Paramount+ Already Discussing Multiple Shows For Next Phase Of Star Trek Universe

In addition to the Paramount+ Star Trek news from the ViacomCBS Investor Day presentation, including the first look at Star Trek: Prodigy, more details have now emerged about what’s next for the franchise.

Planning Star Trek’s future on Paramount+

With Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Paramount+ already has five shows currently in production. As reported earlier today, Paramount+ is planning on debuting the first season of Prodigy this year, along with season two of Lower Decks, and season four of Discovery. Presumably, season two of Picard and the first season of Strange New Worlds will arrive in 2022. According to Variety, Paramount+ is planning on having new Star Trek content debut every quarter.

And Paramount+ already looking beyond those shows. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, EVP Julie McNamara said:

“We are in discussions about the next phase of the Trek universe beyond those five shows that Alex has built. We are invested in growing the universe of Star Trek. That said, it’s important to make sure that we are curating these properly. We’re always incubating a number of things together and then working out what the right cadence is and what the right next show is. Those are active and constant conversations. There are multiple things in the hopper right now that represent that next phase but we don’t want to expand it too much, too fast to where anyone is ever saying, “It’s just another Trek show.” We don’t want that.”

Kurtzman confirmed “we’re having conversations about what happens beyond the five,” and added some context that developing shows takes time:

“Despite all appearances, we’re not interested in being in the quantity business. I don’t think that serves the Star Trek universe. We are interested in being in the quality business. It takes upwards of two years from inception to postproduction. “

According to Variety, even though they are talking about what comes next, they are not planning on expanding the slate of Star Trek shows beyond the five currently in development. From Variety:

“Whether there’s a show that comes up that feels additive and we should add that into the mix, or waiting for attrition of another ‘Trek’ show, we feel good about where we are,” she says. McNamara said that by “attrition,” she means either a “Trek” show “aging out” naturally, or — in an allusion to 80-year-old “Picard” star Patrick Steward, “perhaps an older lead is only committed to a certain number of seasons and and therefore we move on from that.”

Exploring something new for Trek

Kurtzman also outlined their approach for developing the next Star Trek:

“[O]ne thing we hear a lot from fans is how much they’ve liked that we freed ourselves from canon in Discovery and jumped forward into a new timeline with a whole bunch of new worlds and new characters. What that speaks to more than anything is the spirit of exploration that is at the heart of Star Trek. Whatever we do next is probably going to be in different timelines and different areas of the universe that haven’t been explored before; a show that hasn’t been dedicated to them yet.”

By “timelines,” it’s quite possible Kurtzman is talking about different eras, like the new 32nd-century setting for Star Trek: Discovery. As for different areas of the universe, that could indicate a show set outside the galaxy itself.

Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery

A rainbow of Trek

Alex confirmed that they are considering making more Trek shows geared for kids as they did for Nickelodeon with Prodigy. When asked a hypothetical, Kurtzman said they could consider making Star Trek for other parts of the ViacomCBS family (like BET or Showtime):

Ultimately for Paramount+ to be the centralized home of all Star Trek is ideal but I do like the idea of being able to explore what kinds of strange shows you can put on that don’t necessarily fit into a box. That’s so much of what we’re trying to do with Trek: give you what’s familiar but also forge new ground.

He later elaborated on this point:

Do I see something on BET? Yes, because there may be a niche Star Trek show that’s perfect for that. I want to make sure as we build this out that we’re being thoughtful about creating a really interesting rainbow of colors, that each show feels different and you don’t think, “I can watch Picard and not watch the others.” Because they’re all very different. That to us is more important — staying true to that approach.”

Watch Star Trek “Expansion Continues” promo

Today Paramount+ released a promo narrated by Kurtzman about the Star Trek Universe shows.

The ViacomCBS presentation is still ongoing, so this is a developing story. Check back for updates.

50% off Paramount+ deal ends next week

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.

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“Despite all appearances, we’re not interested in being in the quantity business.”

Coulda fooled me.

Yes, exactly. They really need a writer’s room that truly understands Trek, if they want to get the quality part right.

They have one. They’re just not doing what you want. It’s unfortunate, but I think you and others here are making the mistake of assuming your POV is representative of the fandom.

If that were so, Discovery would’ve been cancelled after S1 and the other 4 shows would never have gotten investment.

According to inside sources, Discovery and Picard were both canceled after season one, Kurtzman was fired, and everything else since then is a figment of your imagination.

What I don’t get is why my imagination insisted on cancelling Discovery and firing Kurtzman so many times after that. Bad writing, I guess.

The audience should have low standards?

If wanting them to produce ‘professional quality’ writing is what I ‘want them to do’…then yeah, they’re not doing that. The writing is amateur. They’ve got some great ideas but the execution, pacing and dialogue are really not great. I was always a Trek fan first but I have been getting a much better fix off the mandalorian.

I feel like you are giving them too much credit. The good ideas end after the concepts of different genres of Trek. The ideas regarding what is in the shows themselves have been terrible.

Incorrect. I’d say what is wanted is quality. In fact, I think it safe to say that all the fans want quality. The difference is what constitutes quality. Many seem to think what they have seen from Secret Hideout does not qualify yet.

Your reasoning that if Star Trek Discovery was not quality it would have been cancelled. This is not necessarily the case. TNG, I think even the most ardent supporters would agree, their first season was hardly quality. Yet it was not cancelled. There were other circumstances that kept it afloat. Just like Star Trek Discovery was not cancelled as there were other more important circumstances that have kept it going. Discovery did not need to be quality to keep going. It HAD to keep going if CBSAA was to continue. Their plan was to have Star Trek be the cornerstone of the service. If Star Trek Discovery was removed after their garbage first season it would have been a huge hill they would have had to go over. Better to keep the garbage show that most likely was their most watched program and trudge forward than take steps backwards and start all over. Among other factors…

TNG, I think even the most ardent supporters would agree, their first season was hardly quality. Yet it was not cancelled.”

Could that be because TNG wasn’t a network show, therefore there was no network to cancel it?

I think it had enough viewers to keep going. It did come with a built in audience, you know.

EXACTLY!!! everyone is bitching about quality and the writing being shit….umm when’s the last time you watched TOS, TNG, DS9 etc…. Entertaining to us sci-fi nerds, but so is all the new stuff. If you don’t enjoy something then don’t watch it.

Actually, as I mentioned in my other comment, these shows desperately need new voices.

Having Kurtzman’s very lazy style hanging over everything is a huge detriment and makes it so every show has the same “voice”.

His style is very dull and stagnant.

I’ve been saying the something similar as well. The same voice comes from the overlapping staffs on all the shows. This tends to make the shows more similar than different.

Kurtzman was not a fan, and not familiar with the franchise. In the movies, he had Orci, and a few others that balance that out. But if you look at how what they do on screen in these , it speaks for itself. It is less Star Trek, and more of their other influences. I don’t want them to do what I want… but they should adhere to canon, and they should understand what the franchise is about. Not take what they like about it, and disregard what they don’t.

Not representative of fandom (why aim so LOW?!)

Representative of some standard of quality dramatics. Y’know, if these people could even READ that book about the making of THE WIRE called ALL THE PIECES MATTER, they’d maybe get some idea about just how badly they are missing on even the most basic tenets. Current TREK is such an epic fail (and that’s coming after the disaster of JJ and the horror decade of Voy and ENt and the largely mediocre TNG) that I can’t even consider that the creatives here are in the same profession as the scribes on genuinely quality shows.

And they’ve got one.

..drop kurtzman

Yep. My first comment (below) pointed that out.

Exactly.

Seems like more meaningless P.R.

“[O]ne thing we hear a lot from fans is how much they’ve liked that we freed ourselves from canon in Discovery and jumped forward into a new timeline with a whole bunch of new worlds and new characters. What that speaks to more than anything is the spirit of exploration that is at the heart of Star Trek. Whatever we do next is probably going to be in different timelines and different areas of the universe that haven’t been explored before; a show that hasn’t been dedicated to them yet.”

