Report: Discovery moving to Netflix

[Vger23]

According to my "sources," Discovery was cancelled in the first season, and Picard and Lower Decks were pre-cancelled. Kurtzman was fired, but they haven't told him yet. Total failure.

I LOVE me some "sources."

Just remember....it's not a lie, if you believe it!

 

[fireproof78]

I LOVE me some "sources."

Just remember....it's not a lie, if you believe it!

Don't interrupt my Star Trek feels, man...

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Just remember....it's not a lie, if you believe it!

Well, the lawyers for Helstrom are suing all the studios and streaming services to recognize that Discovery has been cancelled and their series renewed. There's even a video of a studio employee moving a box from one side of the room to another, let alone the strange viewing habits of Philedelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee .... This is MASSIVE FRAUD!

 

[eschaton]

They've been serialized since the dawn of Soap Operas on radio. And serialization has been a cornerstone of storytelling probably since we began spinning tales around the fire. Many great works by Dickens and others were serialized in magazines before being collected in to novels.
Soaps have character and story plot arcs, several in play at once. The seeds for future plots are planted as a major arcs comes to an end. I don't think they are "made up on the fly".

My point is soaps are not typically (ever?) based upon an existing series of novels. Also, soaps often don't really care about "canon" which is why there are all the dead characters who somehow come back to life and such. There is short-to-medium-term consistency, but much like comic books, in the longer run continuity gets thrown out the window.

 

[Gordie]

I think you're starting to get confused.

You're confusing your personal preferences for what works for people and fans in general. One argument (the former) is perfectly valid and makes sense. You like what you like, and you dislike what you dislike. Nobody is going to change that or even try to talk you out of it.

The other argument (the latter) is not valid. My statement at the beginning of this debate was as simple as it gets:


And...somehow...you've found a way to argue against that? I thought that was about as agreeable and fundamental a (non) statement I could have made on the topic.

There is no argument. Not everything is a fight. I was doing just that, stating my opinion. I am having a chat not an argument. I have learned years ago, it's completely futile to argue on internet forums. I state my opinion and others state theirs. That's all. Neither of us here are wrong.

But I would like to point out, ENT may not have been canceled because of serialization, but it did get canceled when it went that way. It didn't get canceled when it was episodic. That's a fact. Now there are a myriad of reasons why the show got cut no doubt.

 

[fireproof78]

What roll is serialization playing in that cancellation then?

 

[Mister Spock]

Just for the record, even though it's not my favorite show, the first two seasons of Enterprise is the best Star Trek there is.

Enterprise having the most solid first season of all the spin-offs is a hill I'm more than happy to die on.

 

[Gordie]

What roll is serialization playing in that cancellation then?

Who knows if it did or not. That's speculation. When they went that way, it got canceled. That we know. We also know that episodic sci-fi is well known to be extremely successful. Trek, Buffy, Stargate, which blows everything away. To me it appears to me a more successful recipe. But as you said earlier, streaming may be having a role in the new shows and you're probably right.

 

[Lord Garth]

Just for reference, cutting and pasting how I rated each episode of ENT on a 10-scale, earlier this year.

Spoiler

ENT Season 1
2 Broken Bow - 7
3 Fight or Flight - 7
4 Strange New World - 7
5 Unexpected - 7
6 Terra Nova - 6
7 The Andorian Incident - 7
8 Breaking the Ice - 7
9 Civilization - 7.5
10 Fortunate Son - 8
11 Cold Front - 7
12 Silent Enemy - 7
13 Dear Doctor - 8
14 Sleeping Dogs - 8
15 Shadows of P'Jem - 7.5
16 Shuttlepod One - 9
17 Fusion - 7
18 Rogue Planet - 5
19 Acquisition - 8
20 Oasis - 7
21 Detained - 6
22 Vox Sola - 7
23 Fallen Hero - 7
24 Desert Crossing - 7
25 Two Days and Two Nights - 7
26 Shockwave, Part I - 7

