sf/f TV development news - 2013

[RJDiogenes]

If it was real Trek and not the Abrams nonsense, I'd subscribe.

[jefferiestubes8]

I finally saw the "Last Resort" trailer during ads & tv previews before the movie previews for a screening of Prometheus at the cinema. Looks like a great 2 hour pilot episode. I think the season though won't be so much like the pilot and a lot slower.

Last Resort Trailer - ABC Network
2:45 length trailer.
It was great on the big screen too.

wind up being hunted and escape to a NATO outpost where they declare themselves to be the world's smallest nuclear nation.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...-resort-340749
I guess the rest will play out on that Island and a few trips with the sub back into the open waters with loads of flashbacks ala Lost.

[Temis the Vorta]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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If it was real Trek and not the Abrams nonsense, I'd subscribe.

Any Star Trek series on Showtime would make Abrams' "nonsense" look positively canonical by comparison. Think about what Showtime usually goes in for. Not a real good match for Star Trek, so they'd have to change it to fit, just as Abrams changed Star Trek to make it more modern-summer-popcorn-movie-friendly (which is why people complain about it being Star Wars-y - that just means it's calibrated to appeal to the global moviegoing public.)

Star Trek is going to be changed to fit whatever venue it ends up on - TV, movies, streaming. The TV ecosystem that created the series to date has vanished, and like any species that wants to survive, Star Trek must adapt or die. Of all the possibilities, Netflix strikes me as the one least prone to making big changes, so if you don't like the idea of change, that's the one to root for.

[Enterprise is Great]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056517?refCatId=14

Broadcast drama vet Brannon Braga is ready to try his hand at cable. The writer-producer behind hits including "24" has sold FX a script for drama series "Malice," a psychosexual paranormal thriller that redefines the events of the Salem Witch trials.

[JD]

I know this is heresy coming from a Trek fan, but I actually like Braga's stuff, and I like Witch stories, so I'm intrigued.

[Temis the Vorta]

FX should try to diversify a little more. They don't need another American Horror Story, they need something in the action sci fi line.

[jefferiestubes8]

Enterprise is Great wrote:

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http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056517?refCatId=14

Does this mean a period TV show set in the 1600s. i doubt it.
even flashbacks set in the 1600s?

[Guy Gardener]

The entire city was accidentally on LSD because the food supply was tainted.

That's what really happened.

Not that they wouldn't burn women to death on principle or for kicks, but at this one point in the time, perfectly reasonable people were seeing animals with people faces, people with animal faces, their family flying through the sky like Superman, and spiders or snakes everywhere...

Everyone was taking the brown acid.

Psycho sexual paranormal my ass.

I'd just like to see these people trying to make sense of LSD when they have no reason to believe that god and the Devil are not real and physically manifest in front of them.

Drew Carey "You can't be the devil, the devil has horns!"

The Devil "The Devil has horns? Hell! one bad hairday in the 16th century and suddenly the devil has horns."

[RJDiogenes]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Any Star Trek series on Showtime would make Abrams' "nonsense" look positively canonical by comparison. Think about what Showtime usually goes in for. Not a real good match for Star Trek, so they'd have to change it to fit, just as Abrams changed Star Trek to make it more modern-summer-popcorn-movie-friendly (which is why people complain about it being Star Wars-y - that just means it's calibrated to appeal to the global moviegoing public.)

Star Trek is going to be changed to fit whatever venue it ends up on - TV, movies, streaming. The TV ecosystem that created the series to date has vanished, and like any species that wants to survive, Star Trek must adapt or die. Of all the possibilities, Netflix strikes me as the one least prone to making big changes, so if you don't like the idea of change, that's the one to root for.

I'm not sure what Showtime usually goes in for; the last time I watched Showtime, Stargate was on there. Certainly nudity would not be inconsistent with Trek; Trek was originally very sexy, before Trekkies got all conservative. What we need is a Trek that is colorful, sexy and consistent with everything that has gone before, and also pushes the boundaries in the way that the original Trek did-- meaning that it would challenge both traditional and contemporary assumptions, not that it would be faux "edgy" in the grindhouse way that the current audience keeps asking for (in fact, it would be cool if they did a story blasting the superficiality of the D&G trend, a la "Bread And Circuses").