So basically all trek going ahead is going to ignore canon and piss everyone off over and over again. This fool needs to go.

Well, they had the opportunity to be original, but dip right back into the past and tinkering with canon. A mirror universe that made no sense (given what we knew about that universe), bringing in and inexplicably changing the Guardian. Create something new, you unimaginative hacks!

I agree, Heyberto. That’s what they were supposed to do in the first place, and yet here we are. D’oh!

Hey Harry. How’s life treating you?

Hey Buzz! Long time no blab! I’m doing just fine. How about yourself?

“A mirror universe that made no sense (given what we knew about that universe)”

It’s been shown throughout Star Trek, so they DID NOT CHANGE IT.

“bringing in and inexplicably changing the Guardian.”

Wait, above you wanted them to change it regarding the Mirror Universe from previous Star Trek, but here you DON’T WANT THEM TO CHANGE IT?

Dude, make up your mind? LOL Which is it?

First off, no need to get excited.. remain calm, it’s just an opinion. But as to the issue at hand, they are the same issue. In Discovery, the mirror universe characters and the world seemed far more savage and way out of alignment from what we knew about it in Mirror, Mirror. I was saying, like the Guardian, they should have done something to make it resemble the mirror universe as we knew it from that episode, since it was less than 10 years from that TOS depiction. (They really should not have gone to the mirror universe at all, but they did, so that’s that). So no, my issues are the liberties they continue to take with canon. There is no difference in my opinion, no matter how much you try to twist it.

Nah, it was pretty consistent given all we saw in Mirror Mirror was events on one starship on a remote space mission.

Take ancient Rome, the violent actions and intrigue in the remote settlement of Londinium would pale in comparison to all the violence and intrigue going on back in Rome.

Another thumbs up. This group takes things they saw and don’t fully understand from other Trek shows and incorporated them into their show thinking that signals to fans they are aware of the lore of Trek. So they awkwardly throw bits into their poorly conceived story arc thinking fans will be happy.

Sorry, but no. It would be better received if they came up with good storylines and fascinating characters first. Then awkward references to other shows could be more easily tolerated. But that is something it does not seem this group will ever understand.

LOL, jeez the rambling.

I’d say the folks who ignore Kurtzman’s worst tics and tendencies are rambling, trying to excuse lazy writing and hacky character motivation.

My takeaway from that line was that I was wondering where he got that idea to begin with. I have not seen a lot of fans speak about loving going forward and “freeing” themselves from canon. From where I sit they have done nothing of the sort. Discovery itself is still tied to the canon issues. Being in the future doesn’t free themselves of anything unless they want to point out that it is not THE future, only one POSSIBLE future. Only then is it less tied to canon. But I watched season 3 and there was zero mention of that. So not only to they remain tied to canon but events on shows in the past are now required to head in their direction. Limiting what they can do as well. Star Trek Discovery has handcuffed everything. Not that being free would have changed anything. Their writing and producing staff still don’t know how to write and make good Trek.

IMHO the only thing that can save Trek is if Secret Hideout is completely removed from all things Trek. Blow up the entire thing and start anew. If that is too extreme then put down some sort of mandate that Kurtzman have no more than ONE staff member be a part of more no more than two shows. The shows need to actually have different perspectives not more of the same.

Absolutely. Very well said. Expand Trek. Make this ‘world’ bigger, not smaller. It’s a lack of imagination, and sad. Fan service is a double edged sword, and they have yet to strike a balance there. They’re in the future now… so go with that.

Well said.

.. ummm, then why call it star trek or even attach the name to it? Why, so kurtzman could pull in an existing base of loyal fans so he could spew his one-sided, political propaganda. The very thing that GR couldn’t stand for! Yeah, he was a liberal but he didn’t throw it in our faces! I didn’t need to be told a new trek series would have an openly gay couple on it just so I would by a ticket

Love this presentation! Love this score – themes from past Trek shows- new arrangement?

There is a little goof in it though. Prodigy is the first animated Star Trek show for kids? Obviously copy written by someone too young to know better and it just slipped through; but Filmation Studios is calling from 1973 and would like a word.

I don’t think TAS was specifically targeting kids.

That may not have been Filmation’s goal, or Roddenberry’s; but it would probably have come as a shock to the Head of Children’s Programming at NBC who bought the show for their Saturday Morning Children’s Television block.

It aired on Saturday mornings. It absolutely was targeting kids.

And it was cancelled by the network even though it won the animated children’s series Emmy.

So, yes it was really good, but not what NBC was looking for.

TNG won a Peabody; winning an award is no proof of anything. THE BIG GOODBYE does not even compare to THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIAL, even if they both won Peabodys.

NBC was definitely targeting kids with it. Fortunately Roddenberry and his team made an all-ages appropriate show that is a genuine TOS continuation and enjoyable by adults too.

I think it was but then I think Lower Decks was pretty much targeting kids, too.

It was aimed at kids.

Kurtzman’s comment about the first show for kids is laughable. Shows you what he doesn’t know about Trek. As young as 4 years old, I was watching, and in the late 70’s there were all kinds of products aimed at kids who were watching the show. Uniform shirts were huge sellers, me and my friends in the neighborhood all had them and wore them outside to play in as if we were on the show. You could buy toy phasers, and Mego Action Figures and playsets. But the show itself was absolutely accessible to kids, and adored by them. Not surprised he doesn’t get that though.

That’s not Kurtzman narrating the video. That’s some voiceover artist reading copy from CBS’s promotions department. I doubt anyone in the Star Trek offices saw anything to do with it until it was released. The sales department in American television usually does whatever the hell it wants to sell the show or sell ad time on the show, without consulting the creative people making the show. As for the existence of toys based on TOS and TAS proving they were made for family or child audiences, The first two Planet of the Apes films, Alien, Aliens, Robo Cop and the first two Predator films are all examples of films from the 60s to the 80s that were definitely NOT for children that someone though would make nice toys for the kids… with added gore painted on.

Take notes from the Star Wars fiasco. Less Discovery, more TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and hell, even ENT.

I think action and adventure is in the works. I also greatly enjoy the more contemplative Picard.

Hear, hear. I want to know what happened after Voyager returned home. In Picard it’s like Bajor and the Marquis doesn’t exist

Maybe we’ll get that in Prodigy. And there will be more seasons in Picard, so more can come in that as well.

Bajor is just one planet that wasn’t even part of the Federation so I wouldn’t make anything of it not having shown up on Picard (yet). Discovery did have Bajorans in season 3. As for the Marquis: I’d say that after the Dominion War it’s indeed unclear whether the Marquis still exists.

I do feel that Discovery gets closer and closer to classic Trek each season. A lot of the stories in season 2 and 3 did feel like stories you would find in TNG, TOS, VOY, etc. This is just my opinion but there were actually quite a few them, especially in season 3. It’s just nice to see the show doing actual exploration. That really bothered me in season one and why it’s still my worst season of the entire franchise and I rewatched it twice now.

All the series are maturing quite nicely. I quite enjoyed Discovery’s storylines, and particularly all those in the first season and the second season’s Red Angel plot; the latest one was also involving.

What fiasco? Everyone loves Mandalorian, Rebels, Rogue One, Solo, The Force Awakens…. The Last Jedi is 90+ on Rotten Tomatoes. No fiasco, just a bunch of whining fanboys upset the story didn’t go the way they wanted it to.

Excellent. I look forward to further developments.

The one era they never touch on TV…. and it drives me nuts…. is the TOS movie era. Set it 20 years after The Undiscovered Country, and throw in a few cameos from Admiral Sulu or Admiral Chekov, and you are going to attract an audience.

I’d love to see that, but honestly, who would watch that who isn’t watching everything else they’re already doing? I can’t imagine that creating new viewers.

That’s how I felt when I heard Discovery was a pre-TOS show. ;)

No one really cares about that but old viewers.

