The Hollywood Reporter this morning has some sad news for Trek fans: Paramount+ is following the industry trends and canceling shows, and Star Trek: Prodigy is among them. It is expected that it will be removed from Paramount+ before Paramount+ and Showtime services officially combine on June 27.
The Paramount Global-backed streamer has canceled Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies after a single season, reversed its decision on a season two pickup for the animated and kids-focused Star Trek: Prodigy, axed competition series Queen of the Universe after two seasons and nixed The Game revival after two seasons. Additionally, all four shows will be removed from Paramount+ as the conglomerate joins Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery in taking tax write-offs for underperforming series.
Season 2 still happening, just not on Paramount+
THR notes that Prodigy season 2 is almost done, so it will finish post-production but then be shopped to another streaming services or TV networks.
Star Trek: Prodigy was renewed for season two in November 2021 and was a key push by franchise captain Alex Kurtzman to introduce the property to a younger generation. The series will complete post-production on season two of Prodigy and producers CBS Studios will shop both seasons to a new buyer.
Prodigy writers and producers reactions on social media
After the news broke, Prodigy and other Trek creatives have started express their thoughts on social media.
Creators Dan and Kevin Hageman started a small thread, they’re staying positive for the future of season two on a new network.
#StarTrek has taught my brother and me to strive for a better future. While news of #StarTrekProdigy not returning to Paramount+ is disappointing…
— Dan & Kevin Hageman (@brothershageman) June 23, 2023
We have faith this show will be picked up by a new home to help grow our fervent fanbase and inspire the next generation of Star Trek fans. Our talented and passionate team of artists are working tirelessly to complete S2…
— Dan & Kevin Hageman (@brothershageman) June 23, 2023
And we are staying positive and hopeful that our amazing fans will get to see it soon! Janeway would never give up, so why would we? Let’s follow her orders and ‘Go Boldly.’
— Dan & Kevin Hageman (@brothershageman) June 23, 2023
Head writer Aaron Waltke is “choosing joy.”
In a world of deep uncertainty, I choose joy.
It can feel radical to reject cynicism. To try every day to make the world a tiny bit better.
Hope is a tool. It can be a battery, a shield, or a weapon. And it can be used in service of others.
We build a road, stone by stone.
— Aaron J. Waltke (@GoodAaron) June 23, 2023
Writer Julie Benson – Prodigy was an “utter joy to be part of.”
Absolutely gutted. Star Trek Prodigy was an utter joy to be a part of creating with @brothershageman and the @TrekProdigyRoom. @shawnabenson and I hope this beautiful show finds its way across the universe to another platform to boldly go into hearts and minds forever. LLAP💔🖖 https://t.co/mRfCLbTyp9
— Julie Benson (@TheJulieBenson) June 23, 2023
Star Trek: Picard season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas was also among the first to tweet, saying his “heart goes out” to his Star Trek: Prodigy “brothers and sisters.”
My heart goes out to our brilliant #StarTrekProdigy brothers & sisters. Here is hoping the Protostar finds a new home soon!🖖🏻 https://t.co/Ch9UuXwYwa
— Terry Matalas (@TerryMatalas) June 23, 2023
Rylee Alazraqui, voice actress of Rok-Tahk, has “high hopes of finding it a new home.”
Some of the BEST days were recording for #StarTrekProdigy and being with the family of all involved! We are holding our heads up high with hopes of finding it a new home! 🖖🏻 pic.twitter.com/bjKsyp6P2X
— Rylee Alazraqui (@rylee_alazraqui) June 23, 2023
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
This is tragedy. Grave mistake. I will wait. This show must move forward.
Glad we will be able to watch season 2. But Prodigy has all the key elements for several seasons, movies….I am in denial.
500 people dead in a migrant boat in Greece. Five dead in a submarine implosion. An ongoing war in Ukraine.
But sure, cancelling a television show (and one that not really that great, to boot) is a tragedy. Gotcha.
See kids, this here is called whataboutism.
They can all be tragedies in their own ways
Yes, because the average person always compares the cancellation of a TV show to the death of hundreds of people That’s a very logical comparison. {eyeroll} Who cares about the 500 dead on a migrant boat when there are 1000s dead in Ukraine . . . see, people can one-up a bad thing over and over and over again. Just because Bad Thing B is worse than Bad Thing A, doesn’t negate that, to some people, Bad Thing A is still bad.
Sorry men. That was not my intention. Of course there are major issues right now that I follow closely, with the bottom of my heart….Ukraine, these migrants, all migrants, those 5 in the sub are real tragedies.
Of course. I chose a big word, but not in that sense. I am only talking about Star Trek. About this show cancelation.
Don’t apologise. The person criticising you is in the wrong.
For example, we could say to them – oh, migrant boats and Ukraine? That’s nothing. What about Hiroshima.
See? Those ‘mine are bigger than yours’ arguments mean nothing.
Don’t let strangers online police your language. Express yourself freely, ignore the idiots.
Relax it’s a figure of speech and you know it.
Get a life loser
You are something else. Of course those are tragedies. Star Trek is a place to escape. It’s a family of people across the globe who want something better to counter all the terrible things happening in the real world. What is wrong with you?
Chill out! No need to be rude. Jay didn’t mean it supercedes all tragedies.
You kind of knew it was coming went it went adult oriented and a Voyager continuation with lots of time travel (zzzzzz / nonsense) as opposed to sticking to the kids exploring the final frontier, facing danger and learning about science (which I assume Nickelodeon was wanting).
Season one was sooo close but like a poor marksman they just couldn’t help but TNGize it.
Like geez, Star Wars action but with technology and exploration for kids on a starship bridge please. Nope, best we can do is grown adults crying over seeing Janeway again but with a cockpit this time.
Yeah, once they made it a Janeway/Voyager fan service show instead of a cool kids space show it was doomed.
I liked the show, but I often kind of thought, if they’re aiming it at young kids with no knowledge of Trek then they’re probably making it a bit too complex and bogged down plot wise. I feel it lost the simplicity and freshness as the season progressed.
Yeah, it did feel like it was aiming for an age higher than what was said. Which is funny because Lower Decks is aiming at an age lower than what they say they are going for. Funny how that works.
I don’t think thats true for Lower Decks, it may seem cartoony to you but its in line with other adult cartoons.
It was supposed to be a kids show.
Lower Decks was never supposed to be a kids show. It was always aimed at a Family Guy kind of audience. Prodigy was the one made for younger audiences.
I say that because the episodes severely talk down to the audience and the gags, such as they are, are grade school level. Perhaps I should revert to my previous description of it.
Lower Decks is aimed at 11 year olds who have been Trek fans for 30 years.
Have you ever watched it? It’s the best written Trek on a consistent basis now.
Sadly I have. In their 30 episodes they have had ONE that was actually funny. One. And their 3rd season on was Star Trek Discovery level bad.
I don’t know if that is exactly what did it. Focusing more on Janeway and her new crew didn’t help things IMHO. I did enjoy it more when it was the kids in the automated ship with the hologram Janeway helping them along. I’d say it was probably for similar reasons they canned Star Trek Discovery. The issues industry wide. But we can still hope if finds a way to be seen.
It’s been very obvious a lot of fans weren’t into the show once it was dubbed a ‘kids’ show and never gave it a chance.I will say having Janeway at least convinced more people to watch it who probably wouldn’t otherwise. But no I don’t think it made a huge difference either.
I been saying for months now I been really worried about this show more than any other. I felt a bit relieved when DIS got the boot and then TG47 mentioned a few weeks back it was apparently gaining more traction in the metrics and with its target audience. But it’s why I don’t really take these ‘metrics’ sites all that seriously because it doesn’t tell you the complete picture or all the other factors involved. If that was the case, DIS would’ve probably got at least one last season since it was apparently a big market grower.
I mean, yeah. I love Trek, but i’m not gonna watch a kids show just because they stuck the trek label on it. I like Trek as a franchise, but I dont want to fo down the star wars route and becmes something bleed try from trying to make star trek “everything for everyone”
I dont even like Lower Decks. I saw the Short Trek with H. Jon Benjamin where he tried to engineer the tribbles as a food source. I would have watched a show about tht guy.
But I tried lower decks, and I honestly felt like it was a mediocre adult cartoon that had lots of star trek references.
I’m all for expanding ideas of what Star Trek can be, I wouldn’t mind a well funded show about a civilian exploring the worlds of the Federation.
I
And of course all of that is fine. No one is obligated to like or watch a show just because you are a fan of it. For the record, I truly love both shows but like you, I thought I would be put off by both of them too. For some odd reason I wasn’t lol.
But I hear this statement alllll the time by fans who never watched either show because they didn’t like they are animated to start. And then there is the extra problem that others feel LDS is just too silly to take seriously and that Prodigy just doesn’t feel adult enough. I try to be soooo fair on this stuff. I always put my personal feelings aside and look at everything objectively regardless if I like something or not. So I completely understand your dislike of LDS. I think the show is hilarious and really hit the spirit of Star Trek I haven’t felt in decades. I do think that’s why it at least seems to be a big enough hit in the fanbase. But I get not everyone feels that way and I get why. And not every show will be for everybody.
But as for PRO, I do have a tougher time with this one only because the show doesn’t feel any less adult to me than the other shows do. No there is no one dropping F bombs or sleeping with other people but the stories themselves feel just as mature and intelligent you find on TOS/TNG/VOY/SNW etc. It certainly doesn’t ignore violence since hundreds of people got wiped out in the finale. The villain of the piece actually feels complex and three dimensional and more fleshed out than the one note villains you find in most of the movies that’s gotten really really tiring to watch. His motives actually make sense for once and the longer it goes, we see him torn with his decision in the end.
But you just proved the point, the fact it was labeled a kids show completely kept you away from it. At least you gave LDS a fair shot even if you think it still sucks.And maybe you would feel PRO is just too adolescent for you. This is usually the part I encourage people to at least watch a few episodes and maybe their minds will be changed. But since the show is cancelled and literally leaving the site, there is no point.
The funny thing is Robert Meyer Burnett actually made a video a few days ago explaining why he hate so many of the new Trek shows and he basically said the same thing about Prodigy. I only bring him up because he is one of the few YouTubers that has had a professional connection to the franchise even if it was on the peripheral. But yes he basically said the same thing, that they are trying to make these new shows for everyone out there and in turn it waters down or dilutes what Star Trek is in his head. I don’t completely agree with that, but I know many others do and yes Prodigy is an example of that to them.
