Alex Kurtzman Gets New Deal With CBS, Will Expand 'Star Trek' TV

[Vger23]

TNG was when it hit the mainstream internationally. Time magazine covers? Newsweek?
TOS got cancelled after series three. We love it. All of it. You love it, I love it, but mainstream success is what happens in the eighties and nineties particularly. Touring Trek Exhibitions? Prime TV slots on UK TV? Mainstream magazines dedicating features and special issues to premiere episodes? Finales?
In its time, TNG and the Berman Era undoubtedly did better than TOS in its time. The seven years of TNG alone are testament to this. But, the important part is the ‘in its time’ and particularly for me, as you say, ‘internationally’. TOS without the rest of the franchise is Space 1999 or Galáctica. It’s not even Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet (both of which had later mini booms based on repeats twenty or thirty years later, leading to things like the Tracey Island on Blue Peter Phenomenon)
TOS with the movies, but particularly with TNG and it’s sucessors, it’s what has given the franchise its legs. In 1993 or thereabouts, Trek in the mainstream had Stewart as its face.
Now, later, a combination of events mean that mainly its TOS that hovers in the conciousness (but it’s chicken and egg, is that because it’s naturally more enduring or naturally ‘better’ or if it’s simply has appeals in certain demographics. It being a part of sixties counterculture can’t hurt it’s usefulness to be dug up) but in it’s day, TNG eclipsed it’s progenitor. Seven series and launching two more off its popularity....vs cancelled after three and then making its rep by refusing to fade away (credit where it’s due)
Yes, I am of that generation, but it doesn’t make me antiTOS or some kind of insecure fanboy for ‘my’ era, in this case it’s just cold hard fact. If you take away the advantage of age (TOS had twenty years of reruns on TNG to rack up its viewings and in a different television landscape where reruns were more relevant than they were twenty years after TNG...) then it’s inescapable. TNG is the series that took Trek properly mainstream, and did not fail in its first run. All the series then benefit from their relationship with each other, and I won’t do TOS down (it’s where it all began....) but, it’s cold hard fact that when you launched a generic Trek product back then, it was with TNG branding. Now...well, now it’s TOS...or TNG. step forward The Official Starships collection...what was the first issue? The enterprise D. First issue of Star Trek magazine circa 1993? Picard, with free TNG bookmarks. Star Trek Factfiles? With TNg now on movies, Ds9 on TV and Voyager just starting....nope, enterprise D front and centre.
It’s not even a fight, because I don’t think either can exist in their current form without the other, and there’s no antagonism...except in fans heads.

This is flawed in that media and the way the world worked in the 1960's was much different than the 1980/90's. You said yourself by specifying "in it's time". TNG may have been more successful "in its time" vs TOS, but the entire point here is the transcendence of time.

The facts are pretty clear, if TNG was such an obvious runaway success and cultural icon, we'd be watching post Nemesis JJ movies and series now.

But we're not. Because it's not.

That doesn't mean its not good...it just isn't even in the same ballpark as TOS.

 

[CorporalClegg]

This is flawed in that media and the way the world worked in the 1960's was much different than the 1980/90's. You said yourself by specifying "in it's time". TNG may have been more successful "in its time" vs TOS, but the entire point here is the transcendence of time.

The facts are pretty clear, if TNG was such an obvious runaway success and cultural icon, we'd be watching post Nemesis JJ movies and series now.

But we're not. Because it's not.

That doesn't mean its not good...it just isn't even in the same ballpark as TOS.

 

[cooleddie74]

TNG was first-run syndicated television's Avatar or The Force Awakens back during the late '80s and early '90s. A juggernaut in its own genre of broadcasting that had few rivals. But a pop culture phenomenon that even rivalled much less surpassed the global impact that TOS had after it went into syndicated reruns around 1970? Yeah, I don't believe so.

TNG was huge. TOS was the little show that (barely) could when it was new, but rapidly became a planetary pop culture movement that no Trek series or movie since has matched.