New viewers are important, but so too is subscriber retention. Throwing a bone to any Trek fans who might be wavering with a Sulu miniseries would certainly keep some people from unsubscribing.

But then again, Netflix outright cancels shows left and right with the flick of an algorithm and there’s not much backlash to that growth machine.

I can’t imagine sending Discovery into the future will create any new viewers either. But here they are…

yes it’s sort of the time period that people of my age thought about a lot because there were only TOS movies and no TNG. So there’s a lot of time between.

That is the era I have been wanting for decades now. Set a show 20-30 years post TUC. No, we don’t need to have Sulu or Chekov in it. Just do a show in that era. To me, that is the most fascinating unseen time frame of Trek. I honestly have no interest in the 32nd century. Partly because the tech there would practically be magic at that point but mainly because it just feels like a cheap failed attempt to fix a problem with a show that has had so many problems the only reason it even is still with us is because it would bad optics to end what they were hoping would be the cornerstone show of their Trek universe.

Kurtzman talking about how lots of fans have been saying they like canon being ignored reminds me of how Trump used to say lots of people were talking about __________. It was always a lie, and I suspect this is, too.

Bryant Burnette, I’m thinking you’re reading your fears into this statement. In no place did he say “ignore canon.”

His statement really sounds a lot like what Tiger2 and many others have said on this board.

Many of us are looking for fresh and new, exploration, strange new worlds.

Doing that in periods tightly locked in by canon is a delicate writers dance that isn’t for everyone. It also isn’t building new canvases for the future of the franchise.

New eras, unexplored quadrants, new species are the fresh snow he’s talking about.

TNG was set a century past TOS to find fresh snow. To get past the TOS movie era all they had to do was jump 50 years, but instead they went further ahead to find really fresh snow.

Why shouldn’t younger generations of viewers have the same experience of freshness that TOS and TNG viewers did in there first runs?

Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe.

There’s no reason younger generations can’t have the same experience of freshness you refer to. Unless they are already familiar with canon, it will be fresh to them by default. The real question is, why is there a feeling that it’s impossible to please everyone at once? I mean, it IS impossible, but it’s impossible to please everyone no matter what you’re doing.

Anyways, my point is, I’ve yet to see any evidence that there is a significant groundswell of fans out there saying, “Yes, please, as little canon as possible in my Star Trek, thanks!” Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not seeing that as being a valid notion.

I’m not seeing that either. In fact, what I do see is a lot of fans (and I do not consider myself among those who feel this way) actually WANT canon to “get in the way”. They feel the canon is a vital part of the universe. I found the comment disingenuous because the only reason they took the show forward was not to “free themselves” from canon but it was their solution (one that in my opinion doesn’t work) to “fix” the canon problems they themselves created when they made Star Trek Discovery to begin with.

Bingo.

“Many of us are looking for fresh and new, exploration, strange new worlds.”

And by the way, I am among that group, so by no means am I insistent that all Trek be a nonstop orgy of fanservice and canonical references.

No offense, but you seem to be making excuses for Kurtzman’s lazy writing and hacky character motivations.

Oh, ffs! I am so sick of this “ignoring canon” narrative!

So am I. Not in the way you mean, but still.

Bad analogy. In the latter’s case more often than not it turned out to be factual. In the former’s case, so far it turns out it hasn’t been. Try using any actual politician and you will get a more accurate analogy.

Wow! Now Kurtzman is REALLY going to get fired a whole lot!

Why do they keep letting him back into the building? It’s a mystery and no mistake.

And poor Discovery is on track to get cancelled for like the fourth time.

Nah. He’s repeating all the “right” things to appease TPTB.

As I say, you seem to be making excuses for Kurtzman’s lazy writing and hacky character motivations.

I want a Star Trek show that takes place on Earth. No Ships, no Starfleet, no Space.

Give these doofuses some time, they’ll probably get to it.

Agreed. I would love to see them do something set around the time of TNG/Picard, a bit like Madam Secretary that merges West Wing-style political drama with a bit of legal drama / espionage / diplomacy & statecraft. Like, how the Federation actually operates, the debates, the situation room stuff, give us a Bartlet-style speech every so often about Why We Do This(tm).

That and views of what life on Earth is like. Allow some quiet, contemplative moments.

Fill in those details we’ve always speculated about, like the economic system, how people live (do you just get assigned an apartment or is there some amount of choice?) is it much more green/less technological in some ways (i.e.: walkable cities, do people still bike everywhere, what is agriculture or life in the countryside like, did we fix the climate and if so how (esp after WWIII); did we do massive geo-engineering projects to create more arable land, seasteading, reforestation, how long did it take, etc…

how about the lives of ordinary folks in a neighborhood? like, what are parks and playgrounds like? Local schools? Is there a PTA? Have we gone back to multigenerational families living in the same house (given the medical advances and quality of life?) What are local doctors’ offices like? Are there still hardware stores? Culinary schools?

do corner shops, grocery stores and farmer’s markets still exist in the age of replicators? Are there still luthiers and guitar amp makers and boutique guitar pedal designers, synthesizer algorithm programmers? Local piano teachers?

Do people own vehicles and if so, who makes them? who services them? Do people design their own?

Particularly I want to see parts of Earth we’ve only alluded to in the past. Like we’ve literally only ever seen San Francisco, Paris and La Barre? I’d love to see Canada, Scandinavia, Africa, India, China, Australia, small pacific islands restored from sea level rise, Appalachia, Vermont, Texas…

Enterprise S4 implied that New York was “very different” – presuming it was destroyed in WWIII is it a much smaller city now? How about Lagos, Cairo, Mumbai, etc?

Myself, I’d really rather they be vague about their political and economic system. Better for the show to NOT get involved in that. Especially so given the current climate among the corporate top dogs.

Just remaster DS9 and Voyager and leave it alone until a new team that actually gets Star Trek can take over the reigns. Say what you will about Berman and Braga but they had the utmost respect for the material.

Say what you will about Kurtzman, Chabon, Beyer etc but it’s clear that they also have the utmost respect for the material.

Beyer got her start in Star Trek by writing Voyager novels many fans say are some of the best Voyager stories of the franchise anc created an entire post-Nemesis mythology in them. That’s why she got the job in the first place, she clearly loves and respects Star Trek. It was her idea to even do a Picard show in the first place. I’m still surprised they didn’t make her the show runner of that show since she had experience producing Discovery at least.

Indeed. I’m not an avid reader of the novels like TG47 but I do pick up the odd book now and again and I did read the first few of Kirsten Beyer’s Voyager relaunch series and thought they were great. I suspect she will get an opportunity further down the line to be show runner but I imagine it’s a big learning curve to go from media tie-in novelist to working on a big budget TV show so maybe they thought she needs some more experience. Of course the same could have been said for Chabon although I think he may have had previous feature film screenwriting experience.

I expect Chabon was hired largely for prestige points. Not that he isn’t a very good writer (iirc, some of the bits I liked most, like the Qowat Milat, were Chabon) but looking at how S1 of Picard ended up, even assuming some executive meddling, I don’t think he was much of a showrunner.

Eh… Maybe they do maybe they don’t. If I were a betting man I think the more likely situation is they WANT to have respect for the material but don’t feel like they can make the show they want to make if they completely follow through on that. So they offer lip service to that end. To be fair it is a bit of a tough situation to be in. But hardly an impossible one. Favreau was able to make something good that fit into the world he was working in. Why does it seem to be so hard for Star Trek?

But they don’t.

Trek has always had positive characters and optism, most of their work is dour, with misery.

Well said.

There is what appears to be a high def shot of the defiant at the 1 minute mark of that video

edit: scratch that, viewed it at full screen and its clearly not, its just cleverly cropped and colour balanced

There are high def VFX sequences from DS9 on Youtube. They also redid a few scenes in HD for the DS9 documentary so such material does exist.

“[O]ne thing we hear a lot from fans is how much they’ve liked that we freed ourselves from canon in Discovery and jumped forward into a new timeline with a whole bunch of new worlds and new characters. What that speaks to more than anything is the spirit of exploration that is at the heart of Star Trek. Whatever we do next is probably going to be in different timelines and different areas of the universe that haven’t been explored before; a show that hasn’t been dedicated to them yet.”

