Anthology Series

[Temis the Vorta]

Konata Izumi wrote:

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The same ones who watch these new Star Trek movies without really knowing anything about the characters before. Movie length stories. They can make it look the same as the movies except it's just people walking around urgently.

Movies and TV are such different animals, I don't think you can take what works in movies and port it over to TV, or vice versa.

Movies ask people to pay $12 or so for 2 hours of zap-bang, visually stunning entertainment. (Leaving aside the Oscar-bait sort of "quality" movie, since Star Trek isn't in that category.)

Would people pay $6 an hour for a TV series? That's way off the scale of even premium cable, I'm sure for their $100 or whatever people pay now (I cut the cord, couldn't handle the price increases every five seconds), people expect more than 16 hours of entertainment, which works out to just over half an hour a day. Anyone who watches TV that little should cut the cord already!

If millions of people were willing to pay that much more for TV, then maybe TV would become wealthy enough that they could afford the amazing shit that would justify the price tag. And you also have to factor in sports, which sucks up an inordinate proportion of cable bills. So the costs for movie-style fiction made for TV would drive up costs even beyond what you'd expect, because now it's costly sports plus costly original movies, bwah!

But as it is, people go to movie theaters if they want the amazing visual action stuff right after it premieres, and expect TV to deliver something entirely different for a much cheaper price, in one of the formats they are used to - broadcast comedy, police procedural, snob-appeal cable drama, etc. Star Trek's dilemma is that it doesn't slot neatly into any of those formats. It's a square peg that needs to be pounded into a round hole, for instance by being animated for kids = The Cartoon Network.

[yousirname]

AviTrek wrote:

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CBS doesn't care about British shows. They make their money in the US. Masters of SF was burned off in the summer and was not renewed for a 2nd season. Masters of Horror got a 2nd season, but that was it.

I'm just establishing that the format isn't dead. And US TV networks certainly remake a fair number of British shows (eg, The Office), so clearly some attention is paid to happenings in that market.

TZ and TOL aired 50 years ago. Unless you show CBS something that works today they won't care about a format that was popular in the past.

TZ aired 50 years ago... and 30 years ago, and then ten years ago. TOL aired 50 years ago, and 20 years ago, and coming soon, apparently.

Dukhat wrote:

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How do you know that? While it's probably true that Pine, Quinto, Urban et. al won't do a TV series, there's no reason why CBS couldn't just recast the TOS roles yet again. The actors in the M*A*S*H movie didn't reprise their roles for the TV series (with the exception of Gary Burghoff). The same roles were recast, to hugely successful effect.

Well, you're right, I don't know that. M*A*S*H is one example of a hugely successful movie-to-TV transition with new actors. I think with the ubiquity of home video these days, that would be a lot more jarring to modern audiences. But it's certainly possible there'd be a new TOS series with different actors.

Maybe the innate conservatism of bean-counters makes it unfeasible, but I'd certainly prefer that the next TV incarnation be something new. I'd prefer something completely new to a different crew in the same universe, and I'd prefer that to a TOS Reboot Mark 3.

Someone mentioned the idea would need to be championed by a reputable name with established credentials. I suppose that's probably true.

[Dix]

Dukhat wrote:

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CBS will retain all the sets, props, costumes, CGI models, etc. from the movies, so they wouldn't have to spend money on those.

The Apple Bridge and the brewery-engineering? Really?

[BrEnDoN]

Dukhat wrote:

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CBS will retain all the sets, props, costumes, CGI models, etc. from the movies, so they wouldn't have to spend money on those.

I'm pretty sure that's the property of Paramount Pictures. I'm sure that because of CBS's history with Paramount Pictures, they could probably get a pretty good deal to use them, but they wouldn't be free...

[Temis the Vorta]

CBS might adopt the aesthetics of the Abrams movies to some extent, as their budget allows. The art direction work has been done so why reinvent the wheel? A 23rd C TV series by CBS would have the same dilemma Abrams faced, namely that the original TOS aesthetics would look ridiculous nowadays. They either imitate Abrams or they come up with their own solution (and their own breweries because on a TV budget, it ain't gonna look better.)

[Mirror Sulu]

I think an anthology series would be an excellent way to go. You could do so much with the franchise; do stories set in the Prime, Alt and Mirror timelines, you could even bring back older characters and establish them even further, years after they left television screens. I'm sure even cast members hesitant to do another series could be enticed to return for an episode or two.

[Caretaker]

I would do an anthology series under the following rules/policies:

• a series of television movies, maybe 4-8 per year (coming to a total of 8-16 hours) - similar to David Tennant's last year of Doctor Who or in comics terms, "one-offs".
• each movie/episode would cover totally different aspects and subjects in the Star Trek universe and using different narrative and stylistic formats
• avoid the alternate reality (let the Supreme Court deal with that)
• avoid "overused" subjects such as time travel
• get big name actors who wouldn't want to be regulars for a long-term television series
• have the budget to shoot elsewhere than the Los Angeles area
• use the stories to fill-in gaps in the chronology or even explain a few changes or retcons

I know, that's pretty generic. But having a couple of months between each episode/movie would lead to a build-up of excitement and energy.

[Mykl]

I think it would need to go back to including the 'morality tail' that the best Trek has had. My problem with jj was that he went too action/adventure and had such a huge scale (blowing up a planet) that the important part of Trek was lost. It's the interaction of the character and how they cope with the problem of the week that makes Trek what it is.

[Harvey]

A live action anthology series in the Star Trek universe would never be financially viable. One of the reasons you stick to a group of characters in the first place is so you can amortize the immense costs of sets, props, costumes, etc. over the course of number of episodes.

I imagine The Clone Wars is able to cover so much ground because it is animated. The cost of frequent changes in setting would be much greater if the program were live action (another reason why the live action Star Wars series has never come to fruition, no doubt).

There's a reason there are very few anthology programs on television and none (at least, as far as I know) on a major network: they're too expensive. They're also not great at cultivating a fan base, which don't have a group of characters to follow every week.

It's little surprise that so many of the few long-running anthology programs of the past thirty years have been based on pre-sold properties (Friday the 13th, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits) or recognizable brands (the feature film horror directors brought on to make Masters of Horror).

[Konata Izumi]

^There's the idea that pieces of sets can be dragged into another shape to make other ships with similar architecture. But the part about the characters might be true. I would like to see many great characters but I don't know about others.

[yousirname]

Harvey wrote:

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It's little surprise that so many of the few long-running anthology programs of the past thirty years have been based on pre-sold properties (Friday the 13th, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits) or recognizable brands (the feature film horror directors brought on to make Masters of Horror).

You're right about the cost, that seems to me to be the major objection. But Star Trek is a highly recognisable brand, isn't it? It doesn't seem like your last paragraph works as an actual objection to the idea of a Trek anthology series.

[Harvey]

Keep in mind that the two series in that list to be produced in the past decade -- Masters of Horror and The Twilight Zone -- we're failures. Being recognizable brands got them on the air, but it didn't provide the ratings needed to get them there. And, of course, a Star Trek anthology series would be more expensive than either of those shows, which were mostly set in contemporary times.

[yousirname]

Yeah, it is unlikely, I admit. Still think it would be great, though.

[Maurice]

In effect Star Trek WAS a sort of anthology show. The constant was the Enterprise and the regulars as a device to drop the characters into new and different situations each week.

[Tracer Bullet]

Maurice wrote:

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In effect Star Trek WAS a sort of anthology show. The constant was the Enterprise and the regulars as a device to drop the characters into new and different situations each week.

I was just about to post this, so thank you! Anthology doesn't necessitate new characters each week in a completely different setting.