 

[Vger23]

TNG was first-run syndicated television's Avatar or The Force Awakens back during the late '80s and early '90s. A juggernaut in its own genre of broadcasting that had few rivals. But a pop culture phenomenon that even rivalled much less surpassed the global impact that TOS had after it went into syndicated reruns around 1970? Yeah, I don't believe so.

TNG was huge. TOS was the little show that (barely) could when it was new, but rapidly became a planetary pop culture movement that no Trek series or movie since has matched.

You've articulated more clearly and cleanly than I.

As per usual, sir.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

TNG was first-run syndicated television's Avatar or The Force Awakens back during the late '80s and early '90s. A juggernaut in its own genre of broadcasting that had few rivals. But a pop culture phenomenon that even rivalled much less surpassed the global impact that TOS had after it went into syndicated reruns around 1970? Yeah, I don't believe so.

TNG was huge. TOS was the little show that (barely) could when it was new, but rapidly became a planetary pop culture movement that no Trek series or movie since has matched.

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[cooleddie74]

Yeah. And monkeys might fly out of Jayson's butt!

 

[CorporalClegg]

It's funny because Robbie would've got that reference.

Also, Sam Seaborn.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Totally agree about Undiscovered Country!
That's what elevates that movie way above it's pure structure, characterization and plot. It's the greatest possible end point to the series overall and what many people remembered as the main conflict of the show, the one with the klingons.

Here is the part where I have to disagree:
TNG has a lot of episodes featuring the Romulans as villains. But they were never the "big" antagonists. They were used for stories where a antagonist was needed. It could have been the Cardssians. But DS9 pretty much took them over, and completed their arc.

It's the Borg. The main villain everyone remembers from TNG is the Borg. If the new Picard series features a villain - It's either going to be a completely new one, or the Borg.

This is also the more interesting conflict, but also the one with more pitfalls for the writers to fail at. Because how do you resolve the conflict with the Borg? A mere peace treaty like with the klingons won't be sufficent. That's the point where a truly talented screenwriter can utterly succeed. Or fail. They could come up with a truly fucking brilliant solution. Or just do the clichèd "blow 'em all up", which would be both a massive dissapointment poential-wise as well as a failure in the Star Trek ethical standard. We shall see.

(And yes, I know, technically Voyager already did that to wrap up their show. But come on? It's the Borg. How permanent can that defeat really have been?)

I agree with you that the Borg are the more memorable to general audiences of the time. What I was thinking of, was the thread in TNG about the Romulans, that tied in with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which the Romulan Ambassador aided Chang and Cartwright.... The Defector, The Mind's Eye, Redemption Part 1 and 2 showing the number one foreign policy objective of the Romulan Empire is the disruption of the Federation-Klingon Entente, which has altered the balance of power in the quadrant away from the Romulans. But I don't know if I have confidence in it being done right, unless they brought back Moore/Braga/Shankar/Echieverra one more time, maybe to write a plot with Sela, as the Duras sisters, the other great recurring villain, were killed in Generations.

To be honest, there is no reason why they couldn't have Andrew Robinson return as Garak and Picard prevent a Cardassian coup or something too, and blend aspects of DS9 into a Picard story, but then thematically, that would probably suit a Sisko series more than a Picard one.

I'm not expecting anything good though

In regards to what you said about the Borg representing a threat that cannot be bargained with. I wonder... maybe peace with the Borg can be achieved... in the original episode Guinan said "at least, I don't know anyone who did" in reference to negotiation, and it was implied the Borg might negotiate with a power on their level of perception/development.

I'm averse to them appearing again at all, just because I worry the VOY era Borg have been too watered down and ruined, for reasons talked about recently. But what if some writer could contrive a way to make them more like Q Who Borg again. Maybe return the collective to a collective, and not a monarchy, and have them alter their perceptions of the Federation. Probably little chance of that happening unfortunately..