[Christopher]

Temis is right -- no matter how obsessive some fans get about continuity and consistent reality (and I'm one of those fans myself to a degree), Star Trek is ultimately a work of fiction, a creation of writers and artists, and it does indeed transform itself under different creators and for different formats and audiences. We like to pretend all the Trek series to date fit into a uniform continuity (and some of us always denounce the latest variation as too great a departure from that continuity), but that's a myth, an illusion resulting from familiarity. Each new incarnation of ST coming from different hands has been a reinvention, a transformation. For example, Nicholas Meyer's Trek movies take place in a Federation that's far more militaristic and far less technologically advanced than the one where ST:TMP or TNG took place. It's a radically different take on the Trek reality than the one Roddenberry had in mind. And Trek movies in general are more action-oriented and more scientifically ludicrous than the TV series, because of the different demands and expectations of sci-fi feature films vs. weekly television series. While Trek tie-in novels tend to be more in-depth and elaborate with their world-building, and so on. They don't really fit together with each other as neatly as we choose to pretend. (And some of us don't make that choice. There are still a few fans who refuse to believe that anything made after TOS, or at most TMP, counts as "real" Star Trek.)

So like any work of fiction, ST is adjusted and modified for new incarnations. We fans train ourselves to gloss over the differences so we can pretend that our conceit of a singular, consistent universe remains valid, but the people actually creating them have to take the more realistic view that they're works of fiction made for particular audiences and formats and need to be adjusted and reinvented accordingly.

Whatever form Star Trek comes back in, it will be different from what we knew before, because that's how fiction works. Any long-running multimedia franchise survives by change and adaptation - that's axiomatic. And yes, the purists will whine and scream about how wrong it is, just like they did with the Abramsverse and before that Enterprise and before that TNG and before that the TOS movies and before that the animated series. But other fans will accept it and embrace it just like they did with all the others, and they'll find a way to rationalize the changes and go on pretending it all fits together, just like they did with all the others. The key to the pretense of continuity is looking beyond the differences to the fundamental unities. But one shouldn't forget that the differences of approach and interpretation, the changes from one generation or medium to the next, have always been there.

[Kegg]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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I'm not sure what Showtime usually goes in for; the last time I watched Showtime, Stargate was on there.

Didn't Stargate have brief nudity in the pilot or something?
But yeah, Showtime currently follows the HBO-style model of programs with morally ambiguous characters with varying degrees of swearing sex and violence. Examples include Dexter (protagonist is a serial killer), Homeland (bi-polar, paranoid CIA operative), and The Borgias (notoriously corrupt pope).

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Any Star Trek series on Showtime would make Abrams' "nonsense" look positively canonical by comparison. Think about what Showtime usually goes in for.

Firstly, obviously, I don't think we'll see any Star Trek TV series (if we do) until after Abrams is done with the franchise Added to this I find it very unlikely that Star Trek will become a Showtime series - Star Trek's been a network powerhouse in the past, and more to the point has been family viewing in the sense that young children can did watch it. (Be honest: How old were you when you first saw Star Trek? Etc.)


Wanting Star Trek to suddenly act like it's The Wire meets Mad Men by way of Breaking Bad only there's Vulcans and Klingons is not quite the same as it actually becoming that kind of franchise. For similar reasons I'm fairly leery of the proposed Star Wars series which has invoked Deadwood as a comparison because when I think of Star Wars I think of two men conducting business transactions by saying 'cocksucker' every few minutes.


And really, space opera done in the manner of modern cable drama is nuBSG's thing.


There is obviously a benefit to cable though in that higher budget series can survive with much smaller audiences. This would allow Star Trek, which has bordered on niche, near-cancellation TV in the past, to hypothetically survive there... probably with a setup not that different to what Syfy's done int he past, honestly.

[DWF]

Paramount owns the movie rights to Star Trek and CBS owns the television rights so any Star Trek Tv series cn be run independently of the movie series. All it takes to put a Ster Trek show back on the air is a well sold concept and even TNG had to make new fans after it upset so many of the older fans.

[Christopher]

Kegg wrote:

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Didn't Stargate have brief nudity in the pilot or something?

There was a fairly substantial full-frontal nude scene in the pilot (with hints of alien-tentacle-rape fetish), plus another scene or two of a female character in a translucent top. The nudity was imposed over showrunner Brad Wright's objections, and he avoided including any more of it in the series -- and cut it out of the re-edited DVD version of the pilot a few years ago.

Added to this I find it very unlikely that Star Trek will become a Showtime series - Star Trek's been a network powerhouse in the past, and more to the point has been family viewing in the sense that young children can did watch it. (Be honest: How old were you when you first saw Star Trek? Etc.)

