair enough. And I understand. Up until I bought me a Roku Smart TV last summer, I was mostly watching Discovery through my computer and I was getting sick of it myself. I didn’t buy a TV just to watch Discovery obviously, but I realized so much of what I was watching was coming more and more through streaming now and the TV I owned before was not adequate to watch a lot of this stuff since it was too old to recognize a lot of these sites. So I had to finally invest in better hardware. And I have to say its been a whole new world since lol. I’m enjoying so many different shows and movies in a whole new way. And we just got Disney+ when that premiered, its even better. I’m really enjoying watching so much that really didn’t come out that well on a computer or a phone. I still watch things on those too but yes having a real TV designed for these sites and can watch these movies and shows on a much better platform and in 4K/HDR helps a ton.

And I know you have an eye more for this stuff than I do, when it comes to FX. I’m not as rough on it and to be fair season 2 does look a LOT more better FX wise than season 1 IMO. But you may feel differently. And for me I can still watch something like TOS and like it even when it stills look comically outdated today but I know that’s not the same either.

I’ve never had much of a credibility problem watching TOS, except for the odd shot or three (going around the unseen sun in TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY and a few of the planet soundstages, though none look as bad as TNG’s second Q episode and HAVEN, which make GREEN ACRES look like BARRY LYNDON by comparison.) It could just be me with rose-colored glasses, but given that I still rejected stuff on a visual basis as a teen (STARLOST and FANTASTIC JOURNEY, anyone?), I think it is just that when something has nice contrast and looks sharp, I tend to get more involved in the viewing. Probably explains why I like so many films from the 60s as well, back when everybody had to shoot 50-speed film and use a ton of light to get an exposure. I do consider the early to mid 70s to be the golden age of filmmaking, but in terms of rewatchability, 60s stuff ranks very high with me.

I’m sure that when I get a 4K TV, some of the options currently denied me will open up. But I’ve even held off on buying disk sets with blu-rays plus 4K UHD, largely because the mixed reviews of a lot of 4K disks make me think I will either not be able to see the difference or I will be disappointed by the results in some cases. 25 and 30 years ago, I spent over fifty bucka and then about 90 bucks to get the best laserdiscs of Kubrick’s 2001, but I don’t feel that need any longer to be urgently up to date, which is either a sign of latent maturity or the best manifestation of late-middle-age poverty.

Totally understand kmart.

We find ourselves increasingly late adopters as we go on, largely due to competing financial priorities.

Don’t recall whether you have kids kmart, but we also find that when we’re trying to encourage our kids to do more that doesn’t involve electronics, jumping into more tech is not our first spending priority.

On the other hand, a better television may be needed just to keep our kids from watching everything on their tablets.

When have I ever said that I will not be giving it a chance? I will – because I am a Trek Fan. BUT, in the end, the person helming Trek at the moment is one of the worst writers that somehow fell upwards in Hollywood that I have ever seen. Yes, that is a bias, but based on experience!

Everything, and I do mean everything, that Kurtzman tocuhed in the past is mediocre – at best – most of the time I do indeed “hate” it, because it is just so devoid of any intellectual value, interesting story acs or strong characters that I am dumbfounded that they – the powers that be – gave the Trek Franchise (which is not a mindless action franchise) to him.

Once again, I have not given up hope completely and will be tuning in to see what is what, but his “trekrecord” after three films and 2 seasons of Discovery is just mindboglingly miserable (to me!) that I am virtually certain that he does not understand what made Trek, Trek. And don’t get me started on his depiction of Section 31 (my main argument against this show being able to be good), which is just soooo over the top silly that Director Sloan could gladly create a new morphogenic virus to get rid of the entire writing staff that came up with it.

I am not against “other Trek”, or “new Trek”. Of course nobody would be watching TOS 2.0 in 2020 (me included) but there is a certain core that every Star Trek show needs to have for me to consider it Star Trek, and as I said before, I am almost positive that Kurtzman has no idea what that core is…

Well said

Invoking UNFORGIVEN (which I just rewatched again before Thanksgiving) is unforgivable to me, and a clear example of setting the bar way too high. I’ve been wanting to see a lead character in TREK on a journey of redemption that will consume his life since Harriman and the E-B in GEN, buit DSC’s lead tried that and utterly failed 1st season, and now it sounds like they are trying it again, but with a less-likely character.

Also, given what we’ve already seen with this character, any potential story of redemption would be undercut by the expectation at this point that the current batch of non-Chabon writers will just introduce an arbitrary reversal when they feel it is the gotcha moment. So they are likely to undo any character evolution and reveal it was all just another lowdown dirty maneuver, just to be able to say, “fooled ya!”

They may think they know trek but they haven’t seen FRIDAY’S CHILD in a long time: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Of course, a lot of trek devotees let themselves get fooled repeatedly too — I’m guilty of seeing stuff I am certain will be less than the ideal, but I make a point of at least not paying to see thpse — I don’t want to live in the BRAZIL universe (anymore than we already are at this point) where you’re charged for the cost of your own torture.

Maybe it’s just me, but I would hope that no matter the Trek show, that they would set the bar very high. Anyone doing any art should set a high bar. And it’s totally and completely normal for a show to say “these are the masterpiece touchstones that we want to emulate/look to when we make our work.” Filmmakers, writers, all artists do that. It’s part of the neverending conversation of arts and letters in civilization.

What would you have preferred, them saying, “We don’t expect much from this show, it’s really just a vanity project for Michelle, and we’re gonna do it even though we don’t really know what we want from it.” – I’m glad that they are citing one of the best westerns of all time as a touchstone. It’s a much better touchstone than, say, Zero Dark Thirty or Alias or whatever.

Honestly, I’d’ve preferred to hear something straightforward like, ‘we’re looking to tell some good self-contained stories and hope that our overreaching arc can nicely pay off the nuggets we’ve planted.’ When you invoke a classic, it invites the “DIE HARD ON A … ” comparison, like ‘UNFORGIVEN ON THE FINAL FRONTIER’ even if that isn’t what specifically was said.

The Unforgiven comparison I felt was uncalled for. My issue is that Evil Georgeau is from an opposite universe. Where she is just wired to be that way. No amount of exposure to our side of things will ever make it go away. She will be able to suppress it as needed. But one cannot keep that true nature bottled up forever. She is what she is. And she needs to find a way back to her own universe. That should be her story if she is to have one.