Here is what was said in that other thread:

The original appeal of the Borg, best seen in "Q Who", and which was already starting to get watered down as early as "Best of Both Worlds", was the ultimate fear of a technological alien society, which conquers absolutely everything in it's path, using the most direct and logical means. They were not zombies. They were instead a humanoid civilization that cared nothing for individual costs, and would take the most direct path to accomplishing an objective, even if it meant sacrificing individual members of their race.

Maybe their culture had even been voluntary. But, in "First Contact", they explicitly became zombies infected with a plague, no longer a sophisticated culture, so while that was TNG's most entertaining film, I can certainly see why some people think it was also the film that ruined the Borg, making them into a common trope.

The Cybermen in Doctor Who were originally likewise a civilization, not a mere character-bereft plague of locusts. They had a planet that was entering an ice age. To overcome this, they embarked on a coldly logical and clinical replacement of more and more of their organs, to cope with the increasingly sterile climate. They gradually, without knowing, lost their ability to feel essential emotions. Then, their civilization entombed itself in cryo-stasis, to wait out the freezing of their planet and when they awoke embarked on a campaign of conquest to aquire a new world for themselves. Under those flexible masks were unfeeling humans bereft of any passion, but not corpses. I remember reading a Doctor Who comic where a scientists was literally encased and rendered into an unfeeling face under the mask.

Then in the Doctor Who revival, they were turned into mere slabs of meat inside a metal shell, with stupid over-the-top buzz-saws cutting them up. No longer the unfeeling remnant faces of a long-sterile people under the hood. They completely abandoned that high-sci-fi concept of a civilization that had undergone organ-replacement that was so interesting, in favour of some shite analogy for upgrading phones/PCs. The Cybermen were much closer to Warhammer 40,000's Necrons, but even that is not an exact comparison, since the encasement of individuals was an essential part of their symbolic appeal; that it could be your sister under that mask.

I have never ever liked villains that are seen as a mere plague - civilizations are infinitely more interesting than zombies. Both the Borg and Cybermen were a civilization, with a culture. Then they were turned into mere locusts.

The problem with nanoprobes is that it renders them no longer a culture with defined parameters for their victory, but instead an infection, and once they can 'spread' by means other than political conquest, the door is open for any ridiculous and boring idea for spreading the infection - like Borg Land Mines - Borg Mosquitos - Borg Lawn Sprinklers. Why modern writers don't get this, and keep stepping over cultural limitations, boiling every technical civilization down into plagues, I have no idea. It has never been particularly interesting.

 

[jaime]

TNG was first-run syndicated television's Avatar or The Force Awakens back during the late '80s and early '90s. A juggernaut in its own genre of broadcasting that had few rivals. But a pop culture phenomenon that even rivalled much less surpassed the global impact that TOS had after it went into syndicated reruns around 1970? Yeah, I don't believe so.

TNG was huge. TOS was the little show that (barely) could when it was new, but rapidly became a planetary pop culture movement that no Trek series or movie since has matched.

That’s sort of exactly my point. I am not talking about rerun success. I am talking about of its day. It’s impossible to compare afterwards, because the two series are co-dependent afterwards, and TNG has a very different path. Basically, I don’t think it’s possible to separate the two, because *in its day* TNG was huge, and the impact still exists. It’s why Patrick Stewart is in talks again with current Trek producers. It’s just a slightly different impact in terms of how the after effects show.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This is flawed in that media and the way the world worked in the 1960's was much different than the 1980/90's. You said yourself by specifying "in it's time". TNG may have been more successful "in its time" vs TOS, but the entire point here is the transcendence of time.

The facts are pretty clear, if TNG was such an obvious runaway success and cultural icon, we'd be watching post Nemesis JJ movies and series now.

But we're not. Because it's not.

That doesn't mean its not good...it just isn't even in the same ballpark as TOS.

Nailed it.

 

[jaime]

This is flawed in that media and the way the world worked in the 1960's was much different than the 1980/90's. You said yourself by specifying "in it's time". TNG may have been more successful "in its time" vs TOS, but the entire point here is the transcendence of time.