ENT Season 1 Average: 7.08

ENT Season 2
1 Shockwave, Part II - 6
2 Carbon Creek - 5
3 Minefield - 7
4 Dead Stop - 7
5 A Night in Sickbay - 3
6 Marauders - 6
7 The Seventh - 5
8 The Communicator - 6
9 Singularity - 7
10 Vanishing Point - 7
11 Precious Cargo - 4
12 The Catwalk - 7
13 Dawn - 7
14 Stigma - 6
15 Cease Fire - 7
16 Future Tense - 7
17 Canamar - 6
18 The Crossing - 6
19 Judgment - 7.5
20 Horizon - 7
21 The Breach - 7.5
22 Cogenitor - 10
23 Regeneration - 9
24 First Flight - 8
25 Bounty - 8
26 The Expanse - 9

ENT Season 2 Average: 6.73

ENT Season 3
1 The Xindi - 7
2 Anomaly - 9
3 Extinction - 6
4 Rajiin - 6
5 Impulse - 8
6 Exile - 7.5
7 The Shipment - 7
8 Twilight - 7
9 North Star - 5
10 Similitude - 7
11 Carpenter Street - 6
12 Chosen Realm - 5
13 Proving Ground - 8
14 Stratagem - 7
15 Harbinger - 7
16 Doctor's Orders - 9
17 Hatchery - 8
18 Azati Prime - 8
19 Damage - 6.5
20 The Forgotten - 8
21 E2 - 7
22 The Council - 8
23 Countdown - 7
24 Zero Hour, Part I - 6

ENT Season 3 Average: 7.08

ENT Season 4
1 Storm Front, Part I - 6
2 Storm Front, Part II - 6
3 Home - 9
4 Borderland - 8
5 Cold Station 12 - 8
6 The Augments - 8
7 The Forge - 8
8 Awakening - 10
9 Kir'Shara - 9
10 Daedalus - 7
11 Observer Effect - 8
12 Babel One - 8
13 United - 8
14 The Aenar - 8
15 Affliction - 7
16 Divergence - 7
17 Bound - 5
18 In a Mirror Darkly, Part I - 7
19 In a Mirror Darkly, Part II - 8
20 Demons - 7
21 Terra Prime - 7
22 These Are the Voyages - 6

ENT Season 4 Average: 7.50

So that came out to:

ENT Season 1 Average: 7.08 --> 7
ENT Season 2 Average: 6.73 --> 6.5
ENT Season 3 Average: 7.08 --> 7
ENT Season 4 Average: 7.50 --> 7.5

I rated most of the first season in the 7-range. Two-thirds of it. Only one episode breaks into "9 or above". That's "Shuttlepod One". Not exactly my favorite season of Star Trek, but it's fine.

The second season is bumpier. Nothing -- let me repeat that, nothing -- gets an 8 or above until the last five episodes, where it's all solid. The strongest episode being "Cogenitor", which I gave a 10. Before that, a full third of the season (eight episodes) is in the 5-6 range. That's deadly. That's the neutral, mediocre, "I don't really care" range. Then I gave two episodes, "A Night in Sickbay" and "Precious Cargo", below a 5. I almost never give out ratings below a 5. So that's pretty bad, coming from me. Combined, that's 10 episodes below a 7, with nothing breaking out of the 7-range for the first 20 episodes. There's nothing wrong with a 7, but it doesn't exactly make me excited to see more either. So that's how I was getting so bored with it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

My point is soaps are not typically (ever?) based upon an existing series of novels. Also, soaps often don't really care about "canon" which is why there are all the dead characters who somehow come back to life and such. There is short-to-medium-term consistency, but much like comic books, in the longer run continuity gets thrown out the window.

Nope. They often mine the past for new storylines. One just brought back a plot thread from forty years ago. Soap fans are as much canonistas as SF fans. Their continuity is pretty much tied to real time. Something that happens forty years ago, happened forty years ago. The exception is when they age up a character. (SORAS as they called it) Then events actually get pushed back rather forward as in comics

 

[fireproof78]

Who knows if it did or not. That's speculation. When they went that way, it got canceled. That we know. We also know that episodic sci-fi is well known to be extremely successful. Trek, Buffy, Stargate, which blows everything away. To me it appears to me a more successful recipe. But as you said earlier, streaming may be having a role in the new shows and you're probably right.

