New Star Trek Series

[Jan]

Show Runner has been announced! Bryan Fuller of Pushing Daisies (loved that show) and Hannibal and Dead Like Me and others.

This looks promising.

http://deadline.com/2016/02/star-trek-tv-series-bryan-fuller-showrunner-cbs-1201698956/

Jan

[Ubik]

Show Runner has been announced! Bryan Fuller of Pushing Daisies (loved that show) and Hannibal and Dead Like Me and others.

This looks promising.

http://deadline.com/2016/02/star-trek-tv-series-bryan-fuller-showrunner-cbs-1201698956/

Jan

This is great news!

[Jan]

They kinda needed somebody good after the disgruntlement of the announcement that it wouldn't be on network TV.

Jan

[Looney]

Did a post I posted in this thread get deleted?

Was it because I was negative or semi-negative against this news? (Because Hannibal ended up being terrible.)

[phazedout]

frankly non network tv is a good thing, means they aren't as beholden to advertisers and the vagaries of massive ratings right out of the gate.
I'm increasingly cynical about network tv, at least pay cable guarantees a certain number of episodes so arcs can be developed and a story told

[sarthaz]

I'm pretty cynical on this whole endeavor, because it's so clearly a ploy by CBS to bring viewership to their streaming service. The driving force behind this isn't that someone pitched a great Star Trek idea, and now everyone's excited by it; rather, no one was using CBS All Access, so the suits picked a property they own the rights to that has a guaranteed audience even if it's total garbage.

I'm both encouraged and discouraged by Fuller's involvement. He's clearly a fan and has been trying to take over Star Trek for a while now, so it's not like they've brought in some random dude like Stuart Baird who has no idea what he's doing. And there was certainly a time when Fuller had a unique and creative voice on television. However, that was ~10 years ago. Since then ... eh. What concerns me most is that he was so involved with Voyager. The Berman/Braga era ruined Star Trek. Voyager had arguably the most talented group of actors of any Trek show, but the writing and producing were so poor that Trek lost all its magic. And then they let most of those same people do Enterprise, with many of the same problems, the least of which was pandering to teenage boys with big boobs and pro wrestling crossovers.

For Trek to resurrect itself on television in any positive manner, you have to get away from all those people. It can't just be more of the same crap. Say what you will about the Bad Robot movie franchise, but it's fresh and different even with the same characters and plots. I question whether Fuller can separate himself from the Voyager team and bring new life into the franchise. Will we get the quirky uniqueness of Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls? Or will we get the stale lack of vision we saw in Voyager and Heroes?

I'm hopeful that they let him do what he wants to do. From a purely technical standpoint, the shows he has "created" have been unique and interesting, the shows he's "developed" have been kinda blah, and the shows he's simply worked on have been mostly crap. Where does this fall in the spectrum? I don't know. Even if he's credited as "creator", he's not creating this show from nothing. There are lots of constraints and voices making him conform to the Trekverse, so this is probably close to a "developed" than a "created", but time will tell.

From CBS's perspective, it's clear that they'd be okay slapping together anything, regardless of quality, calling it Star Trek and driving subscriptions to their online service. Do Kurtzman and Fuller have the ability and the desire to overcome that? I hope so.

[Looney]

HA! Missed that part about CBS All Access. Yeah I won't be paying for another service just to see Star Trek. If it were B5 then there is no question.

CBS All Access is $5.99 a month. Does anyone know if it is commercial free? (Just curious because I assume it is not.)

[Jan]

CBS All Access is $5.99 a month. Does anyone know if it is commercial free? (Just curious because I assume it is not.)

Dunno. I'd never even heard of it until the Trek thing came up. But I'm reserving judgment till I see the first episode that's going to be shown on network. It'll have to be pretty good for me to shell out any more.

Jan

[Ubik]

Dunno. I'd never even heard of it until the Trek thing came up. But I'm reserving judgment till I see the first episode that's going to be shown on network. It'll have to be pretty good for me to shell out any more.

Jan

I wonder if any third party services like Netflix will carry it? Otherwise, I'll likely torrent it, and if it's particularly good, show some support by paying for one month's subscription to the CBS online site, or find some way to financially support it.

[Ubik]

http://www.startrek.com/article/watc...ar-trek-series

Very short trailer, that pretty much gives nothing away. Not really a fan of the sound design or CGI on display here. But, I think it's more just to get people talking.

Note the plurals used... crews... interesting.

[Looney]

Note the plurals used... crews... interesting.

Note that they left out, "Lowest Budget Possible."

Sorry I am just not getting excited about this. I hope it is great, but my guess is it won't be. Everything I have heard gives me pause and that teaser didn't do much to change that feeling. The fact that it is a streaming show did get my hopes up, but they were shattered when I found out it was CBS streaming. I doubt the show will push any boundaries or be groundbreaking. More likely just a low budget ploy to get people signed up for the streaming service. I hope I am wrong.

[Ubik]

Note that they left out, "Lowest Budget Possible."

Sorry I am just not getting excited about this. I hope it is great, but my guess is it won't be. Everything I have heard gives me pause and that teaser didn't do much to change that feeling. The fact that it is a streaming show did get my hopes up, but they were shattered when I found out it was CBS streaming. I doubt the show will push any boundaries or be groundbreaking. More likely just a low budget ploy to get people signed up for the streaming service. I hope I am wrong.

If they want this as their flagship series (pardon the pun) for their streaming service, then surely they have a lot riding on it being a success. I mean it's Trek, it has an inbuilt audience, but it needs to make the same jump TNG did. It needs to be modern, smart and beautiful. With things like The Expanse and past shows like the BSG reboot, there's now a higher bar for SF shows.