I have to admit, I was guilty of that. When I heard that it was going to be a kid’s show, I wasn’t going to watch. When I heard it was with Janeway, I did watch. But it was my least favourite show. I am not that upset with the news. I do hope they find another network though.
Yep this is a common refrain I have heard over and over again. It just proves what an uphill battle this show was to get long time fans to watch it.
lol I feel the Voyager/more adult oriented stuff saved it from a much earlier cancellation. As fans actually cared then, kids don’t really care for Trek.
Mine do. They prefer it over Star Wars. Their friends that have come over and watched Prodigy with them seemed to also enjoy it.
but… it seems like a bad introduction to the trek universe.
Like, if it was the same show but just some advanced ship, would prodigy as a show be any good? It seems strange in concept to me. To make a kids show that will introduce trek when it has so little to do with trek, it feels like you’re just testing the limits of the brand name.
Yeah I don’t really buy this idea somehow having legacy characters doomed it. If you replaced Janeway with a totally new character what what would that even change for new viewers? Nothing because ALL the characters are new to new viewers lol. Now if you had to watch a season or multiple episodes of VOY to understand what was going on in the show or something, that’s different.
But the fact is the story was COMPLETELY new with original characters. None of them was tied to VOY or any of the old shows either. And no silly fan service like a character was Seven’s sister, Janeway’s son or another Khan decedent. They along with the story had zero ties to VOY, none. The only difference was some of the legacy characters were involved in the plot, that’s it. And Chakotay was in 4 episodes out of 20. But the show wasn’t VOY season 8 or anything since only two characters from the show even appeared on it and not a single story line was tied to even an episode.
“another Khan decedent”
Khan became a decedent at the end of TWOK.
Sorry, meant descendant. I really hate autocorrect sometimes.
Star Trek will never be cool. Star Wars is cool.
True but it’s not really a fair comparison. The two are really nothing alike and it’s hard to be as cool as laser swords for kids.
Star Wars is ultimately…boring. Same old, same old. Regurgitated endlessly. Trek has much more potential but is hobbled by poor and unimaginative writers these days.
Not a complete surprise. Kurtzman did say that the future of ST would be, in essence, the occasional TV movie.
when did he say this
Poorly worded. The trades reported that Par+ and the producers are concerned about “saturation” and wanted to scale back series in favor of films every two years.
They’re right to be concerned about saturation. There’s far too much STAR TREK on television right now, and only the most ardent fan can keep up with all these series that keep springing up like mushrooms. The Trek universe is losing any sense of internal cohesion.
They should pick one series, presumably SNW, and concentrate on making it superb. More is not always better.
Agreed. But I do think Paramount+ as a standalone entity is on borrowed time.
There was an article a few days ago, I can’t remember where, where Analysts are predicting Paramount as a studio will be gone within 2 years.
The analysts at Wells Fargo have been particularly blunt. They’re of the opinion it should be shut down now. All of it. The studio property is worth more than the business, that doesn’t bode well.
I’d not be surprised if the plug gets pulled on all of Trek until a buyer of the IP steps up.
If Disney buys Star Trek, CGI Worf could be the Marvel movies
You can bet if Disney ended up owning Star Trek there would be some sort of crossover with Marver or Star Wars.
You take your advice from Wells Fargo? LMAO.
Wouldn’t bet against it. And in a way, I’m very interested in what a new owner would do (if anything) with ST.
I thought Tom Cruise had saved it?
Paramount Global as an independent media giant could easily be on borrowed time.
Netflix is the future. Buy their stock.
Netflix is a roller coaster stock. I don’t like roller coaster stocks.
There is not enough Trek. We were promised year-round Trek and they have not delivered.
Sadly true but views dictate the demand unfortunately. It’s very funny how people say the Berman era had too much Star Trek on at the time and people were sick of Trek but it produced 50 episodes a year for 6 years from 1993 to 1999 so clearly enough people watched it even if fans dropped off. We were promised the same thing with P+ and we only got that for one year.
It’s just more proof to me these shows are not hitting the views like we want to believe they are. They didn’t put the entire season of SNW for free on YouTube out of the goodness of their hearts.
it produced 50 episodes a year for 6 years from 1993 to 1999
I’m not so sure that was a good thing. I’ve heard the DS9 producers (not sure if it was Ira Steven Behr himself or others, but that’s beside the point) complain that DS9 was treated as a “middle child” and could have benefited from a few years as the only Star Trek series on TV. (It held that status for only a few months.)
It was for me because I’m still watching them twenty years later and love the fact there was already enough content to last a lifetime if we never got another show after Enterprise ended. And I happily watched nearly all those episodes LIVE from 1993 to 1999 as well. Didn’t complain once about it (well until they ran Threshold and Spirit Folk…those did test my resolve but my fandom miraculously stayed intact.)
And yeah they complained about that for sure, but that had nothing to do with the amount of episodes, it just wasn’t that popular at the time compared to TNG and VOY because most fans wanted a ship based show and many felt it was just too ‘dark’ at the time. That wasn’t going to change if Voyager showed up or not.
But now look at DS9 today? I know you don’t love it personally, but it’s now the darling of the franchise. So in the end it worked out great, it was just disappointing it didn’t get the kind of fanfare back then like today. The same thing oddly has happened with Enterprise (but NOT as loved).
DS9 was ironic. It absollutely was treated like the Jan Brady of Star Trek but actually speaking for a good long time it was the only Trek that took place amist the Federation and dictated some of the most important canon in Trek history.
The Berman era was a weird time. So many people said we had too much scripted shows like trek but what did we get instead? Enterprise went off the air and was literally replaced with Britney Spears reality crap. We did not get the returns we were promised. The end of the Berman era and other eras like it gave rise to reality TV
Sadly that’s never going to happen now. Between the limited returns of streasming vs costs of shows, the writer’s strike, etc, we are going to be in a vaccum for a good long while.
No really. That’s their excuse because the suits are bleeding cash on P+ streaming.
Autocorrelation. Mismanagement of Star Trek (including oversaturation) is one reason they’re bleeding cash. They staked P+ on being “all Star Trek, all the time” (OK, with Yellowstone now thrown in) and, predictably, it worked out badly.
Good points, but it was part of what some day the are probably going to call “the streaming bubble,” when cash was thrown all over the place in a growing market, with COVID acting like a crack drug catalyst.
So I don’t think P+ was really that much of an outlier compared to the other streamers — it was all an artificial market growth bubble scenario that was unsustainable.
P+ wasn’t the outlier but the problem is P+ doesn’t have the IPs that others like Disney or MAX do.
The sad truth is Star Trek is not a property that is popular enough to sustain a franchise. Hell, not even Star Wars is having a great time pulling that off.
It is not just with Paramount+. If you take a look at all the streaming services, they are all dropping shows at a record pace.
Wow, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Star Trek on P+ has been very regular, and there aren’t that many shows. There were 3 live action and 2 animated shows over the last 6 years. Two are effectively done (but for airing the last of DIS) and now whatever is going to happen to Prodigy.
This isn’t Marvel where new a new, limited series pops up every month without much fanfare.
not if you’re subscribed to the network. And Trek does have ardent fans.
A catch though, is star trek fans highly overlap with “people who can watch it for free without paying for the subscription”
You’re talking about the guy who just announced the Starfleet Academy series?
I’d say there is about a 5% chance of that show actually happening.
I do think they want to make a Legacy show since Picard S3 was the highest rated show ever on P+, but they will have to scrap Academy and maybe either SNW or Lower Decks to make that happen (but I’d assume Lower decks is fairly cheap to make).
I don’t think they’ll scale the franchise back to purely TV Movie. I believe they’re potentially looking to bring the shows in line with each other so they can cross over and establish a modern trek universe that way in the TNG era. I wouldn’t surprised if Academy is dropped next or it comes out TNG era
Yes, I think the reference to TV movies is being misinterpreted. Michelle Yeoh winning an Oscar, coupled with the financial issues at Paramount +, made a Section 31 series impossible but made sense as a movie. This idea was then expanded on by Kurtzman as he said movies may be a way for them to tell other stories going forward. I’m in complete agreement with you on Academy. With Discovery wrapping up, and momentum building toward a Picard spinoff, I think Academy is dead in the water. I don’t think there’s a risk of Trek saturation. It would be one thing if we were getting 22 episodes of every series but with SNW, Lower Decks and potentially Legacy, we’re looking at 33 episodes or under 27 hours of new Trek content in a calendar year.
I highly, highly doubt they’ll do the “legacy” series.
They might. Scrapping DISCO & PRODIGY might pave the way. They should also axe the STARFLEET ACADEMY show and focus on what series & TV movies can get a large audience.
I will say this if A. Paramount+ is still vying to make future Trek shows and B. That the Picard show exceeded their expectations (and by all accounts it did and why they did the IMAX screenings for the final episode) then yes, I don’t think the idea is dead in the water.
But I am a realist and if none of these Trek shows are really moving the needle for the site, then it’s entire future may be in doubt. And I want to stress this, I don’t think this is a Star Trek issue obviously, but I been saying this for awhile as well, they know there are still tons of people out there who simply refuses to pay for any more of these services and there are probably millions of Trek fans who just doesn’t want to pay for a service if they are ONLY watching one thing on it. Many of us do but I don’t think we are the majority in any way.
I think as long as P+ remains, so will Star Trek. But I think they realize making 10 shows a year or whatever isn’t going to get them out of the hole they are currently in.
I’d rather have Prodigy back, honestly.
A few months back.
Ridiculous really. Well at least we have a S31 movie and an Academy series set during the DSC era to look forwar…Oh wait never mind.
Given the writers strike and (soon) the actors strike, I wonder if we’ll ever see either of these?
Star Trek: Prodigy writers work under The Animation Guild (TAG), not the Writers Guild (WGA).
I believe Will was referring to Section 31 and the Disco “Starfleet Academy’ spin-off, both of which are live-action.
Those projects have not been canceled.
No, they haven’t, although some studios have been using the strike as an excuse to back out of projects already underway. So, while I don’t expect it in these cases, it could happen.
No I know they haven’t but people were vocal in their love for Prodigy, wanting more, wanting to see how the story unfolds etc.
Who asked for a long delayed S31 project or the Academy thing?
Maybe they have on message boards, but message board posts are not Paramount’s basis for this sort of decision making. $$ are.
Perhaps it was a case of vocal minority and perhaps like Young Justice the wrong demographic were watching it.
