Paramount+ has made another big announcement about the future of Star Trek on the streaming service with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks officially getting additional seasons, along with global release dates for the seasons that are currently in post-production.
More Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks coming
Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will debut on Thursday, June 15 in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria (and in South Korea at a later date to be announced). The rest of the 10-episode season will roll out each following Thursday. The live-action Trek series set on the USS Enterprise has also been officially renewed for a 10-episode third season.
Earlier this month co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman revealed that the announcement was coming soon, even saying filming had already started on season 3. Today he shared the official renewal image from Paramount+ along with the simple message “To boldly go…”
To boldly go…. pic.twitter.com/EJQerOA0Uv
— Akiva Goldsman (@AkivaGoldsman) March 28, 2023
Season 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks will premiere in late summer on Paramount+ in the U.S., with the exact date to be announced. International premiere dates will be also announced at a later date. Paramount also announced that the animated comedy has been renewed for a 10-episode fifth season.
Showrunner Mike McMahan revealed in a tweet season 5 is being written now, along with the official announcement image from Paramount+.
SEASON 4 THIS SUMMER!
SEASON 5 BEING WRITTEN NOW!
🖖🖖🖖🖖🖖
LOWER DECKS! LOWER DECKS! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/PRdYZg4RoV— Mike McMahan (@MikeMcMahanTM) March 28, 2023
Prodigy coming this winter
The official press release from Paramount also announced that the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy will return this winter with the second season. There was no news on a third season of Prodigy, however, the second season renewal included an additional 20 episodes, which should cover the series through 2024.
Co-executive producer Aaron Waltke shared the official image for the update along with the promise of “wild surprises” along with more “familiar faces.”
That’s right — more #StarTrekProdigy coming in 2023!
Season 2. 20 episodes. Wild surprises.
Some of the boldest storytelling we’ve done yet, with familiar faces and new ones.
Be sure to spread the word — now is the time to catch up! More viewership means more Trek. 🖖🏼 💫 pic.twitter.com/UHZWgtMuRs
— Aaron J. Waltke (@GoodAaron) March 29, 2023
4 for 2024?
Today’s announcement confirms that 2023 will include the release of four seasons of Star Trek, down from five seasons in 2022. This includes the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard coming to an end in April. As previously announced, the live-action series Star Trek: Discovery returns in early 2024 for the fifth and final season. Today’s renewals for Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks (along with the previous renewal of Prodigy) means that 2024 could also see the release of a total of four seasons of Star Trek.
Today’s announcement leaves Strange New Worlds as the sole live-action Star Trek series with a future beyond early 2024, however, recently Alex Kurtzman has confirmed plans to expand the Star Trek Universe, possibly including live-action mini-series and TV movies. He promised an announcement about new projects should be coming “soon.” He has previously confirmed development for a Section 31 project with Michelle Yeoh and a Starfleet Academy series. If either or both of those (or other projects) do get announced, it is possible they would be targeted for 2025.
More global details
The new release did not include any details about international releases for the Star Trek shows beyond Paramont+. The release did confirm the following current international distribution for Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy…
Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy air on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave in Canada.
Strange New Worlds is also available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe.
Lower Decks is distributed concurrently on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and India. The series will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in the UK, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and South Korea later this year.
Prodigy is coming soon to Paramount+ in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France as well as to Nickelodeon international channels, which are available in 180 countries globally.
Keep up with news for the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Congrats to the casts on the renewals. Looking forward to seeing Prodigy S2, LDS S4 and SNW S2.
i loved the first season of Prodigy it was so good the show has become my 2nd favorite of the current shows(Discovery is number 1) while i was disappointed by S3 of Lower Decks i felt it was not as good as the first 2 seasons and SNW S1 was good but it’s my least favorite of the current shows so i hope S2 is an improvement.
I’m still sad that Discovery is coming to an end after it’s 5th season as it was my favorite of the current shows and my 2nd favorite Trek show right behind DS9.
It was one of Paramounts+ most watched shows but also one of the most expensive shows they made and with them having money trouble it’s understandable they would end it to save them selves money.
It’s going to be a sad day when the series final airs.
Same. I hope maybe some of the Discovery cast get to carry on in an Academy series.
You may be getting your wish. ;)
Still only 10 episodes. Its just not enough to tell the full breadth of Star Trek stories. Picard gets away with it as its focussed on him, but otherwise for a full ensemble there’s barely enough time.
As much as I might selfishly want more, I think its 10 episode run was probably a big reason why it was so successful.
Quality not quantity.
More episodes don’t mean lower quality. That’s just a fallacy.
And if you think quantity means quality, you’re also mistaken.
“Breaking Bad”, “Mad Men” and “Better Call Saul” are just three examples of series that benefited and thrived with longer seasons. It always comes down to the right showrunner and the writer’s room they’ve assembled.
The three examples you just gave are three of the most acclaimed dramas of all time. It also misses the point entirely, that quantity does not inherently equal quality (which you bizarrely don’t seem to be disagreeing with).
It is just a fact that a longer season means more of a challenge to deliver the kind of quality we saw in season 1 for so many reasons (statistics is a plain and simple reality).
If a shorter season is improves the odds of a repeat in quality that we got last year, i’m all for it.
I worked on all three and that was my point. With the right showrunner you can bang out 16 or more episodes per season without missing a beat.
Sometimes a show gets a longer season ONLY because it’s successful and that can work against it.
I’ve been involved with shows that ran as few as six episodes with stories that have could have been told in just two (never to return) and others which were given 6 that could have benefited from an additional four (which would sometimes happen).
So, yes, longer seasons can be a challenge, particularly for a serialized series with a season long story arch, but the strength of a series makes it less so. It just means you’re spending more time with that show.
Got Anecdotal?
I worked on those three series as well as others. When a show works it works. When it isn’t going to work you know as soon as you read that first draft for the first episode.
Breaking Bad? It had 62 episodes, over 6 seasons (ok, season 5 was the last season, but the first and second halves aired a year apart, so that’s really two seasons) – so that’s 10.3 episodes per year.
Also, that show had to have been much, much easier to shoot. Almost zero special effects, very few props to be built.
Not as easy to shoot as you might think.
Season 1 was also impacted by a writer’s strike which led to an abbreviated first season of just 7 episodes. From a storytelling perspective, it worked to the shows advantage with an unintended cliffhanger.
Discovery is a good example of low quantity doesn’t always mean high quality.
It’s means lower quality
Even Frakes said (I think on Pod Directive) that when doing 26 a year you’re scrambling to get scripts, and you have to take the stinkers just to get a count.
Except for the the writing, you statement here is silly given the budget, time, music, VFX, etc. has about three times the level of effort for a streaming Trek ep as an old network Trek series. Of course the new series are going to be presented on screen as of a much higher quality, like, duh! :-) Lol
If only that was always the case. I mean, the short seasons of The X-Files revival anyone…? Yikes.
This is just the reality of streaming today. Every show on P+ is 10 episodes or less. Prodigy is an outlier because it’s being made by Nickelodeon. And these shows are really expensive today compared to the older ones.
It’s not just the expense.
The actors want to work on multiple things not just year after year of the same show with barely enough of a hiatus for a vacation.
Most of the main cast actors do other shows, voice acting, movies, or podcasts. They seem to like mixing it up.
For example, Jack Quaid voices Boimler, is Hughie in The Boys, a villain in the Scream franchise, and will be Richard Feynman in the upcoming Oppenheimer film.
Yes, I know, I have said multiple times Anson Mount probably only agreed to do the show if there were only a limited amount of episodes the same way Stewart agreed to coming back for Picard.
But end of the day, ALL the shows on P+ run more limited seasons than a lot of services like Netflix and Amazon was running just a few years ago. Pre-Discovery, 12-13 episodes seem to be the standard. Today, it’s 8-10. People keep saying they want to see 20 episodes, but that’s just not close to reality unless it’s on a network. And I do think these shows would be too expensive to do on those.
Yup. The money just isn’t there for streaming services and most cable series, especially now. Virtually everything is produced at a loss and for streamers producing their own content, those expenses started to mount (which is why you’re starting to see studios license their content again).
Yeah fully agreed of course. And I just read literally yesterday Bob Igor said Disney may have made a mistake trying to keep everything in-house for streaming and that they may start licensing their properties to other studios like before. WB is already doing that for some of their HBO Max shows like West World.
It may not be a total surprise if the new Trek shows may show up on Amazon, Tubi or Netflix in the future and I mean in America. Maybe not while they are still running, but maybe after they are done like Discovery.
Licensing is easy money. WB didn’t hesitate to license the Lord of the Rings trilogy to Amazon when Rings of Power debuted.
It’s the expense. Actor’s appreciate the flexibility but over the course of a 20 episode season that flexibility can be built in for other projects. If a series calls for 20 episodes or more per season at launch and an actor can’t work that into their schedules they’ll just run with another actor.
I’m confused, you first point out that it’s not a problem of scheduling, and then say it is a problem of scheduling.
It’s likely a little bit of both. Shows like SNW are able to attract higher quality talent with shorter runs: I doubt Mount would have signed on for a 26 episode season, for example.
But also a matter of cost, because more episodes means more money, and I think their strategy is more diversity of shows with fewer episodes each. They currently have 2 shows with 10 episodes each, and I think that’s smart. I’d rather get 10 episodes of SNW and 10 episodes of Picard than 20 episodes of SNW and no Picard (or vice versa)
If they really want an actor for a role (typically a high profile actor), they’ll work things around their schedule to make it work for a series, which could mean they appear in most but not all episodes. If they’re casting a lead with a less established actor who can’t make it work, even if that’s their first choice, they’ll just run with someone else to fit the needs of the show.
Many actors have avoided long term series to avoid typecasting or so they have a chance to still do movies.
Michelle Forbes’ decisions not to take on roles in DS9 and Voyager are examples of this.
