New Star Trek TV Series in 2017(Nerdgasm Alert!)

[wdolson]

Science Fiction shows often struggle to get going. Something like Star Trek is fitting into an audience known to the viewer in most cases, but it still has to establish where it is in the timeline and the last two shows have played games with the cannon. The first few episodes have to establish the universe as well as the characters. A tougher challenge than say a cop show set in New York. With something set in a known environment the writers don't need to tell you a lot about the environment because most viewers are going to have some idea what new York is like, even if they have never been there.

I suspect that after they leave the evil Trek universe they will audience will find that the universe we've been seeing all season is yet another one from the one we saw in TOS, NG, DS9, and Voyager. There were stories when the series started that there would be deviations from cannon at the start, but they would be explained.

Personally I don't like those games. I think the current movie franchise is unwatchable. My comment after watching the 2nd movie was "I want that 3 hours of my life back!" and we haven't seen the 3rd movie. Enterprise was poor the first two seasons in large part because of the deviations from cannon, but they got some hard core Trek fans on the writing staff in the 3rd season and were beginning to pull the show back to cannon when it was canceled. The last part of the 3rd season was pretty good IMO.

Despite the playing around with the history of the Trek universe, the writing, acting, and special effects has been good. If you're only expecting Trek-ish, it's a well done show.

 

[SMAlset]

Watched all the Trek stuff and been enjoying ST: Discovery from the beginning. Very much into the characters and storyline. Enjoyed last week's surprise ending too. That really caught me off guard.

I'm not so concerned about cannon though and imagine pretty hard to do given all the years and various shows/movies. Just enjoy a good story which I find this to be. BTW while I find it kind of hard to watch "After Trek" which follows the show, I've enjoyed seeing and getting an insight into the creators and actors of the show. Love that Michael brings hope for the future. Interesting choices to have her interact with Mirror Sarek and her Mirror former captain. Also loved how she and Saru managed to get the secret files off Michael's ship and over to the ISS Discovery for examination.

 

[cwerdna]

'Star Trek: Discovery' replaces its showrunners (again)

Berg and Harberts were regularly on After Trek and it was interesting to have their insight.

Berg and Harberts are out following claims of abuse and overspending, said THR.
...
CBS just replaced Fuller's replacements, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts. Executive producer and co-creator Alex Kurtzman, a Star Trek veteran of both films and TV shows, will take over the role.

 

[S'toon]

I tried watching each of the series after the original. Each one was horrid. This last one is the worst yet.

I am baffled why they decided to do a retcon for the new movie series. It wasn't as if the original story of Jim's time in college was told yet. The first of this new movie series was so bad I haven't watched any since.

 

[wdolson]

The new movie series is awful IMO. We saw the first one in the theater and I was not impressed, then watched the second on streaming one just before the third one came out. My comment after watching the second movie was "I want that 2+ hours of my life back!" The movies feel like a super hero movie aimed at kids. There are so many unrealistic things my skin crawls.

The series strays from the original timeline which does annoy me, but the writing and acting are both far better than the reboot movie series. It annoys me a bit to stray from the timeline, but I find the new series worth watching despite that.

 

[RobStark]

TNG was the best, and it is not even close.

DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise started horrid and got much better. Much like TOS.

The current movies are not really Trek, they are action movies with superficial ST on the surface.

 

[cwerdna]

‘Star Trek: Short Treks’ To Premiere On CBS All Access In October – Watch The Teaser

 

[cwerdna]

Another season 2 trailer was released in the past week.

is another copy. I'm guessing there might be geo-locking/blocking on the CBS All Access vs. Netflix copies of the trailers.

 

[wdolson]

There was also the first stand alone short story posted too.

 

[Zythryn]

Ensign Tilly went to “Musk Junior High” according to episode 2 of season 2.

 

[SMAlset]

Ensign Tilly went to “Musk Junior High” according to episode 2 of season 2.

So I wasn’t the only one who noticed that! I pointed that out to my husband when they said that in case he missed it. Now I don’t know if it was a wink or not but right after they mentioned the JR HS, the character’s name was May...like Maye Musk. Really enjoyed the episode and actually new season. I like the new characters so far and direction they are going this season and Anson Mount I think was a great cast for Capt. Pike. Just a super talented cast all the way around.

I watched After Trek last year (kind of hard to get through at times but loved all the background and production staff and actor interviews). Looks like they dropped it for Season 2. Kind of sorry about that. We have enjoyed the short stories.

 

[wdolson]

So I wasn’t the only one who noticed that! I pointed that out to my husband when they said that in case he missed it. Now I don’t know if it was a wink or not but right after they mentioned the JR HS, the character’s name was May...like Maye Musk. Really enjoyed the episode and actually new season. I like the new characters so far and direction they are going this season and Anson Mount I think was a great cast for Capt. Pike. Just a super talented cast all the way around.

I watched After Trek last year (kind of hard to get through at times but loved all the background and production staff and actor interviews). Looks like they dropped it for Season 2. Kind of sorry about that. We have enjoyed the short stories.

I read a background piece on the show about 5 months ago. The show is struggling financially. Netflix bought the worldwide rights to season 1 for the cost of production, so anything they made in the US was pure profit, but they didn't get anywhere near as many subscriptions in the US as they hoped and Netflix passed on the same deal for season 2. They made the shorts in between filming episodes of the second season in the hopes of selling the package of shorts around the world, but they didn't get many services taking interest.

