Nicholas Meyer Gives Update On ‘Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V’ And Why Making It An Audio Drama Is “Perfect”

On Star Trek Day last year, Wrath of Khan writer/director Nicholas Meyer officially announced that his “Ceti Alpha V” project exploring the exile of Khan Noonien Singh was finally happening, with the surprise twist it was being transformed into a scripted podcast for Paramount+. Things have been mostly silent regarding Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V since then, but Meyer just gave a status update, along with his hopes that a successful podcast might eventually lead back to a filmed version of Khan’s story covering the span of time between being marooned by Captain Kirk at the end of “Space Seed” in Star Trek: The Original Series and his escape in Star Trek II.

Khan audio drama may lead to the screen… but there’s no timetable

Nick Meyer sat down with Larry “Dr. Trek” Nemecek for a special  “open house” celebrating the 8th anniversary of his Portal 47 subscription service. They discussed various aspects of Meyer’s career, including his work on Star Trek II, Star Trek IV and Star Trek VI, and he also talked a bit about how Ceti Alpha V would play out. Originally, the project was written as a three-part miniseries, with the podcast version widening the scope slightly. Making it clear the project was still alive and well, Meyers explained:

“It’s now being worked as a radio play: nine or ten half-hour episodes. I guess the thinking is, if it is successful, then we go back to making it something on film.”

Pressed to give specifics on what kind of production values could be expected for a Star Trek audio drama, or even who would be considered for casting, Meyer declined to speculate, although he did confirm that yes, the project was still on track. Carefully, he cautioned that some behind-the-scenes issues had to be worked out before proceeding with casting, seeking musical talent, and so on. His protective words to Portal 47 were:

“This is a show, all I can tell you about it, and I have no wish to be indiscreet, that has a kitchen filled with cooks.”

Acknowledging that the series has been retooled and that the timetable has slipped, especially after the twin Hollywood strikes that delayed everything, Meyer was frank, telling Nemecek:

“Whatever timeline we had went out the window some months ago.”

Official announcement title graphic from Paramount+

Why radio play format is “perfect”

Although Ceti Alpha V is now being developed as a scripted audio drama podcast, Nick Meyer hesitated to call the project a “podcast,” preferring “radio play.” Meyer has a particular fondness for the format going back to when he directed several radio plays in his college days. When asked if he felt Ceti Alpha V would be diminished as a result of it being a radio play, Meyer was quick to counter that he felt the format was ideal. On Portal 47, he elaborated:

“I really love radio plays, and I’ll tell you why I think they’re cool… I believe that all great artistic media, with one arguable exception, rely for their success on something that they leave out. Paintings do not move. Music possesses no intellectual content. Words are just code on a page… It is the imaginary contribution of the audience… that puts this all together.”

Calling the work a “radio play” compares the upcoming scripted podcast to the pre-television era of entertainment, when stories would be performed by actors and enhanced by music and audio special effects to make up for the absence of visuals. Fans of audio performances sometimes refer to it as “theatre of the mind,” and it is this ability of the audience to fill in the missing visuals that Meyer wants to use:

“When I’m looking for a movie, I’m looking for what I want to leave out. Radio is perfect because it’s all your imagination. Imagination is perfect because it doesn’t need to be trained.”

Nicholas Meyer announcing his Ceti Alpha V project at the Star Trek Day 2022 event in Los Angeles

The history of this project goes back to when Nicholas Meyer was brought in as a consulting producer for the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. At the Star Trek Day event in 2022, he explained how Ceti Alpha V had evolved over the years:

“Alex Kurtzman made an interesting suggestion to me. He said, ‘I wonder what happened during those 15 years’ that Khan was marooned or exiled or transplanted, take your pick, to Ceti Alpha V, which was at the time of flourishing planet. I thought that was a really cool idea. I wound up writing three one-hour episodes for a Star Trek television show that for reasons beyond Alex or my control hasn’t been made until now. So it’s going to be a podcast. It’s going to start life as a podcast. I will take those scripts, adapt them, expand them, and as with all writing, get a chance to make them better. So I hope you’ll all tune in for them.”

There have been a number of Star Trek audio productions in the past, but they have primarily been done as audiobooks or were recordings of live performances. Last year, Simon and Schuster Audio released the original audio drama Star Trek: Picard: No Man’s Land. Ceti Alpha V would be the first official scripted Star Trek podcast; scripted podcasts are growing, some even attracting high-profile talent like Batman: The Audio Adventures‘ large cast that includes Brent Spiner.