I know not everyone is a fan of Kurtzman or the new shows but this statement is literally why so many of us wanted Discovery to be a post-Nemesis show from the beginning. I didn’t want to go forward just to see cooler tech, I partly wanted it for these reasons, to free themselves from canon fans constantly complain about and to give the show new ideas and expand the franchise. You can’t do that as much when you already know whats coming for literally the next 100 years in your timeline. That’s why TNG was great, it could do things on its own. DS9 even more so. VOY wasn’t as strong story wise, but it at least still could forge ahead with something different than the others.

I get why they took it back to the 22nd century for Enterprise by then but once we got a new show it should’ve been a post-Nemesis show from the beginning because clearly they WANT to do new ideas, technology and explore things in ways a pre-TOS show couldn’t. The spore drive made that clear on day one.

While I didn’t love season 3 of Discovery, it finally did things I been wanting to see for 15 years now and that is create something new and different from what we seen before. I love the new dynamics with the various groups and I love seeing the Federation in a different place. Again, I’m still excited for stuff like SNW, but now that I see Star Trek is FINALLY being expanded upon, having 1 or 2 prequels is not a bad thing, I just didn’t it to be the only thing for the next decade of shows.

I’m glad they get it! How well they execute it is a different story obviously!

Couldn’t agree more Tiger2. I know many fans would like to see just multiple familiar series post Nemesis all aimed at the same type of fan, but IMO that would lead to franchise burnout and no Trek on the books for another half decade of so like what we saw post Enterprise.
I too want to see SNW, in fact maybe more than any other series, but I am an old guy who as a kid watched TOS when it was on in the late 60s. Not that I am not important to the producers, but for the franchise to survive another 50 plus year, they have to make something new and different and attract new diverse and younger audiences.
Now we have 5 series, each very different from the next and each potentially appealing to varying audiences. As you said, we shall see if they can effectively execute the plan – let’s hope the writing allows it to happen and the stories are good.

I’m looking forward to Strange New Worlds too.

And I think that Akiva Goldsman, who is a TOS fan who has wanted to build out the stories of Pike, Number One and early Spock since he was asked to join the franchise with Discovery, is likely the best option as showrunner.

It seems that between Lower Decks and Picard, a lesson has been learned.

It they are going to play in an era, culture or region that is very well established in a previous series, they need a showrunner who knows and loves that series.

Lower Decks in the late TNG era works because McMahan knows and loves that canon. He can be creative and play with it without damaging the value of properties from that era because he knows what the would really bite for those who love Berman-era Trek.

Chabon, on the other hand, grew up with TOS. It’s his era and he has acknowledged that he was completely surprised by the super negative reaction to Icheb’s death in Picard and the way it was done.

So, Chabon has moved on as showrunner for an adaptation of his own novel, and the new showrunner Terry Matalas is someone who is a TNG fan, and got his start in the writers rooms of Voyager and Enterprise. The more I know about Matalas work, the smarter this change of showrunner is.

And since as Tiger2 and others keep saying, there is a need for new series and new canon in fresh snow. That’s where new writers who want to do different things are best suited to build ou the multiverse.

One of the things that I like most about Kurtzman is that he authentically learns from mistakes and feedback and adapts.

It just rings so weird how so many hardcore Berman era fans analyze and treat their criticism of Discovery so, so seriously, yet then give the silly Lower Decks series, an annoying and childish mesh with never-ending canon violations, a free pass. LOL

Sorry, but this makes me take your criticism of Discovery less seriously. It’s like if someone was criticizing Big Little Lies, while at the same time telling me how awesome King of the Hill is.

Sorry I disagree. McMahon knows and love the TNG era but that doesn’t mean Lower Decks works. He loves the era so much he made a show that was just nothing but a fangasm. His comedy didn’t have much comedy possibly because he was too distracted with how many old show references he could include.

I don’t know what Chabon was partial to regarding Trek but nothing in Picard revealed any sort of preference. He moved on because he preferred to be in charge of the production of his novel. Not because of fan reaction to the death of a minor character.

The theory that if a producer is a fan means they will be able to produce that something well is a bad one. It seems to happen ( Like when Coto took over season 4 or Enterprise) at least as often as it doesn’t.

The fact is, if they really don’t want to deal with canon then the only option is reboot.

Honestly, four of the five shows are post-Nemesis, so while they may not all be exactly what fans want, there is enough variety there to like at least some of it IMO.

I think the direction they are going in is great as well. No, it doesn’t mean I personally will like all of it, but it would have to be truly awful if I didn’t enjoy some of it at least. And as I always said and you just pointed out, you don’t have to like ALL of it because it’s not all meant to appeal to every Trek fan out there. The point is they are trying to diversify the franchise to as many groups as possible. If you think LDS suck as a show, then it probably just wasn’t made for you in mind. That’s fine, you still have countless other shows on the air, why do you need for that show to be canceled? Same if you hate Discovery? Or Picard? And on and on. I admit, fandom just really frustrates me sometimes and even when I AGREE with certain thoughts on a show. I didn’t like DIS much first season, but I never wanted it cancelled either. I was just hoping either A. it got better or B. just something else I can enjoy more would come along. And fortunately I got both. And I didn’t have to wait 5+ years like I was fearing.

But I will also admit, my view in general just changed dramatically once I saw they weren’t going to just appeal to the same old TOS or even TNG fans and try and do something new with the franchise. Once I saw they were finally willing to not only do post-Nemesis shows with Picard, but then an even bigger shocker by moving Discovery 900 years into the future, that’s when I got really excited for the franchise future and still am. They finally wanted Trek to grow and not just stay in the same place for the next 10 years. Now literally anything is possible. They can go to any era or time period. We may not get to other parts of the galaxy or even other galaxies! As someone once said, the sky is now the limit both story and format wise and it’s refreshing!

The funny thing is I was reading the original Picard thread a few days ago when the show was announced in Las Vegas and I was arguing with some guy who was telling me how much of a ‘mistake’ it was to move the show passed Nemesis because apparently fake science fiction shows should conform to our world today and argued anything a year passed Nemesis would make Star Trek feel out of touch with today’s world (because 1960’s version of the 23rd century in TOS where everyone still uses pencil and paper and analog clocks feels so relevant today). But his argument was no show should ever go pass Voyager, even by just a few decades. It would be suicide to the brand.

Now we have a show that’s gone 800 years passed that one and no turning back. I would love to hear from that guy today lol.

I’ve always said it, the century doesn’t matter, just how it’s written and while DIS still has a ways to go, going into the far future was easily the best thing for the show, without a doubt. It breathed new life not only into the show, but for Trek canon in general. That and humans aren’t all transhuman cyborgs in the 32nd century either. ;)

Really looking forward to SNW as well (I feel I always have to throw that in lol).

I agree with everything, but… if well, hundreds of TOS and canon-respecting novelists could tell stories for something like 50 years… it’s a crime that we don’t have a show that can exist there without spoiling the timeline. Hopefully that’s SNW.

That said, What’s also interesting in terms of reboots: Twilight Zone is cancelled, and Lost in Space will get it’s final season this year. IMHO they were both excellent.

I didn’t watch TZ’s CBSAA season 2. But season one was probably the worst thing I have EVER seen on television. If it has been cancelled then I think it obvious it got a two season order up front.

I’ve never read a TOS novel before (but I’ve never read ANY Star Trek novel before ;)) so I don’t really know of course. But I’m not saying a show can’t exist in the TOS era again, I’m only saying is whatever does go there, it can’t really do anything all that innovative or unique when there is so much canon from TOS to VOY to think about. But again, I want to repeat this, it doesn’t mean we can’t get a great show, of course we can. But as Kurtzman said in that quote I posted, you’re not going to be really be able to push the franchise into different areas either the way you can do a show that is past all that. And a lot of fans (and obviously the producers themselves) want to see fresh new ideas proposed and we are finally getting that after so many prequels with DiS now being so far of everything else.