The pool of talent willing to risk getting locked into seven seasons of sci-fi was small.
So many higher list talents are willing to read or book genre television than before simply because it’s possible to be Jack Quaid and do animation comedy, violent comic book satire, horror movies and serious film and within a couple of years of work.
It wouldn’t even surprise me if after three seasons, Mount walks away, like “OK, I got to play Captain Pike for three years, i’m good.”
In which case, you bring in Kirk as captain, and continue the show. In fact, part of me wonders if that’s exactly why they brought in Wesley this early, if they know Mount might not be up for a lengthy run.
You have to be an established talent to have that kind of flexibility. Most would love to reach a point in their careers where they can be Jack Quaid or Jerry O’Connell. Most will be moire than happy to sign on for 10 or more episodes.
Not so sure. In the past actors would take TV gigs for 24+ episodes and still find time to shoot a feature film in the off months.
Well then, you’ve cracked it!
Established actors would have to work around the demands of the series back in the day Today, with series running as few as six episodes per season, it’s less of an issue. A lot of film actors today do TV on the side.
We get longer episodes with no commercials. I can live with fewer episodes. A talented writing staff should be able to tell a well-developed story in six hours. However, I would prefer SNW follow Stargate’s formula. Eight Stargate episodes would air over three months, then a three-month hiatus. And it was rinse and repeat from there. I thought it was perfect. Waiting 1+ years for a season to air as with do with modern Star Trek is tiresome.
I’m fine with the year wait as long as there’s something to fill the gap. Ideally i’d want three live-action Trek dramas, releasing 10 episodes each, in one year. So the first series would air 10 episodes between Feb-April, the second Jun-Aug, and the third Oct-Dec.
Right now we have two live-action and two animated, which seems to be their long term plan. I can live with that.
Sci Fi Channel fan! Yup, a full season commitment with a break in between. We used to do the same for Farscape, BSG, etc.
Seems like in order to flourish, Paramount will have to add more variety to it’s Star Trek shows, which might be what they are hinting at. It always seemed odd to me that we basically get 10 hours a year of SNW, DSC, PRO, and PIC, but only 5 hours a year for LD. Seems like LD could easily be more like PRO with two 10 episode halves so they can better accommodate the type of storytelling that LD has been moving towards, where there is a bit more continuity across the season, and more character development.
I think Paramount will have to limit its “cinematic” offerings of Trek to these miniseries/movies concepts they are hinting at due to cost, and move more toward the CBS model for the routine content–lower cost, a few more hours per year, and more time to develop characters we can relate to. We certainly don’t need the 26 episodes/year of the Berman era of Trek, but I think 13-15 per year of a single series is a workable minimum for the showrunners, writers, and actors to really breath life into these characters and their storylines.
When you boil down DS9 to its most essential episodes per season, for example, you do end up with 13-18 for each season that really show the highest quality of production that can be accomplished for their budget without any of the misses and filler. Trying to boil it down to 10 per season starts cutting into the character moments and developments that are critical in producing a compelling drama series.
To succeed in the long term, Star Trek will have to be more CBS and less Paramount, but I have always believe that Star Trek was better on TV than in the theaters to accomplish the type of storytelling that they are good at. The Drumhead, The Measure of a Man, Sins of the Father, Tapestry, Far Beyond the Stars, and In the Pale Moonlight are all great stories that are not “cinematic” in nature, so great storytelling can be done on a budget.
Except the two “halves” of Prodigy were so very far apart they may as well have been two separate seasons. The “half season” idea really only works when the gap is less than a few months long.
Im not sure thats true. The UK has been doing fine by short episode counts for decades. Countless miniseries present well-developed ensembles. The only thing that ever holds a show back from having compelling main characters, a strong set of supporting characters and memorable guest characters, is the writing. Sometimes a great actor can make more out of a role than they are given, but its all about the scripts.
Id never say its easy to do, otherwise every show would make it work. But there are so many example of shows that do wonders with 10 episodes or less.
Lower Decks! Lower Decks! Lower Decks!
SEVEN SEASONS AND A MOVIE!!!!!!!!
Keep hope alive!
Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
Yeah,
Make Trek Great Again!
No confirmation on Canada? Either it was an oversight by Trekmovie.com or no official word. Although I’m certain Bell media will continue to be the content provider
the official announcement was focused solely on paramount+ but presumable Canada/Bell will continue. Same as Amazon for Lower Decks intl.
YEEESSSSS!!!!! LOWER DECKS RENEWED!!!!!!
Not surprised in the least but so happy to hear this! :)
We knew SNW would be as well but still great to hear it officially. A little surprised it’s not coming until the summer though. I thought it would come in the late Spring like last year.
And PRO coming this winter. Great, but I hope we hear a renewal of that show at some point. I think it will get one being cheaper but I’m still a little worried about that one long term. But hey we still got one more season and can’t wait.
Hit it indeed!
Yeah, they’re really starting to spread things out with longer breaks between new releases.
I thought Lower Decks might have been on the bubble. Happy to see I was wrong about that.
I’ve been listening to Gates McFadden’s podcast, and she may have inadvertently dropped a hint about upcoming new shows on her podcast with Jack Quaid. At the end of the podcast, she mentioned she was pleased that the future of the franchise was in good hands with the next ‘next generation’ of Tawny Newsom, Jack Quaid, and….Ed Speleers. Quaid and Newsom I can understand, now that Lower Decks has another season (or two) to go. At the moment, no one has reason to believe that any of the secondary characters on the last season of Picard will be back for more. Jack Crusher remains a secondary character. And, yeah, I may be reading something into Ms. McFadden’s comment here.
Is McFadden pulling a Frakes lol. Hopefully she is dropping a hint…and a good one if true! :)
As far as the 24th/25th century goes, I have mixed feeling about boldly going where we’ve been plenty of times. But hey, legacy programming is hot now, and if it puts digital cheeks in the digital seats, there’ll be more of it.
I obviously agree, but as long as it’s good and interesting on its own, then it will be worth it. I think Picard season 3 would be amazing without the legacy characters but I obviously can’t deny seeing them all back and their connections together is a big reason it’s getting the response it is from fans.
But yes, I do hope if there is a new show, it’s mostly with new characters and with a few legacy faces, which I GUESS is the plan based on what everyone keeps suggesting. Unless they decide to just do a Picard season 4 or something.
Maybe Quaid and Newsom make the jump to a live action show – now that is something I would like to see. I know many including you really love LDs, but I can’t wait to see how the animated characters crossover to SNW. If it is a hit, then you never know what may be in store for the Lower Decks crew.
Definitely agree. The crossover episode will probably be a big indicator if we will see these characters being a bigger part of live action going forward. I think most fans certainly want to see that in the future too if they are a hit on SNW.
I absolutely think Trek needs to do more with Quaid and Newsome, especially Quaid. They don’t really need to make the same mistake that they did with Michelle Yeoh with him.
Verily, he is the next Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud, and Alec Guiness all rolled into one.
They have been teasing that Picard may/will lead into the next show. I am hoping for a Shaw, Seven, Sidney, Jack, Titan series.
i really don’t want the space hitler cannibal section 31 show.
Perhaps Shaw. None of the others are really all that interesting to me.
That said I’m still fearful of Secret Hideout being in charge. They don’t exactly have a good track record. Their best efforts so far have been slightly above mediocre.
To me if you have to decide between S31 and a Picard spin off, it would be a no-brainer. People will easily take the Picard spin off a hundred times over, especially since every time S31 even gets mentioned you only see a lot of acrimony over it. It’s probably why it’s been delayed so long as it is.
BUT that said, they probably have had the show in place for awhile now and since Yeoh won the Oscar, it probably motivates them even more to get it going. Even if a Picard spin off is approved, that show is probably a long way away since nothing is in production for it. I think no matter what, we will probably get the S31 first regardless assuming its finally happening.
Section 31 has been a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. And P+ executives have access to the internet to easily understand that Picard Season 3, SNW, Lower Decks, and Prodigy have been received and praised by audiences at a much greater rate than Discovery Seasons 1-4 and Picard Seasons 1-2.
They will still be working on getting a green light for Section 31 when Axanar is completed.
Dude, I’m not disagreeing. But obviously someone (probably Kurtzman) still really really really want a S31 show because it hasn’t completely died off yet like Khan thankfully finally did. (ugh)
And as I said, with two shows officially down and if S31 has at least been in pre-production all this time (ie, wrote the scripts) then maybe that will come first. But it’s just me pulling stuff out of my you know what. I have no idea, maybe it won’t come for another 5 years lol. Or maybe they will decide all the pleading for a Picard spin off can’t be ignored and will be fast tracked. I mean, that one even has an online petition. S31 has been discussed for years…no online petition. Hear that Paramount? ;)
But I just assume if Kurtzman is still talking about it, they are at least trying to make it happen.
odd there is no trek for fall 2023 i figured they’d want to dump, i mean release, the final season of discovery before the end of the year.
It was confirmed alongside the cancelation/ending announcement that Discovery would not air until early 2024.
The delay is due to the cast going back for reshoots this summer so that the season/show can have a different ending (and presumably other changes) than the one originally filmed since they didn’t know it would be the last season when they filmed.
I don’t think that’s primary for the delay. I think they want to have 2 live action shows during 23 & 24. If discovery came in 23, they’d either just have SNW season 3 in 24, or quickly ramp up another show, pushing it back allows for some reshoots ( those are likely done), but more importantly spaces the shows.
What’s weird to ma is that they’re overlapping SNW and LDS, or at the very least won’t have a gap. June 15 means SNW would end in August, which is already end of summer.
That said if LDS launches end of August, it will run through fall.
They may have set that up for the crossover episode.
But has it been said that it’s a 2-parter across both shows? I don’t think that was ever mentioned, so that would be news.