See that’s the thing. People in the mirror universe aren’t wired differently, they just grew up under different circumstances. It is true that Discovery suggested that there is actually a genetic difference (with mirror universe people being more light sensitive) but if you ignore that these are supposed to be the same people. History just took a different turn for them. So it’s a more or less classic nurture vs. nature story. Captain Georgiou is in there, Empress Georgiou “only” needs to shed her mirror universe upbringing.

But here is the thing… They truly are the same but different. The counterparts are indeed wired that way. It is their nature. This is not nature vs nurture. Like what was explored a bit in Nemesis. This is an alternative universe with alternative beings. To her, losing her way would be to find her heart and redemption would be losing it. I had completely forgotten about that light sensitivity nonsense, BTW.

So being confronted with a mirror universe is an implausible reason to seek redemption, but one maimed hooker is sufficient? Okay, dude.

Not sure what you are getting at Tuber dude. Not sure what confrontation with the mirror universe has to do with redemption of any kind. Not sure you are understanding what is going on here.

Reading his posts, this Tuber guy seems a bit angry lol.

Yeah… After a read a number of the posts I realized I probably should have let it be.

Okay, I thought one of the other posts was the most pretentious and masturbatory, but I think you’ve got it in the bag. ‘UNFORGIVEN is too good to aspire to, and even though I’ve wanted to see this forever, a character developed over two seasons and thrust into her mirror universe is less plausible than a b-list Captain from that one shitty episode.’ OMG. Keep trolling. You’re a natural.

Both shows look like they’re going to be good.

I’ll be taking a hard pass on Sec. 31, but wish the show luck. When Picard airs, I’ll sign back up for CBS and take that journey, though. Meanwhile, there’s a little show called The Mandalorian filling my sci-fi needs quite nicely.

Haven’t seen The Madnalorian yet. And have been avoiding anything said about it. I plan to buy Disney+ for one month just to see that one show later. Quite frankly other than that I see no value whatsoever to have Disney+.

Michelle Yeoh is a lot of fun to watch, but a Section 31 show doesn’t feel very Trekkian to me. I’ll give the show a chance, but they’re going to have to convince me with good writing and Trekkian values … and the writing on Kurtzman’s watch hasn’t impressed me yet.

‘Michelle Yeoh is a lot of fun to watch’ is a statement I could not disagree with more. Most scenes she’s in, her acting ‘range’ is outshone by the surrounding bulkheads. When she does seem to try a bit harder, she goes from wooden to Myers-like Dr Evil in 2 seconds.

I was referring to her martial arts talents, rather than to her acting skills, which I agree are rather rudimentary. :-)

Agreed Corylea. I always have to make this a disclaimer that I was one of the few people intrigued by a Section 31 show. I thought it was an interesting idea and was looking forward to it if it happened. But then I saw them on Discovery and while there were certainly some episodes I really liked them in, in the end I thought the less is more is what really works for something like Section 31. They killed all the mystique in just 10 episodes.

And MU Georgiou didn’t convince me at all. She came off like a cartoon character. She is just way too over the top. To be fair I guess you can say that about most characters from the MU, but none of them were given their own show either (but I would probably watch the MU Kira show to death lol). But for her to lead the show is ironically what’s putting a lot of people off to the idea when there would be no show without her.

But as you said I am willing to give it a chance. End of the day I want new Star Trek and if they manage to find something different with the premise I will watch. I’m still not convinced the show will take place in the 23rd century (although I wouldn’t be surprised if it does end up there again) so curious to hear some real details as well.

Yes! I’d love to watch a show about CAPTAIN Georgiou, but Mirror Georgiou is, as you said, a cartoon. It sounds as if this show might give Georgiou a character arc that gradually converts her from Mirror Universe values to Trekkian values. That could be quite compelling if it’s written well, and if Yeoh acts it well, but I doubt that they could pull it off. The writing on DSC hasn’t been strong, and Yeoh doesn’t have the subtlety as an actress to pull off that kind of character growth.

I’m SO glad Michael Chabon is in charge of the new Picard show, because Chabon can WRITE. I wish they’d hire more writers of his caliber for the other Trek shows!

Yeah, that’s the issue, they COULD do that with Georgiou, but I’m not convinced they will. Nothing in season 2 went that direction. Other than caring about Burnham, she was still the same ridiculous one note character throughout the entire season. It just really got old frankly and why I’m not sure an ENTIRE show based around her is a good idea, Section 31 or not.

DIS improved last season, but character wise it still had a lot of the same issues and Georgiou is a big factor in that. Maybe third season will turn the tide on her. But considering just how many people seem to still be against this idea (where shows like Picard and a future Pike show are praised) shows most are not convinced yet.

I thought it had been pretty darn obvious that the show would be about Evil Georgeau becoming not evil Georgeau. A concept I find to be abhorant not to mention ridiculous.

I MIGHT buy the show a little better if it ends up being evil Georgeau brings back Section 31 in the 32nd century after Burnham personally revives the Federation. Which, let’s be honest, we all know that is the story even before one episode streams.

I love DISCOVERY, but Georgiou is one of the show’s least interesting characters. I can’t imagine why she’s the one they’d give her own show.

Maybe they want to penetrate the Asian market?

Every show can’t have a white male lead. Thank god for that.

Ever seen an episode of DS9? How about Voyager?

You mean the show where the lead wasn’t allowed to shave his head because it was seen as too urban? And the show that relied on Seven’s tits for ratings, when fanboys faded away from the show’s husky-voiced, desexualized mom? Those shows and ENT drove Trek into the ground for a decade.

Because she is played by Michelle Yeoh. I don’t think there is any other reason. She asked for a spin-off and she is a big enough name that they think her name alone will attract viewers.

But that’s the thing. She is NOT that big a name. And quite frankly, she’s not that good an actor. She is someone who really needs the right role to soar. And Georgeau is not it. Nor is opposite Georgeau.

She eats people. Literally. Every time I see her onscreen that comes into my mind. I would love a show about Captain Georgiou, but not this space hitler posing as the good captain. They killed the character of Captain Georgiou and they have tried so hard to bring her back, you can’t have your cake and eat it too….

She can eat me any time she wants. 😁

I’m wondering if this is where the ‘Unforgiven’ concept comes in.

If she is being influenced to the good with the Discovery crew in the Prime Universe, working with S31 would in a way be calling her back to grey morality for the benefit of the greater good.

If done with greater subtlety than Discovery can provide, this could be workable.

I’m wondering whether now that S31 seems to have been greenlighted (reading between the), the development focus can shift to a Pike series.

It sounds as though Kurtzman would have a hard row to hoe to sell even a semi serialized show (along the lines of Enterprise or Farscape); however there is clearly a market for it.