The facts are pretty clear, if TNG was such an obvious runaway success and cultural icon, we'd be watching post Nemesis JJ movies and series now.

But we're not. Because it's not.

That doesn't mean its not good...it just isn't even in the same ballpark as TOS.

Until DSC we weren’t watching any series. At all. The last series we had was a prequel, trying to go back to that TOS feel...and it got cancelled after four seasons. DSC is another prequel, and we do t know how that will pan out just yet. But news at the moment suggests we will end up with a post Nemesis series as well, and that even a TNG reunion may be on the cards, like it’s 1979 all over again.
Without TNG, TOS trek would have ended after Star Trek V, VI at a push...both of which were dependent on TNG resources, shared resources as part of the franchise, to get made in the first place. The continued fandom brought about by the TNG era is what leads to the remastering of TOS (by people who worked on TNG era Trek) to allow it to continue being rerun as the tech moves further and further from the original run. It’s not reruns that matter anymore...it’s streaming.
The two are indivisible, and whilst had the movies not been successful (I also don’t think the movies get enough credit for their role in Treks popularity...it’s movie era Trek that has its biggest part in popular culture tbh, that’s why khan keeps getting rehashed, and not city on the edge of forever or balance of terror.) there would be no TnG, had there been no TNG I very much doubt Trek would be as big of a fandom and franchise as it is now. Especially at the young end of the demographic.
Basically Trek is the whole thing...and the reason why the newer flavours haven’t quite taken off as well is precisely because they cleave too much to the ‘TOS is the text’ approach. The movies make good money, but that’s all they do. None of the ancillary stuff that say the marvel or Star Wars, or even the Dc, universe manages. Those are markers of success for SF franchises these days. And the ‘good money’ isn’t even that good, comparatively speaking.
The two are inseparable, precisely because, for a few years, TNG eclipsed TOS, and proved that you can catch lightning in a bottle twice. And if you can do it twice , maybe you can do it again... (what is DSC if not an attempt to recreate the success of TNG? Especially as they now look at getting more series going, just as TNG begat DS9 et al.)
I think NYPD blue already covered it with its Levar line back in...what was it...93?

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Jane Foster was always female. She just was the host of Thor's powers while the still male Odinson was not.
Now LOKI, that's a different story. but not one without roots in the myths

I’ll be honest - my own lack of understanding of comic book lore has led me to use that as a bad example! So the power of Thor is some kind of symbiotic relationship then, like the Dax symbiont?

The female Thor is a different character, not just a gender swap.

But if the above is correct, the “Thor” power is the consistent bit - like Dax - so it is the same character in a different body?

 

[jaime]

I’ll be honest - my own lack of understanding of comic book lore has led me to use that as a bad example! So the power of Thor is some kind of symbiotic relationship then, like the Dax symbiont?


But if the above is correct, the “Thor” power is the consistent bit - like Dax - so it is the same character in a different body?

More a mantle. Like if Janeway has been a captain of the enterprise.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

In New BSG, Starbuck is a woman and always has been. That's who the character is in New BSG.

I love BSG and I suppose the fact that the 2004 series was a full reboot with no ties to the events of the original series made it easier to make Starbuck female - and we should expect female characters in strong lead roles in modern tv. And Starbuck was awesome!

If it makes sense that Thor is a woman now, then she should be a woman.

I agree. I’d also argue that it makes sense that Kirk or Spock (or indeed both) should be female now.

so The Doctor is kind of like a Trill but not. The 12th Doctor is a man. The 13th Doctor is a woman.

Yeah I always thought that about The Doctor. I’m looking forward to seeing the new series though - we know time lords can be male or female (like trills) and I didn’t get the furore about making the Doctor female.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

More a mantle. Like if Janeway has been a captain of the enterprise.

Ah ok - so the Thor powers have no memory or agency? They just bring the thunder?