And yes DIscovery failed in many ways on that, but hopefully SNW will have learned from those mistakes of how to just do a prequel better in this timeline. I’m not really holding my breath of that, but if it’s just a better, more Trek like show (which they say it will be) I won’t care as much. DIS just didn’t fit and was not a very good show when it started for me on top of it.

As for Twilight Zone, I literally saw only one episode and never looked at any of the others. I kept saying I would but every time I saw a review of a new episode it was always really negative. So not surprised either. Only seen the first season of Lost in Space. Really liked it actually but just never watched season 2. Probably will just binge the last two seasons when season 3 gets here.

It’s just that there is a difference between what we know is “Star Trek” canon during a particular period (like TOS) and knowing in real life that there is an open world with billions of stories to be told and places to visit. Like when Kirk says, “Thataway” — that’s where they should be going.

i don’t disagree and maybe SNW will tap into a lot of that (and it’s only ten episodes a season). I’m only saying the obvious and that is you can’t have a Borg invasion storyline (as an example) because we know enough of the timeline to know that would be impossible to do in the TOS period (although they have retcon the Borg a few times now). But if someone decided they wanted to do one in Picard or even Discovery now, it wouldn’t be an issue. Or any invasion story for that matter.

An even better example is when the producers decided to bring in the Dominion on DS9 and not just make them another villain but went farther than any show by plunging the alpha quadrant into a full scale war with them…for three years. It’s no way they could’ve done something like that for Discovery because there is absolutely nothing that spoke of the Federation being in a full scale war with anyone at the time. Even the Klingon war really pushed it canon wise, but not the end of the world since we at least knew there were Klingon conflicts in the past.

That’s always the problem with prequels, you can’t really go that big with a new story line or you have to find a way to explain it all away after you’re done like they literally did with the Red Angel storyline. And Discovery is a show where they seem want to go big every freaking season lol.

But I agree, there are still tons of stories to mine in the 23rd century. I never once believed otherwise. TOS era really only covered about 20 years between the show and TUC. And yeah, they aren’t the only ship that had crazy adventures every week. That just seems to be the Starfleet motto. ;)

So there is tons they can do, but same time certain directions they can never go in and they know it.

The problem is, while different genres of shows is a good idea, the shows we have gotten so far are not very different from each other. Lower Decks is the most different but there is still a lot of similarities with the other two. And the reason for that, I have said time and time again, is the overlap of writers and producers among all the shows. How different can they be if the same people are behind all of them?

Let’s be honest. The only way to free themselves from canon is to reboot the franchise. Which is something I think CBS/Paramount was unwilling to do. I, as a singular fan, would be fine if they wanted to totally reboot the universe. Am I in the minority on that? I have no idea. But I would be fine with it provided what they did was GOOD. Which is the bottom line, honestly whether they reboot it or not.

Obviously I agree. I think a rebooted Discovery in the 23rd century would’ve just made more sense after seeing what we got. And it would’ve been a lot of easier for fans to accept it more with both the visual and canon differences (but I’m not sure I would’ve liked those Klingons in any universe lol). But yeah they didn’t want to go that route. And we all get it, they knew fans would be much more excited to return the prime universe again after years of the Kelvin universe. Putting it in yet another universe would’ve disappointed many fans for sure, but I’m guessing most of them still would’ve gave it a chance just like people (like me) who wasn’t super happy it was a prequel still watched and supported it. But we’ll never know now.

Kurtzman got me excited when he said, “We are interested in being in the quality business.” I can’t wait until they start making something of quality finally! Woohoo! Go Kurtzman in your quest to achieve quality!

Man people are harsh here lol.

I saw folks on Twitter criticizing the animation, story and research for Prodigy. Based on a single promo still.

There’s a segment of the fandom that has actually lost it collective mind.

I am not an apologist for these shows as I have criticized both Discovery and Picard (along with all the past shows) many times. And in fact they are both still at the bottom of my list in terms of overall show rankings. But I’m not overly cynical to the point there is no hope for them and future Trek products for the next five seasons. I think they all still have the potential to be great in fact! So I’m sticking with them.

And I’m old enough to remember when fans once said TNG, DS9, VOY and (definitely) ENT were not considered worthy successors to the Trek name when they first showed up. Now they are all brought up (just as we seen in this thread) as examples of what ‘real’ Star Trek is and what the new stuff is failing to do.

It’s kind of like how the Star Wars prequels are suddenly ‘great’ Star Wars films when you compare them to the sequel trilogy. It’s not a direct comparison (and I still think the SW prequels are pretty bad) but it does speak to how time can just heal all wounds. That and the fact the older shows have actually aged fairly well. But they all had their detractors as well in the beginning.

The only reason I think anyone might think the SW prequels were suddenly better than they are is because that is only when one compares them to the Disney sequels. Which were easily worse. (although I am one of the few who liked much of, not all of, TLJ)

But the irony is pretty funny, when Disney announced they were making a new trilogy, people were practically grave dancing on the prequels and very happy Lucas was now cut out his own creation. I was never one of those people. I didn’t love the prequels by any means but I thought people were overly harsh on the man (but I feel that way on most of the past and present makers of Star Trek too even if still share those concerns). There was a huge push by some fans for Disney to even remake the prequels, remember that?

Cut to today and now everyone (or most) seem to want Lucas back in charge and treat the new films like they aren’t even canon just like many Trek fans want to pretend DIS and PIC (and LDS to a lesser extent) aren’t canon now. I mean there are just as many rumors Kathleen Kennedy is getting fired any day now just like Alex Kurtzman seems to get every other month.

Even though neither franchises are run by the same people they both have the same parallels in so many ways. They both started off people truly excited for new things after fans decided the old guard (Lucas and Berman) ran things into the ground, only to end up hating the new stuff even more lol. You can’t make this up.

Mandalorian has been a huge critical and ratings hit though (And TCW was always loved) so maybe the tide is turning with SW. None of the new Star Trek shows seem to be a huge crowd pleaser on that level yet, but they all have their fans still and do feel LDS oddly has had the most praise so far (I still have to reiterate not everyone loves it, but did get way less scorn than DIS and PIC). Maybe SNW will be what changes people’s minds, but I also remember how much people felt Picard would do that too in the beginning. I was one of them. ;)

The best way to take that comment is to treat it as if was something they just now, TODAY, realized. So perhaps the quality will be in the next show…. Fingers crossed…

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding a particular phrase Kurtzman likes to use. Relax, “that we’ve freed ourselves from canon” is not the same as abandoning canon. That should be clear from how much both Picard season 1 and Discovery season 3 tapped in to and expanded upon the existing lore in order to set new paths for the franchise. Maybe you like what they’ve done, maybe you don’t but if it’s the latter then maybe start critiquing the aspects you don’t like instead of attacking a turn of phrase that all available evidence clearly shows is nothing more than a sound bite.

TNG hit its stride when it moved past canon. There were lots of other factors at play, of course, but everyone working in Star Trek undoubtedly recognizes that for a show to embrace its own identity, it has to stop leaning on the others, and stand for itself.

Discovery took the first steps in S3.

Agreed completely! Discovery now feels like it’s own show with its own identity and narrative while hopefully creating a new mythology going forward. It’s no longer the show where people are just waiting for Spock to show up, learn how the Klingons got cloaking technology or how Mudd found his women.

Now it’s free to be whatever it wants just like TNG got that chance and so far away from everything it can reset the galaxy which it actually did in S3. This is 100 times better than just hanging on another show’s coattails like it felt like it was doing with TOS.

To me, TNG always felt like they were riding on TOS’s coattails. Even setting the show 75 years later and never mentioning the established aliens couldn’t change that. It was DS9 that did its own thing. Which is why I gravitated to it way more than I ever did TNG.