CBS All Access is also bringing back Captain Picard in a new series set in the Next Generation timeline (post STNG I would guess). Other than there is going to be a new Picard series, I haven't heard anything more.

They are trying to get All Access off the ground and it was planned to be built around Star Trek, but I think the franchise has been badly hurt by some flops. I thought Enterprise's last season was on track with the ST timeline, but the first couple of seasons were awful and they lost too much audience to recover.

The ST superhero movies were pretty bad too. I've heard that franchise was canceled. Bad Robot put a lot of faith in making money from merchandising, but it didn't happen. Merchandise from the old shows outsold merchandise from the movies.

Paramount worked out a complex deal for the movies and TV. The movies were made by Bad Robot but had to be set in an alternate timeline. After a waiting period after the first movie, CBS (current owner of the rights to ST) could reboot a TV show set in sort of an original timeline universe, but with some tweaks.

The original plan was to work the Enterprise in as sort of a cameo in Discovery eventually, but with the struggle to get funding for season 2 off the ground, they wrote in more material that tied season 2 to the original series.

The sudden departure of Les Moonves also caused some turmoil. Discovery was sort of a pet project of his and with his leaving under a cloud, the enemies of the show within CBS are trying to get it canceled.

All Access is struggling. They are trying to compete with established streaming sites like Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. The other networks just team up with a streaming site to make their shows available online, but CBS wanted to go their own way as well as create web only content. Streaming sites or other premium services are the way to go for shows that have an older audience. People over 50 don't tend to buy as much stuff, so advertisers on traditional TV are not that interested in shows that cater to older audiences. Shows like Longmire had good audience numbers for basic cable, but couldn't get advertisers because their 25-50 demographic was too low. The last couple f seasons were on one of the streaming sites.

CBS figured a Star Trek reboot was ideal to launch their service. Most ST fans are Boomers and Gen X and most are over 50 now, so advertisers won't pay much to access that audience. And science fiction fans are probably more technically oriented than the general population and less intimidated by the idea of a streaming site.

I hope season 2 gets better ratings than season 1. If it doesn't, it may be the final season.

 

[Joe F]

We totally missed the Musk reference! Will have to watch it again.

Hopefully it’s not cancelled; It’s the only reason we pay for All Access without commercials, then turn it off after the last episode.

 

[SMAlset]

CBS All Access is the only paid additional network separate channel I would pay for and we have the 5.99 with commercials access. We currently have DirecTV as well and irked me to subscribe for more CBS but have found it worth it. As for the major networks, almost all of the programming we still watch is on CBS. I love All Access to stream whenever I want to see them. Plus we enjoy “Star Trek Discovery” and watched all “the Good Wife” eps and continued with Access Only’s “the Good Fight” episodes.

We have old DirecTV equipment and are being forced to make a decision in April as to upgrade or do something else. Due to the cost of service and fact we don’t watch that much TV other than CBS shows, we are seriously thinking of doing something else. Do have to say DirecTV has been the most reliable service, over all cable we’ve had before. If we have a gap in channel coverage at least we’ll still be able to watch CBS for shows and news.

The background info was interesting and I do hope CBS All Access continues. Would be hard to give up all the streaming and Live TV I get with it. The app has been pretty good overall and they do respond to feedback. I’m pretty interested to see where ST Discovery goes this year and know the show itself has had a lot of behind the scenes changes.

 

[bxr140]

I cancelled all access after season 1 and plan to get it for a month to binge season two. Does all access sill have season 1 available for streaming?

 

[SMAlset]

Saw a Verge article about the Second Season and that CBS All Access had posted the Season 2 Episode 1 video (complete) on Youtube to encourage people to sign up for All Access. Here's the link if interested:

I cancelled all access after season 1 and plan to get it for a month to binge season two. Does all access sill have season 1 available for streaming?

Yes, all of Season 1's 15 episodes are available as well as Season 2's 1 & 2. Episode 2 was directed by Jonathan Frakes.

 

[Lloyd]

Sorry, not signing for all access just for one show I would like to watch. I’ll wait for it to show elsewhere.

 

[SMAlset]

Despite or inspite of also paying for DirecTV right now, the way I look at it is for 5.99 a month I get to see 4 (maybe 5) episodes of a show I enjoy for a price that is less than seeing one movie at our theater. At 5.99 it's slightly over a Tall at Starbucks and a pastry I might have one morning during the month for breakfast. Plus I can watch the show any time I want to sit down to see it or binge watch a few episodes if I got busy or was a way for a few weeks. And in our case we also enjoy a number of other CBS programs we get to see for the same price.

 

[SMAlset]

....All Access is struggling. They are trying to compete with established streaming sites like Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. The other networks just team up with a streaming site to make their shows available online, but CBS wanted to go their own way as well as create web only content. Streaming sites or other premium services are the way to go for shows that have an older audience. People over 50 don't tend to buy as much stuff, so advertisers on traditional TV are not that interested in shows that cater to older audiences. Shows like Longmire had good audience numbers for basic cable, but couldn't get advertisers because their 25-50 demographic was too low. The last couple f seasons were on one of the streaming sites.....

Apparently CBS is happy with it's All Access numbers. Saw this article yesterday on engadget:

"CBS reached its streaming subscription target two years early" . Hope that bodes well for my All Access shows like Star Trek: Discovery and The Good Fight.

 

[wdolson]

Interesting. It may be other programs on the service that are drawing subscriptions. Awareness of All Access is also not great. My SO's law partner is a Star Trek fan and six months ago he was completely unaware either All Access or Discovery existed. Word might be getting out better now.