“Who asked for Andor?”
“Who asked for” arguments need to end.
I do know I for one want more Prodigy a hell of a lot more than anything focused on Section 31.
Those projects have not been canceled…....yet.
No, we likely don’t have those, and I’d guess a third season of SNW’s is 50/50 at this point.
Since production of S3 of SNW was underway when the strike started, I would say it will continue at some point.
I think another season SNW will definitely happen. But I don’t know if it will make it past third season the way people are talking about P+ these days.
It’s depressing, two years ago Kurtzman sounded like the franchise was only going to get bigger and now I don’t know if any shows will be around within the next 5 years.
Sadly I agree which is a shame because it’s a terrific show. and this is coming from a person that hates prequels. But writer’s strikes are show killers. And streaming as a whole isn’t going to survive post covid. I mean Netflix will certainly be ok but P+ won’t survive past CBS. And as we all know Trek can not survive on Network TV.
Yeah I hate prequels too as you probably heard me say but SNW has actually turned me around. I’m still not begging for more or anything but I do truly love this show even with my issues. Hopefully it will be fine and it will get its third season as planned. It’s just crazy all of this stuff is happening at once, but my guess is it NEEDED to happen for the long term even if that mean we may end up losing some shows or streaming services.
Haha hopefully once SNW wraps up we’re done with bloody prequels. I very much doubt we’ll see either of those come to fruition. Paramount is tightening its purse strings. They want guaranteed success for any future endeavours. IMO Star Trek: Legacy/a more canon friendly show would give them that.
Anything set after Discovery 900+ years in the future is now a prequel.
Which is hugely sad because the future Discovery shows us is pure crap.
The cgi animation was probably too expensive and the show didn’t seem to be reaching its target youth audience
That may be the key issue. It may not have drawn in enough new subscribers. And who knows – if this is actually picked up by a cable channel or the ubiquitous Netflix, this may actually be a good thing for Prodigy fans.
You are probably right on with that one. Money has been an issue. Not just for Paramount, but everyone now. Way too much money was put into streaming shows, without any data available to measure whether their investment was justified. Streaming is still fairly new. They should have dipped their toes in, being tight and conservative with the money, and then after a few years, if things are going great, then you can throw some more money at it. But spending $100 million for a 10-episode season is insane.
Yeah, those days are over. The penny pinching may already be kicking in. The first two episodes of SNW have featured prominent use of recycled DIS sets. I also suspect there’s a budget reason for having fewer “full cast” episodes this season, as has been hinted.
When you’re a series regular, you get paid by the episode whether or not you’re in every scene, one scene, or no scenes.
Not necessarily. It’s not uncommon for regulars to only get a guarantee for part of the season. Leads, sure. But with supporting cast, maybe only half. Here are the SAG/AFTRA rates:
SERIES REGULARS IN 1 HOUR
The SAG pay scale for Series Regulars on 1 hour shows functions exactly like 1/2 hours. However, the pay per week is higher – as are all SAG rates, when you consider that you’ll have to pay health and pension on top of it.
SAG actors are paid weekly for their time: $4,520 per week for appearing in every episode, $5,042 per week for appearing in more than half, and $5,897 per week for appearing in half.
Valid through 6/30/23:
13 out of 13 Episodes: $4,520 / week
12-7 Episodes: $5,042 / week
6 Episodes: $5,897 / week
These rates still assume a 13 week production cycle.
Ah, well, that shut me up.
By the episode is key. You may only be contracted for 8 of the 10.
I noticed that on Picard how legacy TNG characters were classed as ‘guest’, whilst Seven and Raffi weren’t, despite the former being in some ways more integral to the plot if not in every epside. I assume it was to do with pre-existing contracts and not having to pay them for episodes in which they don’t appear.
You noticed that too, huh?
Recycled sets have always been a thing. It’s not a bad thing either. Frees up money for elsewhere.
Both shows were/are being produced from the same location in Toronto. That was the intention. To shoot these shows in the same studios. The academy show for sure will also use the same sets.
Recycled sets? In MY Star Trek??
Last season the ‘child emperor’ planet on SNW and the Species 10-C habitat on DSC were very clearly based on the same assets.
But they’re a bit more impressive than the Maquis/Bajoran cave network that somehow also exists on half the planets in the Delta Quadrant.
If money is an issue why have they commissioned 2 new things?
It remains to be seen if they actually go forward. I don’t know if they still run this, but TCM used to show a short film made for exhibitors touting the “new for 1968” MGM releases. About half of the stuff they announced was never made.
However, Section 31 would be a modestly budgeted streaming movie and the academy show would be a low cost spinoff of an existing show that could take advantage of existing sets, costumes, etc. So I can see how that makes some financial sense.
How would it, being split into two 10-episode-only “seasons” and barely promoted? What kid or family can keep up with that in a SpongeBob world? This isn’t rocket science…we see this all the time, and still, no one gets it. “What? OUR product that we devalued and mis-treated isn’t successful? Huh. Guess that means no more product.” Capitalism strikes again.
As opposed to what, some kind of socialist central planning that would throw good money after bad by producing a show no one outside of a few hard-core fans is really watching?
Well, that’s more of an economics term, but I would argue that a lot of fans really would like to see that “show no one outside of a few hard-core fans is really watching” because, that is fairly common hard core fan behavior, along the lines of wanting “legacy” characters to crop up in new series or movies or whatnot (I’m sure some fans were disappointed that Una’s defense lawyer wasn’t Samuel Cogley).
What do you expect from a guy who has to defend capitalism even though Trek itself is anti-capitalist 🤣 it’s like we get it, you love capitalism, you must be one of the people that doesn’t get mistreated by it.
But right, there’s that aspect. And believe it or not I was more into it for the new characters than I was the returning ones. I love Janeway but I loved Tysess (for gay reasons as much as any other) and Dal and the rest of them. I also got new Trek fans into Trek because of that show. Don’t underestimate the teens and 20 year olds that like the Hagemans brothers because of their work on previous things, like LEGO Ninjago. I try to recommend it to those people for that reason.
I thought long and hard about whether to respond to this; I get that this poster has his issues. But ultimately, a point unanswered stands; so fuck it, I’m damn well going to respond. Apologies if this veers too far off topic.
I’ve spent well over half of my professional career, both in the private sector and government, dealing with post-communist economies. I still remember attending a lecture in college by a venerable Soviet academic, Georgy Mirsky, who described the wonder that Soviet citizens felt that day back in 1992 when Yegor Gaidar liberalized prices and produce appeared in Moscow grocery stores overnight.
Indeed, my high school had an exchange with a Moscow secondary school, and a prestigious one that was damn well the equivalent of Stuyvestant at that; I remember hearing how some of the earliest Russian participants, who came to my hometown just before the Soviet collapse, recalled showing up in a third-tier US city and marveled at the goods available in your average grocery store.
The Soviet system suffered from endemic shortages of consumer goods, particularly from anyone who wasn’t part of the nomenklatura. If you doubt this, visit North Korea, Cuba, or Venezuela today. (Indeed, East Europeans have been known to visit North Korea to get a taste of what their societies were like just over 30 years ago.) The entire damn population was “mistreated by it,” even the nomenklatura. Really, only the defense industry got any kind of choice goods.
The closest thing that most Americans will ever experience is the toilet paper shortage that lasted a couple of weeks at the beginning of the pandemic, or maybe being pressured to buy some school supplies for the elementary school classroom. Except in the communist world, this wasn’t a month-long inconvenience; it was the reality of your existence, all the time, everywhere. You shopped with an “avoska,” or mesh bag, in case you were walking down the street and found shoes on sale that fit. And it wasn’t just toilet paper or shoes, either; you might be confronted with shortages of life-saving antibiotics, and the existence of free medical care was a myth; you had to bribe doctors, who were mostly a low-status profession, to get treatment. To this day, you generally have to pre-pay in cash for all medical treatment; that’s one reason savings rates are so high in the PRC.
The effects of this system continue to plague the post-communist world to this day. You can debate whether Soviet-era distortions in the economy are responsible for the debacle in Ukraine, or whether it’s something deeper in Russian organizational behavior. Personally, the more I see, the more I lean towards the latter. But the former clearly had something to so with it: West Germany (which yes, is an uber-capitalist society, despite what Bernie would have you believe) outperformed East Germany. South Korea’s GDP was on par with Ghana’s after the Korean war. India was famous for “the Hindu rate of growth” before it liberalized its license Raj economy in 1991.
So — to channel Picard’s speech in First Contact — you’ll forgive me, my dear, if I’m incredulous that you believe cancelling a damn TELEVISION SHOW represents any kind of wholesale indictment of capitalism. Or that you articulate that belief by typing away on a personal computer whose components were assembled by just-in-time inventory, all made possible by capitalism. As I tried to argue above, words (like “tragedy”) mean things, and keeping a sense of proportion is important in making convincing arguments. (To think it’s the far left that likes to make arguments about “privilege.”) Do I think things are perfect here? No, of course not, but you’ve won the lottery of life by being born in any OECD country.
Hailing frequencies closed, soapboxes stowed for beam out.
Someone didnt watch TNG the neutral zone
They invested so little into merchandising. You need to back up a show with things kids will play with. Look at Gabby’s Dollhouse or the entire Star Wars franchise. They need to stop focusing on collectables and actually merchandise the franchise if they want to expand appeal.
Everything from PIC2 forward got massively screwed by the Covid pandemic as well.
Including the merch for Prodigy.
Ugh, this is disappointing. Prodigy has been the most impressive of this new batch of trek shows. I hope this isn’t the end but it seems definitive. 😢
Absolutely.
It has indeed been the most promising of the new shows. But to be fair, that’s an awfully low bar to clear.
If it helps, I also prefer Prodigy to the TNG movies, Voyager, and Enterprise. The only Star Trek productions I enjoy as much as or more than Prodigy are the other two animated shows, TOS, the TOS movies, TNG, and DS9.
YMMV, of course, as always.
Agreed. It’s my favorite show out of all the new ones.
Between the writers strike and the diminishing returns of streaming I don’t frankly see it going any other wayt
Truly a shock, they had so much more story to tell, and that team had the show running strong from the start. PRODIGY is one of the high points of the new era of TREK. I hope they can finish the second season/series on a good note, and we can at least have a well-rounded story to enjoy for all-time thereafter. But those writers really get TREK and I would love to see them return to the franchise in some way, if it’s what they want to do. All I can feel is gratitude for their amazing work- cast, crew, Nami, the artists, everyone.