Then we’ll just agree to disagree and move on. I have no idea how that is possible since no one from TOS even showed up until the third season and TNG purposely avoided a lot of TOS story lines outside of The Naked Time.

Ironically it was really DS9 that always found ways to bring in TOS story lines even if we never saw many of the TOS characters on it (not counting Trials and Tribbulations). And they actually referenced TOS more than any spin off show. I thought how they did it was great but DS9 was the one that brought up TOS more so than TNG in many ways.

It’s amazing how we can completely agree on one thing but then completely disagree on so many other things. This is one of them lol.

I think you are forgetting Admiral McCoy.

No, I’m not. That was just a two minute cameo role and not advertised. I mean an actual storyline involving the characters like we got with Sarek, Spock and Scotty later on.

It is possible to conclude because both shows are the same premise. It has nothing to do with old characters showing up or which old show episodes got revisited. This premise is a large part of what drew fans to the show to begin with. So GR created an updated version of his original concept and it just rode the wave that the original create.

Every TNG spinoff was a different take from TOS, and since they are the same premise, TNG. DS9 may have referenced TOS more but the show was hardly trying to recapture what TOS had. It set out to do its own thing and to hammer that point home centered it on a space station rather than a star ship. DS9 at best one could argue rode the popularity of TNG which itself rode on the popularity of TOS. But it was DS9 that was the first to do something truly different.

I would argue that DS9 and Voyager both tried to very much be their own thing separate from TOS and TNG. Even though Voyager came a little closer the character situations there were very different. It wasn’t until Enterprise came that it seemed like they actively tried to recapture the “big three” concept only TOS was able to create. Their “schtick” was it was set pre-UFP. Which I still think was a fascinating time frame to set a show in.

And I very much enjoy a different of takes. On rare occasions I have even been known to be convinced of a different view!

LOL that’s just the premise of the show. That’s what Star Trek is, not just TOS in general. It’s about exploring the galaxy in the future on starships. That’s not what I was talking about and you know it.

And yes it was the first ever Star Trek spin off out of the gate, it had to look like Star Trek as much as possible or it probably wouldn’t even gotten on the air. That’s also probably why the ship was called Enterprise as well. Yes once that was successful enough then they could do other things like what we got with DS9 and VOY.

Let’s be very honest, TNG was the riskiest Trek show out of any of them because it was the first one that had to prove that it could even be a success without the original characters and different dynamics. By all accounts it really should’ve failed. Even Brent Spiner said in an old interview when he got the job he thought the show would only last a year and he would be done because trying to duplicate Star Trek was just something you don’t do. Now it’s been duplicated over and over again to great success. But they were the original guinea pigs.

And yes because that show did so well it was able to put other spin offs on that could basically do whatever they want. Me and you love DS9 for that very reason, because it was so different to what we seen in Star Trek and sadly we haven’t got anything that unique again. But that’s because after TNG became successful they now could just do what they wanted.

But you also know that’s what I want to, to see Star Trek expand and do different things. When I was a kid watching TOS and TNG, I didn’t think that hard about it. I was just happy to watch Star Trek and see people on Starships meeting aliens or traveling back in time. I probably would’ve been fine to see every new show on board an Enterprise. I probably wouldn’t have cared if we got ten versions of TOS at that time. But once DS9 came on and I was a bit older by then, I saw the potential of what they can really do with this franchise and just how broad Star Trek’s premise can truly be.

Like you, I want Trek to feel as different and unique as possible. I don’t want TOS, TNG or even DS9 again, I want every variation to be something unique or different too. I love to see it in various time periods, to see where the Federation is at different points. We haven’t really gotten a truly unique show since DS9 unfortunately but I have liked every show since, yes including Discovery and Picard, just on a much lower level. You can certainly argue Picard is different by being the first show that doesn’t revolve around Starfleet (but mostly ex-Starfleet officers) which was a great premise. The execution still needs tons of work though.

Also why I’m still rooting for Kurtzman. He seems to believe that too. Again, his choices may not align with what I want specifically, but I’m excited to see how different the shows are. They just need to be better written in general with stronger arcs and characters.

I believe it was Stewart who didn’t think the show would last more than the one season. I’ve heard the interview that he was fully planning on returning to Britain after that one season.

I do agree that in the press there seemed to be some doubt if Trek could go on without Kirk and Spock. But I never felt that was the case. I was in fandom and I KNEW it could go on without them. In fact for years I was rooting for a new show on a new ship with new characters and if it were done competently it would do fine. I have a hard time thinking that was a minority view at the time. So from my point of view the only thing I considered a risk on TNG was setting it so far down the line from TOS. The rest of the concept was completely sound.

Well said. DS9 for me is the best Star Trek series produced after TOS, and it’s not even close.

We share that opinion, too. DS9 was easily the best of the Berman era.

Kurtzman’s hacky writing speaks for itself.

Given he has only seven episode writing credits in I think about nearly 70 eps to date, and for most of those he was one writer among several, that really isn’t much of a writing impact???

Do you pay attention to the writing credits on the new Star Trek series? Because your comment only applies to just fractions of 10% of the eps??? If let’s say, he wrote 40% of those seven eps, then we are talking about only 4% of the total writing on the new Trek shows that can be attributed to his “hacky writing.”

So whoopdie, freaking doo! :-)

What I would really love to see is a quality animated series with a 45 minute running length for the original series year 4 and 5, with animation that looks like the IDW comics. Why we are lucky enough to have some of TOS cast still alive it would make a fantastic bookend for TOS.

Come on CBS/Paramount this would be a sure fire hit and a tribute to the 55 year anniversary. The quality of animation today would be perfectly suitable, you could even link this to Strange New Worlds if you really wanted to.

Here’s hoping this is confirmation of a season 3 of Lower Decks. It’s my favourite trek show in 20 years. They have a winner on their hands, lets hope it’s not cancelled anytime soon. Holding thumbs!

It’s still funny to me out of all the new shows with massive hype, it was Lower Decks most fan seem to generally like if not love. I’m not saying everybody obviously but it’s gotten waaaay less scorn than Picard and definitely Discovery out of the gate.

I’m pretty sure a season 3 is coming, especially since it’s probably MUCH cheaper to make than all the new live actions shows.

Never thought of it been cheaper to produce… hope you are right. And now with covid to still raging on, it been animated, has a still better chance of keeping on the air.

I assume it has to be. I mean what they are paying Stewart alone to be in Picard probably covers that show’s entire budget for the year. ;)

I don’t really know how well it’s doing in America but I don’t know how any of these shows are doing lol. They keep renewing them, so, yeah. Hopefully LDS will go a few more seasons. If any Trek show deserves it, it’s definitely that one!

If there is then please… PLEASE make it funny. It’s supposed to be comedy, you know.

Really ML31, can’t you just accept that there are many people watching LDS who do find it funny.

Not everyone’s funny is the same as yours.

Problem is, it’s just not funny. Not only that, I am suppose to accept all that silly, but not funny stuff they have on the show as canon? Seriously?

Trust me, I know. I watched the first season of Seinfeld and stopped. While I liked Jerry’s stand up the show just was surprisingly unfunny.

But that is not going to stop me from posting my take on an unfunny “comedy”. So it might be good to not remind people posting obvious opinions that the takes are, you know, opinions. And that goes both ways.

It’s funny to me and others. It’s not the end of the world if the shows not for you. Maybe Prodigy will be better for you?(assuming you watch it?)

By contrast the show is NOT funny to me nor many others. And, no, it’s not the end of the world that none of the SH shows have been any good. Like being a fan of a bad ball club, however, I still hold out hope that the next season will be an improvement.

I was planning on watching Prodigy, sure. But I know it is aimed at the youngsters. Just hoping it is like Clone Wars or Rebels where it works on multiple levels. I am disappointed to discover (not unexpectedly) that it will NOT be on Nick until after it runs on Paramount+. Was hoping to see it on first run. I may subscribe for it but I’m currently on the fence about that.

Maybe they’ll do something good next. That’d be cool.

Sure, and pigs can fly.

