Last weekend ViacomCBS kicked off their campaign to promote Paramount+, the impending relaunched and rebranded CBS All Access and the new home of the new Star Trek series. On Sunday a new commercial in the humor-tinged promotional series was released, also highlighting the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Spock diagnoses a puppet
The new spot continues the story of the campaign, featuring an “expedition” of characters from the ViacomCBS family climbing the Paramount mountain. The first spots featured Ethan Peck as Spock and Anson Mount as Pike, from Strange New Worlds. This time Spock – complete with custom Vulcan ear muffs – appears without Pike, and he comes to the aid of one of the puppets from the Comedy Central series Crank Yankers. As with all the spots, it is narrated by Star Trek: Picard star Sir Patrick Stewart.
The ad premiered during the CBS Sports’ Sunday coverage of PGA Tour Golf, which explains the golf theme for the spot. The 13-week campaign to promote Paramount+ will also feature ads during the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, the Masters and March Madness. Paramount+ launches on March 4th.
Get 50% 1 year of Paramount+
ViacomCBS has also rolled out a new promotion. If you sign up now for a CBS All Access annual plan, you can get 50% off your first year. On March 4, your subscription will automatically switch over to Paramount+. To get the 50% off deal CLICK HERE and use the code PARAMOUNTPLUS. This limited-time offer expires on March 3rd.
Keep up with the Star Trek Universe on TV here at TrekMovie.com.
It’s canon.
Now THAT’s funny
This Campaign is terrible. Lack of creativity, violent, and not funny at all. Whoever is in their advertising team, have no idea what Spock (and Star Trek) represent. If Paramount+ is oriented for families, this commercial is very wrong.
This is a bizarre take on an innocent commercial. Are you OK?
LMAO yeah, I had him down as a weirdo too lol
Yeah, whoever writes their advertising seems really bad at the job.
At least Mr. Peck didn’t have to get into the ears for this crappy ad. :-)
These are the same marketing geniuses who take the time and trouble to prevent Earthlings outside of the United States from viewing their marketing videos.
You can see them by searching up Paramount+ Twitter in your browser. You don’t need Twitter to view it.
The embedded videos in the Tweets are not geolocked.
But presumably a version of some of these ads may be coming to television and YouTube in your region.
Thanks for the tip – it’s a brilliant marketing campaign then. Giving your overseas viewers a treasure hunt!
Are we watching the same promotional piece? That was funny….
(golf applause)…
Holy shit. Take a breath.
Do they need to? It’s just a commercial, with Trek sharing space with golf, cartoons, and Snooki. It’s not “a Star Trek commercial”, it’s a far far far more general ad for a much broader thing intended to catch the eye of the modern general audience. You’re coming at this as a Trekkie (of which I am one, obviously) despite the commercial not being for us. I just really, really don’t understand your reaction. Do you have any hard opinions on soap commercials?
“….have no idea what Spock (and Star Trek) represent.”
Opportunity to make money off this cash cow called Star Trek….
Am I a bad person if I think Ethan Peck is an amazingly talented actor but not a particularly great Spock?
I’ve been surprised by what a great Spock he is.
But it’s crucial to understand that he’s not supposed to be at the level of maturity and centeredness of the Spock in TOS.
The Cage showed us a younger, shouty Lieutenant Spock who was inconsistent in his emotional displays.
Strange New Worlds will show us how he evolves into the Spock we know, presumably with the emotionally cool influence of Number One.
I agree with you 100%.
Although I adore Mr. Nimoy’s cool and collected Spock, the writers of Discovery didn’t WRITE a cool and collected Spock, so Mr. Peck couldn’t PLAY a cool and collected Spock. If you don’t like the new Spock, it’s really the writers you should talk to. Mr. Peck is playing what’s in the script, and in my opinion, he’s doing it very well.