 

[jaime]

I love BSG and I suppose the fact that the 2004 series was a full reboot with no ties to the events of the original series made it easier to make Starbuck female - and we should expect female characters in strong lead roles in modern tv. And Starbuck was awesome!


I agree. I’d also argue that it makes sense that Kirk or Spock (or indeed both) should be female now.


Yeah I always thought that about The Doctor. I’m looking forward to seeing the new series though - we know time lords can be male or female (like trills) and I didn’t get the furore about making the Doctor female.

One of the interesting things about BSG is that, it can be read as a reboot or as continuation, as the storyline of the second explicitly draws attention to the same events occurring again and again, the same names, everything. It’s both a sort of...christian and Buddhist at the same time sort of thing. It’s one of the clever things I like about it tbh.

The doctor and gender thing is more complex, there are valid reasons for and against, but they shouty types won’t have you listen to either of those viewpoints, because for them, it’s about purity of their own ideology.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Until DSC we weren’t watching any series. At all. The last series we had was a prequel, trying to go back to that TOS feel...and it got cancelled after four seasons.

So, you bring up the films when you think it supports your point, but you ignore them when you think it doesn't? What about nuTrek? That comprises three films, post ENT, with another one probably on the way, possibly even two.

And as for ENT "trying to go back to that TOS feel," well no not really. It was nominally a prequel, but in terms of execution it was in no small way Berman-era Trek of the 24th century with the serial numbers filed off. Despite some superficial nods to TOS here and there, such as having gold piping for command and red piping for operations, having a Vulcan science officer who looked through a scanner, having T'Pau and Surak as characters, referencing Colonel Green, etc., and in the realm of the merely superficial all the ways that they played connect-the-dots with TOS canon, there was really very little about ENT that had a TOS feel, at least until almost the very end with IAMD1&2, for obvious reasons.

Hell, they couldn't even do more than a half-nod to TOS uniforms, because the rank pips of the ENT jumpsuits are totally TNG-era. But that's in microcosm indicative of how much ENT was in fact not made with an intent to "go back to that TOS feel" but rather as one last attempt to recapture the more recent glory days of TNG by catering to the TNG audience. As you said, it failed.

 

[jaime]

So, you bring up the films when you think it supports your point, but you ignore them when you think it doesn't? What about nuTrek? That comprises three films, post ENT, with another one probably on the way, possibly even two.

And as for ENT "trying to go back to that TOS feel," well no not really. It was nominally a prequel, but in terms of execution it was in no small way Berman-era Trek of the 24th century with the serial numbers filed off. Despite some superficial nods to TOS here and there, such as having gold piping for command and red piping for operations, having a Vulcan science officer who looked through a scanner, having T'Pau and Surak as characters, referencing Colonel Green, etc., and in the realm of the merely superficial all the ways that they played connect-the-dots with TOS canon, there was really very little about ENT that had a TOS feel, at least until almost the very end with IAMD1&2, for obvious reasons.

Hell, they couldn't even do more than a half-nod to TOS uniforms, because the rank pips of the ENT jumpsuits are totally TNG-era. But that's in microcosm indicative of how much ENT was in fact not made with an intent to "go back to that TOS feel" but rather as one last attempt to recapture the more recent glory days of TNG by catering to the TNG audience. As you said, it failed.

It featured a set of leads that were basically your American cowboys in space, vs the diverse crews of previous berman era Trek. T’Pol was smurfette. Sure it tried to straddle the two, and whatever it ended up as, it was pushed as a return to the ideals of TOS when it launched.