Even though new Trek is kind of bad, I am always comforted by the fact that there is a LOT of good Star Trek already in existence.

Best post I’ve seen while scrolling through all this, Buzz. Agreed.

While I am not sure how I feel (yet) about the expanding ST universe for more shows. I do wish that the productions would expand the quantity of season episodes in each show. Having 10 or 12 is just not enough in my opinion, as we get going in the season, shows, cast etc. and then it comes to an abrupt stop and we have to wait a year. Maybe it is my lack of insider info on the details of what it takes to create these new/mostly CGI shows.
If they do expand to more variations of shows, perhaps they may be consider ENT, DS9, TNG or VOY 2.0 versions. Ira Behrs’ wonderful post DS9 Documentary “What we left behind” is proof that these shows could have more stories left to play out answer questions, explain where the characters are or are not anymore. ENT could have plenty of rich story lines to fill in the gaps. CBS/Paramount seems to be doing that with PIC as we see the TNG crew we all love and they have a semi-TOS 2.0 version with SNW. It will be Capt. Pike and not Capt. Kirk, but who knows? Kirk may show up yet in SNW at some point.

I miss 20 episode shows. But given the quality of the shows SH is giving us I am happy their seasons are cut short. Bad shows can never have too few episodes and good shows never have enough.

You have a very good point about good/bad shows. I feel that way too at times.

I would expect Lower Decks and Picard will be likely be done after their 3rd seasons — Picard because I am guessing 3 seasons is what Stewart wanted to do, and Lower Decks simply because it’s a limited audience that is unlikely to expand. I see Discovery at least going seven seasons, and Strange New Worlds should be many years long as well.

I would expect them to begin long-term development of two new live action series, which I think we will see in 2023. I think they will stick with Prodigy on Nick as their sole animated series.

If they’re not careful fans will get burned out. X-Men, Transformers and other franchises have done that before, including Trek. Hopefully they don’t make the same mistake others did.

Hmm… Well first off there is this…

We are interested in being in the quality business. It takes upwards of two years from inception to postproduction. “

Obviously they have failed miserably in that department and nothing we have seen so far shows they are interested in changing that. Sorry. I call obvious BS on that statement.

Then this…

Because they’re all very different. That to us is more important — staying true to that approach.”

Again, hard to think they are being serious about that when EVERY show so far has had at least 2/3 of their writing and producing staff be identical. How can each show be different when the same minds are involved in every single one? Once again, I call BS on that comment. It’s a good idea, but they aren’t doing a thing to attempt to implement it.

My wish list: (1) a Star Trek series set in the Kirk era, with sets and costumes from DS9 “Trials and Tribble-ations” and ENT “In a Mirror, Darkly” and with cameos (voice only) by Shatner (Hurry up, the man will be 90 years old next month), Takei, and/or Koenig and (2) a medical show, like “Grey’s Anatomy” or “ER,” set at Starfleet Medical.

While I personally would love to see a show set in the TOS era… Right down to the sets.. It would indeed be a tough sell for today’s audiences. I would settle for a TOS era show but with a production design that evokes the feel of that era while still looking good for modern television rather than an outright copy.

And then there is my old joke from back when CBS announced a new Trek show..

Starfleet JAG.

My wishlist show would be “Old Vulcan” – an epic saga of how Vulcan turned from brutality to logic. I hereby claim the idea and 10% of the profits. :-)

I wanna see what happens when they release a show called “Oldish Vulcan” and you get nada.

Hopefully any of them are good.

Quality over quantity.

And they do desperately need different voices in these shows, having Kurtzman‘s lazy style over everything gives every show the same “voice”.

Why not see if people like Ronald Moore and Braga would be interested?

I’d actually rather see a fresh take. If I had to pick an old show runner from the past it would be Coto. But my first choice would be someone new.

We may get to see some newness with Terry Matalas helming Picard.

I’ve been following Tiger2’s advice and working my way through 12 Monkeys. You can really see the improvements as he was given control and became showrunner.

And if Matalas does well with Picard, it’s likely he will get lead again on one of the other new live-action series in development.

That could be a good start. The problem I have with SH is that even with a separate person in charge of the show there is still way too much overlapping of other producing and writing staffs. And I think that hampers the shows voice more than anything.

Both Moore and Braga are very very busy and showrunner for other shows. And Moore just signed on with Disney to create a new show for Disney+. Star Trek needs people full time to run it. It learned that the hard way when Bryan Fuller was making Discovery and also in charge of multiple other shows (which he eventually left all of those as well) and why DIS kept getting pushed back.

One thing I would love is an anthology series or made-for-streaming movies, each episode or story arc set in a different era of Trek.

I’ve wanted to see something like that since Enterprise concluded and before the JJ movies were released.

A great way to bring back previous actors as well.

The original concept of an analogy show with a new setting and cast every season I really liked. But understood why it was rejected.

Ironically that was one of Fuller’s original ideas when he was making Discovery, but the studio rejected it. But now with SO much Star Trek coming, I don’t think that idea is impossible now. They can just have a show that follows different eras of Star Trek every season. And now since Trek literally covers a thousand years in terms of its timeline thanks to Discovery, it can cover many things from this point on.

The made-for-streaming movies are really appealing.

I could see them as a way to test out Trek concepts for BET or Showcase as well.

They don’t need to be intentional pilots but a way to calibrate the right fit for those platforms.

I also think that the domestic character stories (along the lines of Hallmark) are still an untapped market that can’t be covered in the short season series formats.

We had a good discussion about what kinds of stories could be explored in modest budget made-for-streaming movies on the TrekMovie Chat thread in the late fall. A few of us quickly came up with a number of ideas that wouldn’t involve heavy vfx, but could appeal to new viewers while filling in important stories for longtime fans. Hallmark has demonstrated that there is a huge untapped market for gentle aspirational relationship stories and ViacomCBS has nothing in that lane. Examples:

– how did Amanda Grayson and Sarek come together?

– what’s up with Garak on Cardassia? Does he find enduring love?

– Leeta and Rom and their other children on Ferenginar coping with Nog’s death and reaffirming family

So – will any of these shows have positive characters, with Trek optimism?

Picard in particular was”what’s your damage?”, shows with teen casts have less angst than the Picard characters.

Picard also fell into trope of tearing down a great heroic character because the writers were too lazy to think of anything more original or creative.

You say Picard was unoriginal but most ideas i’d seen thrown out involved the same tired schtick: Admiral Picard on the Enterprise where Captain Worf teams up with Riker and the Titan on a mission to whatever.

While I didn’t love Picard, I think the concept was fine and plenty novel. It was frankly a lot more interesting than anything i’d seen fans say they wanted to see. The problem was in the writing, and trying to cram too much into it (Data’s daughter, Borg rehab, Romulan salvation, Federation corruption, etc). Like DSC, it also suffered from exaggerated melodrama.

I thought the notion of Picard working to correct the most monumental mistake of his career, combined with the personal stake of rescuing Data’s “daughter” was a good opening premise, but it just went off the rails. As you said, there was too much going on. So much, I think they forgot to actually build Picard back up before killing him off and stuffing him into a new body, and then the rest was just… yes, very depressing.

100%. There was a lot of promise in those opening episodes, but like the recent Star Wars trilogy, it felt like a story run by committee, or built by an algorithm…

I can see executives telling Chabon and others, “well, Borg episodes are the most popular, can we do a Borg story in the middle of the season? Can we put 7 of 9 in there? Statistics show Voyager is extremely popular. Netflix numbers say “Measure of a Man” is the one of the most recommended TNG episodes, can we tie it in with that? Also, focus testing tells us audiences like stories with rogue-ish guest stars, so management wants a Han Solo type in the main cast. And how about a sexy young warrior elf… Why? Because I like sexy young warrior elves.”

What mistake was that? Assuming he was more important that he was? He never seemed to acknowledge that. He still seemed to believe that his threat to retire should have sent shock waves throughout Starfleet. And I never understood any personal stake with robot girl. Just because there was some data tech in her? Not sure how that links him to her. It’s like feeling a connection to a car because it contained the transmission of an older car you personally restored.