During Meyer’s time on Portal 47, there was no discussion regarding how the podcast would fit into Star Trek canon. Trek showrunners have long held that any event that appears in a TV show or movie is considered canon, while stories from novels and comic books are not. It is unclear where officially produced podcasts would fall under that distinction.

Khan’s story in exile has been told before, most recently in IDW’s 2020 comic book mini-series Star Trek: Khan – Ruling in Hell.

The story of Ceti Alpha V has been touched before, but never by the man who wrote Star Trek II.

The full video with Meyer was livestreamed to subscribers of Portal 47, a live/online monthly package of features spotlighting and hosting the often unheralded backstage creators of Trek from author/host, speaker and behind-the-scenes archivist Larry Nemecek.

This is another developing story so stay tuned for the next update on Ceti Alpha V.

UPDATE: Watch full Meyer interview 

The full interview has now been released on Nemecek’s Trekland YouTube page.

 


 

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Wrath of Khan screenplay completed in 12 days.

Khan audio production completed in 12 years?

But years can seem like days!

;-)

Seriously, I am looking forward to this and I hope it will be available on Audible.

Ha, nicely played, sir.

And I’m looking forward to it, too. Sounds like a fun idea.

Khan’s screenplay was cut and pasted by Meyer in 12 days.

I hope so cause I wanna listen to it on my way to work and back

As an avid listener to BBC Radio 4, and scripted podcasts like “Alan Partridge: From the Outhouse”, I welcome this being a fully-fledged radio play!

A-Haaa!!

Truly hope this happens and hope it bursts the door open for more Star Trek audio plays.

By the way Nicholas Meyers narration of and his book The View From the Bridge is great.

I’m interested in our Starfleet heroes; spending time with Khan and his followers without Starfleet present sounds depressing.

It would be interesting to go back and forth between KHAN and Starfleet, and eventually find out what caused the latter the disregard or forget about Ceti Alpha V.

I have always been under the impression that Kirk purposely buried the report on Khan, et al. because he knew what a threat he could pose to the galaxy if released from Cetus Alpha V. The line he says to Terrell in WOK, “I know what he blames me for,” alluded to that, has been my thinking all these years. So Starfleet may have never known he was there at all…

Sorry, but that would be kind of stupid. If nobody knows there’s a dangerous threat on Ceti Alpha V it’s only a matter of time until somebody stumbles across it by accident, and likely unprepared.

There’s a conceit like this in FEDERATION, where we find out Kirk and co cover up Z. Cochrane’s existence, only to have it bite them in the ass in a big way a couple months later.

The problem with that is there were too many people on the enterprise who knew about it.

I assume it was just the same thing that Captain Freeman is always complaining about. Starfleet does a bad job of checking in on planets after their initial contact. Even in Space Seed, Spock suggested that they wait a century before checking on Khan.

Yeah that’s a great point which LDS pointed out again when it visited Ornara in season 3. That was the former drug addicts the Enterprise D encountered nearly 20 years ago. They actually turned out fine but the fact no one bothered to see how they were doing could’ve been disastrous for that planet and it could’ve torn itself apart.

I do think on one hand, it’s pretty realistic that Starfleet isn’t doing a lot of follow up when you have thousands of ships in the fleet and making first contacts with so many planets; especially the vast distances many are in that and too far or isolated that starships haven’t been back to for years or ever. Same time, some of the more ‘problematic’ ones should at least be flagged or checked on. It’s odd they don’t have any system in place to do that with even by the 24th century.

Honestly I’m curious what the story is going to be here. Khan had no enemies or anything like that while exiled. Sure he had climate issues and such but that doesn’t necessarily sound fun. Having said that, I have faith in Meyer to turn out a good story. Specifically I would love to know how Khan blames Kirk for the death of his wife.

I always thought it was just because Kirk left them there.

Sure I guess that’s true. But honestly the only story I can see here is a climate story when the planet goes out of orbit and becomes inhabitable.

As Jack says, I always figured it was just because Kirk left them on the planet.

Yuppers. I know. I’m just saying a classic story has a protagonist and antagonist. I don’t see both here. But like I said, I trust Meyer to turn out a good story :)

Miss you btw!