Spock is different in “The Cage” than he is most of the time. Personally, I think that this is because Number One was supposed to be the emotionless one then, and the producers didn’t create Vulcan lore and culture until the time of the second pilot, so we should all politely overlook how Spock behaves in “The Cage.” But that isn’t what the writers chose to do; they took those early production bobbles seriously, and they’re writing a Spock who is as expressive as he was then.
I long for the cool and collected Spock that Mr. Nimoy gave us during TOS, and I hope the writers will give Mr. Peck a chance to play that version of Spock as soon as possible!
I think your take on Spock in The Cage is the one the Secret Hideout writers ought to have considered. They took his actions in that pilot far more seriously than they should. At the time the pilot was made, there was no real concept of who and what the Spock character was. Hence, he played the part as the director asked him to for the most part. The writers in SH saw that pilot and decided, “hey, let’s work with why Spock was like that”. It’s the same mistake made on Enterprise when they decided they HAD to explain why Klingons lost their ridges. Which was not necessary at all. I sorta think they should have just let it be. We know the reason they got ridges was because they wanted to make major changes in the feature film that couldn’t be done on the old TV show. That’s good enough for most.
You’re not, it’s a valid opinion. I love Peck in the role, personally, and what you said is my exact opinion of Zachary Quinto. For me, Peck is a colossal upgrade from Quinto, but I understand the feeling you’re feeling as someone who was really surprised to find out that Quinto’s Spock was well-received when I went home after watching ST09 for the first time in theaters.
Just stepping in for a moment to defend Quinto again. When ST09 was first being developed, I really thought he’d be a great Spock and he was actually my top fan pick before he was even given the role. And there were a few shots and lines where he did absolutely nail it. However, I don’t think his character was great, and that’s the difference. Quinto himself is a pretty good actor, but the writing and directing failed him through the Kelvin Timeline movies. They just didn’t get the character, and then glossed over that fact by saying he’s just a different character than Leonard Nimoy’s Spock. I’m sure if Peck had the part, but the same writers, he’d be just as bad.
I understand that. For me personally, it was less what he was given to do and more just the feeling that they should’ve done one more take. My problems with Quinto as Spock is entirely in the line delivery. It just felt awkward, like he wasn’t quite sure where Spock’s voice was and couldn’t decide how he’d sound, which continues to pull me out of the scene during certain lines.
It’s true, Quinto always played Spock as awkward, I thought, and the way he delivers some lines with his voice cracking like an adolescent just cemented the feeling
When is the next season of anything Trek due? Fall 2021 at this point?
Please use the correct term Autumn. Fall has no meaning in most of the world.
A good rule of thumb is that if you understand the meaning anyway then it’s not worth getting uptight over word usage.
Especially in matters of language, given its evolutionary nature, “correct” is relative. Stan can say what he wants. Thanks though?
And yet everyone here seems to understand it just fine.
It is correct in his own country. Would you use his term for Autumn? Have you nothing better to do? I’m English by the way.
British English: “We call the season between Summer and Winter ‘Autumn’, after the French ‘Autompne’, deriving the anglicised form from the Latin root ‘Autumnus’.”
American English: “LEAF FALL DOWN!”
😏
Fall for autumn is originally an English term. So is soccer, by the way.
I meant to say British English.
It was just a joke… 🤨
I know, but I will bring out useless factoids at the drop of a hat. You’ve been warned. ;-)
No announcements have been made. It is known that season 4 of Discovery is in production, Strange New Worlds is supposed to start production in February, and Picard season 2 is supposed to start filming soon. Lower Decks season 2 is in production. It may be that none of them premiere until 2022.
I know it is just an animated kids show, but it sounds like Star Trek Prodigy S1 may be further along in production than the others, except for maybe Discovery S4. I think Kate Mulgrew said that all of her voice work is already completed for this animated show’s first season. Of course we have no idea how much was needed.
It can be 12 months from voice to final animation, so it could be late 2021 before they’re ready to release the first episodes.
Also, we don’t know how far along the rest of the cast is in doing their voice recording. These tend to be done individually and it would make sense for Mulgrew to lay down the tone first if she’s top of the call sheet.