Jack Quaid has said he’s in live action in the SNW episode (I read his interview on ScreenRant) and Anson Mount said he’s “animated Lower Decks style” on their show in another interview (I cannot recall where, but he also said about seeing his animated hair poof in the same article).
Yes, but what that sounds like to me is that the episode is half live-action, half animation. Did they ever specifically say that it would be a two-part episode across both shows?
I’m not saying it won’t be that — I hope it is, frankly, it makes a lot more sense to do it that way — but I don’t know if they’ve ever specified that would be the case.
I’m about 99.99% sure I’ve seen it mentioned, somewhere, that the episode starts on one show and ends on the other because viewers will have to watch both.
I only remember that because my wife only likes Lower Decks and has said this one she’ll skip.
Jonathan Frakes said on the Pod Directive a few weeks ago that the episode was bookended with animated segments. So it sounds like it will be self-contained.
Yeah, I feel like if it was going to be a two-parter across two shows, they’d have said it pretty plainly.
Also, in the era of streaming, running a story across two series’ isn’t required to draw an audience over, because if you like the LDS parts you just saw, you can go watch episodes with a push of the button.
Older eras required that switchover because shows had time slots.
It’s one episode that has animated bookends. My first thought was the Guardian of Forever that the Lower Deckers end up visiting would be the route to visit the past. Since it’s just those two and not the entire Cerritos, then it would have to be some sort of portal instead of something like a slingshot of the entire ship.
The method of time travel isn’t even something that I consider any kind of issue. It’s been done so many times in so many different ways. Heck, maybe it’s all in the holodeck…
That are saying late summer. SNW will run to 8/17. Summer end 9/22
Yay! Looking forward to everything–esp Prodigy! I loved how season one ended and I really want more. All signs (that I’ve seen) also point to SNW s2 being even better. No longer burdened by carryover plots from Discovery (no hate, it just wasn’t the most engaging part) and all the hints of bigger swings and whatnot…
And fingers crossed Lower Decks can produce a more consistent season this year. I felt like last season was about half meh/duds and half really good.
I don’t think all signs point to an improvement in SNW. Season 2 was written and started shooting before season 1 finished streaming their episodes. Meaning, they put S2 together before everyone saw the full product from the first season. Therefore I don’t see the show improving but more of the same that we got in S1. And it’s pretty obvious the show needs fixing.
Can you expand on what needs fixing? I don’t get SNW living in Israel, but I am curious for a future where it will be available here.
Mainly it’s their desire to lead into TOS. They have too many instances of ignoring things from TOS. To be fair, some they have gotten right on the nose. And others are just so very off and so obviously off one wonders what the hell they were thinking. Overall the writing quality is not that much better than the rest of Secret Hideout fare. So that could be better. But the main issue is their TOS connections when they are claiming to be a direct prequel. Watching it, even ignoring the obvious lack of ship aesthetics to even evoke what is to come, it’s pretty obvious it doesn’t work with TOS. The show would work much better (though still a weak entry) if they just claimed to be a complete reboot with no connection whatsoever to TOS. And again to be fair, that is my biggest issue with it. The lies from the showrunners. They claim they are being consistent and honoring TOS when it is obvious they aren’t. The opposite in fact.
As you know I don’t really disagree with you over SNW’s canon issues, but I do think it’s still 10 times better than DIS issues at least.
I have resigned to the fact none of these prequels will ever feel truly organic to a lead up to TOS but I still feel like this one at least it belongs there. Discovery never did and why it was booted from the timeline.
But I also think they decided they are just going to ignore the bigger canon issues if they think they will get a more well rounded show from it like T’Pring and Spock for example and I accepted that.
As a TOS fan I never would have approved of Spock/T’Pring, mostly due to canon issues, had anyone bothered to ask my opinion. On balance, I’m glad they didn’t because — and I’m as surprised by this as anyone — I think it’s turned out to be pretty awesome.
Yep, totally agreed as a TOS fan myself. But now it’s one of the best things that came out of the show. And I have said this in the past, the irony is as much as we seen Spock for literally decades, we’ve only gotten very few instances of him interacting with other Vulcans outside of his father. It would literally be in an episode or two like in TOS and that was it. Now for the first time we can see him have relationships with several Vulcans including Sybok if he’s going to around next season.
The Spock-T’Pring thing is not the worst transgression. But it is emblematic of the problems SNW has with their TOS connections. They COULD use the Spock-T’Pring relationship and still make it work within the confines of what has been presented before. But this show doesn’t even make the effort to make it work. They want that relationship and decided to ignore the other elements. They don’t have the talent or skill or imagination to concoct situations that would work within the limits they decided they want to work with. The Chapel character is probably their biggest character transgression. And of course, using the Gorn as their Big Bad was their biggest mistake. Again, something that could have worked without changing ANYTHING had they just had respect for the source material. And the show itself, even if one treats it as a 100% Trek reboot, while better than Star Trek Discovery (a monumentally EASY task) it still isn’t that good standing on its own merits.
SNW looks and feels and even works far better as a sequel series to Star Trek Discovery than it does as a prequel to TOS. Enterprise managed to get the look and feel down rather well. One wonders why the Secret Hideout incarnation is incapable of it. It’s really not that hard. The only thing I can think of is their ego is getting in the way. They refuse to work with what came before and instead everything must reflect the Secret Hideout universe. Hence, all of this works better if it were treated as a 100% Star Trek reboot.
And once again, I do feel that the bulk of the fandom would be fine if not begrudgingly OK with that. But they fear fan backlash. Except that is what they got with their halfassed attempt to remake Trek in the way they wish it was while lying to everyone what they are doing is perfectly in line with the rest of Trek. And to top it all off, nearly everything they have done has just been bad TV on its own merits. From my perspective, the Secret Hideout Trek has only had the viewers it has merely from the fact that the bulk of the fans will watch anything officially labeled Star Trek.
Dude you don’t mince words lol. You basically know my feelings about most of this by now, including the idea it should’ve all been rebooted from the start.
But I will say SNW, while yes still looks and feels a bit different from TOS itself, did an amazing job of updating the 23rd century that actually looks and feels like Star Trek. This has been said a thousand times now but the issue with DIS is it just felt like a very generic sci fi show that happens to take place in the Star Trek universe. My assumption has always been, again as you well know lol, that Fuller basically just wanted to reboot the show in his image. And again, that probably would’ve been fine if he simply put it in a completely different era that the show eventually ended up doing in the third season.
But that’s all behind us now. I do think while most fans seem to at least like SNW, I know there are many out there who just tell themselves it just takes place in another universe due to the canon issues.
Works for me, as it was a nearly-perfect first season, the best first season in the history of the franchise, and one of the finest seasons of any Trek overall.
What, the producers couldn’t have recognized the things that worked and didn’t work about Season 1on their own, all without your input, and written the second batch of scripts accordingly? Michael Piller and Ira Behr, plus a fair amount of trial and error, were the reasons TNG and DS9 improved radically after stumbling out of the gate. Not fan input.
As for SNW — well, any show can be improved-upon, and far be it from me to suggest that this one was anything like perfect. Still, the arrogance of your “obviously” would almost have me dig in my heels and insist that it was.
If the producers think things in that show work well then that only supports my assessment. They OBVIOUSLY don’t. If they can’t recognize that on their own that is a giant problem. Sure, back in the day it could take a full 25 episodes before a show really finds its feet. But that is not what is happening here. They have made 10, think what they have is gold (based on everything that they showrunners have said in the media at least), and keep going for their next batch the following year. Generally I agree. It’s a mistake to listen to fans. But we are in a situation here where these showrunners are high on their own farts. With that kind of arrogance they just will never admit what they are doing isn’t working. That kind of closed minded thinking means it highly unlikely they would ever be open to constructive criticism from people in their circle. Much less the fans.
So 2024 sounds like its now covered with DIS final season, SNW S3, LDS S5 and the second half of PRO S2. That’s still a pretty decent year of content. Hopefully 2025 will give us a new show….or two. ;)
I knew that they were going to keep Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy. No surprise that SNW and Lower Decks are renewed and I hope Prodigy gets renewed as well.
Yep, exactly what I predicted months ago as well. Yeah Prodigy hasn’t been renewed again yet but I suspect that show will get another season too. But yes, I think we will have these three shows for a few more years at least. And let’s be honest, these three shows seems to have the biggest fanfare in fandom right not counting Picard season 3 obviously.
Agreed on that one.
Ups, wrong reply. sry
@admin you can delete this entry if you will
Very pleased to read this. It may not meet be the original vision of there always being a series on at any given time during the year, but it’s happily enough for me, especially as I enjoy all three of those shows (four if you include Disco S5). Well spaced out, one off, direct-to-streaming movies or mini series dropped between these shows could be an option in the future, especially if the money is tight.
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(Edit: Not meant to reply here, but as a separate post)
Glad SNW and LW are moving forward. Hope Prodigy get a new season as well. I am happy, but I don’t like this feeling like we are at their mercy, when these productions are amazing and the audience is there for their profit.
We are living crazy times. These are great shows. Fans are loyal. The audience is there. I am so sorry, but why is Paramount+ crying about “losses”!?
They reached 77M subscribers last year. They have a plan with ads. They are making gazillions. I get upset reading these headlines of “losses.” These executives never loose money. They sometimes make less than their predictions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are in red.
Even Kurtzman and McMahan are worried, like fans, for their greed. Star Trek Fans are so loyal supporting the franchise, even through difficult times, challenging productions.
They reactivated the franchise when started their streaming service, because they know is a safe bet, we have been waiting patiently. They promised more productions. Now that we are in and we are paying, executives are cancelling series and slashing the budget for future productions that were already on the pipeline. Feel like the Ferengi are taking over Paramount+. :D
To be honest, this sounds like an industry wide issue. Disney+ has literally over twice the amount of subscribers P+ has and that site is supposedly struggling as well. It’s a huge reason the last CEO lost their job over.