No enemies that we know of, officially. It’s been a while since I read it, but I seem to remember the Greg Cox book depicting Khan’s people descending into infighting.

Kirk left him on Ceti Alpha V where Khan encountered the Ceti bug that he eventually used on Chekov and Tyrell.

I believe he says that it killed many of his crew “including his beloved wife” as he introduces the bug to them.

He also blames Kirk because “nobody bothered to check on their progress”.

I’m down for it, because it seems like it could be a worthy side story. It’s not something you can build a franchise up with… but could be like Andor is to Star Wars… an interesting and very specific corner of the universe that can be told differently. Where you can play with varying ideas of what Star Trek is. Rather than a mainstream series / movie.

Rather let’s take some from cues from Star Trek into Darkness and blame Section 31 instead.

They deliberately deleted certain details of Kirk’s encounter with Khan, knowing that Khan and his followers may be weaponised.

Then the fact that Ceti Alpha VI exploded without anyone from Starfleet noticing that… Surely the Reliant’s navigational charts couldn’t have been so out of synch to mistake an entire planet for another?

All this smells of a massive cover-up from within Starfleet ;)

Ah, but I hate Section 31 and wish they left it with DS9…

How does s31 work it so Chekov doesn’t recognize the name of the star system they are in or its importance till he reads ‘botany bay’ on the seatbelt? Prosaic as it must have been, Sowards’ original story supposedly actually had Chekov reading up on Khan before they meet up on the planet. That DOES sort of trash the big reveal though.

It’s just the kind of minutiae I’m willing to overlook and not need a specific explanation of. sure.. he knew Khan, but doesn’t remember the name of the ship.

Oh my gosh me too. I hate what Discovery did with S31 and As much as I like Michelle Yeoh I wish that movie would not happen!

You’re definitely on to something here, and I think that is a more than plausible explanation.

Not only the navigational charts would make no sense, where were is all the debris of a planet that blew up? That should be everywhere but oddly not even a chunk of the planet floating anywhere.

Maybe a black hole just swallowed it up. ;)

I’m sure some will complain, but considering how successful the Darth Vader synthesized voice was on Obi-Wan Kenobi, I would love to hear a version of this with a Ricardo Montalban voice. He really cannot be equaled. Even Benedict Cumberbatch failed.

No.

Cumberbatch sounded like an A.I. chatbot if it went evil.

Cumberbatch was the most racist casting ever.

Many things make that movie suck, but that casting is at the top of the list.

I’m genuinely surprised that this isn’t discussed more. The way they whitewashed the character was galling.

Agreed. And the entire Khan debacle is why JJ Abrams should stay faaaaaar away from doing Star Trek ever again. This was a guy, I know it’s crazy to imagine this now, that many fans were truly excited for to be making Star Trek because they oddly believed he was a huge TOS fan and if anyone could get stay true to canon, it was him. Instead he took one of Trek’s most iconic characters, one of the very few even non fans may have heard of and just took a huge dump on him. Just did not remotely care, simply wanted the name ‘Khan’ in the movie. And that’s literally all we got, his name, because that ‘character’ could’ve been anybody else…or it should have been.

It is still one of the most tone deaf castings in movie history a decade later.

Along with Chuck Connors as Geronimo.

Benico Del Toro or Javier Bardem wouldve been ‘excellent’ casting (unfortunately Bardem had signed up to play a similar character for Skyfall around the same time, and they wouldn’t pay BDT his asking price) Antonio Bandarus wouldve been good (but possibly too old) , and I wonder if even Johnny Depp would’ve considered it? (obviously too expensive and in demand back then, but it’d have been a change for him to be a villain and get pumped up etc, and he’s probably a ToS fan)

Alternatively once they couldn’t get a suitable actor they couldve simply changed ‘Khan’ to a random augment (Joachim?) and had Cumberbatch play that. and then the big reveal he’s been trying to free Khan who’d be hidden away in a s31 secret base (we’d see CGI 1966 Montalban as Khan at the end in a cryopod)..but then maybe that would’ve all been too ‘deep dive’ for audiences idk

My first thought when I read this was “Oh, I hope they get Benedict Cumberbatch to voice Khan again….joking, of course.

Well, let’s face it, Cumberbatch was cast in large part because he was the flavor of the month at the time. It’s not like there aren’t a ton of great voice actors they could use for this particular project.