I hope somebody scraps this loophole that allows for shows that have finished production to be shelved indefinitely. It’s gotten way out of hand. Hopefully someone else picks up Prodigy and allows it to finish.
It’s controlled legally by Parmount’s Star Trek franchise IP — no one can pick it up. The “Expanse model” for it moving isn’t likely possible here.
Paramount owns it. They can sell the distribution rights to whoever they want.
No shit, and because of that, the production company who did Prodigy can’t shop it around for another studio to pick it up and finance future/new seasons. Theoretically, Paramount could let them do that, but no way that’s going to happen. So as I corrected said:
It’s controlled legally by Parmount’s Star Trek franchise IP — no one can pick it up. The “Expanse model” for it moving isn’t likely possible here.
Now, they can sell distribution rights for the existing first two seasons to anyone, and they are going to do just that here with Prodigy. But that is not what I was addressing.
Paramount could absolutely let another distributor pick it up (as in, order new seasons.) It’s how television worked for decades. IMO, that’s the best path forward for television production. Streaming has been a big loser.
That’s extremely unlikely for a franchise property like Star Trek where Paramount controls the IP.
This is not like The Expanse where a third party production company controlled the IP and was able to re-shop the show.
Don’t forget that for years Star Trek IP was controlled by 2 different companies back when Viacom and CBS were split. It is a lot more complicated than just “Paramount owns the IP”
It’s been a loser for everyone not able to achieve scale when it mattered most. That’s why it makes the most sense to be hedging bets and making content for competitors more flush with cash while picking and choosing content for Paramount+. Then there’s always the consolation that one day they can always put the likes of South Park, Jack Ryan and maybe now Prodigy on Paramount+ when those deals expire, assuming Paramount+ is still a thing and they are on better financial footing.
The only way that happens if someone buys it from Paramount. I assume even Pluto would have to pay something for it. And if no one does, you’ll never see it. Personally, I think the whole “we’re shopping it around” is just so much babble. Producers say this all the time, especially when their pilot doesn’t get picked up and they rarely get any takers.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it will get picked up either. It’s dead. Paramount is in trouble, if I’m interpreting the news correctly.
The trek renaissance is coming to an end……
Pluto would just mean moving Paramount’s money around internally for ad revenue that wouldn’t cover production costs on their own. It would need to be someone outside of Paramount Global, and someone who doesn’t have an obvious cash flow problem. So… Netflix, Apple or Amazon, if I had to bet on it. They would get a license to stream Prodigy and then would have the option to commission future seasons from Paramount.
Not my idea, and I have no clue how feasible/helpful this might be, but YouTube user viewer8888 just commented this on Jessie Gender After Dark’s video about the issue:
“I’m going to let this gel a little, but I’m thinking about writing to my congresscritters to request a tax code that so that if a media company does this (removes a product in this manner within, say, 10 years of the copyright date) for the tax benefit, they can do it and obtain the tax benefit, but the media product immediately goes into the public domain.”
😈
Man… I really enjoyed Prodigy. That Grease show was…not good, though. I couldn’t make it through the first episode.
This sucks. I mean, the upside is they’re at least going to finish post-production on the second season, so there’s that. The downside is we have no clue when or where we’ll see it. My guess is that Amazon or Hulu will buy it. At the very least Paramount could go ahead and release the back half of Season One (Eps 11-20) to physical media, so those of us who purchased the first half can have a complete season.
I hope they’ll release the back half of season one as well. I think they could also put season 2 straight to blu ray so we all can watch. 🤞
Aside from this being a boneheaded decision from a creative and franchise perspective, as Prodigy was one of the best shows coming out of this new generation of Trek, the decision to pull it from the Paramount+ library is infuriating. Aside from the occasional hole in the library due to the running of existing licensing agreements, P+ was supposed to be the hub for all Trek past and future, and if they’re going to pull down a show they created in house so they can shop it what’s to stop them from pulling and shopping TOS or TNG for a few extra pennies?
This is why streaming is not a good thing for the entertainment business. Netflix hoodwinked so many into believing it was but it really isn’t. “Here pay for this and access it anytime until we decide no”.
Pay for physical media, everyone gets a fairer cut and it’s your choice to watch it or not. Not some company like Netflix which is so far in debt it wont survive the next 5 years.
Netflix has a clearer path forward because of its subscriber base and they’ll be able to license a lot of material from the other streamers and studios that are about to fail, which costs less than wholly producing originals.
Netflix is also better at merchandising. Not as much as Amazon and Disney of course but still.
All of these new Star Trek shows wouldn’t exist without streaming however. Streaming made Star Trek’s resurrection possible.
THe thing is streaming def has its faults but cable is so much more evil. They control everything from your TV to your internet.
If worse comes to worse, and no buyer is found, they can throw it onto Pluto.
If no buyer is found, Pluto probably won’t be an option. While not uncommon to sell the rights within the family, as it were, Paramount wants money from the outside, not money that was budgeted from elsewhere within the portfolio. That would still be Paramount cash.
This is BS!! Paramount + is no longer the home of all ‘Trek! ‘
I cry that every other month when they move a handful of the movies to another streamer.
This one was my favorite of the new shows. Sure it was about kids being kids on a Starship, but that’s far more believable than adults acting like kids on the other shows. Plus I like how this was the first Star Trek series to focus on an alien cast instead of a human one.
I will definitely miss this the most.
The only Star Trek show that I was able to watch with my family. Truly enjoyed watching Prodigy with my kid and my wife.
That’s the weird thing, isn’t it? All these new mainline Star Trek shows went full modern with dark visuals, a huge amount of foul language, graphic depictions of violence (I know that’s existed in other treks, but it’s the norm now rather than the exception) and characters who have had extreme trauma filled lives as their sole motivations. Prodigy feels like the most Star Trek because by trying to appeal to kids, it had that accessibility of what the original and Berman era series had while still telling some neat science fiction storylines. I miss that dearly.
Exactly. Ironically that’s what made Prodigy stand out against the other shows, because it was family friendly and obviously had to be. But I think a lot of people just felt it was too kiddie for them and never gave it a chance. I was hoping it would go the direction like The Clone Wars originally did because that show got the same label in the beginning but more fans saw it was much more than that and became held as one of the best Star Wars products out there, period. This is made clear now that Ashoka is getting her own live action show.
I was hoping the same for PRO and that second season would get more people on board and see it as a Star Trek show and not just a ‘children’ Star Trek show.
Well, true dat, but also a false dichotomy.
A few thoughts, in no order:
Academy crap & S31 could go before an already established show that people want to see a conclusion too.
No, this is a cost-cutting measure. The studios are contracting, not expanding.
Nice to see Janeway and Chakotay again
That’s why it’s gone. They moved it from a cool kids space show to Janeway/Voy fan service, and it hurt the viewership metrics.
Evidence of that?
There is no evidence of that. All we know is the show got cancelled. My guess because it was dubbed a kids show and kept a lot of fans away.
Just spitballing here but it might be possible that keeping it off Nickelodeon for as long as they did may have kept the younger demographic from seeing it early on. If it was on both Nick & P+ it might have helped get a lot more eyeballs on it. The more outlets there are the more likely people will see it.
Yep I believe that’s a very strong possibility as well. And if you recall, originally the show was suppose to run on Nick first and Paramount+ would get it after it ran. But someone probably made the calculation that hardcore fans would watch it on P+ first and then decided to (oddly) throw it on Nick after it was seen there. I think the right move would have simply do as you suggested and put them on both platforms at the same time.
And this is being done more regularly today. Hulu and FX basically run those shows concurrently or at most may air a show a day later since they are both (mostly) owned by Disney. So in this day and age, why are you waiting to run a show weeks or months later on another channel when it’s all under the same umbrella? I don’t pretend to understand how these decisions gets made, but they only fragmented the audience; especially when episodes aired almost a year from each other. That was another idiotic decision that probably just lost them tons of viewers, especially kid viewers.
It’s a logical deduction. I can’t prove it, but the facts fit
The “facts also fit” Tiger2’s theory above, that this show basically appealed to no one outside of a very few core Star Trek completists.
I watched season 1.5 of Prodigy just before PICARD, when I re-subscribed to P+. Look, it wasn’t terrible. The animation and ship design was actually fairly innovative.It was a pleasant diversion. In that sense, it exceeded my expectations.
But equally, it’s not something I’m running to rewatch, or even to subscribe to watch. It was ultimately a kids’ show, and not the kind of product that’s going to end up showcased in the Smithsonian as a touchstone of American culture. And it didn’t even really know whether it was appealing to the elementary school set or the tween/early teen set, and in reality it appealed to neither.
All this hagiography about how it was the best example of recent Trek indicates either (1) everyone’s a viewer, but not everyone’s a critic, or, more likely (2) that the bar for “good Star Trek” is awfully low these days.
Fair points and sorry it didn’t really win you over dude. But ALL I heard over and over again in places like Reddit and Youtube that people didn’t want to watch it because it was a ‘kid’s’ show. And that some of them that did give it a chance was actually due to Janeway. Not that many fans seemed to have cared that much about the show until they announced Kate Mulgrew would be on it.
And I have been on record for a year now saying I thought this show was getting the lowest numbers just based on the lack of social media discussions and episode reviews on YouTube like you saw with the other shows. Another example I noticed recently was about two weeks ago on Paramount+ most of the Trek shows were ‘trending’, and I mean practically all off them. Nine out of the eleven shows were on that list which was pretty impressive. The only two that weren’t were TAS and PRO. So clearly fans are watching these shows in droves, practically all of them, but yeah that told me that PRO is probably way behind the others. Now I’m sure when the show was airing new episodes it probably trended quite a lot, but I can’t recall.
But despite it’s lack of viewing, I was just hoping it was still getting enough to continue at least. Apparently it wasn’t.
Yeah, some good points there from you and T2. It’s all conjecture, but I think we all have pieces of the story on why it didn’t find a large enough audience.
“They moved it from…” makes it sound like a mid-course “correction”, when the Chakotay / Protostar backstory was clearly baked into the story from the beginning. Even so, the show is still ultimately more about the six youths than about Chakotay or any of that.
I very much doubt this show’s Voyager connections hurt its viewership. I’ll agree that it’s in significant part a Voyager sequel, but it’s so much more than that, as well as just plain being better than Voyager. And even if Voyager isn’t exactly the high point of the franchise, this show’s connections to that previous show – any previous show – probably helped to draw far more existing adult fans than they’d have turned away.