The issue doesn’t seem to be about gaining subscribers (although that is obviously an issue) but the crazy amount of money they are spending to get them. I don’t think anyone thought they would be spending billions on these services a few years ago but the competition is so high you have to keep up. It just sounds like now everyone is realizing they are spending way too much to attract people and the churn is still probably high with people cancelling any time their favorite show is over. So it’s a crazy balancing act. I think Star Trek overall will be fine, but they probably realize they can’t afford to spend the money they are for their live action shows and either make less of them or cut the budget.
But I think we’ll be getting new Trek content for years to come, the question is in what form?
Yeah. when Kurtzman spoke about “character-based”shows, I took that as code for “cheaper” shows.
Cheaper in the sense that they will be shorter, i’d imagine. Perhaps cheaper in that they won’t be big, epic storylines, and may be more dramatic character stories that don’t require lush VFX, which would be fine with me. Some of the best Trek has been just people talking in rooms…
Tapestry, Measure of a Man, The Drumhead, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight. Totally agree that cost and quality are not tied together for TV. On the big screen it can make a difference, but on TV, it’s about compelling characters breathed to life by good actors and writers. Avery never got the awards love he should have even though he could light up any stage he was on whenever he had something he could really sink his teeth into.
Less cinematic is what streaming needs to survive financially. Leave the big budget stuff for special events, TV movies, and miniseries, but the bulk of new content needs to be simpler from a production standpoint.
Cinematic also doesn’t have to mean super-expensive, I wish they’d learn this. Cinematic can just mean how its shot, with strong cinematography, it doesn’t have to mean it feels like a blockbuster event movie every week.
Agreed. Cinematic means visual storytelling, plus using the tools of cinema to tell the story in something beyond a bookish fashion. I find the use of sound — especially in concert with score — to be among the most cinematic applications, and that doesn’t necessarily mean 120-piece orchestras all the time either. There’s a cue in JAWS right before the shark takes the bait where there is a near subliminal drum roll in between intermittent ‘ticks’ on the fishing line as it starts to play out that is still one of my all-time go-tos for how you make a scene work without the crux of it being dialog and acting (though Shaw’s careful observation of the ‘tick’ is solid.)
Yep. And shooting a miniseries with an unknown (and therefore cheaper) cast set in the Trek universe and featuring a really interesting dramatic storyline might not only be the ticket to profitability, but to bringing in new fans as well.
Sadly Kurtzman has shown that he personally has a difficult time with “character-based” anything. To be fair not everything with his name on it has sucked. But his batting average isn’t too good.
We have zero evidence so far that Star Trek will be affected by the cuts mentioned.
Prodigy’s second half of Season 2 will air most likely in late 2024. So there’s no rush to renew new episodes that might air in 2025. They still have technically “two seasons” worth of episodes unaired. Not worried about PRO at all at this stage.
PIC was always intended as a 3 season show, with a potential to go more.
DIS is the only show that has been ended, but I don’t see it that as trying to tighten the belt around Star Trek. It received 5 seasons, it had a decent run, they are going to wrap their story.
They did say that a new show will most likely come out when one of the active ones finishes. I see DIS’s end, as one show ending (hopefully on a high note) to make room for another concept that the producers are excited about.
Although the announcement of DIS and airing the final season of PIC coincides with the news of reducing costs at P+ I still don’t see any evidence that this is affecting Star Trek in any way, especially after Kurtzman’s interview where he says the franchise will be EXPANDED which to me is much bigger news than, just saying yes, we will do more shows which you will hear about soon. The expansion part is not something you do for a franchise from which you want to cut costs.
Zero evidence? I dunno, I’ve heard the next series is called Ten Forward.
Reusing Ten Forward can say a lot of things:
1. Matalas came in with a set budget from the suits and he spend it all on the legacy actors we saw and about to see.
2. Maybe it was Matalas’ idea to prove to the suits that he can do an amazing season with the smallest set budget possible.
3. Maybe the budget was relocated on stuff that we are about to see in a couple of weeks. One early reviewer mentioned that there is a space battle in this show that is the best space battle he has seen since BSG ended. He may have been talking about the Titan vs Shrike a couple of weeks ago OR he maybe talking about something that we are suspecting is about to go down in about 3-4 weeks.
This of course is speculation, just as the Star Trek is being affected financially is.
Again, as of now, I don’t see any evidence.
Saving money by reusing sets is an old method. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes it’s downright silly, as with Picard.
A fun drinking game, though, every time you see that bar. I’ll give them that.
Yes but the “budget cuts” you speak of happened well after Season 3 was filmed. I’m sure use of 10F was to save cost to some degree, but equally as part of it was him probably thinking “we built this gorgeous set, let’s get some more use out of it.”
Its use in S3 may also have been a condition of building it in the first place, as the bean counters could amortize the cost on the budget sheet across two seasons.
Wished they used Season 1 10F, the one with Picard and Data on the first scene of Picard. California 10F is too current and too intense, to appreciate it for decades.
I would bet that was mostly a digital set though. If you recall, it was only them sitting at a table, the rest was probably green screen.
For a moment, I thought it was Discovery, when I watched it for the first time.
There are smart reuses, like the SHRIKE just being a down&dirty redress of lower deck from LASIRENA.
Case in point… The Wrath of Khan. I believe it was Bennett who said he could make a better film than TMP and for less money, too. Part of it was recycling a number of shots from TMP itself. But he was correct. And as STC has shown one does not need tons of money to make compelling Trek. In fact, every episode of that I have seen has been better than most of what Secret Hideout has produced.
The Ten Forward scenes (aka the cheapest ones) I argue are the best scenes in this season so far. They were all good character driven drama scenes that are elevating this season to new heights exceeding anything that has come out in this era of Trek. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of this era!
While others laugh out loud on the reuse of 10F and make a drinking game out of it, now I’m greatly anticipating them because the record shows they might be one of the most memorable scenes.
LOL!
Yeah I do think both SNW and PIC have leaned towards more ship bottle shows for a reason and it’s very obvious with PIC.
Thats doesn’t need to be a bad thing. If you can’t fill an episode to the brim with expensive, wacky effect shots, you have to fill it with decent dialogue, and you have to think carefully about what you want to show and spend with the budget you have, which, I presume, may saves us from fistfights on top of roller coaster turbolifts and the like.
Bingo! Yes, lower the budget enough and they might have to be creative in different ways. They might even get so desperate they write a few good scripts with original concepts not based on nostalgia and “squee”moments. A radical idea, I know, but anything’s possible.
I never said it was lol. Especially since I enjoyed SNW and really loving PIC so far. Just tell great stories first and foremost and people will overlook practically anything.
I’m the guy that’s been shouting they should greatly reduce the Trek movie budgets as well since fans care more about story than overdone CGI and explosions everywhere and maybe the next one could make a decent profit too. ;)
Many of Trek’s best episodes have been bottle shows.
As long as they have a good script and be more inclusive with more actors interacting, I don’t mind more bottle shows. :D
I can get why they would largely confine themselves to the Titan sets for budgetary reasons (though the Stargazer/Titan bridge is my least favorite Fed bridge design ever); what I don’t understand is why they would choose to light and shoot those sets in such a way as to make the ship look like such a cramped, unpleasant hole, even before it takes on major damage.
Totally agree on that Michael, I don’t really understand it either.
Exactly
Given Matalas’ time history with MONKEYS, it might be TEN BACKWARD.
Dude I hope you’re right. But I do think DIS is evidence of that since they clearly decided not to cancel the show until so much later? Season 4 literally ended a year ago! They certainly took their time lol. And why not wait to see how season 5 performs first to decide to cancel it UNLESS the viewership is just that low? So that’s why I do think it is a money issue in that sense at least. Or it could just be a combination of things like low viewings, contract issues and high expenses. I can obviously believe that too.
Yes Picard was ending anyway so that’s not really proof it had to do anything with reducing costs. I think we’ll know if the show gets a spin off or not (which I’m hoping it will). If it does, then yeah maybe it’s much ado about nothing. But we won’t know until we hear something.
And yeah he’s talking about expanding, but in what form? If we’re just going to get a ton of mini-series, ie one off stories in six episodes or less, in the next few years and not full on shows, then that suggests its trying to keep Trek going but still do it with less cost and output. But we’ll see. Maybe we’ll still get five full on shows like we briefly got for two years anyway. I really hope so!
Oh I’m not claiming that DIS had great viewership. Maybe that’s the reason it got canned. Maybe SNW got amazing numbers compared to DIS and that give them the indication that a Star Trek live action show can get great numbers.
Why continue with a show if it is greatly underperforming a TV show that is from the same franchise?
Maybe they wanted to make room for a Yeoh led show as soon as possible and announce it while her career is at its peak.
Also, if they waited to air S5 and then cancel it, the show wouldn’t have got the proper ending which we hear will be filmed.
My point is, for me, it looks like they have shows in the works that they believe will greatly exceed DISs potential and they want to get them out as soon as possible. Every legacy character is basically “begging” to be includes. Frakes, even is pitching himself as an executive producer. You gotta love that man and his enthusiasm :D
They have momentum. PIC is finally amazing, SNW has had an excellent debut season and LSD and PRO are much better than they deserve to be :D. The franchise is firing on all cylinders. Now is the time to expand and take risks if you want to make a serious push towards mainstream. And that is exactly what I read between the lines from Kurtzman. Mini series, tv shows AND movies.
I’m ready, bring it on :)
Again, all can be true. But I’m saying is why wait until a year later to cancel the show if it was just lower numbers alone? It seem odd they would wait until now when all the discussions came around about belt tightening. But yes you could be right, it just wasn’t a lot of people watching as before. I never believed the idea it was some large market grower since no one ever seems to talk about the show except long time fans. I’m guessing there are people who has not even heard of a lot of these shows. So yeah, you could be right.