But we’ll never know if actors like James Earl Jones and Ricardo Montalban can’t be equaled if we don’t give other actors a bloody chance to work at it. Emphasis on work. You know? Earning a living. Getting ahead. Having a career. A human career that we as fans can follow and support.

The one thing I’m glad about, is they didn’t try to have him match Montalban. There was no good way to do that after casting Cumberbatch. As much as I disagree with how that character was written and portrayed in that film, it would have been a bigger disaster to have someone try to imitate. I prefer to let Montalban’s performance stand on its own. Vader’s voice is its own thing.. it was always a voice over. But for an audio book / podcast / radio play.. I’m just not sure how I’ll feel hearing his voice because it might be a distraction? but I have to admit, if there is a reason to do it, maybe that’s the only format it could work in.

I love how everyone is concerned with Vader’s voice when only David Prowse brought Vader his stature, his height, his might and awesomeness. Not Hayden who wasn’t tall enough or imposing. Yes James Earl brought the finishing touches. He was the voice.

The man in the suit is not much concern because it’s still… a man in a suit.

Eh…sounds good.

If not LIVE ACTION, then an animated movie or mini-series would have been welcome ( think of some the animation studios producing work for Netflix and suchlike ).

A missed opprtunity methinks.

It was originally written as a miniseries, but that plan died when Discovery went into a nosedive and Meyer and the rest of the original writers got ousted.

This is Ceti Alpha V!

Six months in it’s going to get a bit monotonous, no?

I’m curious if the recent retcon of Khan (hah!) will play into this at all.

Sandblasted white, maybe?

Yikes I hope not. I was more referring to the fact that Khan was now born in 2014 or so rather than the 1990’s.

I have to repeat what is one of my favorite lines from all of Star Trek: “And this was all supposed to happen in 1992!” If you’re not a real Trekkie, you just won’t get that one. The way the Romulan assassin is in the middle of a rant when she gets to that, shrieking by that point, just makes it more perfect.

(I think my all time favorite line is from T’Ana: “Hey! Migleemo! Read the f***in’ SIGN!”)

Lest you be mistaken, I do not only know the newer versions of Trek.

Same. The writers failed to understand that this wasn’t needed. Star Trek’s History is not our history. It’s a fictional world, and doesn’t need to be shoehorned into ours.

Altman and Gross did a book on the history of the Bond films and I was fascinated to read Meyer’s account of his involvement on TOMORROW NEVER DIES. He was part of a writer’s room, but then delivered pages that took the idea in a direction nobody else could stomach, and when he defended it on the grounds that ‘you pay me to deliver genius,’ ms. Broccoli really cut him down to size and sent him packing. I have to say, I loved his idea — that the villain was going to orchestrate a war between China and India with the main goal being to reduce overpopulation in the world, and that he apparently succeeds in winning Bond to this cause as a humanitarian effort. It’s actually not too far from part of a Bond idea I’ve been writing on sporadically for the last year and a half (not that I think I’ll have a chance to present it.)

What’s weird is that Meyer’s premise about overpopulation would never play in today’s political climate. Even given that we have more people than ever before, and no real understanding of our planet’s carrying capacity, the fears about overpopulation seem to have been replaced by those about demographics, where there won’t be enough consumers and taxpayers to support us old folks and keep civilization running.

Wow, you’re totally right. Of course that might make it work better for a Bond villain, because it wouldn’t seem a popular or trendy choice so much as a far-thinking necessary one.

Meyer’s conceit is that the guy would do the usual trying to kill Bond 11 different ways before saying, that was all a test to see if you were good enough to become my guy in trying to save the world, and Bond would seem to go along with it for a time while I guess eventually routing the guy from within the organization, a la LICENCE TO KILL.

Bond films try to stay apolitical (outside of LIVING DAYLIGHT’s fling with taliban-esque forces, something Rambo also fell prey to back when certain seemingly lost causes had a romantic feel to them), but if this baddie was today trying to say we should be limiting the consumers and taxpayers to make sure this brand of civilization does NOT continue, that might make for a bold-ass statement.

