New Star Trek TV Series (update - Star Trek: Discovery)
Zanthian
Mitey Worrier Icrontian
It’s only logical it would come to this. The rejuvenation of Star Trek on the big screen, eventually, had to do the same for the franchise’s native medium, television. And after months of rumors and speculation, it’s actually happening—Star Trek is coming back to TV.
Multiple outlets are reporting that Alex Kurtzman, co-writer of 2009’s Star Trek and its sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, will executive produce a new Star Trek show through CBS Television Studios.
The show will premiere in January 2017 with a preview episode on CBS and then, in the U.S., move exclusively to the CBS video on-demand and streaming service, CBS All Access. It’ll be the first developed specifically for the CBS streaming service.
Internationally, the show will “be distributed concurrently for television and multiple platforms.”
So what’s this series going to be about? Here’s all the official press release said:
The brand-new “Star Trek” will introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966.
It also added this:The new television series is not related to the upcoming feature film “Star Trek Beyond,” which is scheduled to be distributed by Paramount Pictures in summer 2016.
“This new series will premiere to the national CBS audience, then boldly go where no first-run Star Trek series has gone before – directly to its millions of fans through CBS All Access,” said Marc DeBevoise, Executive Vice President/General Manager of CBS Digital Media in a press release. “We’ve experienced terrific growth for CBS All Access, expanding the service across affiliates and devices in a very short time. We now have an incredible opportunity to accelerate this growth with the iconic Star Trek, and its devoted and passionate fan base, as our first original series.”It’s certainly uncharted territory for a new Star Trek show to be available exclusively on a streaming service. But with the 50th anniversary coming up, Trek embracing technology seems like a pretty fitting celebration.
Comments
WOOHOO!
UNFIXABLE TRUST ISSUES.
I know that it's still a ways off and there is still a lot to learn about the show, but all I really want to know right now is what time period they are thinking of setting the show in.
I really hope that they go into the farther future of the Star Trek story:
Setting it in the early days of warp travel would be a disaster after the fuck-up that was Enterprise, and Scott Bakula's irredeemable angry-face character.
Setting it contemporary with TOS would run them into a lot of weird narrative barriers. First, that's where the modern films are set, so they would compete with the films for narrative power. Second, they would have to make a lot more decisions about how much the timey-wimey stuff in the films changed the original lore, which is a recipe for butt-hurt TOS fans (if anyone cares about them), and will also continue to alienate TNG era fans who can't help but wonder how the changes affect their favorite era. Finally, it's the least interesting era of the galaxy, at least to younger fans, due to its reliance on allegories to 60's and 70's world politics.
Setting it contemporary with TNG would be a mistake mostly because that era is already crowded with three major stories; any series set there would inevitably be forced to rehash a lot of the shit that went down in TNG, Voyager, and DS9 (not to mention the quadrant-wide denouement of the TNG era films. Also, it has a compounded version of the timey-wimey issue with the TOS era: If it's intended to be the same universe as the new films, they'll have to decide how the films change the events of the TNG era, and that will mean essentially rewriting (fans will see: DESTROYING) the galactic history of that era. The films already sort of make the three best Star Trek series feel a bit tenuous (since the history they are based on is canonically changed) it would be a mistake to hang a neon sign on that problem.
Thus: The best time to set the new series is ahead of all existing series by at least 200 years (but even better more like 500 years). That's plenty of time to distance the plot from the other eras, and allow the writers to sort of refer to those stories in a vague enough way that they don't have to commit to specific changes (like "Did the Battle of Wolf 359 still turn out as depicted in TNG and DS9?! because if the time-travel shit changed the outcome of that battle... holy cheeses!"). while still being, technically in the same universe as the films. Also, it will give the writers and producers the chance to do more new things. The costumes and ships can get a complete make-over, they wont have to work around the politics and allegiances already established in the other shows, and they could travel to new galaxies where the aliens are not all humanoid descendants of the Preservers race.
Imagine a Star Trek in which the Federation flagship is exploring a whole new galaxy at Warp 40, and the crew is a representative sample of every race in the Milky Way because they are all now part of the Federation. The entire Milky Way Galaxy has become the boringly peaceful and productive Home that Earth plays in the other series. It would keep the name, and tie into the IP of Star Trek, but it would be the fresh, interesting sci-fi series that we really need. Star Trek without the Star Trek baggage.
I'm getting excited just imagining it.
If it isn't, sounds like you could right some fan fiction.
As a hardcore Trek fan, something after the arrival of Voyager in Sector 001 is critical to my interest. There's massive opportunity to revive the Borg as a long-term threat. Destruction of the transwarp conduits and the Unimatrix didn't end the Borg: it just restricted their capabilities to warp velocities. In 80 years, they could knock at earth's door again.
Dealing with the fallout of the collapse of the RSE and military decapitation of the Klingon Empire could alsobe thrilling TV.
The Federation also was not a saint during the war with the Dominion. There were certainly war crimes and ethically terrible choices, not to mention financial hardship that would push worlds out of the UFP. For example, the Federation annexed several planets during the war. Do they want to stay?
Is the Dominion totally defeated? How chaotic would the Romulans be with no leaders and no royalty? How about the Klingons with no military, no heroes, and few nobles?
What became of Bajor?
I may have a hypothetical timeline written for this already.
The Star Trek Online community has dealt with many of those subjects. They just finished a major war with the Iconians. TNG ran into there gateways and the data probe viruses destroyed the Yamato. Romulus was blown up by Sela in a back door way. The Krenim Imperium technology was going to be used to remove the Iconian influence from the timeline (Voyager). Luckily in a Star Trek storyline, they learned the error of their ways and the Iconians have gone into isolation. The developers have stayed involved with the Star Trek people and have progressed the story from the end of Voyager. Many of the characters and their actors are involved with the game. The Borg are still around but now have another group known as the Liberated Borg (Hugh). Actually a good story progression. It is set about 75 years after Voyager.
The problem is that, because of the time-travel stuff in the film, much of that stuff either didn't happen or happened differently than the way it was presented in the original series, and I doubt they would want to make a series that ignores the canon changes in the new films.
For all we know right now, there was no War with the Dominion, or perhaps DS9 didn't even fall into federation administration which would change a lot of stuff, including Voyager never chasing the maquis into the badlands.
Personally, I would prefer the new producers and writers just leave that whole era alone, rather than try to reconcile it with the films.
Rumors say that the series will feature a different crew on a different ship each season.
Star Trek: Discovery arrives this fall on CBS.
Time period is 10 years prior to Kirk.
Well, shit.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/4/17596036/star-trek-patrick-stewart-picard-new-series
Patrick Stewart will reprise his role as Jean-Luc Picard in an all-new series set 20 years after the events of Star Trek Nemesis. I finally get my wish for an original timeline show.
I'm so pumped for the best captian to be back at it
Captain Picard in the seat:
.
So, it's not exactly as I imagined it, but Discovery is now pretty close to the Trek that I wanted it to be.