Well, we may not know the full conclusive rationales behind it but there is an assumption here that going to serialized immediately equals cancellation. For starters, and I don't have the charts but I know others have posted them, there was an overall downward trend in Trek viewership, and Enterprise followed that trend. In fact Enterprise was losing viewers for its first two or three seasons and in Season 4 were finally gaining viewers.

The challenge here is the assumption that episodic equals success, and serialization equals failure. Except, there are so many other details at work, including how the story is presented. Certainly Stargate SG-1 did serialized storytelling, and follow up stories, as well as episodic, and was successful.

Now, I can appreciate the preference behind episodic vs. serialized. But I don't think one automatically equals to success even in Star Trek. I also think the danger is that assuming episodic will work means that it becomes more formulaic, checking off boxes, that led to Berman era's Trek downfall to begin with. It was stale, and predictable. Even VOY, who's set up offered a great way to combine both episodic and serialization, failed and just went back to the TNG formula.

And, maybe that formula sounds really warm, familiar and appealing. I think that might very well be part of Trek's appeal is that it is viewed as comfort food view; unchallenging, consistent and the same. Maybe that's the point I'm always missing when it comes to how people don't enjoy current Trek. I genuinely don't know at this point. I do know that Trek set out to entertain the largest possible audience and would change itself as needed to match the times. I think that following in to formulas and past successes to guarantee future success is not a winning plan.

I could be wrong. But, I don't think the shift to serialization was what put Enterprise down.

 

[ITDUDE]

I'm late to the thread.. Is this new way of saying pre-cancelled?

These Are the Voyages - 7

 

[The Wormhole]

Yes, but I don't believe CBS All Access exists outside the U.S.

CBSAA is available in Canada, though it's a bit redundant given that a majority of their shows, including all the new Treks are available on cable channels in Canada.

I don't think the shift to serialization was what put Enterprise down.

It wasn't. I remember the discussions about Enterprise we had around here back when the show was first airing.. A lack of serialization was a common complaint during the first two seasons. Indeed, one of the reasons Enterprise switched to serialization when it did was because at the time, serialized TV was the flavor of the month. This was the time when the show 24 was huge and everyone wanted to imitate it.

But when we are talking about sci-fi or weird shows like The Outer Limits or Creepshow, it works so much better if it's episodic.

Those two particular shows are anthology shows, which is one format which does benefit from being episodic. Though even then, we have season arc based anthology shows these days that have certainly found an audience. American Horror Story for example is doing well enough that it's been renewed for the next three or four years and has a spin-off in development.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm late to the thread.. Is this new way of saying pre-cancelled?

Hey, I'm looking at it from the Enterprise-D point of view. Not the NX-01.

 

[ITDUDE]

22 These Are the Voyages - 7

Hey, I'm looking at it from the Enterprise-D point of view. Not the NX-01.

yeah it was a mediocre TNG episode at best. Maybe a 5

 

[Lord Garth]

yeah it was a mediocre TNG episode at best. Maybe a 5

Okay, fair enough. I just like seeing The Rikers. Or should I say The Trois.

They're pretty much basically just hanging out.

 

[Vger23]

Okay, fair enough. I just like seeing The Rikers. Or should I say The Trois.

They're pretty much basically just hanging out.

Was there something wrong with "These Are the Voyages?"

 

[EnderAKH]

Well, we may not know the full conclusive rationales behind it but there is an assumption here that going to serialized immediately equals cancellation. For starters, and I don't have the charts but I know others have posted them, there was an overall downward trend in Trek viewership, and Enterprise followed that trend. In fact Enterprise was losing viewers for its first two or three seasons and in Season 4 were finally gaining viewers.

I am here to help.

 

[Lord Garth]

Was there something wrong with "These Are the Voyages?"

I love the audacity of how after 18 years, the creators just decided, "Screw it! This is what we're doing!" The two-parter before TATV is the real ENT Finale.

Everyone else was Outraged (I won't even say "Mock Outraged", they were Real Outraged). But me, I just can't agree. I'm the voice of dissent here. But, if they ever pull that with DSC, I'll hit the roof. Which makes me a total hypocrite, but at least I can admit it. 99.9% of posters here can't admit when they're being hypocritical.

 

[fireproof78]

I am here to help.View attachment 19533

I thank you!