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Discovery Showrunners fired; Kurtzman takes over

My guess is the heavy "future is female" aspects of the series and extreme left politics will be toned down as well, with their departure. We might actually get some hetro male heroes on the series now., maybe hopefully Isaacs back as Prime Lorca. We'll see.

Are you kidding? Kurtzman's first producing gig was on Xena: Warrior Princess (and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). After that he worked on Alias and Fringe, both series with female leads, and Sleepy Hollow, a series with two very strong black female co-leads.

And Star Trek's politics have never not been "left." Its whole defining principle is the embrace of diversity and equality.


I feel a bit better about this show handling Pike and Spock if Harberts and Berg weren't involved.

The first five episodes have already been done, so assuming Pike only appears at the start of the season (no casting for Spock has been announced yet, suggesting he isn't included), then it's a Pike written under Berg & Harberts's direction.


The bad news is Kurtzman is still the showrunner. He is mediocre. After Star Trek Into Darkness, this guy should not have been given any more Trek properties to work on.

That's a bizarre thing to say. Kurtzman was one of several writer/producers on that movie, but J.J. Abrams was the final decision-maker.
 
I did pick up a vibe from Berg in her appearances on After Trek, that made me think that she might not be the most open person to hearing dissenting opinions and/or criticism. But I also thought that this might have been just a by product of her running a really tight ship. But this information surprises me. You can run a tight ship without being verbally abusive.

I liked what I was hearing about season 2, but if they were engaged in abusive behavior, then I'm glad they are gone. The show will be better off with a happier writing staff.
 
Fuller's career is done.

...This is a joke right? He's coming off a hugely critically successful first season of American God's and is currently making the new adaptation of Anne Rice's The Vampire Diaries while a Hannibal return sits on the back burner.
 
Oy. Well, so much for the behind-the-scenes churn settling down, but this is probably the most positive producer change yet. They really did seem in over their heads. Every interview I read with them, I'd come away thinking "maybe they just INTERVIEW terribly..."

The most troubling thing is that the way they described the show didn't connect at all to what I was actually seeing on screen. This is a thing I always say about TV shows I find frustrating -- if the showrunners don't understand how their own show is playing, that's when you give up, because they'll never be able to fix the problems if they can't even correctly diagnose them.

It seemed clear to me Berg & Harberts were never going to correctly diagnose the problems with Disco, and I'm probably never going to quit watching, so I wasn't looking forward to being stuck with them. Let's hope the next regime is better!
 
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/l...covery-showrunners-alex-kurtzman-take-1120416

"Insiders also stress that Berg and Harberts became increasingly abusive to the Discovery writing staff, with the latter said to have leaned across the writers' room table while shouting an expletive at a member of the show's staff. Multiple writers are said to have been uncomfortable working on the series and had threatened to file a complaint with human resources or quit the series altogether before informing Kurtzman of the issues surrounding Berg and Harberts. After hearing rumors of HR complaints, Harberts is said to have threatened the staff to keep concerns with the production an internal matter."

How charming!

Seems about right.
 
Are you kidding? Kurtzman's first producing gig was on Xena: Warrior Princess (and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). After that he worked on Alias and Fringe, both series with female leads, and Sleepy Hollow, a series with two very strong black female co-leads.

And Star Trek's politics have never not been "left." Its whole defining principle is the embrace of diversity and equality.

Never this extreme left. To the point where they were strongly against having a hetro male character as one of the show's heroes, meanwhile pushing the 'future is female' narrative.

A lot of that was Fuller, Harbert and Berg. There's a chance it will be toned down now with their departure.


The first five episodes have already been done, so assuming Pike only appears at the start of the season (no casting for Spock has been announced yet, suggesting he isn't included), then it's a Pike written under Berg & Harberts's direction..

Well that's unfortunate.



That's a bizarre thing to say. Kurtzman was one of several writer/producers on that movie, but J.J. Abrams was the final decision-maker.

What makes you think Kurtzman didn't agree with a lot of the questionable decisions in that film (that sadly killed the momentum of the rebooted Star Trek film franchise) ?

Kurtzman has had an extremely mediocre track record in all his past projects.
 
#bringbackfuller :bolian:

I think Fuller has been one of the biggest problems with this project from day one. Can't believe some fans were championing for him.. shows how low the ST franchise has sunk.

His vision for STD has always been a mess, and what we got in S1 didn't really stray too far away from what he wanted.
 
Never this extreme left. To the point where they were strongly against having a hetro male character as one of the show's heroes, meanwhile pushing the 'future is female' narrative.

A lot of that was Fuller, Harbert and Berg. There's a chance it will be toned down now with their departure.




Well that's unfortunate.





What makes you think Kurtzman didn't agree with a lot of the questionable decisions in that film (that sadly killed the momentum of the rebooted Star Trek film franchise) ?

Kurtzman has had an extremely mediocre track record in all his past projects.

8d7ed73e_4598_48eb_ac30_55b909e57b31.gif
 
...This is a joke right? He's coming off a hugely critically successful first season of American God's and is currently making the new adaptation of Anne Rice's The Vampire Diaries while a Hannibal return sits on the back burner.

Fuller left or was fired from American Gods way back in November. Jesse Alexander is running season 2, and he and Neil Gaiman reportedly tossed out Fuller's scripts and started from scratch.

As we've seen today, sometimes showrunner departures are more about management style or budgetary issues or office politics than the quality of the actual shows. Bryan Fuller is definitely a good writer, but he seems to have a hard time keeping a job regardless.
 
Never this extreme left. To the point where they were strongly against having a hetro male character as one of the show's heroes, meanwhile pushing the 'future is female' narrative.

A lot of that was Fuller, Harbert and Berg. There's a chance it will be toned down now with their departure.

Well that's unfortunate.

None of these things are bad things. The fact you think they're bad is a shame.
 
Fuller left or was fired from American Gods way back in November. Jesse Alexander is running season 2, and he and Neil Gaiman reportedly tossed out Fuller's scripts and started from scratch.

As we've seen today, sometimes showrunner departures are more about management style or budgetary issues or office politics than the quality of the actual shows. Bryan Fuller is definitely a good writer, but he seems to have a hard time keeping a job regardless.

Hi Christopher, I was replying to the person who said Fuller's career was over, which is pretty obviously not the case - I won't deny he has issues with networks though, Hannibal and Daisies are the only shows he's made where he wasn't fired/quit.
 
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(Source is @swear_trek and Chase Masterson)

Not surprised by the news. You could tell that there were major creative disagreements behind the scenes given how messy STD S1 was.

The great news is Harberts and Berg are gone. I've been asking for this for a while now. They are terrible showrunners. With their departure, the last connection to the Fuller vision for STD is gone. The show can basically go a new direction at this point. My guess is the heavy "future is female" aspects of the series and extreme left politics will be toned down as well, with their departure. We might actually get some hetro male heroes on the series now., maybe hopefully Isaacs back as Prime Lorca. We'll see.

I feel a bit better about this show handling Pike and Spock if Harberts and Berg weren't involved.

The bad news is Kurtzman is still the showrunner. He is mediocre. After Star Trek Into Darkness, this guy should not have been given any more Trek properties to work on.

Bottomline is I'm glad at least that significant changes are being made. We'll see if it pays off.


Hopefully drastically.
 
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