My Bond story, such as it is, makes introducing a new Bond a feature and exists in pieces, where I’ve got, in my humble opinion, an amazing first 12 pages (pre-title-sequence and first scenes) that could work as a period piece or contemporary (just by varying the gadgets, like aerial mines for period and programmable drones a la INSURRECTION if contemporary), two different possible finales (one inspired by the novel DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER’s train climax, a sequence that in my mind would absolutely require the ‘007 theme’ — as opposed to ‘The James Bond Theme’, a tune that hasn’t turned up in the films since an anemic version dribbled out in MOONRAKER) and the idea that the main antagonist would have a kind of Lord Summerisle / WICKER MAN presence, which would justify including something like the Blofeld ‘Disneyland of Death’ garden in the YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE novel, something Eon has been thinking about using for years but still hasn’t really gone there. I even manage to work in Paymaster Troop, who is mentioned once or twice in the novels as the office nuisance at BritIntel, mainly so I can have Bond make a throwaway line about how he never, in the office or the field, ever makes a point of wanting to mind his Ps and Qs.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so hooked by a notion that has no practical way forward, not since the early 90s when I felt compelled to come up with a pre-FIREFLY FIREFLY-esque universe, but that was back when I was still trying to make zero-budget films myself. I’ve never been into fanfiction, writing or reading, but I guess that is what this amounts to. Might just post it on a Bond fan site in partial form, because I can’t see any other way to get it noticed, and since the work thus far is something I feel strongly about, it differs from some of my other scripting tries, like TNG specs, where I wasn’t even all that personally attached to my own writing.

edit addon: apropos of nothing at all, I just read that JUGGERNAUT is finally coming out on blu-ray, which made me think back to the first time I heard the title as a teen, when I figured it ought to be the name of a Russ Meyer movie about big-breasted astronauts. Don’t know how that notion slipped through the cracks of history.

Well, it seems to me that the message of SKYFALL as enunciated by Madame Densch was in fact pretty damned political: those we entrust with our safety sometimes have to operate in some pretty dicey gray areas to get the job done, and we’d best leave them to it if we know what’s good for us. Which, I suppose, has the ring of truth about it, like all the best lies.

(And I know SKYFALL may not even count as Bond for you as you despise the Craig movies. I don’t, but I’m not a Bond-o-phile, so it’s not a big deal to me either way.)

The fact I don’t even remember her saying that gives some idea about how little regard I have for SKYFALL (along with NO TIME TO DIE and probably SPECTRE and CASINO, movies I will almost certainly never see again — and it isn’t just Craig, as I’d have VIEW TO A KILL and TOMORROW NEVER DIES on that list as well) but I have to concede that it sounds like you have a valid point.

As much as I’m anti-prequel these days, particularly with Star Trek, I’d make an exception for this to be done in live action. Mostly because Meyer is involved. I’ll take whatever we get, but to think this got shelved over the dreck that Secret Hideout is making is actually shocking.

“Whatever timeline we had went out the window some months ago.”

I wonder if he’s just referring to the strikes or if maybe this project is being re-assessed as part of the belt-tightening going on in the streaming world.

The strikes. Some re-assessment, sure, but if CA5 wasn’t alive he wouldn’t have talked publically about it.

That is awesome! The Star Wars franchise has had some phenomenal audio dramas, but the Star Trek universe has unfortunately few entries in the radio play genre, despite immense potential there. I’d love to finally have Star Trek break into the audio drama realm!

Nicholas Meyer is one of the nicest, most talented people I have ever met and I am so glad that he is doing more Star Trek.

this is never coming out…

Alex Kurtzman made an interesting suggestion to me. He said, ‘I wonder what happened during those 15 years’ that Khan was marooned or exiled or transplanted, take your pick, to Ceti Alpha V, which was at the time of flourishing planet.”

– this statement is why I don’t buy Kurtzman as being the Dave Filoni-esque uber fan to run the franchise. We already know the answer to that question via two pretty well-known books….sigh. This isn’t to say I’m not looking forward to seeing what Meyer has come up with but it’s annoying when people run around saying ‘oh I’m such a huge fan, put me in charge’

let’s be honest, 99% of the fanbase has never read those books or any other Trek books.

The vast majority of the fanbase only watches the shows and movies

I count myself as never read a Star Trek book in my life even though I been a fan since the 70s. I’ve only read one comic book series and that was the Picard Countdown comic book because I was so excited to know what was happening in the 24th century by that time.

The only books of interest to me in the early years of TOS on network and early syndication (having been a “fan” since before the airing of The Man Trap on NBC) were the Blish LOG books, just to refresh my teenage memory of the episodes I had already seen.