Oh this blows. Prodigy is very good, and as an entryway it’s excellent. At least it will finish its arc. Maybe the characters will show up in a Janeway show.
Contra the “entryway” theory, is there anyone who isn’t a Star Trek completist actually watching it?
Good luck with that Janeway show now. You might as well try to sell mineral water from Camp Lejeune…lol
Nah, Rick Berman told me last week that the Janeway series is coming right after Captain Sulu series.
Lol
Not surprised. Netflix is the other streaming service I have besides Paramount+. Hope they pick up Prodigy, like they did with Manifest when NBC cancelled it. If not, cable is nice, which I have also. If neither, then I’ll wait for the release of Season 2 on Blu Ray.
Shifting gears a bit… Netflix picked up Manifest? I saw it on their menu but just thought it was repeats of what was on NBC already. Honestly I started watching it, was a little intrigued but the longer it went the less interested I got. By the time it was gone I was really only watching hoping there would be some sort of conclusion. When it left never missed it but if it did get a conclusion on the Netflix I might just check it out…
Netflix produced 20 new episodes to finish the series.
Yeah the second half of season four just aired a few weeks ago.
Ugh… 20 more episodes? Well… I did get invested in the story. I’ll check it out eventually.
I am guessing Lower Decks is next. And Legacy is DOA now.
And I think everything, including SNW and any hope of new series, are on the chopping block table until P+ can combine/merge/sell into one of the bigger streamers.
Don’t be shocked if P+ is gone in a year and SNW, the one surviving Kurtzman series from the current offerings, moves to HBO Max or similar, along with the kickoff of the Academy series and the Yellowstone franchise.
Maybe we get a lucky break and Apple TV+ buys P+ ?
Someone’s going to by P+. It’s pretty clearly not going to survive as a standalone entity.
Well, its certainly not going to survive if they get rid of all their content. I don’t get why these executives’ solution to people not using their streaming services is to make the streaming services worse.
The article I think you’re referencing for Paramount Global having a 1-2 year lifespan also points out the physical studio is actually worth more than the business. Things are pretty grim at the home of Trek.
That doesn’t surprise me. Way back in the day when Gulf+Western bought Paramount Pictures, they were more interested in getting their hands on the real estate than on getting into the picture business.
Back in the day of leveraged buyouts, someone would by the distressed asset (usually at a discount), then sell off the assets. Paramount has two things of value: The LA property, and the IP catalogue. They won’t have a problem finding a buyer.
Legacy was never anything more than Terry Matalas wet dream. It can’t be DOA if it was never A’d to begin with.
Yeah, there’s that too.
This is true
I wouldn’t jump to that many conclusions yet.
I read this at the same time my new air conditioner got stolen. What a bad effing day this is turning into. Prodigy was so good and the cast was incredible. It was definitely my favorite of the new shows and now it’s getting the same treatment as Infinity Train? Effing shitty decision. Could have just released season 2 still. 😮💨
It was also my best hope for seeing Alessandro Juliani in Trek. I know it would never happen anyway but a guy can dream.
That sucks. Sorry about the AC.
Not entirely surprised by this.
Damn that sucks. So now both Discovery and Prodigy two shows which were fantastic additions to the Trek universe are ending before they should. I hope SNW and Lower Decks aren’t next but given how expensive SNW is i can see that getting 1 more season after S3 and then ending if Paramount’s money issue’s continue.
I can actually see it getting no more than a third season. Although undoubtedly, some of the cast will have other commitments whenever the writers/actors strikes end, so starting production back up might cause a real scheduling headache.
I think DISCO was an awful show, but enjoyed PRODIGY.
I feel bad, but Laurie will be gutted.
I was thinking the same thing! Poor Laurie.
It wasn’t my favorite of the new Trek shows, but I didn’t hate it. It definitely had the best theme song! The decision to spend the time and money to wrap up post production, then stick it on a shelf somewhere is strange. They don’t even have spend any real money on publicity. Just announce the episode drop dates on social media and let it run. Why invest all that and not air it?
That’s such a horrible shame. The show was great fun, and gorgeous looking!
Freakin morons. None of these streaming services know what the hell they’re doing right now. I just ordered the blu-ray, because now I’m afraid the show will just disappear.
Low rating means you get cancelled. I guess the kids wasn’t into it.
Can they just move the show to Nick?
That seems like a good place for it, yeah.
It’s on Nick already, but Nickelodeon itself is tanking in viewship.
I would think not since it’s part of Paramount Networks.
Well that’s the irony, Prodigy ISN’T a Paramount+ show, it’s a Nick show and who is paying for it. That’s why it has 20 episodes, so obviously it’s doing very bad there as well.
Broadcast is hemorrhaging viewers. Even being the number one network means very little for CBS which has taken to demanding things like actors going from being regulars to recurring guests on their shows as a condition for renewals. Cable is faring even worse, with Showtime on the outs as a brand, BET on the chopping block, MTV and Comedy Central losing relevance and The Paramount Network propped up by Yellowstone alone.
We’re at the point where everything which made Viacom/CBS a media powerhouse is becoming a drag on them, not only because ad revenue is drying up but because if they want to sell all or part of Paramount Global, a lot of likely suitors can’t or won’t want that part of the company.
The streaming model isn’t exactly doing well either. Most streamers are hemorrhaging money. some are even losing subscribers at alarming rates. It’s just not a sustainable model. Hence the number of cancelations out there.
I will push back on this a little and say the main issue with streaming is that they made too many too fast and ended up giving people waaaaay too many options, options that no one was really asking for. And very few of them you really need to have all year and why there is so much churn.
But when it was just mostly Netflix and Amazon, it seem to be working out just fine for them for the most part. But the problem became nearly every studio in Hollywood thought they now needed one. In the end services like Paramount probably never should’ve existed and just kept licensing their shows and movies to bigger ones like Netflix in the first place. But everyone smelled the money and followed suit.
Don’t forget Apple TV+. Apple can afford to keep their streaming going to matter how profitable it is or isn’t.
And according to business estimates it isn’t. Neither is Amazon Prime.
But that’s what Netflix and then Amazon wrought. It was inevitable that everyone was going to try and get a piece of that pie. What that happened it was obviously not going to be sustainable. Years ago I figured the only way all those up and coming streamers were ultimately going to survive would be merging. I still think that but it’s questionable if the major studios who are having issues will be willing to merge with another for streaming purposes.
For the record Amazon & Apple aren’t immune to the streaming cost & subscriber problems. But they have advantages the studios don’t have. They can be propped up from the incredible profits of their company’s primary business ventures.
Is Hollywood as we know it dying?
Yeah true but I understand WHY they wanted to make these services obviously. Netflix and Amazon was making tons of money off other studios properties and brands. And they were OK with that for awhile, but this is how capitalism works, the point is to make as much money as possible with stuff you put your money to make or build, so eventually they were going to do that once they realize the potential of the revenue stream they could generate.
Ironically, this is why Star Trek was born again on AA because Moonves thought they would make more money making more Star Trek themselves instead of licensing Netflix or Amazon to make more. You can’t really blame that mindset. I remember ALL the push back over it lol. Me and you used to have drag out fights about it, but think everyone would’ve done the same thing if they were in that position too.
But everyone just got over ambitious to a crazy level and now they are all, ironically, paying for it. It was obvious they all knew how competitive it was and why they spent the billions in content, but it was just too much and a lot of it not that great once you get away from the big franchise stuff which also has its own problems, but at least people watch that stuff. That’s what most of us are paying for obviously.
But no, I don’t think Hollywood is dying, it’s just in the middle of a transition trying to sell their wares on a platform that is basically just a decade old now. It’s going to take time on how to do that and still make money. It’s not that they aren’t making money so much as the ridiculous amount of spending many been doing. In a decade they will still be making just as many movies and shows, but probably not on all these services like now. Or hell maybe on even more lol, you never know about any of this stuff.
So, let me get this straight. They made such a fuss about putting all of Star Trek on one platform that a lot of people subscribed to Paramount+ for said reason… which they forced upon a lot of people by removing Discovery from Netflix. Now they’ve changed their minds? I’m very confused.
They changed their minds because it’s not paying off. Looks like we’re very close to the end of the streaming wars with the following survivors:
NetflixDisney+Amazon PrimeApple
Not sure about Max. I can see either Amazon or Apple picking up either the ST IP or all of Paramount since they both have deep pockets (a lot of people felt that when CBS and Viacom got remarried, the whole point was to create something attractive to a buyer).
Guess they f*cked up. These studios needed to realize they should of kept making content for Netflix or even old fashion channels they own. Get advertising dollars or a cut. Majority of them didn’t have enough content that people wanted to make people buy yet another streaming service. The exception is Disney because they own practically everything.
Tech is a grift, a front for financial locusts.
Yep. It always looked like the streaming model that was being created wasn’t sustainable. I figured that streamers would merge to survive though. We shall see.
Like they could of put the Star Trek shows on CBS or the Paramount network. The Paramount network channel at least here in Canada anyway just shows endless reality show garbage reruns from the last 10 years. Totally useless channel.
If they put Discovery on CBS, it probably would’ve been cancelled in two years. When they ran the show’s first season on the network a few years ago, it got under 3 million views. That’s just not sustainable for a show that cost as much as it does on a network. Streaming is a more tricky option these days but I’m guessing most Trek shows still have a better chance there than traditional networks and even cable channels.
In fact according to well respected poster here, he said Prodigy has mostly been failing on Nickelodeon and not Paramount+. If that’s true, it tells you how hard it still is get Trek to be more successful on traditional television.
I agree but to play the Devil’s advocate a little, not only would the budget not be nearly as high if it weren’t streaming and still on TV but let’s face it… There really was no reason for the production budget to be that high to begin with. It did LOOK good but it would still look pretty good for a lot less money.
No it wouldn’t but obviously it would still be a costly show. That’s why Enterprise partly got cancelled, it was literally the most expensive show on UPN but only bringing in a fraction of the ratings that other shows were doing with half the costs. And not a shock why we never got another Trek show until AllAcess showed up because people probably thought it was too costly to make another show on traditional TV.
And I don’t think this is just a Star Trek thing, these space opera shows are just costly in general and why today you don’t see ANY of them on a network anymore. It’s crazy how that entire genre has shifted to streaming now. Shows that at least started on network or cable shows like The Orville and the Expanse all landed on a streaming service later.