And we’re not disagreeing on anything else. As I said, based on the overwhelming fan reaction for Picard season 3 and the bigger push for a spin off, then it seems like a no-brainer. But if we DON’T get one, I would have to think because they think it’s just too expensive. Why else not do it?
But I’m happy what we have now. SNW, LDS and PRO are all great shows IMO and seem to be liked by most of the fans if not everyone. I would be fine with just these for the next few years but yeah I’m going to always want more lol.
So can’t wait to see what is coming next!
Well it’s better to announce DIS’s replacement a couple of months after it’s cancellation (i don’t like this word, because I don’t see it as a conventional cancellation), as opposed to a year or so.
This is of course assuming we get a DIS replacement show led by Yeoh.
There could be other unrelated things that went into the decision of ending DIS.
I think it’s too early to say that the franchise is retracting. First Contact Day will be a good indicator, but I could be completely wrong and there won’t be an announcement for a new show this year.
But I bet they will announce something big on April 5th.
If no new project announcements were planned for First Contact Day than they would’ve saved todays renewal news for than in order to have something cool for April 5th. It looks like they have more important news to share on that event than this.
Well obviously it was cancelled or they wouldn’t have reshoots to give the show a real ending. Thats why it’s not coming out this year as was probably planned. That’s what I’m saying, this was clearly an abrupt move. because no one expected it to be cancelled until it was. The cast had no idea until they got the word. And its weird to wait an entire year after a season is over to let them know it was cancelled at that.
Either it was cancelled because they decided the show was going to be more expensive if it got another season or something else.
Now Picard it’s just ending, not cancelled. They knew that ahead of time and why Matalas was probably able to do what was hoping to do. Hopefully we will get some news what happens after that show on FC day.
Fingers crossed!
I can’t disagree with anything you said. But DIS’s cancellation and the timing of the announcement can be attributed to a plethora of things.
I think TG47 mentioned that talent contracts are signed for 7 calendar years, not 7 seasons. If that is true, than they probably should’ve negotiated new contracts and the actors definitely would have asked a raise. Maybe they did negotiate and SMG asked for a lot more than Paramount could afforded and when they saw that they cannot come to an agreement after X months of negotiations, decided to end the show.
Again, this is pure speculation, but I’m just trying to get my point across that there can be a multitude of reasons for the decision and the timing.
In any case, here’s what I predict assuming I’m right that Star Trek won’t be affected by tightening the belt.
– 2 new shows announced this year. Legacy and S31. (Or both concepts merged into a single show)
– First half of 2024, PRO is renewed for S3, along with SNW and LDS.
– Movie staring Patrick Stewart is announced by the end of the year. With that, the movie side of the franchise will be handed over to SH as soon as the obligations with BR end.
– 2025 we’ll see at least 3 character focused mini series. One of them will star Janeway and it will probably be a 10 episode event. And a couple of smaller ones that will feature DS9 characters.
– A more serious move in the video game industry. This may not be super important for some of the fans, but it’s very important branch for expanding the franchise. Releasing official books for the PRO video game and an IDW comic series as a lead up to Resurgence is telling me that they are approaching this side very seriously and will probably try to expand as much as possible in that direction.
We’ll see how this pans out, but I’m very optimistic for the future of this era of the franchise.
I also don’t know if I’d particularly couch Discovery’s conclusion as a strict cancelation. Sure, it came out of nowhere, so in that sense, it would qualify for the term, they didn’t go into the year knowing it would be the last.
Yet, it’s just as possible that during production, Paramount decided they don’t want TV shows that run forever. Plenty of VERY successful shows ran for “just” five seasons.
The A-Team, The Brady Bunch, Miami Vice, Fringe, Angel, Bates Motel, Ally McBeal, Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Alias, Boardwalk Empire, the list goes on. None of those would ever be considered failures.
I’m curious if 5 seasons is just how long they want Trek shows running for, because it allows them to cycle through a variety of concepts and build up a bigger library of varied content.
Will be curious to see if LDS gets a 6th.
Agree with everything you said. I’ll try to find the article but basically it said, Netflix (which was the case study) is getting more bumps in subscribers when a new show is added as opposed to a new season dropping for an established show.
That is why we are all seeing time and again rather successful shows on Netflix are not being renewed. There is a business logic behind that.
I feel that is the case with DIS. It hit it’s peak on how many new subscribers is bringing and are betting that the DIS fans won’t cancel their subscriptions because there are other new Trek shows to keep them subscribed.
And maybe that is the reason behind the mini series idea. Constantly dropping new mini shows that will bring audiences from all demographics. See what works best, and later build a proper tv show out of that.
I know many here are not fans of Kurtzman, but I’m impressed by all the strategic decisions that he made so far concerning the franchise. I hope he runs the franchise for at least a decade more.
Yes, exactly. I do think Netflix is making a mistake by constantly canceling everything, because if you do that too often, you risk alienating your audience: fans will stop watching new shows if they start expecting everything to just get canceled after 10 episodes, while ending on a cliffhanger.
But 4-5 seasons max could be the plan for Trek moving forward. I could see exceptions being made if a show continues to be super hot, but I think the strategy is sound.
Again, I don’t disagree with any of this and exactly WHY I predicted it could end after the fifth season months ago. To me Discovery being cancelled first was just a no brainer. As people are realizing more and more, streaming has a lot of limits as it does benefits, but the biggest being shows simply age much faster on them.
I would say the modern streaming age began in 2013 when House of Cards premiered on Netflix and I don’t think there is a single show that has made it longer than 8 seasons yet. The average show in fact does seem to be five seasons. I just think in Discovery’s case, there was probably never a real end date for it but it was probably going to just go one more season max anyway but TPTB decided it was better to end it now.
And I wouldn’t be shocked all the other shows only did five season as well. LDS will be the biggest indicator but I will ALSO note they didn’t make clear this will be that show’s final season either like a lot of shows they know will already end and market it that way, ala Picard. So who knows maybe it will make it past it’s fifth season if viewership is high enough. And it is a much cheaper show in general, the reason why I was never actually worried it wasn’t coming back.
Streaming shows tend to lose their luster the longer they go on. The calculus of bringing in new subscribers with new shows versus placating subscribers theyve already hooked with old shows that just get more expensive doesnt usually bode well for veteran series.
Without a syndication market, theres not a huge advantage of a big library of episodes, so smaller orders and fewer seasons tend to win out. There are exceptions like say, Stranger Things, which dominates the charts, or something like Bosch which probably doesnt cost too much. Lower Decks might qualify in the latter category to stick around longer.
Matalas has suggested to watch Picard several times. Watch and rewatch, to see if they green light his “Legacy” pitch.
I’m definitely doing my part! 👍
Have rewatched nearly episode at least once and plan to binge the season again once it’s over. It will be the first time I watch a season again for this show.
I will begin this week. I have been waiting patiently for episodes 2-6. After Discovery season four and Picard season two, I decided to wait and binge few episodes at a time. Can’t wait to watch it now at my own pace. :D
I have watched episode 6 at least 6 times now.
That sounds more to me like a plea to increase the number of “viewings” to help make the show look like it is doing better than it really is.
Personally, make a show worth watching a 2nd time and I’ll do it.
Sure but the reality is repeat views help. Most big movies make the money they do because obsessed fans watch them over and over again. Marvel movies make the money they do because it’s teenagers who go watch them three times in the theater. I imagine its the same with streaming shows since they don’t disappear like network shows do and gets binged over and over.
Possibly so. But that doesn’t make the plea for showrunners begging people to watch and rewatch their shows any less sad.
Paramount+ has definitely changed their agreement with Kurtzman. These P+ Executives have cancelled their upcoming plans and have demanded more for less.
There is uncertainty. The amount of interviews and articles about current streaming “challenges” and “struggles”. Kurtzman, Frakes, Matalas, STNG actors, are all in IDK Mode, waiting to see if they will continue do what they love to do, if they have a job in the upcoming year.
I haven’t heard of any changes to Kurtzman’s contract since the news 2 years ago that he got a 5 year contract with Paramount.
I apologize if there were news on this subject that contradict what I was saying above.
I am sorry. Not the five-year contract. I meant what maybe they have planned earlier. Something changed. Even Kurtzman seems dad he have been waiting to hear from higher ups.
(that)
It sounds like we need to distinguish between Kurtzman’s contact and relationship with Paramount, and the overall strategy for the Trek franchise.
Kurtzman had worked out a 5-7 year strategy with Paramount around the time of his renewal a couple of years back.
The streaming environment has changed. It’s no surprise that a course correction is needed in an industry-wide adjustment period.
I wouldn’t take Kurtzman’s needing to get Paramount to approve an adjusted strategy as anything other than a healthy and successful relationship.
It’s actually a positive if Kurtzman has succeeded in persuading Paramount to put limited series and direct to streaming movies into the mix. Two years ago the previous head of streaming was insisting everything on Paramount+ had to be 10 episode seasons.
I haven’t heard of any changes in the Secret Hideout deal with P+ since it got renewed some time ago. And believe me… I’m actively looking for such a thing.
Wow, why would you want to see a change in their deal? Why the change of heart over Secret Hideout? I’m rather fond of Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy, myself!
Absolutely. It is an industry wide issue. Once they got their new subscribers, suddenly, they have the same message, they want more ROI.
If they have built these amazing sets in Hollywood and Toronto, really hope they use them for new productions. That is all I can say.
Even Frakes shares the same frustration, like all of us, why stepping on tge brakes when we are currently in prosperous times!?
There is going to be a writer’s strike. In the past, these have gone in for some time. Even if, let’s say “Season 3 of SNW” has every word of every script ready – if there is a strike, nothing produced can change until the strike is complete. AFIK you can’t even ask an actor to improvise. The results of the strike will impact the financial bottom line. This is also a major reason why we don’t know more, and why there is hesitancy in the industry in general. And I apologize if this has been mentioned before.