PS: Before The Man Trap? Yes, I was hooked from catching the promo ads before the premiere on NBC.

I’m currently rereading the Greg Cox novel To Reign in Hell (detailing the Ceti Alpha V years) and its really good, the IDW comic version is fun too.

That’s beta cannon. “pretty well known” trek books doesn’t mean much. There are entire live action shows and movies some people have never heard of.

The irony to your point is a lot of Star Wars fans have criticized Dave Filoni because he apparently ignores or just overwrites all the books and comics to fit his own stories too.

Lucasfilm’s fault for their marketing speak that all the Disney era tie in fiction is canon. When everyone knows the tv series and movies are not beholden to some comic, video game or book. I mean they didn’t care for the rules of the Star Wars universe going back to Force Awakens, why bother with canon. JJ didn’t care and Rian didn’t care. I think Dave actually does for the most part, he has reverence for George.

I am very curious about the radio play format, but I think this could well be a movie for streaming, following Section 31. (By the way, those two are the Trek projects from Alex that seemed to be stuck forever in development hell. S31 is now moving forward, in a new format. Here’s for Ceti Alpha V following suit!

Agreed. As with Sec 31, I wouldn’t be interested in a series about CAV, but a film would be just fine.

Terry Matalas actually explained in an interview he was originally suppose to be the one to make Ceti Alpha V as a show runner. But when they decided to do Picard, it was cancelled because they simply didn’t have the money for both. And it was not even a question which one the fanbase would be more excited for so that one got cut.

My guess that literally happened with Section 31 and was basically cancelled when SNW became a thing and they only had enough money to do one of them. The better, more popular idea just won out.

And it proves while we’re getting more Star Trek today, it’s not infinite either. It’s probably the same reason we’re not getting a Legacy show (yet) since SFA was already being developed and that’s probably much cheaper to make. But Section 31 is probably only happening as a TV movie because Yeoh has been pushing for it, but it’s better than nothing. And it gives both people who wanted more Georgiou (and the people who didn’t) a good compromise.

They really could take inspiration from Big Finish Production’s Doctor Who audio dramas and partner with them or someone similar to go all in on audio dramas/radio plays for Star Trek. Paramount could raise the profile by officially putting their stamp of approval on it and making the stories canon, although that wouldn’t necessarily be needed. I do think it would raise the profile of the productions, though.

They could be promoted through their socials. I listened to a series of audio dramas on SiriusXM a while back involving Marvel Comics and their Wastelanders interconnected stories. They were internally consistent with each other, so those stories were their own continuity. Paramount could do something similar with ST stories.

I think Department of Temporal Investigations would be a great topic for a series of audio dramas. With time travel, they have the option of not only new characters, but also visiting known characters who could guest for an episode or three.

I think a podcast is beneath him. I’d rather see the man who directed Time After Time, STII, STVI, and The Day After, writing and directing a Star Trek streaming movie or mini series.

It sounds like they don’t want him anywhere near live action Trek again. He was unceremoniously booted off Discovery after just one year (but yet Michelle Paradise, worst Trek show runner ever, manages to keep her job for three seasons) and he wrote a Trek movie two years ago and even pitched it to Paramount and they never called him back.

Fans have to accept while many still see Meyer as the darling of Star Trek the studio seems to think his days are far over.

And while a podcast isn’t exactly top tier filmmaking, you’re still going to be able to at least hear the story he directly wrote, the first since TUC. Just think of it more as an audiobook. Come to think of it, maybe they should consider making it into a novel as well.

Yes it’s quite unfortunate that the studio has chosen the flagrantly incompetents to head the franchise while the talented people are ostracized. Michelle Paradise being a prime example of in with the bad, out with the good. That’s what happens when TPTB are too cowardly to stand against the tide of social media hysterics and opt to please the screaming hordes instead.

That’s what happens when TPTB are too cowardly to stand against the tide of social media hysterics and opt to please the screaming hordes instead.

Sorry but that’s nonsense. There was never social media hysterics asking for Nick Meyer to be removed from Discovery. Nor was there ever social media hysterics asking for Michelle Paradise to work on the show. Actually, if TPTB were “opting to please the screaming hordes” as you claim, Paradise should have been fired years ago.

My post went over your head. Forget it.

has anybody ever heard her account of the experience? Could call it THIS SIDE OF PARADISE.