I can’t blame them for trying. Netflix declared war when it started aggressively making originals, with the intention of pulling everyone they could from broadcast and movie theaters so they just watched Netflix. The instinct to want to stave that off was strong, and Netflix should not have a monopoly on this distribution market. But the reality of their head start and the other studios’ complacency has meant an uphill and expensive battle to find profits. Even Disney is struggling.
The only things in Paramount+’s favor have been that it has middle America appeal and decent subscriber growth. But its parent company may not last long enough in its current form for it to reach profitability.
They were taking a gamble. All these sites wanted to be the next Netflix and the only way to do that is to have your own exclusive library, movies and shows. Unfortunately for P+, it just isn’t paying off like they hoped.
The irony is I won’t be too shocked if we see all the Star Trek shows, old and new, eventually make its way back to Netflix. I don’t mean new episodes but probably will air the reruns if P+ does go bust since it’s been made clear how well the old Trek shows were doing on Netflix.
Well, that’s disappointing! I hope that like with Discovery, they are able to bring back the talent to make the last episode of season 2 a true series finale…
Cutting shows like Discovery and Prodigy to make way for more liner/crossover shows in the TNG time line to capitalise on the success of Picard Season 3 and plough all their money there.
I don’t think they’ll be doing that. They’re cutting back. Period. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if P+ is gone within a year.
All this doom and gloom about Paramount+. Yeah, it may undergo a major restructuring, but CBS/Paramount own too many properties. P+ is the only platform where you can stream CBS network content, plus the MTV/VH1/BET/Comedy Central offerings. Then there’s the pairing with Showtime. That will keep the service afloat. It may change names again, it may scale back. Everyone said CBSAA would disappear, it simply rebranded.
There’s no money to plow, Kevin. Further, assuming a Picard spin off is successful, that isn’t enough to save Paramount +. The entire company is on shaky financial ground now, there’s no shortage of analysts who are of the opinion the entire company is at the end of the line.
Yeah. To the point that I wouldn’t be surprised if they cancel SNW season 3. The longer the strike(s) last, the more of an excuse they have to do so. I mean, P+ is obviously not going to survive the streaming wars. It’s only a matter of time.
If SNW’s lands in the streaming Nielson ratings top 10, I could see it producing its third season. If not, I agree, it’ll be two and done. No point in throwing good money after bad.
It would be weird if Lower Decks is the last show standing.
But that said, STAR TREK is still valuable IP — perhaps not Marvel-level valuable, but still valuable. It’s also IP that’s currently being mismanaged, which suggests that it can be acquired on the cheap. I suspect that either a white knight either purchases Paramount (there was speculation the other day that Netflix is indeed eyeing Paramount), or purchases its IP piecemeal, of which STAR TREK would likely be a prime target.
I can’t say I am shocked – the writing was on the wall for a while now, and a lot of fans, and even this website decided to close their eyes and cover their ears at the sound of the #$&@ hitting the fan at Paramount. When the stock tanked a few months back, that was a screaming warning sign, but it was ignored, and people on here were thinking Paramount was just gonna keep throwing bucks at Trek.
At this point, I expect Lower Decks news that it is being axed, hopefully at least after it airs its in the can season, unlike Prodigy. SNW season three is a ‘maybe’, but if it gets that far, probably axed after season three. I think all other Trek projects are likely dead before arrival now, including ‘Legacy’. And I don’t see Paramount+ surviving much longer…I think Trek is going to be in limbo for a few years until the fallout settles, and someone else picks up the license.
It’s exactly why no one (or almost no one) was surprised when the latest movie project got cancelled again. Paramount clearly doesn’t have the money it once did and can really only throw major amounts of it at sure bets like Mission Impossible. The Trek movies are on the risky side these days and has been since Beyond bombed.
I do think until the last few months, fans were at least confidant the shows would survive since those didn’t feel like a shitshow as the movies have been feeling even if there were some bumps in the road. Yes some will naturally get cancelled but there would always be another show around the corner to replace it. Now not even that is a guarantee. I still want SNW and LDS to continue and the Academy show to happen, but it would feel pretty naive to believe they are all guaranteed to stick around.
I think the survival of SNW may depend on the writers strike, too. If it isn’t settled soon, or spreads to actors also, I think SNW may be done after two at this point.
Good point. In fact I remember reading TNG was nearly cancelled in season 2 due to the writer’s strike at the time. If that actually happened, Star Trek would probably look very different today.
Hopefully SNW will survive as well.
I find Prodigy as the best written Star Trek series as the moment. The characters are so well developed. The storytelling is amazing. I really hop it finds a new home. Which I find ridiculous. Paramount+ was billed as the new home of Star Trek (all series/films are there).
To quote the late (well, will be late in the 23rd century) Commodore Decker, “There was, but not anymore!”
If they are shopping it to another network, does that mean it could get picked up for a 3rd season at a new network?
Possibly, but I doubt whichever network/streamer buys it will give it 20 episodes per season like the first and *eventually* upcoming second season were given.
What a bummer, it’s such a good show! :(
Reading this, the following thoughts:
1). I was bummed out, enjoyed the show
2). I thought, Laurie’s gonna be pissed, she loves this show!
3) Will hold out hope it finds a new home
4) Anthony’s recent news and analysis of P+’s business positioning (7th position, in a highly volatile field) makes moves like this, although unwelcome from a fan point of view, a bit more understandable. What a difference in the lay of the land for ST shows, 2021 to 2023!
Platforms may come and go. Yet may Trek LLAP!
I’ve enjoyed Prodigy. Impressed that I could “care” about animated characters. The little romance moment at the end of the first season took me back to what I felt like at around 12 years old when a show with teenagers would have a romantic subplot– that sort of “what’s that going to be like for me when I have a girlfriend someday” feeling. I was impressed that the show could remind me/conjure that.
Reading some of these comments, it did occur to me that they could have had 2+ seasons with kids and holo Janeway staying one step ahead of the adults who are pursuing them (whether baddies, concerned Starfleet, a misunderstanding Starfleet, or a combination) and it wouldn’t have gotten stale. Perhaps it would have been beneficial to have a planet of the week, a moral lesson, a science lesson, etc. and warp away for the next tale — I find myself agreeing that perhaps it was too “epic” and complex. Also could have been written to be repeated in any order (perhaps within a given season, anyway) especially if it had a fixed, Star Blazers-style prologue.
Maybe episodic TV will soon be all the rage, coexisting together with more serialized shows. Things go in cycles…
Just my ruminations.
Why would you cancel a show that is already in production as opposed to canceling an upcoming project that hasn’t really been started on? Should’ve canceled Academy, that show will cost more than Prodigy for sure, live action, new sets, etc….
Also why would you spend the money to have season 2 made and then not air it on your platform?
Frankly I am kind of over paramount plus as an app in itself, of all my streaming services P+ has the most issues and is often times unwatchable for me.
This is one of the reasons WGA is on strike and other guilds are resisting the offered contracts.
Paramount can take the tax write-off while the producers, directors, writers and actors get none of the residuals that they would be owed if the show ran.
I bet Kate Mulgrew’s agent is communicating unhappiness to Kurtzman and Paramount.
This is not the first time it’s happened to her so her agent definitely is.
That’s showbiz. She already got paid for season 2, and no further seasons are guaranteed anyway. But by taking it off the platform, she won’t get residuals, if she’s owed any.
I guess we’ll wait until MAX buys P+. Then they can do Star Trek and the Green Lantern Corp in live action.
Goddamn it. This was imo the best first season of the modern Trek shows, one of the most creative and kind, and of course told a fantastic story. The creative team deserves better, and so do fans.
This is also a deeply shortsighted move. Prodigy was a way to introduce Trek to a new generation, and frankly that’s really needed. P+ is acting like a classic ferengi and putting short-term profits over long-term profits. It’s a bad business move.
Damn. This is low. Really low.
😢😥😟😒
I loved Prodigy but would love a live action Janeway/Voyager limited series or movie even more. Maybe that can happen now?
I’m guessing that the bad news was today, but that tomorrow we are going to hear that they are moving forward with both a live action Janeway series, plus Legacy, with Matalas in charge of both shows.
Nope.
Can’t believe someone took me seriously! ;-)
Nostalgia, fan service, easter eggs, references, legacy characters and cameos.
That’s all Trek fans care about these days. Kurtzman and co couldn’t help themselves, and now look at the hole they’ve dug themselves in.
Precisely. “Ad Astera Per Aspera” notwithstanding, I don’t think it would be terrible to let Star Trek lay fallow for a couple of years while the ownership of the IP gets decided, after which it hopefully gets placed in the hands of more adoit writers than Secret Hideout.
That might be the silver lining if everything craps out. Trek goes away but it will inevitably return at some point. And hopefully it will be in better hands that what we have had for the last 7 years.
What hole is Kurtzman in exactly? Other non-Trek shows were put on the chopping block at P+ too. It’s clear that the streaming service is having to scale back expensive and or underperforming shows the same as the other streaming services have had to do recently.
Also, what’s wrong with giving fans what they want? In my opinion, some fans may be wanting “Nostalgia, fan service, easter eggs, references, legacy characters and cameos.” because some of the new stuff that has been produced may not be entertaining or familiar enough for them on its own. Or maybe they need those things to help them relate to the newer unfamiliar vision of Trek. Shows that are made for both new and older fans would seem like an ideal situation to me. Especially if the number of projects need to be limited to save money. Like I said, just my opinion.
Exactly. This isn’t a Star Trek issue, unfortunately it’s just caught in the line of fire of really bad economics these streaming services are currently caught in. Yes fans complain it’s too much legacy characters, fan service and on and on. Then go look at the ratings of these shows on IMDB, RT, etc. Look at the ratings Picard season 3 got. It’s probably one of the highest viewed shows on that platform so far.
I have no doubt Prodigy is probably getting cancelled to low numbers but it has nothing to do with too much fan service when that seems to be driving the interest in all these shows now. Prodigy was trying to capture two separate audiences which is already very hard to do in Star Trek (see the Kelvin movies) and most likely didn’t get enough of either of them.
And what happens in 10 years, when there’s nothing new to be nostalgic about?
Exactly.
I’ve been nostalgic for past Trek shows for way longer than 10 years, so your magic number doesn’t apply to me, and apparently not to many other fans as well.
Bring on the nostalgia.