The good news is that CBSAA has realized or has market data to show that their Trek original content is bringing subscribers that are long term.

“The good news is that CBSAA has realized or has market data to show that their Trek original content is bringing subscribers that are long term.”

Do they, though? Maybe once they have original Trek shows year round. But I don’t think they are close to that yet. It’s been quite some time since they have promoted their subscriber numbers. So I think it is not unreasonable to think they are still not what they would hope at this point.

I suggest that you read the full Vanity Fair interview.

The exec from CBS says that Trek fans have been the ones that are more likely to retain their subscriptions to CBSAA.

While they are very closed with their data, as are CBS and Viacom generally, there isn’t much margin in making a false assertion about this.

I cannot confirm or deny the comment. But such a comment does not mean the show is bringing in subscribers long term. Generally speaking, this very site is on top of reports about how CBSAA is doing subscriber wise. And they haven’t reported anything about it in some time. I must admit, I haven’t been looking for any such report myself. So it is possible it’s out there and this site just failed to report it. But my guess is that’s unlikely.

I wish they would scrap Section 31 and make another Star Trek show with the money. Section 31 should have never been invented and a whole show about them is a super stupid idea. It doesn’t help that their main character is a genocidal mass murderer.

In the past Star Trek’s unique selling point was the portrayal of a positive future. They should get back to this instead of making the Federation nasty and dark.

This sounds exciting and I’m looking forward to all of what’s coming. However – CAPTAIN PIKE, please! Mr. Kurtzman? If it’s just a writers room you need? I know a few people who are qualified….

Likely it’s a lot more than just a writer’s room. Yeah we have a couple sets done, but you need a lot more than that for a TV show, and reportedly there was some hesitation on Anson Mount’s part because it would be quite a shock to his family life to be filming in Toronto.

2005… nemesis flopped a few years earlier ending the movie franchise… enterpsise struggles then is cancelled… paramount selling off all trek props… done

2019… discovery a worldwide hit and pretty awesome… picard gonna be huge and looks great… two animated series in development… section 31 in development… new star trek 4 from fargo showrunner and an insane Tarantino movie possibly on the horizon… plus an amazing ds9 documentary…

things are sweeeeeeet like a talarian melon

2019 is definitely a better year than 2005 in terms of Trek.

I think you paint Discovery waaaaay too positively given the fact it’s on its fourth show runner by season 2 after firing the first 3 and is a pretty divisive show with the fanbase. And the Kelvin films have been in question since Beyond bombed and the Hemsworth movie was cancelled since he and Pine walked away.

But yes, things are looking up now with so much Trek happening. Was not a huge fan of DIS first season but second season improved a lot and super excited to see where its going in third season, most I been excited about the show ever. And yes hopefully the Picard show will be as good as the trailers suggests but I was on board from day one. Once I saw Seven, Data and the Borg were showing up I was all in. Hopefully it is good. And more hopefully the fourth Kelvin movie will finally happen now, but I learned not to count my eggs before they hatch with those.

And oh yes forgot about the great DS9 documentary which I saw in theaters and seen twice now at home.

Picard could re-ignite the interest in VOY (thanks to Jeri Ryan) and DS9. Which would lead to reruns and could get closer to a possible HD-remaster. What do you guys think?

DaveCGN, not sure what market you are in geographically, but in Canada where we are all 5 series are in reruns Monday to Friday on CTV Sci-fi channel.

Elsewhere, Netflix has had the older series available for streaming : Voyager is reportedly the most streamed of the 5.

So, it’s more likely that, by including Seven of Nine, Voyager is being used to attract non-TNG viewers to Picard than vice versa.

CBS has sold VOY and DS9 to broadcasters and streaming services in its current SD quality. So they are making money off of these shows right now. It is possible that Picard would increase interest from audiences in these other shows but as long as CBS can sell them to broadcasters/streamers in SD there’s no reason for CBS to invest in an upgrade. Basically, broadcasters/streamers would need to be willing to pay higher licensing fees to CBS to get VOY and DS9 in HD, or they would need to tell CBS: “Look, we are going to stop buying the shows from you unless you upgrade them”. I don’t know if either one of these options is realistic.

Like TG47 said, there are still reruns TODAY of all the shows, it just depends where you live I guess. I live in L.A., reruns of DS9 and Voyager runs six nights a week (along with TOS, TNG and ENT) on one channel here and have run that way for years. And Voyager is also rerun on BBC America every week as well which runs nationally, so it comes on a LOT where I live. And that’s not counting the four streaming sites it also lives on now, which I currently have three of them. These shows are in constant rotation now and probably MORE so today than they were decades ago because streaming has become so vast and has a more global reach as well.

That’s why every time someone argues no one cares about these shows anymore, I scratch my head. If no one cared about them anymore, there wouldn’t be so much access to them now. They are because people are paying to access them in the first place.

As for HD remaster, I doubt it, but stranger things has happened in the Trek universe. I mean we’re talking about a new show with Picard and Seven of Nine returning, so anything is possible I guess.

“If no one cared about them … there wouldn’t be so much access.” That doesn’t necessarily follow. Streaming services license entire libraries of content from studios, and the library may contain both attractive series and laggards. We’re not privy to the contracts between CBS and Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, etc., much less the viewership numbers on each that drive business decisions. (“We know that X, Y and Z will pull this many viewers providing amortized Revenue R, and they constitute 20% of Library L, so it’s a good deal at Price P.”)

https://www.justwatch.com/us/search?q=star%20trek%20voyager

As I said I’m not discussing streaming alone. I’m saying the show still is aired in reruns as well which is what the original point was.

But that said, it was made clear it gets lots of viewership online as well when Netflix released the top 10 most watched Star Trek episodes in its library. And 7 of 10 of those episodes (see what I did there) are from Voyager.

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-watched-episodes-of-star-trek-on-netflix-2017-9

The kids just really love the Borg. Again this argument no one watches or care about the show anymore is false. I think all the shows gets watched quite often thanks to streaming and has brought in a new wave of new fandom over the years but my guess is Enterprise probably gets viewed the least out of all of them.

My only concern about Section 31 is what they did to Michelle Yough’s character in Disco. Pike knows she’s from another universe, and others know as well. How can she become the leader of Sec. 31 as compromised as a character that she is? Who in their right mind is going to trust her with the federations darkest secrets?
They totally screwed up when they killed her off, only to bring her arch-nemesis- her evil self back from the nether. Empress Georgio is a ruthless killer, who tortured and maimed her enemies. She kills Saru’s people for food, etc. And this is going to be the lead character? I guess the federations enemies should be worried.
If TPTB are planning her redemption, they picked an antithetical way of doing it.