Animation is probably the easiest to make in the pandemic, since it can all be done remotely. Such interesting times we live in where entire TV shows can be made without anyone coming together in the same room even once.
Didn’t they say Prodigy will premiere in November of this year? I could have swore I read that somewhere. It’s the only one that actually says it’s premiering this year at least so it’s probably going right on schedule.
My guess (I mean, hey, we’re all guessing) is that we’ll get a new season of Lower Decks premiering by October. Because of their two-season pickup they would have gotten head starts. I believe Mike McMahan confirmed all the episodes were written and already in the recording/animating process last fall, so given a one-year turnaround time, I think we should expect to see that.
I also expect that we’ll see Prodigy premiere before the end of the year, maybe even late summer.
Or maybe it’ll be the other way around — Lower Decks, then Prodigy, but both in 2021.
Discovery will likely begin airing in January 2022. Given that filming began on November 1, there’s no reason they couldn’t hit that target. It’s certainly possible they could hit an earlier target, but I don’t think they’ll want to overlap shows, and I predict Lower Decks will be airing late in the fall.
But we’ll see, of course.
Seriously? I mean, I get that’s a puppet, but amputations and whacking someone with a golf club is supposed to endear me to this streaming service?
I agree. The amputation was shocking. Nothing funny about that. What kind of cretins are creating this stuff? I will not be buying this service.
This one is creepy and it made me laugh. Genuinely. If CBS was only this weird!
He was yelling. Not really even in character.
“The women!”
Seriously though, if its windy then its only logical to yell so that people can hear you.
Haha yeah, don’t forget “Check the circuit” along “we can’t take much more” and a few other like “damage reports, all stations” etc. Sad that I actually remember those quotes haha along with Spock laughing and smiling – and not just in The Cage and WNMHGB. The episode with Kirk’s evil imposter, Spock gets a little creepy with Rand asking her if she thought the imposter was interesting.
Bottom line, logically I expect SNW Spock to be a lot more like early S1 TOS, The Cage and WNMHGB Spock, smiling and yelling while still struggling to supress his human emotions. “Ah yes… one of your earth emotions (smiling)!”
For some fans who are looking for emotionless Spock from S2 and S3 of TOS, you may be disappointed!
Btw, IMHO S1 of Star Trek TOS was by far the best of the three seasons!
Shouty Spock is Back. LoL
Actually it is in character, much more so than Quinto was.
All I can say is I laughed! Certainly more than Spock.
How is that supposed to make me want to give CBS my money?
Exactly. Well put.
From these ads, it looks like Gersha Phillips has been tweaking the uniforms.
The blue on Spock’s uniform top is lighter and a bit more mellow than the Discovery S2 version.
I’m also wondering if she’s switched to bonding the fabric instead of sewing it. She noted in her video on the 32nd century uniforms that she felt it gave a better, closer fitting result.
It also looks like Spock has a better, less muppet-like wig. I am so hoping that we’ve seen the last of the Vulcan Muppet heads.
Spock’s wig in the SHORT TREK was god-awful. This one looks a lot better, and they’ve got the fring about right.
Still, I wish they gave Spock the eyeliner and eye-shadow like in TOS.
Spock is supposed to have blue eyelids! I don’t know whether he wears make-up, or if Vulcan eyelids are just naturally blue, but yes, please! :-)
Amen, more eye shadow!!!
I wish I could spot details like this lol. I never noticed how different his wig was in Short Treks.
Well, you should be happy if you don’t notice it. It seems to take (some) people out of the moment. Why would you want that?
Sometimes you have the oddest comments lol. It was just an observation how well people pick up this stuff. I rarely catch it myself, that’s all.
Clip unavailable internationally.
You’ll find. There’s always a way,lol.
And I meant to say find it,lol. They’re also on YT.
They’re on the Paramount+ Twitter feed.
Works in Canada through the Twitter feed.
Like the pointy earmuffs.