Some info:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-years-ago-screenwriters-went-on-strike-and-changed-television-forever_n_5a7b3544e4b08dfc92ff2b32
This is a good point. The writers credited for the script for a specific episode are typically on site when their episode is produced.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned here previously.
Thank you for sharing. I had no idea about a possible strike. This article is from 2018. Will take a look to see if something is coming this year.
There are ongoing negotiations and right now the obvious complexity this week is that the trades are reporting on details they don’t seem to truly know, and seem to be taking sides. It’s probably better to be in “listening mode” than assume any story you read right now is 100% true.
The sets in Hollywood are gone Jay.
Okuda, Drexler and Blass have confirmed this deep in their twitter replies.
The sets for Picard were all taken down and most of it went in dumpsters. They are absolutely gone.
The interior fittings though have been packed, shipped and stored.
The implication is that the more difficult to replace interior fittings are now in Ontario, likely at Paramount’s own CBS Stages in Mississauga (just west of Toronto and near the airport).
SNW’s sets are at the Mississauga soundstages. They had to rebuild the Enterprise bridge set there as the original season two one built for Discovery was at Pinewood on the other side of the city. So, I expect that they could do the same with the Titan fittings to rebuild a bridge there.
Otherwise, Star Trek has a priority contact on the first of the WF White / Pixomondo AR walls in Toronto for virtual staging.
From an economic point of view, having all the various live action Trek shows, limited series and television movies sharing sets and maximizing use of the AR wall makes sense.
It’s also less costly generally to produce in Ontario than California. The production grants Paramount obtained for Picard didn’t entirely offset the difference, and Star Trek has been getting some level of tax credits etc. in Ontario. Production of Picard in Hollywood was a one-off to accommodate Patrick Stewart. It’s unlikely to happen again.
Losses means they’re spending more on the app than they are pulling in. Remember, spending means a lot more than the shows’ budgets. They have hundreds of employees, technical costs, not to mention millions and millions in marketing.
End of the day, these streamers spend a LOT of money to market their product, because otherwise nobody will know they exist.
Interesting thread. Flawed premise, though, as outside of Netflix, none of these streamers have turned a profit. Some don’t have profitability on their horizon at all. The folks who pony up the investment capital have now pivoted and want a map to profitability that happens sooner than later. Hence, the belt tightening, and the dumping of shows that aren’t pulling their weight.
P+ isn’t in horrible shape, the last time I saw their CEO on CNBC he was talking up reaching profitability next year. They aren’t immune to the pressures facing their sector, though, hence the cost cutting. Trek fans can’t brag about being a valuable subscriber anchor – way too many on this page have bragged that they only subscribe when a new show hits, and immediately cancel when it’s done. If the accountants see this as a trend unique to the Trek franchise, then yeah, that makes the franchise more of a target for cuts, not less.
I am probably one of the rare weirdos who to this day has never cancelled their All Access/Paramount+ subscription lol. I first got it all the way back in May of 2017 and has had it all that time to present day. And I didn’t plan to always keep it, I thought too I would probably just cancel for awhile until a new season started up again but I just never did. And yes, oddly out of my loyalty to Star Trek because that’s all I basically watched on it for the first few years. The site is much better today and I watch a lot more on it now, but I would say 80% of my views are still geared mostly to Star Trek. I feel I should get a prize or at least a very nice thank you letter from Paramount but I haven’t gotten anything yet.
Same here. Im also a bit of a nexus in that I let a couple others mooch off my account.
Ive found a little more to watch on the service over the years, but if it werent for Trek theres no way Id keep it all year.
Well I’m glad I’m not the only weirdo here lol.
And yeah I think P+ is a generally good service. Certainly better than when ti was crappy All Access and back then only other thing I can find to watch regularly was 90210 reruns (yeah, I watched it growing up, everyone MOVE ON). It basically felt like the UPN of streaming services back then. Today there is a lot of great content but like you Star Trek is still the only thing that keeps me on it all year.
You folks should have a meeting. There might be 50 or 60 of you across the country! I suspect the people who have just forgotten to turn it off is probably a larger sized group.
;)
I haven’t checked for a few years but I was under the impression the streaming side of Netflix has never been profitable per se… Subscriber fees and cost of content has never worked but there are other ways Netflix has maintained solvency. I read an article about it some time about and it made sense but I’ll be damned if I can explain it again!
The fact is the companies that make this stuff isn’t doing it as a charity or out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to make money. Just like I’m sure you expect to get paid from your efforts either through your employer or whatever service you yourself are providing to others. It’s how the world works. The profit margins with these streamers is not hogwash. It seems to be permeating the streaming industry at the moment. The content they are making is ungodly expensive and many just aren’t getting the subscriber numbers they hoped to cover it. Some like D+ & Netflix lost millions of subscribers the last couple of years. And many other streamers are entering the market thus splitting the market. Honestly this really was predictable. These providers are entitled to make a profit out of this.
The idea of seeing Trek without commercials always seemed like a luxury to me, from laserdisks, VHS, DVDs. That we have almost everything all the time – and for a small price increase – without commercials? For me, a great service.
Plus Showtime: Yellowjackets! (And Twin Peaks revivals) there is a lot there.
Don’t you read the media news? This is studio/service-wide, obviously. Pay attention. :-)
Amazing all the good trek shows are getting renewed!
So true. But I truly feel sorry for Discovery. Enterprise déjà vu. Thanks to Burnham and her crew, we have several amazing productions right now. I will always be grateful for this.
I feel sad for those who love the show (and there are many of them), but I’d say objectively that five seasons is a VERY solid run, and if we’d all known in 2017 that it would wind down after 5 seasons I think most non-Trekkies would have assumed it was a success (ever since the ’90s Trekkies think “seven seasons or it’s a failure”).
w00t!!! Amazing news! Can’t believe Lower Decks will get to have at least 5 seasons!!! Fingers crossed we will get to 7 and a movie!
Not too thrilled that we will have a 2 month gap between PIC and SNW, but really excited that we are at least covered until 2025!
Can’t wait to hear what’s coming next.
P.S. I wouldn’t worry that Prodigy didn’t get a renewal, since the seasons are divided in two parts with a big gap between them. I’m sure Paramount internally is treating the next 10 eps as “Season 3”, and “Season 4” already in production (the second part of S2), so I would expect a renewal on that one when the second part of Season 2 is close to airing which will probably be in second half of 2024.
P.P.S Damn, we do live through an amazing chapter of the franchise. Hope we hear news on a really cool addition in the coming months!
P.P.P.S. If they announce a new show that will air in 2025, than we can safely assume extending Kurtzman’s contract is already being negotiated
Terry Matalas works for Alex Kurtzman. Enough said.
This is good news! I hope P+ will get S31 series or miniseries started soon, because Michelle Yeoh is awesome, and maybe a series returning to the 32nd Century. But, if I had to guess, we will get a Legacy series next. Just a feeling….
Yeah, for the first time in probably years lol I do have a feeling the Section 31 show is finally coming to fruition. Whether it’s a show or mini-series we have to see.
You might even like it ;)
Of course. As I always said, I was never against the idea of a Section 31 show, I just didn’t like how they did it with Discovery more so than anything especially knowing it was meant to be a preview of what the show would be.
But like you I am hoping that we get something really fun and crazy like a time travel or multiverse premise which would excite me. But even if it’s not that and something more mundane I will support it anyway and yes that includes having the very honorable Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Qo’noS, Regina Andor, Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius involved!
I hope people are now more satisfied with this title. ;D
😂😂😂😂😂
And I agree, although I never wanted a S 31 show I will absolutely give it a chance if it gets made. Some people think I have my mind made up about these shows before they air but if that was the case I should hate Lower Decks which I said many times I expected to hate but turned out the opposite.
That taught me more than anything never to judge a book by its cover.
So if I can fall in love with a show like that, anything is possible. And if someone like Worf or Bashir was on it too then they already have my full attention!
Yeah, no matter what I’m going to watch it and I hope I will love it in the end.
And I had a similar feeling over Lower Decks. I just wasn’t sure what to make of it or that I would really like it either. But instead, I ended up adoring this show and I think that’s true of a lot of fans. But in all honesty this show should’ve fell completely flat on its face lol. In another alternate reality somewhere it probably would’ve gotten cancelled by season 2 with Kurtzman fired for putting something on so ridiculous and a complete embarrassment to the franchise.
But instead the opposite happened. It’s crazy to know it’s already survived more seasons than TOS did lol. And now here we are celebrating the fact it’s now getting a fifth season, a fifth! It’s great to see and I still hope we get two more seasons after that…and a movie. ;)
I still have hope Georgiou, Worf, Raffi, Bashir and… Ro (yes she did beam out just before the shuttle explosion to a cloaked Starfleet Intel ship lol!) get a Section 31, Starfleet Intelligence, time travel show! Haha we can all dream!!
Knowing Worf has been ‘working on himself’ at the monastery on Boreth, I’m very hopeful for more of the S31 ensemble to be time travelling than just Georgiou with the help of the Guardian of Forever.
It seems Miral Paris (now about 24 in 2401) could very likely be studying time travel technology at the monastery herself as she did in the alternate timeline of Voyager’s series finale.
I’d be happy to see Malcolm Reed and Archer make appearances representing the 22nd century.
Ash Tyler (even a crossover with Pike) for the 24th.
I’d like to see Georgiou reconnect with Emony Dax, the 22nd century gymnast and Starfleet Intelligence agent that Georgiou connected with in her tie-in novel ‘Die Standing.’ They were a great team. (Emony was also involved with a young McCoy in ‘The Lives of Dax’ anthology.)
In the 25th century, it would also be great to have S31 cross paths with Garak, and Captain Ezri Dax.
Fingers crossed man…fingers crossed!
I still won’t believe it until cameras start rolling on it.
That’s always the best answer lol.
Given it was already in preproduction once in Toronto before COVID and never restarted, you’re unarguably right M31.