This is Section 31 we’re talking about. They planned to wipe out an entire species. Georgiou will fit right in. Besides, I don’t think we’ve heard anything about her being the leader of Section 31. I’ve been assuming that she will be the lead character, but Voq/Tyler will be her boss.

I disagree.

In DS9 Sloan/S31 I think thought of themselves as being/supporting the good. S31 thought of themselves as doing the necessary dirty work Starfleet ist not willing to do, but that someone has to do for the “good Guys” to win.

I think Sloan thought of himself as some sort of “dark Hero”.

That’s different from someone actually Feeling pleassure in doing evil Like eating Saru’s people

I agree with Markus on Sloan — I think of him as an opponent or antagonist who still had recognizable values, like John Vernon in THE QUESTOR TAPES — and think that difference between him and the B-Emperess of Mirror U is an enormous one.

Our President was elected by people who take pleasure from causing women, LGBT, and immigrants suffering. I think you’re missing the point of the MU.

What’s the point then, that we are now living in the MU?

Here’s a scorching hot take: I’m gonna actually WATCH the new shows before passing judgement on them.

You can’t admit to something like that on the internet. You’ll blow the trolls’ minds!

That’s just a COMPLETELY unreasonable position to take! TRUE fans already know it’s garbage, long before the first frame is shot.

“So to me Section 31 is sort of like the black ops CIA division of Star Trek and it was established in Deep Space 9.”

Not exactly. If you want to use the CIA analogy, then the S31 of DS9 is closer to the illegal CIA within the CIA featured in “Three Days of the Condor.” The whole point of it in the story was its illegality.

Given that the Discovery version of S31 pulls conceptually from David Mack’s Relaunch novels, one of the key tropes may be that the Federation keeps believing that it has eliminated Control and returned S31 to its original mandate.

It’s totally consistent to have Tyler and Georgiou rebuilding S31 for the good, only to the illegal S31 operating once again by the DS9 era.

After all the CIA still exists despite having had elements go extra-legal.

I would find the idea for this series interesting if it was based around Starfleet Intelligence and their mission to expose S31 as the corrupt organization it is, thus forcing it underground again. But can’t say it being a legit force working side-by-side with Starfleet, with no less than a hissing emperor from a dimly lit universe among their black leather clad ranks, does anything for me.

I just wish we could’ve had a series about the regular Georgiou. She seemed nice. Before she was eaten.

Honestly, a series about Federation Intelligence would not be too bad an idea. Just don’t have Boris Badinov and Natasha Fatale running the thing.

Really, I’m taken with the idea that an S31 show could take us into places in Federation society and beyond that were just a backdrop for Trek series up to now.

I don’t think you are wrong. But to put cartoon bad guys in charge of such an organization feels like it would undermine everything such a show like that could do.

By “adult” drama please don’t have a ton of of F words and sex. I get that enough in other shows already.

They did both of those things in DIS first season, and neither it its second. So I don’t think that’s going to be a real issue with Picard either.

Personally I’m fine if they did both. But I can’t get enough of it on other shows. ;)

Please, DSC producers: please use more F words and sex. I’ll pay double for my CBSAA if we can get rid of the prudes. Roddenberry was not a prude. He pitched far more sex than the networks ever let him get away with, and in one notorious story, told by Gene Coon’s secretary, came back to the TOS production office midday and warned the staff to never have anal sex before vaginal sex, because he’d given Majel a bad infection. “Front to back. Never back to front.” Sorry, not sorry. That’s the reality of Star Trek.

Hey all,

I’m zeroing in on the comment that the S31 will take us geographically somewhere Trek series hasn’t gone before.

Discovery is taking us to the Trill homeworld.

Where could S31 take us?

Tellar?

don’t tellar, tell me. (shatner’s punmania affected me at an early age.)

Okay kmart. That’s worth a facepalm in a different way.

I’m still tripping on the word ‘geographically’.

My excited fan self is really hoping that S31 will take us to some of the places and societies in the Federation that the series and movies have bypassed. Even just getting into the civilian side of the Federation could provide new ground.

But my logical self is wondering if they were speaking metaphorically in the interview. That is, they are just talking with a different word about a different tonality.

I don’t Like their S31 approach.

Not because I don’t Like S31, but because DS9’s S31 was totally different. It was NOT a black Ops Division. It was hardly legal. In DS9 it seemed that some Starfleet or former Starfleet officers used an old Article of the Federration as an excuse to act on their own in self-justice. It never was officially sanctioned by Starfleet and only known by those S31 tried to recruit. In the best case Starfleet Command looked the other way,coz their Admirals often were quite corrupt, but Starfleet never would officially have accepted such a black ops Division in contrast with Federation ideals

That is the irony, Discovery killed the one thing that attracted so many people to the idea who actually did like them, their very grey and ambiguous nature within Starfleet. The fact no one could even acknowledge that they even existed, much less was working for Starfleet because the things they did was so questionable.

THAT’s the organization people grew up remembering and like to see again. The DIS version just made them another intelligence agency, just one who does things on the side when it needs to which I imagine a lot of intelligence agencies do.

I did love the idea of Control though, but then that was just another Terminator plot line we seen countless times over the decades.

Exactly.
S31 in DS9 was Like catholic Priests havin Sex. Officially totally in contrast with the ideals of the Organisation. But secretly Many Admirals supported them or covered it Up.

What I fail to understand is if it is so hush hush and not on the books, so to speak, how do they get funding to even exist? Is the funding hidden in the costs of other things? As far as I’m concerned, Section 31 as an entity had a lot of problems starting way back to when they first showed on DS9. I just felt it would have worked better had it just been an official arm of Federation Intelligence.

Well ML31, it certainly seems as though in the Discovery era, S31 was official and under Federation and Starfleet oversight and funding.

However, after the crisis with Control in S2, it’s clear that rebuilding S31 will be very under the radar.

Which gives ample room and narrative space for S31 to have gone rogue again a century later.

Sometimes I think that we’re too quick to forget that there was at least a generation between TOS and TNG, longevity notwithstanding.

For all we know Section 31 back then WAS Federation Intelligence.

I don’t think so. Then there would have been official records/documentation a Captain could get Access to

Well… Everyone seemed to know all about them in Discovery’s time. And a ship’s captain would not necessarily been able to get info about what they did or what they were doing. Their level of intelligence would have been well above that. Only feeding info to commanders on an “as needed” basis.