Yet still more sensical than Star Trek Discovery.
I don’t mind the arm amputation but Spock wearing earmuffs? -Sigh-
He needs to keep his ears warm, no?
Especially as his species is adapted to a very hot planet.
He needs WAY less emotion. I swear ONLY Nimoy and Lenard ever got that right.
Have you seen The Cage…or the first 4 episodes of TOS?
Cool Spock wasn’t there at the beginning.
The EPs have chosen not to pretend this isn’t canon, but instead to lean into it and give us Spock’s journey.
If Commodore Oh can wear sunglasses Spock can wear earmuffs, ha! #vulcanaccessories
Well, she was a shady Romulan
Earlobe frostbite in Vulcans is fatal.
That’s right! Star Trek is way to serious for (double-checks OP) earmuffs!
SPOCK-TACULAR.
This could be the trailer for a Dr Who like Christmas Special; SNW: Planet of the Toy Soldiers.
I am honestly scratching my head over everyone complaining about this promo. Really, who cares? It’s an innocent little spot showing characters from different shows on the service interacting. Trek fans never cease to amaze me!
Yeah, its pretty bizarre.
I think it’s mostly in the sense of fun. Maybe I’m wrong.
I fully agree! Some of the whining here is curious indeed.
Yeah, I’m genuinely blown away. It’s just a commercial meant for the general audience to see while halfway paying attention to make them go “huh, neato”. That’s it. But there are several people here who appear to be genuinely upset that this wasn’t catered very specifically toward their tastes. It’d be funnier if it weren’t kind of sad. What has to go wrong? What has to happen to a person to make this any form of hill to die on?
It’s the internet. Everything is over analyze to death. You add in Trek nerds and it’s even worse. ;)
While I recognize that Burnham is shown on the main page of Paramount+, and Sir Patrick Stewart is doing the narration of these ads, I’m wondering if there is more to the choice of Pike and Spock for these ads.
On an earlier thread, it was speculated that it was the familiarity of the colourful mid 23rd century uniforms that drove the choice.
However, I’m wondering if it is because license rights for SNW haven’t yet been granted to a competing streamer outside North America.
Perhaps Amazon or Netflix will carry SNW too, but it could be that SNW could be the international flagship show for Paramount+.
Interesting thought!
I’m wondering why Number One is absent, though.
Spock is recognizable to many, and Pike in a mustard-yellow jacket will be recognized as a captain, if possibly mistaken for Kirk.
As for Number One, she’s a character that casual fans won’t yet have come to recognize and love.
Or, it could be that Mount and Peck were in the Greater Toronto Area earlier than she was for some reason, and could be filmed in their updated and refit uniforms.
Speculation:
– could Mount and Peck have shot a new Pike and Spock Short Trek as as part of the ramp up to SNW production next month?
– did Romjin, who has kids, arrive later in Canada and wasn’t through quarantine and fittings before these ads were shot?
Two reasons are popping up in my head right now.
1) Since these commercials are intended to bring in the general audience and not in-the-know Trekkies who already know about it, Spock (as well as the uniform colors) are instantly and classically recognizable. As such, the general audience would go “oh hey neat, Star Trek is back!” because most people who aren’t “us” don’t know about it.
2) I think SNW will be the first show released as a Paramount+ original that didn’t begin as a CBSAA original.
A brilliant bit of marketing for the minuscule demographic that is really into Star Trek, golf, and puppet-maiming. Can’t wait for the next spot with Phil Simms, Brent Spiner, and Butt-Head flogging a mountain goat.
These are pretty dumb, not gonna lie. It’s really nice to see Paramount’s name next to Star Trek’s again though!.
Myself, the only event on that list where they are showing the spot where I MIGHT see it is the Masters. But I only tune in if I have literally nothing else going on. Which goes to show how much CBS I look at. Nearly zero.
OK. Just watched the spot.
Entertaining enough. Probably the most entertaining spot for a streaming service I’ve seen. But it still doesn’t make me want to get the service.