Are you Phil’s brother? ;-)
See? As usual, the naysayers were being silly.
The naysayers are always being silly, it’s why I get threatened with a banning, for calling them out and not being nice about it, because kid gloves just makes naysays feel welcome.
Depends on the naysayer. I’m batting 1.000 on calling out the nonsense on Trek 14. Haven’t been wrong for seven years now…..and counting.
That’s not exactly being a naysayer, that’s just being realistic, given their track record. That’s not quite who we’re talking about.
Great news! I hope they keep the quality up across the board. Looking forward to more SNW and PRO the most.
A third season of SNW seemed like a no-brainer but I will admit the temperature in the industry at the moment did have me worried.
Pleased to see LDS renewed as well, as I do enjoy it (and to a lesser extent I do enjoy PRO as well) but I gotta say only one live action show on the roster moving forward is a bit of a let down for me. Even when I enjoy the animated series, i enjoy them in a very different way, which I understand is just a personal barrier for me, not everyone else’s problem!
If we’re only getting three shows, my preference for the ratio would be 2 x live action, 1 x animated. But on the flip side, to be talking by about “only” getting three shows, I should be happy we’re not back in 2016 getting none! Can’t help it, I’m greedy.
Why do you assume this is the last of the good news? ;)
This announcement focuses on what’s next in the schedule and renewals.
It seems logical to maximize the excitement about any new shows, limited series or direct-to-streaming movies by giving them their own special event announcements.
Because TG47, I’m a nervous pessimist!!!
But you are correct, this announcement does not mean that there’s nothing new coming down the pipe. Hopefully something like a Section 31 miniseries or Legacy gets an announcement on Star Trek day (but likely a little longer wait I’d imagine).
First contact day!
Ah yes of course, my mistake. Thankyou for the correction.
Amazing! I still don’t judge those who hate modern Star Trek. Prodigy may be my #1 current Star Trek show, but the final season of Picard is my only honorable mention. I do agree that Terry Matalas should be the lead showrunner for the entire Star Trek franchise. What he has done for that franchise is what Simon Bennett has done for Power Rangers.
Rule Of Acquisition 57: Good Customers Are As Rare As Latinum. Treasure Them.
LOWER DECKS SEASON 5!!! 😁😁😁
As Dr. T’Ana might say, “BLEEP YEAH!”
CERRITOS STRONG BABY!! LET’S GO!!!
LOL, I knew you would be excited by the news!
Cerritos strong indeed!
really need a live action show that’s not a prequel… SNW is great but i think they need a discovery/picard era series that moves things forward where they arent strangled by canon. last time around lower decks was renewed for 2 seasons because of the process of animation… curious why not this time but maybe it’s because of the finances and then trying to spread things out more.
I’m hoping the powers that be are waiting to get a full analysis of the reaction to Picard season three to refine Matalas next idea.
They did that, and tested out with some Short Treks too, before green lighting the final concept for SNW.
I really hoped we get a ship-based Titan series with Shaw, Seven and Sidney!
Yeah I fully agree. As much as I like SNW, I think most people want another post-Nemesis show again and sooner than later. It’s why I assume they have to be considering a Picard spin off show more than ever now. Or maybe the Section 31 show will be based in the 25th century as well or beyond that.
I just don’t see any hunger by fans for the next live action show to be another prequel so I assume whatever we get next will be a sequel of some kind, we just don’t know in what form yet.
Good Star Trek is good Star Trek. I don’t really care what timeframe it’s in. Just no more silly sitcoms, please.
Such a monumental relief to see Lower Decks finally get its renewal, love that show to bits! I think we knew SNW was in the bag however. I guess this leaves First Contact day with room for new announcements! 🤞🏻
Agreed!
With animation having such a long lead time, knowing that it’s not only renewed but that writing and preproduction are happening is fantastic.
It’s also such a monumental treat to all of us TNG+ fans who will need their fix after Picard wraps up. Right now this might be the only show that takes place in that era. It’s so much fun.
Yeah, it reminds me of getting the Star Wars Christmas Special in-between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
CTV Sci Fi is broadcasting The Best of Both Worlds and Family tonight so I have that on in the background and now we get the news about SNW and LDs. Of course, it would have been a total shock to not have SNW renewed, but you never know what may happen, so this is great to get the confirmation.
Now let’s hope that the writers somehow turn things around for Discovery S5 (ala what happened with Picard) and that will make 2024 a fantastic year for Star Trek, especially if one or more new projects get greenlit soon.
Yes such great news DeanH. I’m still on a high about the news even though I was confident both were coming back. And definitely crossing my fingers on DIS but you know my feelings on that show lately.
If I were a betting man I would wager their S5 will be more like what we got in S3&4. It seems they found what they want to do and that is what they are going to do.
Sadly I feel the same way which is why I don’t have much hope I’m going to like it. But they DID say that the format will be a little different than what we got so whatever that is can be an improvement. We’ll just have to see what that means exactly.
Yeah, I did read they were going to lean a little more to an action-y kind of thing. But I have finally learned over the years to not believe one word of pre-show hype or promotion about these Secret Hideout shows. They have become experts on saying things we all love to hear but then have the final product be nothing like what they said.
It’s nice to get official confirmation that they’re making a third season of Strange New Worlds! And we’ll get to see S2 fairly soon — yay!
I wish they didn’t do the promotional posters with a single main character. You can have Pike larger and in the center, but why not have him surrounded and supported by Una, Spock, Uhura, La’an, M’Benga, Chapel, and Ortegas — y’know, the way he is in the actual show? Why not have Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford all together?
I have noticed all the new Star Trek posters (other than Picard ironically) have switched from the recent trend of cast compilations to a focus on the principal character.
The Discovery final season poster only has Burnham.
While the stack-of-heads posters were getting old as were the cast group photo ones they replaced, I’m not sure that a single character focused image can ever convey Trek – unless it’s one of the new limited series.
The thing I miss most about 90s Berman-era Trek is the true ensemble feel. I am so done with the hero’s journey stuff warping everything.
The reason why is pretty simple: these images are now being primarily used on social media, which are almost always viewed on a cell phone. They want a simple graphic with one character front and center to lead their campaign, it’s bold and attention-grabbing when users are scrolling.
Remember, these aren’t just for fans, they’re to attract new audiences. Before long they’ll have single-character images of all the other characters, but Pike is first because he’s the captain. Other more ensemble images will come later for things like billboards, print ads, etc (cast photos from the ’90s were primarily aimed at advertisers, btw, not viewers).
Last year, SNW had a wide banner that had all the characters equally. You may not like the modern aesthetic, but marketing is simply a different animal in 2023 than it was in 1990.
I think you’re on point that this is a medium shaping the message issue Alpha Predator.
Taking McLuhan’s logic a bit further, the risk is that the feedback from the single headshot iconography may in turn reshape the show to focus on the principal character and bend everything around their arc.
The medium of the show, streaming television, is actually reasonably conducive to moderate sizes ensembles. The wide screen and less-fixed runtimes can enable inclusion of more than a few close-in talking heads. That won’t happen though if the principal actor has a contract that entitles them to some level of creative control to ensure the ensemble exists to serve their arc.
Well I don’t think the medium is shaping the message, just the style. It just means single headshots, it doesn’t mean only headshots of one character.
As far as reshaping the show, that’s highly unlikely (at least as far as the images somehow influencing it). Because at the end of the day, Pike may be leading the message here, but there’s really no campaign yet. This is just an announcement of the season’s debut.
Once Picard ends, you’ll see multiple headshots being promoted, from Una to Spock to Uhura and M’Benga, just like we saw last year.
Remember, last season they had single character full-body images, and my guess is that research showed better responses to head/shoulder images.
Yeah, The Hero’s Journey can be a compelling story if done well, but we’ve SEEN it, over and over again. I don’t know what snappy title can be given to a group cooperating to resolve a mutual problem, but it’s something we don’t see enough of, here in Western culture, and it’s something Trek (ideally) does well.
First, I want to say I’m glad to finally get a date on SNW S2 and that we’re getting more seasons of it and LD. I can’t wait, especially for LD.
Second, I’ve been thinking about the rumored Dominion show while I’ve been listening to people talk about DS9 and rewatching parts of it. I think that set before or during DS9 the show wouldn’t actually work, especially as a miniseries.
Here’s why: because the Dominion proper just didn’t get enough development. You’d have to spend the time world building more than what DS9 already did to make it work. And during DS9 itself, you’d just have to go with what was developed enough, which were the Cardassians. You’d have to get Casey Biggs to lead the show and at that point, you might as well just be repeating the last two seasons of DS9, season seven in particular. Also you’d have to de-age Casey Biggs and uh that’s not really been working all that well. Not to mention that you’d also need to de age Jeffrey Combs because you just can’t do that without Weyoun and at that point, why bother.
Before the series, again, the problem is taking the time to world build. There’s also the implications that the Dominion never changed at all in those centuries. They’d just be the same as we saw them in DS9 in other words, and what would be the point of that! In DS9, they really only world built the gamma quadrant enough until they could introduce the Dominion and then focused mostly on the Alpha Quadrant after that. None of the Dominion species ever got developed to the level of like… The Cardassians. Or the Ferengi. Or the Bajorans. Or the Trill. Or got built on more like the Klingons.
So I think it’d be best to set it after DS9. Maybe before PIC S3. So you can have Amanda Plummer in it too if she has the time. Have a mix of new characters and legacy characters that are examining the way that the Dominion is changing in comparison to how it used to be. Also make it a full show so you can have the time for the world building. Plus if it really needs antagonists you have that built in already with Amanda Plummer as Vadic. Make the rogue group the antagonists and have it lead into PIC S3.
Alternatively, same concept but have it post PIC and have it being the remnants of the Dominion that had sided with Odo and the Federation becoming friends.
Are these the same folks who thought the Hans Solo origin story would a guaranteed hit?
One of the most underrated movies in recent years. I love that film.