How do they get funding? You don’t think they really spend $10,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?? ;)

And yes, I was thinking of that line when I wondered if the funds were hidden in other costs.

Good catch, BTW.

Lyle good question.
I gruess ist’s Like in a Pale Moonlight. There ist the official Story that got funding. And then there is what actually happened

But that’s Not enough To be believable

Star Trek fans can be really paradoxical, at one hand they are some of the most open minded people you’ll ever meet while simultaneously being the most puritanical canon conservatives. It’s really all become a very slippery slope on who can be the most pure. What exactly is “real” Star Trek? In my years in the fandom, that’s always haunted me.

Granted, it’s the easy way out to virtuously chastise the behind the scenes people, but us Trekkies are equally at fault here. Blame everybody, do nothing! Hostile attitude problems to newcomers, even bordering on elitism. By definition, I’m one of those “new fans” that the old guard fandom supposedly derides. To the extent that people have accused me of drinking the kool-aid, way back when 2009 Trek came out. It’s all rather amusing when I look back at it now. Trekkies love to act as if everything is dour and gloomy while conveniently glossing over the fact that there are people out there who actually like Discovery, or any of the “lesser” Trek versions.

Us trekkies are partly to blame for this, and this stuffy, nitpicky attitude problem is basically why the owners of Trek have given up and moved on. Finding new, younger and more diverse audiences. Being “Woke” as they call it. Identity and politics et al… Whether we like it or not, the “holy” old guard is definitely getting smaller.

Some people have been at this for 20, 40 or 50 years now. Time really puts things into perspective and hammers down this eternal debate:

“My Star Trek is better than your ‘Star Trek'”.

People love the draw their fancy lines, whatever makes them happy I suppose.

Well said, Jetfreak.

You said it better than I ever could (and I have said it many times lol).

As much as I love this site and really do love to hear insight from others here, what I really hate about it is all the gate keeping from clearly much older Star Trek fans who are constantly stuck in their nerdy fandom bubbles. I see it in every message board here: “Only this show counts”, “Those shows no longer matter because only fans care about them (uh, yeah, that’s why we’re fans and indeed count ;))”, “That show always sucked”, “Those movies shouldn’t be considered canon”, “That show is too old and outdated and shouldn’t be represented”, “These new shows are not real Star Trek” and it goes on and on and on. I get so sick of hearing it. It just sound like a lot of cranky old people who probably should’ve stopped watching Star Trek years ago and yet here they are.

And I want to make this clear, its NOTHING wrong to criticize shows or films you don’t like. I do that always without apology. But what I DON’T do is disregard a movie or show entirely as not being canon or question someone else for liking such a thing. I did not like DIS much at all in its first season and if it got cancelled after one season I doubt I would’ve lost any sleep over it. But same time I believe DIS is VERY MUCH Star Trek and is part of the universe as the others even if I personally hated its style, time period and execution. It’s one thing to say what you don’t like, it’s another to tell others they shouldn’t like it either.

But sadly it happens all the time here.

Except all the “gatekeeping” and canon nitpicking etc. would have much less weight if Alex Kurtzman was, you know… like… talented.

Cough, cough… autism.

“It feels like a modern adult drama in the world of Star Trek, which has not actually really happened before.”

Except for about one third of TNG episodes, yea. That was the best thing about TNG, the way how it merged high-concept science fiction with drama into a functional mix. Is it possible he haven’t noticed? Is it possible he doesn’t remember? Is it possible he didn’t actually watch the show?

Boze, it seems to be more a matter of a narrow definition in the Hollywood echo chamber of writers and producers.

My sense is that ‘modern adult drama’ = serialized drama of 6-13 episodes where the main character is also the protagonist and their personal transformation is tied to a major societal event/change. One instance each of adult nudity, graphic violence and swearing is mandatory to ensure a 14+ rating.

So, we did not get that even in DS9.

Sadly, such a rigid formula hardly seems to provide much more authentic creative freedom than 4 acts and a ‘teaser / cold open’ in 45 minutes on broadcast television.

I was expecting a Pike show. Where’s my damn Pike show?

Me too

There is some speculation that it is being quietly prepped as a potential movie.

The whole premise and what makes star trek is the exploring the unknown and the ways in this fictional universe how are current events of our time are handled in this futuristic universe of Star Trek. Stewart didn’t want to retell a story that already has been told before but some people think that is what star trek is all about but its not. That is why reboots of franchises just flop because the general wide berth of fans of any franchise will lose interest in boring re-hashes of what used to be. So with all the attention grabbers saying its not star trek if in fact they just rebooted they would just complain and call it a rip off of a past series. So discovery explores the unknown parts leading up to TOS and will go 900 some years into the future from that point to explore something completely unknown that is Star Trek at its core. Section 31 will be even better because its barely been touched and offers room for more sci fi action on the level that some of us like as well. So in the end its just as much star trek as any other prior series to the point that so many alumni are on board for picard series which tells you all the more so that its Star Trek regardless if you think its about horrible 60’s visuals while hearing poetry quotes.

Waiter, I didn’t order this. It’s like there’s a funeral in my mouth and everyone’s invited.

Unforgiven is a terrible movie . It’s about a one-of-gunfighter , who has to confront his past , with slight dementia , ptsd and a bad temper caused by constipation . It showed the villain , Gene ‘Daggett’ Hackman , could have easily whipped Clint ‘Munny’ Eastwood , except the Director wouldn’t let him .

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️

All one can do is face palm.

There had to be someone who despises Unforgiven in Trek fandom.

Thank You , TG47 ! At last , someone who feels my turmoil for B Movies & Series !

Quadruple face palm here, and I don’t even speak emoticon!

I didn’t think there had to be anybody who despises UNFORGIVEN on Earth. Then again, I wouldn’t have ever though that a majority of a major political party would trip over their feet and their own morality in order to support a loon who doesn’t believe in global warming and probably thinks there were good people on both sides of the door in the extermination camps.

So maybe nothing should surprise me anymore. I thought I was cynical after my first year playing Little League in the early 70s, and started seeing the league president (who had a kid on the first place team) start umpiring our games when we pulled into a tie for first, guaranteeing that we couldn’t win anymore, because we’d get called out on strikes from a pitch that BOUNCED off home plate. Little did I know …

Amen Kmart ! I haven’t seen the critically acclaimed Handmaid’s Tale tv series , but I had read the book many years ago . It is a chilling story which I never thought would come about , but in our current era we have seen the beginnings of fundamentalism enter politics in many countries .