The problem I had with Picard is that JL was not a damaged man. He was pretty much the same guy we saw in the Captain’s chair. Only considerably older. Older does not make one damaged.

So we had a main character where nothing happened to him therefore he had no journey to take. The plot of the show ought to have been him overcoming a mistake or a flaw and becoming a better person for it. But no. He was till always right. Then you had the problems with the show tying to do WAY too much. They included all sorts of plot elements. The ultimately ignored most of them and then the way the show wrapped up didn’t have anything to do with any of them. It seems to have been badly put together from the start and even further cements that the only reason Stewart never came back as Picard was because his price for it was never met. Until now.

Weirdly the most of the rest of the regular cast were better characters than anyone on Star Trek Discovery. Which does lend a little hope to future shows… We’ll see.

Sorry, I don’t think we watched the same show.

I think we did. We both felt they tried to cram way too much in to 10 episodes. That was a pretty huge problem.

Yeah, PIC was the complete opposite of “optimism” and “characters that inspire the best in us”… I’m fine with the characters on DSC and I can live with a healthy dosage of melodrama, but PIC completely overdid it with those damaged, angst-driven characters that seemed like out of your generic 2010s “adult” drama… For Star Trek is seemed “fresh”, too fresh, because it was just like any other TV-MA genre show of the last 10 years…

Even if you take some political and social changes into account… people smoking weed and drinking again after a totally utopian approach on TNG, people desperately living in poverty in trailers… c’mon, that contradicted everything previously established about this era… 60+ year-old Admirals dropping f-bombs just because it’s on streaming… Ridiculous…

Less quantity or more quality. Stop trying to turn Trek into a kiddies show.

TOS and TNG were high-quality “kids” shows or family shows. TAS definitely was your average Saturday morning kids cartoon.
The problems started when they tried to turn Trek into an adult show… DSC Season 1 and PIC, and even that “adult” cartoon LD, those are the real problems.

The hopeful optimism of Star Trek requires a certain simplistic innocence. Like Jesus demanding to change into little children to attain the kingdom of heaven, I always thought of Trek holding the keys to the kingdom through its family-friendly utopian approach full of values and respect. DS9 challenged that, but only in parts and still was okay.

DSC S1 and PIC really caused serious damage to that approach and LD basically is a disrespectful, nihilistic deconstruction of Trek that – if taken seriously to even the smallest degree – devaluates lots of lessons learned on the original two shows.

DSC S2 and especially S3 have repaired some of the damage done and I hope SNW will continue on that path. Not sure about the impact of a proposed S31 show…

Fingers crossed for “Keeping up with the Cardassians”.

I’m all for more Trek, and I have enjoyed most of Discovery, but they NEED to get a showrunner who can properly structure a complete season that builds to a satisfying climax. Not one season of any of these shows has achieved that. The finale of Picard was a trainwreck that pretty much ruined the show, and this recent finale of Disco veered off into la la land Bsci fi territory with that awful turbolift action sequence. That nonsense belongs on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, not 2021 Trek. There was no one from the writers to the showrunner , producers, etc who pointed out just how stupid and illogical that entire sequence was? THAT fact is making me start to think that this entire evolution of Trek is doomed.

Yeah that’s the problem with these shows. They all start off great but they just seem to end in either a very anti-climatic way (Picard especially) or just convoluted to the point you give up trying to make sense of it all. That’s how I felt about the season 2 finale of Discovery. If Quentin Tarantino can’t figure out how a parallel universe works, it would take him years to understand the mess of that story works.

I still can’t believe the turbolift thing even happened. Doesn’t anyone raise their hand in all these production meetings and just say ‘what???’

The turbolift thing to me was really just them doubling down on a silly mistake they made much earlier. They already showed the ship had a ton of empty space in it. So they just decided to build an action sequence on that. SH shows have produced this next sentence continually… Not the best creative choice to make.

Well, in the new promotion montage put together for ViacomCBS Investor Day, Kurtzman said that Discovery brings the look and feel of the Trek cinematic features to streaming television.

So, I guess that’s still baked in, and the turbolift sequence in the finale is just part of that concept.

A couple of days back, on another site (a political site, I think), somebody was commenting about how ridiculous some aspect of the news was. In response, somebody posted the overarching storyline of Kurtzman’s HAWAII 5-0, which all sounded poached from AUSTIN POWERS by way of SKYFALL (and believe me, I’m not exaggerating this one bit.) I had to read it twice to believe it wasn’t a joke at first, but clearly they got away with airing stuff this megadumb for a decade on CBS, and so they have lowered the bar through the floor. Which works here, because now it is very clear that you can’t go broke underestimating the critical faculties of TREK fans.

The clip of the Defiant at 1 minute looked suspiciously HD to me.

Oh my! Now wouldn’t that be something?

The DS9 documentary redid a bunch of clips from the show in HD so we know that such material exists.

Maybe it’s just me but that “rainbow approach” doesn’t feel like a good idea to me. Call me narrow-minded but for me Star Trek mainly is about the ongoing adventures of a starship Enterprise… TOS is the original, TNG the follow-up born out of a failed TOS revival and there is the prequel ENT.

DS9 and VOY are somewhat different with DS9 being the odd one out as it was set on a space station. It’s a worthy addition to Trek lore but it is a direct TNG spin-off that evolved the same era, included some of its characters (O’Brien, Worf) and developed that political background of TNG in greater detail. DS9 is a true spin-off that only makes sense because of TNG and TOS (which it also revisited with its Mirror, Klingon and Tribbles episodes).

VOY was a variation on a theme… it was about a starship not named Enterprise on a different mission of returning home. But it basically was a thematic reinvention.

DSC started out as a visual reboot of the early TOS era and eventually led to SNW… Michael being Spock’s stepsister, the appearance of both Sarek and Spock, the pivotal role of Pike… The first two seasons were a TOS prequel with different visuals. Only now it has become something different…

PIC is a different show as well but that’s the problem. At least it’s about the FORMER captain of a starship Enterprise… but it should have been a straight TNG revival à la The X-Files…

Star Trek should MAINLY be about the adventures of starship crews and starships named Enterprise. It can include some sidepockets but they will always be less important to me than the main saga…

“PIC is a different show as well but that’s the problem. At least it’s about the FORMER captain of a starship Enterprise… but it should have been a straight TNG revival à la The X-Files…”

And it probably would’ve been if they could’ve convinced Stewart to put back on the uniform full time. But he was adamant he would only play Picard but not redo the same thing again, which is completely understandable. But if CBS and most of the fans had their way, my guess is the show would’ve been on a new Enterprise with Admiral Picard called back to duty for some reason.

But personally I don’t really care if the shows are on an Enterprise or not, but that name still carries tons of weight obviously.

Tiger2, you’ve hit the key point.

Creators and writers were able to come up with lots of great stories for Picard and the Enterprise beyond Nemesis. The Relaunch litverse series more than demonstrates that.

And as you say, there was clearly a market for it, and with that TPTB would have clearly bought in to bringing a refreshed TNG to the screen.

But Patrick Stewart was firmly resistant, as was Brent Spiner. So, the creatives tried whatever they could until they came up with something the actors were willing to do. And that’s what we have.

My one regret is that in accommodating Stewart and Spiner, the door has been closed for recasting TNG in the Prime Universe and carrying on.

Spiner’s been speculating about a TNG reboot, but if it’s done, my preference would be to go forward in the alternate universe past Nemesis as they did in the litverse, including having Titan with Riker and Troi as a separate ship, rather than rehashing back to Encounter at Farpoint.

STAR TREK:SISKO for BET perhaps?

No, you’d want to go all-in, STAR TREK: YATES would tick off all the right creative and contemporary boxes, except of course the ‘commercial’ draw aspect.

.. yeppers, let’s do like disney has done, turning a legend into something unrecognizable and just milk it for all its worth as well!