John Carter, same deal.
This is what happens when internet fanboy group-think, combined with bad studio marketing, leads to a new movie being unfairly killed upon release.
Right, Solo was actually not a bad film. It just failed for the reasons you said, especially the marketing.
Well, whoever thought Star Wars was the sort of franchise that could release movies a mere 5 months apart is the real marketing genius in that case.
GREAT JOY AND GRATITUDE!
I’m so glad these two shows are back for yet another run. After the cancellation of DSC I was losing hope a bit but I’m glad I’ve been wrong…
No feature film info? Michelle Yeoh might be a resource for one of those, assuming she is not now above the Star Trek feature pay grade.
Nope. At least nothing for the cinema is anywhere to be seen on the horizon….
Frakes has said recently that the films are still a completely different side of Paramount.
I’m so glad though that the cinematic feature side, which has been spinning its wheels for most of a decade now, doesn’t seem to be blocking Kurtzman from bringing direct to streaming movies to our televisions.
We’ll see Yeoh in Star Trek in streaming first I expect.
I’m happy LDS got renewed, I wasn’t too worried about it because Paramount/CBS doesn’t have many options for Trek content next year. It’s just when 2025 comes up LDS might be in serious trouble because things might have settled down at the studio by then and new Trek shows will be in full production . Who knows what’s going to happen in the next couple of years.
So happy as well! :)
I was never really worried about LDS because the fanfare of the show seems pretty high and it has to be a much cheaper production than the live action stuff. But yes, the fifth season could be its last. It’s weird to know it’s the second longest running show lol. But I suspect most of these shows won’t get past the fifth season now. I really hope to be wrong about LDS though. It would be amazing if it made it to seven seasons…and a movie. ;)
Looks like I’ll be taking a month off of P+ in a few weeks…
I’m disappointed LDS got renewed — I was hoping it’s cancellation would help to open up another slot for non sitcom Trek that I can take seriously.
The point of LDS is that it shouldn’t be taken seriously, and therein lies the problem mon ami. You take it seriously! But don’t worry, the cancellation of Discovery will open that slot up for you :). But actually although I don’t like Discovery for so many reasons, I’m disappointed it got cancelled. I would have watched and was hoping it would improve.
At 3 seasons already, I feel like the concept is getting stale. I suspected we’d get a fourth, but a fifth? They’re really stretching an already paper thin concept a little too far.
Frankly, I don’t like the idea of a purely comedic Trek series. I’d rather the dramatic Trek shows incorporate a humorous comedy episode every now and then, like Spock Amok.
Agreed. It’s run its course, and I thought S4 would be the last. Plus, I really don’t need comedic Trek.
I want “Star Trek,” not sitcoms, not fan productions, not reality shows, not po-rn or whatever else some feel they need to stretch the concept — no thanks.
I’d actually like to see a comedic Trek show. Sadly with LDX out there it doesn’t seem like we will get one for quite some time. Perhaps even after its gone it may be a while. I still think it’s a good idea. It just needs to be done well.
The point of having a menu is to serve a range of tastes.
If everything were things you and I liked, even more or less, it wouldn’t be as successful.
And for what it’s worth, I mostly like it (with a few episodes that are strong exceptions). The thing I like the most though is that it makes my spouse laugh out, which is rare.
Sure, I get that, but I was just thinking now might be a good time to sunset LDS at the four season point to make room for another series.
While I recognize we’re in a very different media context, it’s still worth keeping in mind that 4 x 10 22 minute episodes is still less total content than a single season of classic shows.
Can we not do the whole “they-should-have-canceled-Show-X-to-make-Show-Y”? I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of Discovery, but I’m sorry to see it ending, because I know it means a lot to other Trek fans.
I hear you, but I am just being honest. There are some here who have hated-on DSC from Day 1 with probably thousands of negative posts, but then feign like they have sympathy for DSC fans when it’s cancelled. You won’t get any of that disingenuous BS from me — what you see is what you get.
People can have empathy for others on DSC’s demise, yet still dislike DSC. One issues from emotional intelligence, the other is a matter of taste. Disingenuity has nothing to do with this.
I certainly believe that is the case for you, but there are other cats here who I do not believe that’s the case for – not for one second.
IDIC.
Yeah, and my opinion is one of those diverse, infinite, combinations. And I used “I” twice and “I’m” once in my statement, so there should be ZERO conclusions from anyone reading my statement that I was suggesting others must accept my personal opinion on this.
The problem is a number of people in threads are incapable of seeing the underlining subjectivity of the bulk of the comments unless they are telegraphed what should be obvious to all with something like “in my opinion” attached to the comment. Hell, I’ve seen people say something is “objectively good” here when what they are talking about is an opinion.
Indeed, if someone says “Lower Decks is terrible” there is always someone who has to chime in with “in YOUR opinion!” As if that’s not already amazingly obvious.
So yeah… Such things seem to sadly be a permanent reality.
Well said!
No one should even have to qualify obvious opinions as being opinions, it’s pointless. It’s when people make blanket statements that “everyone” agrees about something or use other posters’ opinions to prop up their own as being superior that I roll my eyes.
You’re correct: there is room here for many different kinds of Trek. But it’s pretty clear that Paramount isn’t going to be doing more than a few shows at a time, so a Trek sitcom takes away a spot in the lineup for something else.
Fans love to say Orville is Star Trek. Heck, it’s got it’s own spot on TrekMovie.com! Fans who want Trek comedy can go there. I’d prefer LDS come to an end, and get something new. Like you say, DIVERSITY. Let’s try something new and different.
How about a horror show? A Star Trek police procedural? A show set on a medical ship? A war drama. Maybe a show set on an alien ship. Heck, i’d take a romantic soap opera over Lower Decks.
I disagree. I’m ecstatic that LDS is getting another season. It’s slowly becoming my favorite Trek, along with DS9. Its fun, light hearted, and serious when it needs to be – and helps me examine my fandom. I’d rank episodes like wej Duj; Hear All, Trust Nothing; and No Small Parts as some of the best examples of Trek. Looking forward to next season, and the following!
Wow you disagree, what an opinion. Well, I disagree with you. I don’t hate the show at all. I watch it, I’ve chuckled a few times. But the jokes get old real fast and we’ve now had 30 episodes and are getting TWENTY more. That’s just overkill for a paper-thin concept. I’d almost rather they ditch the humor and just go for the actual drama, because like you say, the stories themselves – when you strip out all the gags – are pretty good Trek.
I’m really, really gonna enjoy those TWENTY episodes…but the way things are going they’ll likely end it at five, and you’ll get your wish – hang in there!
How about a horror show? A Star Trek police procedural? A show set on a medical ship? A war drama. Maybe a show set on an alien ship. Heck, i’d take a romantic soap opera over Lower Decks
Well said!
Lower Decks doesn’t cost peanuts, but it’s making a mark in a relatively new space for Star Trek – animation and comedy. If it ended, I’d be hard pressed to assume it would get replaced by a more expensive live action show. This is an especially unique property which costs less than 10 hours of most other concepts would.
One thing I do need LD S4 to clear up though is what happens to the relationship between Mariner and Jen. It’s super frustrating to get a couple that are two women only for their relationship to be barely featured and then suddenly they break up. Especially when it happens twice to two different couples like that. Then you just get to see the fandom reacting like the characters are at fault for it when it’s the writing. It’s all on the writing. And if they broke up just to have one of them end up with a man, it’s gonna be even more frustrating! (Yes I’m looking directly at you in particular, Lower Decks. [Not so much of a problem here but in the case of LD I’ve seen a lot of people being outright nasty about Jen because they want to see Mariner in a relationship with a man and that’s a huge problem in itself.])
I know I’m about to be told that I’m just being sensitive about it but as a LGBTQ+ fan, it’s all super frustrating. Especially when we’ve just got like what… Six or seven (ha, including Seven herself) directly stated LGBT characters in the entire franchise? Oh plus two trans characters. Everything else is just fandom interpretation. We need more than this, it’s just a tiny drop in the ocean of characters at this rate. And yet it’s somehow still better than other franchises, but not by much since they’re all mostly written super poorly.
I sooo agree with that. I liked the finale but it really bothered me how they literally just ignored Jen and their relationship at the end. But actually Mike McMahan himself admitted he made a mistake on how they approached it.
I assume you know who Jesse Gender is on YouTube but I love her videos, especially her Trek reviews and content. But if you don’t know her, she is also Trans and discusses a lot about sexual and gender issues in Star Trek. She had Mike McMahan on her show talking about season 3 and she brought up the issue with Mariner and Jennifer directly where he addressed it. He explains it in good detail why it was botched but basically said he got side tracked with the other stories or something like that. And he always said he never wanted their relationship to anchor the show, which I have no issues with, but he seem to realize now it still should’ve been stronger than what they showed.
Anyway, definitely go find that video if you haven’t seen it, but it’s a great interview between them in general.
And for the record, while I’m not gay myself I completely agree with you. That’s what Star Trek is to most fans: representation. That’s ironically what it became famous for and why it’s always confusing to me when some of its critics say modern Trek is too ‘woke’. Besides making that word practically meaningless now, that’s what TOS was at the time. And today the show can be as inclusive to everyone. I’m far far from Discovery’s biggest fans but the one thing I think it got right was how openly it was to LGBTQ characters. I think it was great to have a Trans and non-binary characters on the show. I know some people still criticized how they were used, but the fact they were just there was a big plus IMO. And I hope we see more on the other shows in time
That’s good to know, I’m glad he admitted that. I don’t really watch any YouTube reviews or shows anymore because I just don’t have the attention span and bad experiences with it before. That aside, I’m really really glad to know this. Maybe they will make up for that. PIC never can make up for it now though and season 3 just kinda doubled down on it.
No problem. Yeah I hope it will be addressed in season 4, especially since he realized they did overlook it too much for people’s tastes.