It’s been 55 years and people are still nostalgic for TOS today, so I don’t think that’s really an issue at all. And you don’t pull actors now in their 60s and 70s like the TNG cast remaking a 35 year old show that winds up in the top 10 ratings if it wasn’t for that either.
That’s how nostalgia works, it’s literally timeless. Mickey Mouse is now over 90 years old and still just as famous, popular and market driven as he ever was in his elderly years. And I bet you you have something with his face on it and maybe by one of your kids if you have them.
Micky Mouse is an animated character, timeless by definition. The TNG crowd, are not.
It’s sad because fans only wanting Trek to be about nostalgia and fan service could have easily been avoided. They just had to make top quality original shows with new casts, and the franchise’s future would have been fine. Instead they’ve trained fans to only care about legacy characters. Janeway and Chakotay in Prodigy, Lower Decks being a reference-fest to past Trek, Picard S3, Strange New Worlds being about the Enterprise (again). Discovery is awful but at least it’s trying to push the franchise forward, unlike everything else.
Again not true. Characters are indeed timeless if they become popular enough. How long has Batman been around? How many actors have played him? How many TV shows and movies have theire been about him through the decades? It doesn’t matter if they came from a novel, comic book, TV show or movie, animated or live action. Or in the case of the most popular ones like a lot of the Star Trek characters, they inhabit all those formats for that reason. At some point new actors will play the TNG characters when the other actors finally retire or past away just like what happened with the TOS characters.
And it took 40 years for that to happen which makes the point stronger, these characters ultimately become bigger than the original actors who play them.That’s how strong the nostalgia becomes.
And look, you complain this in literally every post. I get it, everyone gets it. But I have said this many many times. Having Kirk, Janeway, Picard, Spock, Seven, Riker and on and on is NOT for the people here because believe it or not we will watch anything with Star Trek on the cover. Yes, of course some will get excited with old characters but they will get just as excited with new characters too.
And characters like Saru, Tendi, Rios, Shaw, Rutherford, Captain Georgiou Hemmer, Mariner, Rok, Reno, Book, etc have all become fan favorites in other circles, right? Look how many people were upset when Hemmer and Shaw were killed off? And these are characters who were only in one season. So it’s a misnomer to keep repeating fans ONLY want old characters when the new ones actually do become popular on their own as well. And some of these will probably go on to be nostalgic characters in time just like many of the TOS and TNG era characters are now. But you never seem to acknowledge this reality.
Unfortunately we don’t live in the 90s anymore. Star Trek is no longer free in America and they are doing everything they can get fans off the fence about paying for these shows. That was made clear when they threw Pike and Spock on Discovery in the entirety of season 2 and they never looked back. Because there are a lot of casual fans on the fence about paying for these shows and they have to do everything to get them to subscribe. This is happening in every major franchise.
If the Academy show happens (which I support) then we will get brand new characters which is great. But I’m still convinced the majority of future shows will have TOS and TNG era characters because it’s just easier to market and build buzz.
Again I get this is what you hate about the modern era of Star Trek but this has been the case since 2009; it’s simply the new normal.
Not so! Prodigy and Lower Decks may have callbacks, but many, many fans do absolutely indeed love the new characters. All the major new characters from both shows – Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, Dal, Gwyn, Jankom, Zero, Rok, Murf, Freeman, Ransom, T’Ana, and Shaxs – have ardent devotees who love them for themselves, not just because they interact with Janeway or Riker or whoever.
It’s sad to see so many fans act surprised with this news. The streamers are bleeding cash, the writers are on strike, and the other trades want a bigger piece of the pie. I mean, a high schooler who took an Econ elective could easily connect these dots.
Fans are mad at the studio for cancelling the shows, but at the same time overwhelmingly support. the writers and other trades to get what they want.
Guess what, folks, this is all connected! Be careful what you wish for.
Now, now. You’re just parroting capitalist propaganda. You clearly aren’t a real Star Trek fan.
/s
Lol
Still peddling a false dichotomy here. The cost of labor has nothing to do with the business cycle flushing out failed business models. Your point overlooks that there are profitable streamers out there, and they will continue to be profitable once the WGA (and likely SAG) come to agreement on a labor contract.
None of the streamers have been profitable since COVID wound down. It’s just that Amazon and Apple TV+ are easily able to subsidize there streaming as it serves their overall business model, and they have extremely deep pockets to the level of where the losses are not painful.
Besides, your comment is DOA at the microeconomic level as well. The writers want to force streaming productions to have artificially larger writers rooms (because they were use to that in the TV era with 25 eps per season and weekly deadlines) — so an 8 ep streaming show where 3 writers has worked great, would now have to hire 5 writers, which makes no sense creatively or economically. So yea, labor costs do matter when you have to artificially add 40% to the cost of writing for a show when it doesn’t need it.
The issue I want to see the writers win on is AI protection — that’s essential to protect the integrity of the creative process, and I think all fields should be doing this as well.
Hopefully SGA compromises on the subsidy BS and hopefully they get iron-clad rules that prevent AI from being involved in the writing process as part of that compromise. That’s how I want to see this go.
“WGA”
Netflix now makes over $1 billion in profit every quarter, so that’s what everyone is chasing and what WGA and SAG are being mindful of – there’s no escaping that this distribution model is the future.
And yet I see constant articles and videos that say Netflix’s days are numbered too. I don’t think they mean the service will collapse but they all seem to suggest it’s golden days are also behind them now.
I have been discussing these streaming services for years now like everyone else, and I still don’t understand how it really works since on one hand you got all these subscribers worldwide, many at least a hundred million, but yet still struggling to even make a profit. When Disney+ launched, many treated it like it would be that company’s salvation, now it’s talked about like it’s become its noose.
But yeah streaming is the future, everyone seems to acknowledge that. I just don’t see everyone running back to cable like they once did or suddenly everyone is buying DVDs and Blu rays. Everyone is complaining about streaming but yet everyone is watching them constantly including everyone on this board.
It’s pretty flawed as a reliable moneymaker since so many people sign up month to month and it’s not especially difficult to drop a service and pick it up again when it takes your fancy. Maybe pushing yearly subscriptions harder would help.
We all complain about there being too many streaming services or the UIs or the disposable content or premature cancellations etc, but on the face of it we do benefit from the competition. The biggest problem – there’s too much tv – that’s a luxury to be able to b*tch about. A future where a scant few services have a near-monopoly on this market is not ideal.
At some point they all just want what Netflix finally has – enough scale and relative stability with subscriptions to be able to spend a certain amount of money while having a guaranteed profit. Because everyone is flashing glossy original programming as an incentive, that rules out cheap reality shows and reruns. But the success of “Squid Game” hopefully means finding more varied international and cost effective programming. Give me more of that a hundred times before wasting money on something like Citadel, The Gray Man, or Halo.
But it’s stock price is down nearly 40% from 1.5 years ago. I should know, because I had a good chunk of it in my IRA…whoops! :-)
People want to invest in growing companies, or if you are more conservative, rock solid companies. Netflix and HBO(WB/Disc) are neither right now, unlike Amazon, Apple and Disney.
This was a great show. Those writers were able to pack character development and plot in 25 minutes without the episode feeling like they missed something. And the writers wrote Janeway in a way that honored her character but moved Star Trek forward.
Honestly I hope they find a better outlet. This was the only Trek show made by Secret Hideout that didn’t outright suck. Obviously Nickelodeon is out. Perhaps it will be another more easily accessible outlet.
Here is the question… Since the season is done and if they find another outlet does that mean that outlet could order more seasons if they wanted to? And would it still be under the Secret Hideout umbrella if it did?
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised by this, yet I am because of the Season 2 reversal. Prodigy had a tough task on its hands with an unclear audience target. Most Star Trek fans were disinterested because it “wasn’t for them” and younger audiences probably didn’t take to it. Sadly, it’s actually fantastic for Star Trek fans, surprisingly so! I enjoyed it way more than I expected, especially toward the end of the season. It’s especially sad when you consider how much outsized hype there was for this show at the network, I remember they were even talking about a feature film and expanding the franchise to a new audience. Sadly that didn’t work and they don’t have the unending budget to keep experimenting at this point. The sudden nature of this also puts into question just how much certainty there is in the remaining shows. Discovery S5 could see a similar fate, or they may end up dropping the new projects like Starfleet Academy (especially with the ongoing writer’s strike). Fresh and interesting Star Trek content is getting pretty thin on Paramount+ going forward, but there is still plenty for another year. Beyond that I expect to be done with Paramount+ and that’s fine by me.
Wow this is devastating news to me. :(
But no, not very surprised. I been saying literally since January I was worried that Prodigy was getting the least amount of views and that it could get cancelled. This was the show I was most worried about the most but once Discovery got cancelled first (which I predicted would be first for obvious reasons) then I thought it was safe for at least one more season.
But sadly did not turned out to be the case. And it was my favorite show for modern Trek so even more depressing. But that’s life. Hopefully it will get a new home and I’m pretty sure we will see season 2 somewhere.
I think this really proves what a perilous position Paramount+ and streaming is in general. Now we are down to just three shows and who knows if the Academy show will get made now if the writer’s strike goes on for two long. It’s pretty crazy Lower Decks and SNW are really the only shows around at the moment and I suspect neither one of those will go past five seasons. SNW may not last more than three seasons. I’m sorry to sound like such a downer, but the situation clearly calls for it.
Well, I disagree with you on the merits; but still, my sympathies! I remember that when ENT was cancelled, I felt a few pangs of what I can only identify as grief. Sure, that reaction was not logical, and contra the guy at the top of this thread, I’d never have described it as a “tragedy,” but it is what it is.
It’s ironic that Enterprise will probably have more episodes and seasons than most of these newer shows by the time all of this is done. Like I said, I’m not THAT shocked by the news, but the real punch in the gut is they won’t even let the final season run and taking the show off the site completely. That’s where a lot of the bitterness is coming from. If a show is not meeting it’s numbers, OK, it sucks but understandable. But to just extract it completely and not show the last season is corporate greed of the highest order. They didn’t just pull the last episodes of Enterprise when it was cancelled, they at least let its last season play out.
They are begging fans to subscribe to these sites all year long, but when they pull this shit, do they really think this is the best strategy in the long run?
Sometimes it will just cost more money than its worth to release something for various reasons. Look at Batgirl. Fully completed. Warner just shelved it rather than spend any more money on it. Which weirdly makes me want to see if it truly was THAT bad.