The JJ films...all three of them across a decade....are barely life support for the franchise. They don’t drive fandom, they are incapable of supporting a fandom on their own. They only extra stuff they manage is the comic books, and I don’t think that’s much if an achievement these days...comics are not what they were. It’s why the return of Trek to the small screen felt so momentous after all these years...there’s plenty of arguments about TV being Treks natural environment, and I am inclined to agree. Whatever the box office, the eighties movies were more successful as art and cultural artefacts for a generation in a way the KT won’t be...precisely because of all that TV DNA in it...from TOS itself, and from its kid siblings on TV.
But this is all just ‘should Trek move forward, or forever reboot and orbit the nut that is TOS’ argument. Which isn’t my point, at least not as such. My point is that that you can’t slice TOS from the TNG era, or vice versa, because the TNG era, and it’s success, is integral to the franchises existence...precisely because it succeeded so well. Ignoring that always fails...or at the very least, doesn’t lead to the greatest of successes. The greatest success was TNG, which proved that Trek had legs outside of its original cast.

 

[jaime]

Ah ok - so the Thor powers have no memory or agency? They just bring the thunder?

As far as I know. I have one issue of Thor from my comic book days. It’s a job that comes with its power set basically.

 

[Rahul]

When it was on air, TNG eclipsed TOS. And even afterwards, TNG so friggin' influential on the franchise - and spawned so many spin-offs - that, hell, even DIS qualifies actually more as a TNG spin-off series than a TOS companion series.

There is but one major reason why (currently) TOS is the bigger franchise: It was recently revived with a (mostly) successfull blockbuster franchise.

TNG on the other hand, never managed to capture mainstream success with it's movie series. Domn't get me wrong: I like the TNG movies mostly. But they are hardly as influential, popular or even well-known as the TOS movies.

But here is a very important destinction: This is the current state of the Trek franchise. It's not written in stone - it has changed a lot in the past, and it will change again. If they actually make that new Picard series - then THAT will be the juggernaut of the franchise, easily overshadowing DIS, and probably even the Kelvin timeline movies purely because of the novelty and it being the "new" iteration of the franchise.

This is the beauty about the Trek IP: It's fluid. It suports lots and lots of different versions. It's not like "Battlestar Galactica" or "Lost in Space", which are one single entity, and then always variations or supplements to the one original IP. TNG proved the Star Trek universe itself is as much a playground for new characters and stories that can be equal or even eclipsing the original.

TOS might have been the original "Avengers", in that it started the craze on a whole new level. But TNG was their "Infinity War", where they proved the IP is not limited to the original few characters, but can sustain complete new sets of characters and stories as well, and not lose any of it's appeal or be a pure shadow of the original.

The JJ films...all three of them across a decade....are barely life support for the franchise. They don’t drive fandom, they are incapable of supporting a fandom on their own. They only extra stuff they manage is the comic books, and I don’t think that’s much if an achievement these days...comics are not what they were. It’s why the return of Trek to the small screen felt so momentous after all these years...there’s plenty of arguments about TV being Treks natural environment, and I am inclined to agree. Whatever the box office, the eighties movies were more successful as art and cultural artefacts for a generation in a way the KT won’t be...precisely because of all that TV DNA in it...from TOS itself, and from its kid siblings on TV.
But this is all just ‘should Trek move forward, or forever reboot and orbit the nut that is TOS’ argument. Which isn’t my point, at least not as such. My point is that that you can’t slice TOS from the TNG era, or vice versa, because the TNG era, and it’s success, is integral to the franchises existence...precisely because it succeeded so well. Ignoring that always fails...or at the very least, doesn’t lead to the greatest of successes. The greatest success was TNG, which proved that Trek had legs outside of its original cast.

I have to disagree there strongly. I personally don't like the JJverse movies that much. All of them have elements that I truly love, but overall they were a disappointment for me.

But it can't be understated how helpfull they were for Star Trek as a franchise. Yes, they have become stale nowadays as well. But at the time, a whole new generation of audiences was able to see "cool" Star Trek for everyone.

Literally all people I know that are significantly younger than me that are Trek fans - started out by watching the JJTrek movie. That was their gateway drug. They saw it, and if they were interested they realized there is a wealth of material to check out. I don't love those movies. But they are the single reason why many people today are familiar with the whole beaming/starships/shields/phasers on stun/Warpcore-schtick and all the major Trek concepts in the first place.