Discovery Showrunners fired; Kurtzman takes over

[Lord Garth]

I get more of a Battlestar Galactica vibe. Though I've never seen Game of Thrones, Westworld, or The Walking Dead. The only one of those shows I'm interested in seeing is Game of Thrones, only because of how much I've heard everyone raving about it. That and The Americans.

Two penises... what? Why? For the joke?

I think the real reason was to take advantage of the MA rating. Please note the two penises isn't something I'm too huge of a fan of. It's something a couple of my friends from college would've thought of...

 

[The Wormhole]

I still don't get the 2019 release date for season 2. I know there is a lot of post-production, but filming started in April and will continue until October/November. Season 1 finished shooting in October as well... I don't understand why we can 't have 4 to 6 episodes from November onwards and then part 2 in February/March.

This season is only thirteen episodes, which really is too little for split seasons. I know it's been done, but IMO when it is it just reinforces how clumsy a move it is. When Doctor Who tried it, the results were disastrous.

So, to air thirteen episodes in a row, that means waiting until 2019.

It seemed like the writers and CBS wanted a show along the lines of Game of Thrones/Westworld/The Walking Dead, but didn't really know how to translate Star Trek into something akin to those shows.

The opening scene of the pilot with Tacoma the Klingon's soliloquy definitely seemed to be trying to hook the Game of Thrones audience.

 

[Jayson1]

It pains me that we still have people pining for a post Voyager series. You all have to recognize that the timeframe of the series is set in has nothing particularly to do with storytelling choices or the studio executive's view of what the Fanbase wants.

It's all about marketing the show. TOS is culturally iconic, and the Kelvinverse films are still fresh in the publics mind, or at least more fresh than anything that came out of the TNG era. It's marketing 101. Nobody gives a shit about the marketing tagline "Set 10 years after the adventures of Harry Kim and Neelix!"

That may frustrate a whole lot of you who want your series that talks about the aftermath of the alpha quadrant and the Dominion war, with guest appearances by all of your favorite secondary characters, but it just ain't going to happen anytime soon. I think the sooner we all get our heads wrapped around that cold hard fact of how the studio believes the franchise needs to be marketed, the better off we will all be.

I mostly agree with what you said. The setting in general doesn't matter that much. The one difference though is when you add the extra sales pitch that the show is going to be part of the already shared universe we have been seeing. In which case your sort of bringing all the Trek shows into the picture as well since people didn't even really start think of Trek as one big single universe I guess until maybe the later seasons of TNG and especially when that show also got spin-offs. As long as they try and make each show part of the Prime Universe the setting is going to always have extra meaning to fans.

Jason

 

[BillJ]

Though I've never seen Game of Thrones, Westworld, or The Walking Dead.

The first season of Westworld is mind-blowing. They know how to do surprise reveals. You absolutely don't see it coming, then you're surprised you didn't figure it out sooner.

Definitely worth a watch.

 

[BillJ]

Though Westworld earns its TV-MA rating. It is gratuitous with the sex and violence.

 

[Longinus]

I'd rather a reboot then post-Voyager.

There is really nothing left to do, they have all this super tech that would solve any problem, the writers would nee to write excuses every episode for why the ablative armour wouldn't work, or why the transphasic torpdoes are not OP.

Sure, and this is my main reason to prefer TOS era show over post-Nemesis show... Except both times we have seen TOS era revisited (Kelvin films and Disco) they've introduces super tech that is even more setting breaking than the ludicrous stuff from Voyager!

 

[Mudd]

I don't think much of what they do on Westworld is gratuitous; that's GoT.

 

[ITDUDE]

Edgy stuff when you're twelve!

Lol, my 10-year old son is rolling his eyes
What passes as "edgy" on STD, is well... NOT

 

[Tuskin38]

Sure, and this is my main reason to prefer TOS era show over post-Nemesis show... Except both times we have seen TOS era revisited (Kelvin films and Disco) they've introduces super tech that is even more setting breaking than the ludicrous stuff from Voyager!

The only thing ludicrous is the Spore Drive.

Lol, my 10-year old son is rolling his eyes
What passes as "edgy" on STD, is well... NOT

I don't think they were trying to be edgy.

 

[ITDUDE]

I get more of a Battlestar Galactica vibe. Though I've never seen Game of Thrones, Westworld, or The Walking Dead

Whaaaaat? How is that even possible?

 

[ITDUDE]

I don't think they were trying to be edgy.

Oh, but they were trying. "F-word on trek, like omg, Trek is breaking new ground on TV" They totally thought it was edgy. That's why they did it in that ONE episode. If they didn't think it would be a big deal, they'd put it in all the dialog mixed in throughout the first season. It would become new norm and no one would think twice. But they gave it a "special episode" treatment.

Hell, Galaxy Quest did that yeaaars ago. (even if that was dubbed over in the release). Who were former STD showrunners trying to kid with this "edgy" shit.

 

[Cyrus]

I'm tired of prequels too. Something set after TOS era or TNG era simply needs to happen. We need post Kirk or post Picard/Sisko/Janeway. Anything to move forward instead of backwards. I realise post Kirk would be a prequel to TNG but at least it's a sequel to something!

Discovery is a sequel to ENT

 

[Lord Garth]

Whaaaaat? How is that even possible?

Yeah, I know...

 

[Cyrus]

Though I've never seen Game of Thrones, Westworld, or The Walking Dead. The only one of those shows I'm interested in seeing is Game of Thrones, only because of how much I've heard everyone raving about it.

GoT & Westworld, and just about anything on HBO, is well worth watching.

 

[Tuskin38]

Oh, but they were trying. "F-word on trek, like omg, Trek is breaking new ground on TV" They totally thought it was edgy. That's why they did it in that ONE episode.