Yeah I’m seeing tons of Batgirl comparisons. But this is a little different because they already aired the first season and then advertised season 2 was coming in the winter awhile ago. So there must have been some major change not to just cancel the show but decide not to air a season they already said they were airing.
And what’s a bit more depressing, after SNW and LDS this summer, we will get the last season of DIS a few months later and after that probably nothing for half a year easily due to the writers strike and SNW probably won’t shoot anything until the end of this year at the earliest. SFA wasn’t suppose to come out until 2025. At the way things are going, 2024 is going to feel pretty bare now with Trek content.
The Enterprise cancelation did suck. It’s the last Trek show that ended where I really was looking forward to more. DS9 was my favorite of the new Treks but when it ended, I was satisfied with where it went and felt it was over.
A foolish decision. The least they could have done is allowed season 2 to air on Paramount Plus. I hope this means that they’ll consider a Star Trek Janeway series.
Nostalgia, fan service, easter eggs, references, legacy characters and cameos.
That’s all Trek fans care about these days. Kurtzman and co couldn’t help themselves, and now look at the hole they’ve dug themselves in.
So much doom and gloom. Everything’s going to get canceled now. Yes, this news sucks. That does not mean SNW is on the chopping block or that it’s already-greenlit third season is going to get canned. Remember CBSAA? It merged and re-branded. That’s okay. P+ will survive in some fashion. Perhaps it will be absorbed by a larger service? Discovery+ recently merged with MAX, perhaps Paramount+/Showtime will merge with Hulu or Apple as an add-on.
No, it doesn’t. But with the writer’s strike still going, that complicates things even more. It’s why while I think SNW and LDS will be fine for their next seasons the Academy show could be DOA.
I hope to be wrong, but this news doesn’t bold well at all. I mean they don’t even want to air the last season of the show and it’s practically complete and AFTER they announced it was coming back this year. At least they are airing Discovery’s last season even if they cancelled it before it aired.
I think this move proved how desperate things are at P+ right now.
It’s a favorite fan pastime to rag on Paramount/CBS for how they manage Star Trek, but at the same time it’s one of their top TV and sometimes movie franchises. So it’s a priority for them to keep feeding it and giving it their full attention. The chances of the likes of telecoms, Amazon or Apple buying up Paramount Global wholesale are very remote, so if it were broken up and sold for parts, Star Trek would go to a buyer who already has multiple bigger franchises they prioritize more.
It may not always feel like it, but we’ve actually been treated as very valued customers all these years.
they used to make shows and sometimes take a loss upfront but when you had enough episodes you would sell the package and syndicate them and make money that way… but with streaming that seems like a loss… the streaming networks want it on their networks only but then they also scrub the shows from the networks. it’s weird stupid and confusing.
they’re gonna try to sell it to another streamer but just 18 months ago they spent a ton of money buying back discovery from netflix internationally and bragging about how trek was now in the family and all under one roof…
I don’t understand the streaming business model very well. If Paramount is completing production of Season 2, why don’t they air it on Paramount Plus? It is streaming. On demand. It isn’t like it’s in a time block where they think a different show will compete better like on network TV. Do they think they will get a better return on their investment by selling it to another network than what they could get with new subscribers to Paramount Plus? I guess that makes sense… But if Paramount Plus, the home of Star Trek, doesn’t want it then why would any other network or streaming service think it would be a good investment for them?
That’s why it sounds so dire. They are not going to run a season they already paid for and basically completed? Remember how shocked everyone was when Batgirl was cancelled by WB although the movie was already made? Now we see this is becoming an alarming trend because they can make more money NOT airing something as a tax write off. An it’s not enough just to cancel something, services are literally removing this content off their sites which completely goes against why having a streaming service was suppose to be a plus, because it’s exclusive content was suppose to be just that, exclusive. Now that’s not even the case. And I been saying P+ has already been selling off their content to other services for awhile now like Top Gun Maverick. But even shows made for that service is winding up in other places too. The Twilight Zone hosted by Jordan Peele is actually on Freevee now. I see ads for it all the time there.
I will say though that your point about P+ being Star Trek’s home in America is true, but abroad it is a more complicated story. AFAIK both Picard and LDS are still on Amazon Prime in certain countries and I don’t think the old shows is on P+ at all but exclusively on Netflix. If I’m wrong I’m sure someone will correct me.
So someone may pick it up, maybe Netflix or Amazon but I don’t think any of them are begging for it after how badly they got treated over Paramount, especially Netflix. If all the reports I read by people supposedly in the know are true, Netflix really got screwed over by them and another reason why they didn’t exactly fight to keep Discovery. But fingers crossed I guess since Trek is still on both of those services, just abroad.
The tax write off is not why studios can dump already produced material. That doesn’t mean they make their money back. Dumping things before premiere means they don’t have to pay to market or a host of other things. If they think the product just isn’t worth putting out there it’s better than spending good money after bad. I hate that they see Prodigy this way as it was easily the best Trek product out there. But I also have to face reality. It very likely wasn’t generating what they were hoping. That combined with the streaming economics (which some saw as unsustainable some time ago) just doesn’t bode well for a number of projects. Even the decent ones.
They get a tax write-off.
I am so saddened by this news. I love Prodigy. This will be a long post, but I can’t help it.
I thought season one was such an amazing achievement across the board. From the writing to the visuals to the sound design and cast. It was truly such a wonderful and welcome surprise how well crafted it was. To be honest, when it was announced I had little interest in it but I thought I’d give it a chance and I am so thankful I stayed with it. Sure, there were a few minor stinkers along the way, and the season got off to a rocky start for some in terms of tone (which I believe was fully intentional by the creators btw), but once it found it’s groove I’d argue that along with SNW it has been the most successful at capturing the true optimistic essence of the core ideals of Trek.
I’ve seen a few naysayers here talk about how the show was ultimately too “adult orientated” and became a Janeway fan service continuation and thus somehow merits the cancellation, but this completely negates the very difficult position the creators were faced with in creating something that had to both draw younger viewers into the franchise in a simplistic and fun way, along with creating something that would also not alienate an adult audience who would automatically be tuning in each week because of it’s Star Trek attachment. That is a very hard thing to even begin to contemplate navigating, along with developing a whole new crew of characters with their own unique story arcs I might add. How do you make something that satisfies these two very different audiences? Something that keeps younger viewers entertained and engaged with in a very specific way, but that also satisfies more sophisticated adult viewers and that must include staples of Trek in order to be a Trek show; time travelling hijinks, holodeck mishaps, the Kobyashi Maru, the Prime Directive, genetic augments etc. etc…..in other words it still had to incorporate those lofty science fiction notions that are 50+ years in the making in order to be recognisably Trek, and all the while adhering to canon so as not to wake the bear of a potential fan backlash.
The other Trek shows have not had this duality of target audience to navigate in terms of writing and tone, and I think this is perhaps the most difficult task any of the newest Trek shows would have faced. And I for one think that it is something that the creators were incredibly successful in. Yes, it is a kids show, but it also isn’t just that, it is for everyone. I’m still not sure how they pulled it off so successfully to be honest, and it’s a credit to the talented people involved and I believe that’s why the show has been mostly well received by those who did give it a shot.
But let’s face it, Prodigy was a complete underdog from the outset. I’ve seen so many Trek fans just outright dismiss it because “it’s a kids show”, or because it’s animated. Along with the difficult task of catering to two very different audiences, those are also two other huge barriers the show always had to contend with.
And now, even if Prodigy does find a new home…which I really hope it does, it will be the lone Trek entity in exile when all other shows are under the same corporate roof in one place – yet another thing it will potentially have to contend with if it is successfully shopped elsewhere. I do though think that those saying the days are numbered for Paramount +, so perhaps Trek will once again be floating around in different places eventually again.
My hope is that Prodigy does get picked up, by Amazon Prime possibly. Prime houses LD and Picard where I am so it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibilities that it could potentially end up there. The creators of the show really do deserve to have all of their hard work on the second season air.
Lastly, so saddened and disappointed for all the incredible talent involved in the making. It felt like they really wanted to make great Trek, and absolutely loved doing what they were doing. I’m sure this news has been so awful for all of them.
Wow you said everything I was thinking. This is the perfect summation of my thoughts as well. I don’t think they realized how hard it was to try and appease two completely seperate audiences as hard as they tried. They wanted the young pre-teen crowd who never even heard of Star Trek before to get them involved in the franchise and literally teach them what Star Trek was, but also the older and very much devoted Trek crowd to watch it because they knew it may fail if enough of them wasn’t watching it.
And I can say is at least from the older Trek fan perspective, I thought they did an amazing job straggling the line. Again I can’t speak for the average 7 year old, but as someone who was afraid they were going to talk down to both audiences and oversimplify the show in the process, I was blown away. It’s my favorite of the new shows as well. And I thought the addition of Janeway was frankly brilliant because now you had a character there for the new viewers and young characters on the show as a mother figure that can explain to both of them the concepts of Star Trek but also would attract the older fans because there was at least one adult on that ship they could identify with and an iconic legacy character too.
She was basically the ‘in’ for both audiences. And I was now more excited about season 2 because we would have the real Janeway full time and naturally it would be more adults as well. So I was very excited to see where it was going.
And I also loved how while they leaned the story towards Voyager, it was still a brand new story. They didn’t rely on the Kazon or the Borg, they brought in a new species to drive the story, the first NuTrek show to do that btw and made it feel like its own thing. They created a brand new mythology for new fans but used a few legacy characters to get older fans invested in the story line. You can see how thought out everything was and tried not to lean too much into fan service, ala SNW and PIC, but also didn’t feel cut off from what came before. This show was better than it had any right to be IMO.
Obviously I hope they find a new home. At the very least someone who is willing to pick it up to run the second season. Shows gets cancelled all the time but this feels like a real punch gut of how they handled it. I get P+ is in obvious trouble, but just take the loss on this one and air the second season for the people who HAS watched and paid loyally to watch the first one. I feel really bad for all the creators of the show just as much for the fans because they not only lost their jobs, their hard earn work of TWENTY episodes may not even see the light of day now. That just feels wrong.
It’s hard enough trying to keep one subset of Trek fans happy, let alone two.
You both nailed it there. Well said.
Bummer. But Star Trek will still live long and prosper.
I liked Prodigy.
Prodigy is a great show. Now is not the time to be idiots with Star Trek, Paramount+. Leave Prodigy alone.
A 40 episode package, with 20 episodes “new in the can” should be able to find a home someplace…but I bet “Playmates” has to be pissed as they hold the master toy license for the show!