I did see the first season of that show. It was 100% ridiculous. Nothing “chilling” about it. The show does nothing but induce facepalm and groans. But there was one really huge laugh in one of the later episodes. It was probably not intended to be funny but I had to pause it I was laughing so hard. Tried to watch season two but it ended up being more of the lame same so I stopped.

I saw the first couple episodes as pre-release screeners for an article and was impressed, but also imagined the show was going to be a tough row to hoe emotionally. Picked up a blu-ray of s1 for two bucks, but can’t bring myself to watch it, because it seems all too much like it is starting to happen for real. (I used to love WAG THE DOG, but now I kind of don’t see the humor in getting away with that kind of stuff anymore for presidents.)

I find it absurd that anyone might think the situation presented in that show was even potentially starting to happen for real. I honestly cannot see how anyone could possibly think that could be a real thing in today’s day and age. I find such thinking along the line as thinking the Iron Man suit or Burnhman’s time suit could be a real thing today. The only part of that show that was interesting is the “what if” part about most women becoming infertile for some reason. But everything else about it was just crazy insane. The show might have gone over better had they intentionally played it for laughs.

I find it absurd that women’s right to control their bodies is constantly being threatened not just by crazy reactionaries in public, but by the courts. Ignoring the parallels is one of the surest ways of ensuring crap like that comes to pass.

Look… When it comes to the issue it seems you are alluding to you and I are in complete agreement. That said, there is NO parallel between that and what is depicted in that ridiculous show. It will NEVER come to pass because there are simply not enough humans of any political ilk who really want to see it. That is just plain common sense. That is the reality. Worrying about some goofy sci fi-ish dystopia coming to pass feels like misplaced concern at best.

Oh come on!

Last time I checked people weren’t lighting up the internet asking for a Section 31 show. The fan base is begging for a Pike based show. So sure CBS, go on and do what you think is best.

Something curious going on with CBS. Many bumpers are dissolving into a Starfleet insignia… Some big over the air CS announcement coming soon or just a back door reminder of All Access?

A poster on another board noted that the merger of CBS and Viacom is due be final this week.

More, in principle, any big official announcements about Trek – a flagship franchise for the merged entity – were supposed to wait until after the merger was final.

Given this:

1). This could be the week that we see official announcements about series orders for S31 and future Discovery and Picard seasons, as well as well as a commitment for a new cinematic feature.

2) All the Trek stories in mainstream media (Chabon in the New Yorker, Kurtzman in Vanity Fair, new writer/director for a 4th Kelvin movie), may be building towards merger week hype.

I very much enjoyed the expansion of Deep Space 9 stories that introduced the DTI and S31 agents into the Federation milieu . I have read some of the DS9 novels , and I have heard that Dr Bashir in the later ones is drawn into the Section 31 oeuvre , from frustrations with Fleet and Federation bureaucracy . Also in novels that continue Star Trek Enterprise , Archer and crew are called into voluntarily cooperating with Section 31 too . There are hints in the series and novels that Section 31 is the black ops section in Starfleet Intelligence , who also handle clandestine spies in enemy territories as well . They seem to have a single office in Starfleet Intelligence which is normally empty , with a secretary delivering intel once a day , and their agents are rarely seen around ever . Their missions are covert and a deniability federation clause is attached to all their operations . Philippa Georgiou would seem a perfect fit for this type of secret and dangerous work . I will be bookmarking this series for consideration .

“It feels like a modern adult drama in the world of Star Trek, which has not actually really happened before.”

See also: Star Trek (TOS); Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Star Trek: Discovery.

Unless he means that it’s going to be just another police procedural or medical soap in a Trek skin, in which case I’ll pass.

On the other hand, he could be referring to nudity and swear words.

I guess being purposely vague has its value when you’re trying to lure in the mainly mundane readers of a mag like Vanity Fair, but this is the first thing I’ve seen about Picard that has given me pause.

Hopefully not a police procedural , but Doctors in Star Trek have always been a strong point in the Star Trek Saga . And there is never enough sexy nudity , but I don’t think so in the current PC climate . Swearing I’ve seen to good effect in a movie , but I think it demeans the purpose in a series .

There have always been these weird debates about what constitutes ‘Real Star Trek’. Every incarnation has helped fuel these debates especially the ones that challenge the ‘purity’ of the sixties television series. I loved the idea of Discovery modernizing and shaking up the original series a little bit. They dragged it into the modern world which in my opinion was not a bad thing. I enjoyed Captain Pike. I pray we get a Pike series. It would do a lot for the canon. I love the Original Series but there were some cringe worthy moments not to mention how women were portrayed and treated on the show. Scotty used the term “Oriental” to describe a member of Khan’s Crew. Need I say more? I hope they retcon a lot of the Original Series continuity at some point. In some ways they already have.

I love the idea of Section 31. Star Trek’s utopia was a little too damn perfect for me. That is one of the reasons I loved Deep Space Nine. DS9 challenged the concept of the perfect Utopia and showed how ugly the rest of the universe was. Kirk and Spock operated in Gray areas at times. Captain Kirk was portrayed and written as someone who bent the rules and did whatever it took. Remember he did not believe in the no win scenario. Does anybody remember the ‘Enterprise Incident’ Episode. Deception and Espionage anyone? Bottom line is to create what the Federation created there is no way their hands did not get dirty in the process. Star Trek played it safe for a long time. I was happy when the Kelvin Timeline came along because it helped expose Trek to a wider audience and it respected and preserved the original timeline. I am happy to be alive to see the growth of Star Trek. I am excited about the future.

If they really wanted to do something with evil Georgeau this really wasn’t the way to go about doing it. Again, based on what we know so far, putting her in Section 31 makes zero sense. My issue here is not with making a spot for Yeoh or even the concept of a Section 31 show. I don’t know why they couldn’t find something that would fit space Hitler better or find a nice sci-fi way to bring back original Geurgeau. It’s really about that them merging the two when it is really hard to reconcile how they could legitimately do that. Including space Pol Pot in your secret star fleet agency show just doesn’t work. I’m floored that Kurtzman, Lippoldt and Kim don’t see that. At this point, that show has “Robocop 2” written all over it.

Hopefully not Robocop , ML31 ! This is right up Evil Georgiou’s alley , as she is also looking for redemption and a new start , and it would be perfect for her . I’m sure that Gabriel Lorca’s story will be in the section 31 mix too !