It was an inappropriate but natural outburst from Tilly.

It not showing up again isn't really a problem.

 

[Kane_Steel]

It's still being produced. That's a positive.

For now, but the fallout just happened. And I'll get a good laugh when the production problems continue to mount resulting in STD's cancellation. It serves them right.

That is the video game world. There is a reason why video game films fail so miserably. The essence of a video game is the ability to make choices and explore smaller details. A TV show cannot explore that in the same way. It's not possible nor is it marketable to a larger audience than a niche, and self-referential isn't a good thing to bring in new audience members.

DS9 relied on many elements of aspects already established in TNG in order to thrive. And DS9 is regarded by most fans as the pinnacle of great Star Trek.

The major flaw with your argument is you claim this prequel nonsense is a better alternative that doing a Trek series in the post-Voyager era..

The truth is a post-Voyager series has less of a mandate to be self-referential and tied to canon, than a prequel set a few years before Captain Kirk.

The problem with STD is you're playing in a very familiar playing field while still trying to shuffle the cards and shake things up, creating quite a mess, alienating the Trek fanbase and ultimately not accomplishing much.

As I recall, they were handpicked by Bryan Fuller, so fling the blame in his direction, I guess. They were only kept on because they had been with Fuller from day one and it probably made sense to promote existing people wth knowledge of the product.

Those who hired Fuller from the start and greenlit his 'vision' deserve significant blame here as well. It's a shame that CBS is still so clueless how to handle the Star Trek property at this point. All they know is that there is money to exploit from some fans to keep their weak streaming network afloat.

 

[eschaton]

A Post-Voyager series would be even less popular, as it would require new viewers to do research.

As Lawman noted, no one who isn't already a Trekkie is going to shell out money for CBS All Access in order to check out the show. Maybe trying to reach out to new viewers makes sense if it was on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but not if it's behind a paywall with very little other original content.

That may frustrate a whole lot of you who want your series that talks about the aftermath of the alpha quadrant and the Dominion war, with guest appearances by all of your favorite secondary characters, but it just ain't going to happen anytime soon. I think the sooner we all get our heads wrapped around that cold hard fact of how the studio believes the franchise needs to be marketed, the better off we will all be.

While I'm one of those people who would prefer a post-VOY show if we are heading into multiple concurrent Trek series, I have to admit - and everyone else should to - much of this desire is basically rooted in wanting big-budget professionally made fanfic. E.g., people don't just want to see a good story told - they want to see "their stories" continued onward in some fashion.

I guess my perception of the franchise is just very different than other fans. It seems a lot of people are really into Star Trek being this broad and interwoven story that takes place over the course of many centuries in our future. I don't see it that way at all! To me, Star Trek is more like the James Bond franchise. It has essential elements ( like phasers, transporters, space travel, dilithium crystals, etc.) and essential thematics ( like diversity, a positive future for humanity, exploration of the galaxy, etc. ) and that's really all it needs. I'm not interested in some grand story that everybody thinks Star Trek is. I'm just interested in Star Trek

While this is defensible, I think the problem is that a series which both ignores canon/continuity and the historic Trek tone and format would have very little connection to what came before. As I've said before, The Orville and DIS are interesting counterpoints, because The Orville is Trek minus the canon, and DIS is Trek canon poured into something which is otherwise almost unrecognizable.

While I realize just calling any old generic sci-fi show "Star Trek" will pique some viewers no matter what, I do think any Trek series needs to ask why exactly they are choosing to tell a given story within Trek. If it has no continuity hooks, and i doesn't fit the overall "ethos" you see across the series, just leave it for another show to cover.

 

[Visitor1982]

I more or less liked the first season of Discovery, but I find myself losing interest rapidly.

I know it's the way 'quality' TV series (outside the ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, CW networks) are produced now, but to be off the air longer than 6 months for me just isn't working.

For some reason I cannot connect to a show that has thirteen episodes and then is gone for a whole year or longer... I feel it's not the way Star Trek should be dealt with. But maybe it's just me.

 

[Kane_Steel]

I'd rather a reboot then post-Voyager.

There is really nothing left to do, they have all this super tech that would solve any problem, the writers would nee to write excuses every episode for why the ablative armour wouldn't work, or why the transphasic torpdoes are not OP.

This kind of mindset is why Star Trek desperately needs a fresh vision, fresh blood, and quite frankly a bigger and new fanbase. Star Trek 2009 was really successful at laying the groundwork for this to happen, and then Paramount ruined it.

Personally, my idea for a post-Voyager series is exploring techno-pathic aliens and techno-pathic technology. We haven't had much of that in Trek yet, but there were hints that it was going to be rolled out by the 25th century.

Basically that means the ability for species to control technology with their minds. You could write some really cerebral stories on par with FX's LEGION with this kind of premise. You could explore alternate realities like something out of Nolan's Inception where the laws of physics are reimagined.

I could imagine a series villain being someone who could theoretically hack into Federation starships mentally and use them as weapons. Kind of like the enhanced version of Barclay in TNG's Ninth Degree.

It's very possible that our own brainwaves could be used to control tech during this century at the rate we are advancing. There's some great potential for commentary on the evolution of humanity with this premise.

 

[eschaton]

Does anyone believe the CBS line about a "planned production hiatus" now that the first five episodes have been filmed?

I'm just hazarding a guess here, but after the opening arc, dealing with Pike, Spock, and flashbacks to Bunham's past, perhaps Berg and Harberts were finding the well was running a little dry, and didn't have solid ideas about where to take the season. They started taking their frustration out on the writing team for not being able to break the creative logjam. Thus they were fired in part due to abusing the writing staff, but they began lashing out because they were losing the thread and knew it.