Well, I don't know about that. The original ST was meant to be an adult drama, the first non-anthology SFTV series that wasn't aimed at children. It constantly pushed the envelope in portraying skin and sexual content; it looks tame and kid-friendly to modern viewers, but it was almost as daring for its day as NYPD Blue was for the '90s.

Still, for the most part, later ST has been somewhat more family-friendly -- not always suitable for small children (particularly not DS9 with its adult holosuites and lesbian makeouts and rough Klingon sex and so on), but far from an adults-only show. And I think established fans sometimes forget that it's valuable to make a franchise accessible to a new generation of fans rather than just catering to the existing one.

But maybe there's room for more than one approach. Star Trek hasn't been just one thing for a long time. It's a whole big universe that can be a backdrop for many series. Look at how the all-ages Doctor Who has spun off both the decidedly adult Torchwood and the kid-oriented Sarah Jane Adventures. We've heard hints that Kurtzman & Orci may be considering developing a new Star Trek animated series, which would definitely have youth appeal; maybe that could be complemented by a more adult incarnation of ST on Showtime or the like.

[Temis the Vorta]

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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Does this mean a period TV show set in the 1600s. i doubt it.
even flashbacks set in the 1600s?

It's Braga, can time travel be far behind?

Whatever form Star Trek comes back in, it will be different from what we knew before, because that's how fiction works.

Star Trek could be back on TV in a form that's faithful to how it's always been on TV (maybe a compromise between the varying approaches of all the series). That would be valid as fiction, why not?

The problem is, that approach won't succeed because wherever Star Trek ends up, its first job is to appeal to people who already watch that channel. So if it's Showtime, it needs to win over Showtime viewers, etc. After that, they might think about appealing to Star Trek fans, to the extent that doesn't clash with appealing to Showtime viewers.

The one exception could be Netflix. Being subscription based, Netflix should be able to get by with a smaller audience than other outlets, which depend wholly or partly on ads (much less lucrative), and it might see Star Trek as a way of gaining new subscribers, by being "faithful" to what they want.

Then the problem is: what do they want? It's far easier for Showtime or Netflix to make shows for their own customers, who they know and understand, than for Star Trek fans, who are all over the map about what they want anyway.

I find it very unlikely that Star Trek will become a Showtime series

It's just an example, don't get hung up on it. Could be TNT, FX, even the dreaded SyFy. Showtime is more likely than some possibilities simply because it's part of CBS. But anywhere else, it would follow the same rules: that channel has existing viewers, and any show that channel airs must appeal to existing viewers or it won't get the greenlight in the first place.

has been family viewing in the sense that young children can did watch it.

When I talked about the TV ecosystem undergoing big changes, that's one of them. TV has fragmented into niche markets and that phenomenon has dismantled the notion of family friendly TV that various generations will watch. Now, kids have their shows and their parents have other shows.

Terra Nova was a recent attempt at family friendly programming. The adult audience bailed on it, probably because they were bored (I know I was.) Maybe it appealed to kids, but FOX only counts 18-49 as viewers, so kids under 18 did them no good. The Cartoon Network or ABC Family would be happy to get those kids as viewers, but wouldn't care about anyone over 18. I can't think of any broadcast or cable channels that target both adults and kids.

For similar reasons I'm fairly leery of the proposed Star Wars series which has invoked Deadwood as a comparison because when I think of Star Wars I think of two men conducting business transactions by saying 'cocksucker' every few minutes.

I'm leery of that because I don't trust George Lucas! Also, it makes no sense for them to be making those comparisons unless the show is going to be on HBO or maybe FX. On broadcast, that approach would never fly with the FCC. Also, that notion is very far from playing to Star Wars' strength, and seems like a pointless exercise. But the distance between DS9 and Game of Thrones doesn't seem like an unbridgeable chasm. There's some point at which they could meet midway.

All it takes to put a Ster Trek show back on the air is a well sold concept

Is that "all" it takes? Yeah, convincing Les Moonves to give a flying frak about Star Trek sounds like a real cakewalk.

[Lonemagpie]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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The entire city was accidentally on LSD because the food supply was tainted.

That's what really happened.

No, that was the Devils of Loudun.

Salem... Was local politics. The town council changed and decided to get rid of the local minister by cutting his stipend, cos he'd been taking over. He, faced with homelessness, struck back by having his daughter and his slave put on good performances in the courthouse witchfinding show...