So much whining. Boo hoo, this isn’t my Trek. More then a few people (myself among them) continue to point out this isn’t for the North American audience, so if having an Asian woman front a Trek series based on intrigue isn’t your thing, then keep holding your breath, at some point maybe you’ll get your Pike let Enterprise show…and then you’ll have something else to complain about. It won’t be North American viewers that determine how long S31 hangs around, it’ll be foreign viewers. It’s probably a bit of a stretch to say CBSAA doesn’t care if anyone on this side of the world watches…but only a small one.

I will believe that only if the show is done in Malay or Cantonese and dubbed in English for US audiences.

And for the record, the problems with the show isn’t that it’s lead is a Malaysian female. It’s that the lead is a genocidal cartoon villain with all the depth of Dr. Evil.

Phil, you keep saying that but other than hiring an Asian woman in the lead role where is the proof this isn’t for an American audience???? Who has remotely said or implied that? You could be right, but it sounds like its just your assumption.

I don’t see it, Section 31 is a very niche thing and they introduced both her and Section 31 on Discovery with the hope whoever is watching that show will watch this one. I guess you can argue it could be different enough where it can get beyond the Trek base but my guess is 90% of people who will be watching this are the same 90% whose been watching everything else, from TNG to DIS, ie, US lol.

But you could be right. But no one has said anything about it other than it’s going to be really really cool. ;)

Tiger, I don’t think Phil is right at all. The way these things work is they are made for western audiences mainly. If they are looking to enter the Chinese market they may alter a thing or to to appease the Chinese media overlords. Beyond that, they make the show and hope it can appeal beyond their main core geographic area. Just throwing in an East Asian lead does not mean they are trying to appeal to East Asia. If that makes it look better to East Asian audiences, then nice. But that is a side effect. Not the goal. Movies or shows with Asian leads do not mean they are aimed at Asia. That is poor logic.

CBC has a very interesting article about the opportunities, issues, risks and challenges in accessing the market in China – and that sometimes things added to appeal to China cause problems in accessing other Asian markets.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/china-movies-censorship-1.5381349

It also notes that Hollywood’s efforts to appeal to the Chinese market often are transparent and not well received.

With Bo Yeoh Kim as one of the creator showrunners and Yeoh as the lead, I’m hopeful S31 will have an authentic Asian perspective without being targeted specifically to the market in China.

If Kim was born and/or raised in the US or Canada I seriously doubt it will have and “Asian perspective”. Yeoh might have a SLIGHTLY better perspective working in Hong Kong for so long. But even she seems to have been Americanized to some extent. And I don’t think Section 31 or any Trek TV is geared to be specifically targeted to anywhere in Asia.

Yes obviously I agree with you, Section 31 is made first and foremost for the same hardcore Trek nerds and that’s mostly people in America and Europe.

And let’s be honest, the ONLY reason Section 31 is being made is the same reason ALL these shows are being made from Short Treks to Picard, to promote and boost subscriptions to CBS All Access. And AA is certainly not in China. ;)

Now of course I believe they want to make the show more appealing towards Asian markets but no that’s not the sole reason its being made either. It’s being made because they are trying to keep Star Trek fans signed up to AA all year if possible. That is the the number one goal of all these shows at the end of the day, period. If the show fails on AA, my guess it would just be cancelled even if its doing better internationally UNLESS they cut the same deal with Netflix and Discovery or whoever picks it up internationally and put in a lot of the money into the show themselves.

But it is funny, I just read an article on my phone today where Michelle Yeoh gave an interview saying that Hollywood is becoming more open to seeing more Asians as the lead in films and TV shows and hopes it becomes more common and not just a current fad. And she mentioned Star Trek in it and another positive example towards that goal obviously. It’s certainly great this show will be the first Trek show lead by an Asian actor and a woman as well. As a black male, I remember how great it felt when they hired Avery Brooks to be Sisko at the time, so this is another positive step. No one seems to have an issue with that (well most of us ;)), but just think the character she plays itself that sucks.

If she was playing Captain Georgiou on the show, I think practically everyone would be on board. I think everyone working on that show regrets killing that character off so soon. But I have a feeling they regret a lot of things lol.

So a show can’t be for North American audiences because it stars an Asian woman? You know how ignorant that sounds?

I remember the pre-premiere information about DS9. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I did.
I remember the pre-premiere information about VOY. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I did.
I remember the pre-premiere information about ENT. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I did.
I remember the pre-premiere information about the Abrams films. I didn’t think I’d like them, but I did (mostly).
I remember the pre-premiere information about Discovery. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I did (with reservations but overall I do like it).

I don’t know if I’m going to like S31, but I’ll give it a shot. If I don’t like it, I won’t watch it.

👏👏👏

Well said, Lyle.

Wow. Moved to using emojis twice in one thread.

I would so much prefer to have a Pike series instead! To me, Section 31 doesn’t reflect any of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future.

Star Trek is a much diverse universe with many series , and still expanding . All the series don’t need to be same , and shouldn’t . I much prefer for there to be variety between them , in content and style . Have you considered Orville which is very much like the Next Generation/Original Series ? But I wish you well for a Pike Series though !

I agree Darfyn.

There’s room for a lot of different styles of Trek out there. There is no need for sibling rivalry among shows.

While I think that there are valid concerns that the S31 series concept has risks, I’m not willing to slam it until I see it. More, even if I don’t watch it in the end, it will be okay as long as it has its own niche in Trek.

I do hope that now that S31 is coming together, that Kurtzman and CBS can put serious energy into making a Pike series or mini-series a reality.

I’d also like to see more Short Treks. 12 to 18 per year would be welcome.

It would allow writers to reach yet further beyond the series, and could explore some of the corners of the Trek universe that we’ve seen in Trek-lit: e.g. Starfleet Core of Engineers or Temporal Investigations. It might also enable Short Treks to be packaged as an anthology for a summer replacement on broadcast TV to reach a wider audience.

“Fanbois like saquist can talk a big game. But it takes a special level of pathetic for him to con Tobias Richter to make his USS Epic ‘design’. But it still ends up looking like ass anyway.”
– Anonymous Trekyards YouTube comment

Trekkies have annoyingly tough double standards. Take Section 31 fan ships. The philosophy is pretty simple. Take an existing design, dress it up with a crapton of overpowered weapons and shit, spray it with a “stealth” black scheme for maximum effect. And bonus 1337 kek points if you can top it off with a ridiculous name.

So, you basically get the “USS Vengeance” from Into Darkness, right? During my days in the Trek modding community, there were boatloads of these fanboi spy ships. And you’d be surprised how much immature fanships was allowed to filter through. Fanbois praising fanbois in a massive circlejerk. Who would have thought?

“Wow, you’re so creative by adding a third nacelle and shoehorning a massive phaluscannon in the middle.”

“I call the ‘USS Epic’, to show how bankrupt my imagination is.”

“Six nacelles. Haven’t seen that one before…”

“Faster, higher, stronger. My super-duper Constitution-XYGB-Q+ can whoop your Sovereign any day.”

But lo and behold, when the official Trek production crew finally came up with one in Into Dankness and in Disco, it was suddenly the end of the world. Oh, cry me a river. I realize the fandom makes it a habit of crying over spilled milk, in fact Trekkies are probably the leading authority on that. Remember kids, when fanbois do it: no one bats an eye. But when the official Trek crew does the same thing: Trekkies suddenly become uber “experts” on “realistic starship design” and “canon-adhering standards” – bullshit.

What a long, rambling rant to say nothing of value. No, there are no double standards involved.

No one bats an eye about fanboys doing kitbashes because nobody has to see those kitbashes. They aren’t in the films and tv shows, so nobody but those fanboys see those things. If a fanboy wants to stick the Millennium Falcon in the 1701-D’s shuttlebay, no one bats an eye because it doesn’t affect anyone but that fanboy.

But when the official Trek product includes something so stupid as the USS Vengeance, all fans have to see it. Thus, why people bat eyes over it.

Also, I’ve met very few fans who like the kitbashing you described. Sounds like you’ve had a very limited experience with people if you think that some fanboys should affect all of fandom.

It’s also funny to see such a pointless rant about fanbois…written by such an over-the-top fanboi! LMAO!

” It feels like a modern adult drama in the world of Star Trek, which has not actually really happened before.”

Proof this moron has never watched or known anything about Star Trek, especially DS9. Hack.

See my comment above Lukas.

We may not agree that the currently popular format of streaming drama constitutes our concept of ‘modern adult’, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong, or never watched 90s Trek.

It just means that they are seeking to fit to a new but very narrow Hollywood definition.

I respect your position but I stand by mine as well.
It’s tough to think (at least as far as Trek goes) what was more adult drama than DS9, maybe some of the darker episodes of TNG like Chain of Command. Season 3 of Enterprise comes to mind too.

I mean modern adult drama in the context I think you’re referring to (new Hollywood definition) to me says sex scenes, gore, excessive violence.

I commented on another website that a point of concern is that most adult drama today is pretty low quality writing with high production values.

(See kids, this is how you can disagree with someone without being an asshole!)

I think I must concur with the comment that today’s TV production values are quite high. Shows LOOK fantastic. But for the most part the writing hasn’t kept up. I find it odd that there is more TV produced now than ever before yet I find myself watching less TV than I ever have before. And I have more time than ever before as my kid is 17 and has become pretty self sufficient.

For my part, I think it’s just my age and the fact that I have seen so many plotlines on so many shows, and so many character tropes and so many plot tropes, &c.

I don’t think it’s so much the writers getting repetitive for the generation that’s watching all this for the first time.

I think it feels repetitive to me because human stories are generally about the same things. How do we overcome the evil in ourselves? How do we overcome Fear of the Other? How do we learn to share, to be tolerant? How do we love? And so on. These are questions humanity has asked itself since the beginning of society.

All this said, and a bit off-topic for this particular comment, I hope that Discovery and the other shows work in the occasional “stand alone” show each season — like the Mudd episode in Season One — within the season arc in a general sort of way, but not wedded to it.

As for Georgiou, yeah, I think Sec 31 will find a way for her to return to the 23d century … during Discovery’s next season.

CBS presents the show that NOBODY asked for. Except for Michelle Yeoh.

I was all for having Yeoh as the lead for STD. They should’ve left her alive in Season 1, forget the MU rubbish.

That concept certainly had potential. I agree with forgetting about the MU rubbish because it completely destroyed and undermined what could have been an amazing character the likes of which we had not seen in the Trek universe. The morally gray Captain. And I don’t mean someone like Kirk or Archer who wrestled with the idea that they had to do something they didn’t like. I mean someone who has no problem doing those things to begin with.

Unforgiven? Nah, it’ll be Michelle’s Pink Cadillac, or maybe Every Which Way but Loose.

If one made a list of the five most important people in the creation of Star Trek, Dorothy Fontana would be on that list. Why had Trek Movie not done an article about her passing?

I not afraid of sex scenes, gore, or violence. I’m an adult and I believe there should be some incarnation of Trek that appeals to us. I’d just like some compelling stories and character arcs. Not the same old TNG-nerd drivel and cult service that every show (DS9 excepted) has become. A lot was promised for Discovery, little realized thus far. I’m barely hanging on.

I actually wonder if it will somehow be retconned that Prime Georgiou actually survived and escaped and is the one serving in S31 in the 23rd century. She would also be a character perhaps motivated to push the organisation towards better ideals.

Otherwise they have to overcome the fact that they just sent Mirror Georgiou off to the 32nd century.

It doesn’t seem likely that she survived, given that Voq and his crew ate her body. Besides, she wouldn’t be a great fit for Section 31. She’s too idealistic.

I’m not a professional writer and even I could come up with a scenario where she could come back. I mean, this is a show that brought back a Dr. character in such a way that I still don’t believe it’s REALLY him.

Not on camera, thankfully. Also, Voq (Tyler) became a S31 operative.

“Section 31′ has a writers room.
Reality: Like a puckering sphincter they will squeeze out every dangling particle for a story to make Star Trek more dark and actiony.

“Picard” a modern adult drama.
Reality: A tired old man becomes a rooting tooting space gunslinger along with his gang of fellow geriatrics playing space cowboys. Add a star for the overflow of tender moment fill in the blank scenes.

And before you say “How could you know something you haven’t seen?”
Simple, I’ve seen the nature of the beast that write and create new trek (movies & this online crap)…and that’s what you’ll get.

Hate to say I tend to agree with you, given what we’ve seen so far in the past decade. However I do hold out hope that Picard will actually be written well, and there’s a nostalgia factor there for me, too. Time will tell, and if Picard winds up a stinker, I’ll have no problem passing it by, like I did with DSC. Sec. 31 holds no interest for me at all.

Not sure how lively this thread is at this point, but I was wondering if anyone else noticed that Star Trek wasn’t profiled at all in the ViacomCBS merger PR this week.

I didn’t see the actors in the group photos, or a Star Trek image in the banner on the ViacomCBS site, or its profiles on Twitter or Linked In.

This is not reassuring.

CBS Sunday Morning had a feature on the merger, appropriately. But during, of the many shows they showed/mentioned which are involved, I don’t recall seeing any Trek. Agreed, not a terribly good sign.