I've seen some screencaps of how its done on Prime Video internationally (very well) but nothing concrete and unsure how it compares to other Trek shows.
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I'll just offer a contrasting example without naming names. I've been watching the live YouTube streams of a pundit who has already seen all ten episodes. I don't normally follow them, and they sometimes slip up on Star Trek lore and offer unintentional spoilers for the season. They've been very open about liking season 3, even when many of their viewers in the live chat call them a sell out or responsible for Kurtzman getting SFA. That pundit even said they'd probably make more YT money from making hater videos than praising the season.
But your description does fit Doomcock.
What he actually said was, "To the extent that I was aware of the kind of toxic fandom, the anti-SJW, you know, sad little corner of fandom — you just disregard that. Sometimes you’re motivated to have things simply because it’s possibly going to piss off or provoke people who seem to have missed the memo about just what exactly 'Star Trek' is and always has been all about."
He is, in other words, explicitly talking about bigoted people who don't like seeing people from marginalized communities depicted in ways that are equal to white guys. He's not talking about intentionally wanting to construct the whole story to make large segments of legitimate fandom angry.
No.
Only insofar as both are loving but skeptical deconstructions of their respective franchises.
I think PIC S3 would feel like as much of a rupture if it had come first, because the things that make it feel like a rupture are its embrace of modern television storytelling conventions.
And I think it's weird to conceptualize PIC S1 as a "rupture" from the Berman era, because of course it's going to be very different. It's a sequel series to a show whose last episode aired over a quarter-century earlier. American television in general is very different today than it was just fifteen years ago, let along the almost thirty years that have now passed since "All Good Things..." aired. You wouldn't expect a 2020 episode of Euphoria to resemble a 1994 episode of Party of Five just because they're both dramas about teenagers; you wouldn't expect a 2020 episode of Succession to resemble a 1990 episode of Dallas just because they're both dramas about a rich family in control of a powerful corporation; you wouldn't expect a 2020 episode of Game of Thrones to resemble a 1996 episode of Xena: Warrior Princess just because they're both fantasy dramas. So why would you expect a 2020 episode of Star Trek: Picard to resemble a 1994 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation -- especially when you were told by the marketing that it would not resemble TNG?
Being upset that Star Trek: Picard is a "rupture" from the conventions of a television program that hadn't aired in almost a quarter-century before is just refusing to accept the premise of the material.
Robert Meyer Burnett openly advocated for business owners to murder black people during the George Floyd uprisings in 2020. He openly called for writer Kirsten Beyer to suffer the "Game of Thrones Walk of Shame," which to be clear would be a form of sexual assault. He is a bigot and a misogynist. I am deeply disappointed anyone involved in Star Trek productions chooses to associate with him.
Season Three has new characters played by white guys who are extremely derivative of characters from S1 played by women and minorities. I cannot help but notice who is accepted as a great and compelling new character and who is not even when given virtually identical material.
Vadic is a lot of fun though.
And others who refused to do so, and others who did so but then stopped when they were given a job.
PIC S3 is fun. I have creative differences with it and some objections, but it's mostly well-done and well-made. It's the reaction from certain quarters of fandom that's divisive, yes.
Yes you did. You claimed he was "was put on a bus to nowhere after season 1." That's a euphemism for involuntary termination of employment.
As far as I am aware, we have no information either way about whether or not Paramount tried to convince Chabon to stay on a showrunner for PIC S2. Literally all we know is that Chabon decided to leave because he wanted to adapt his novel.
I really am not interested in a proxy Terry Matalas/Michael Chabon pissing contest that neither one is even engaging in. They're both very talented writers who deserve a lot of respect. I have some fundamental disagreements with certain of Matalas's creative decisions, but I still think he writes good stuff and usually executes his scripts well even when I don't like the premise.
No, it doesn't, because that would have stolen the emotional focus away from the story that was actually being told, which was the story of Jean-Luc and Soji learning to accept one-another as ersatz grandfather and granddaughter. You might as well claim that the movie Titanic needed to include a scene featuring the captain of the S.S. Californian choosing to ignore the Titanic's emergency calls; to do so would have stolen focus away from the actual story being told.
It's not "grounded in the universe," it's just grounded in Starfleet. One of the things I love about PIC S1 is that we get an extended look at the Alpha Quadrant outside of the point of view of Starfleet institutionalists and outside of the wealth and privilege of the Federation.
No, that is a false characterization of his words.
Honestly, there's no particular reason so far for why S3 features Captain Liam Shaw and Commander Seven of Nine of the USS Titan-A instead of Captain Cris Rios and Commander Raffi Musker of the USS Stargazer. (Raffi and Seven's roles working in the field to investigate the M'Talas Prime bombing could be reversed with almost no noticeable impact.) Certain of these creative decisions feel fundamentally arbitrary, since they could easily have written S2 to set up S3 better.
This is my big question. Rios was panned as "not Starfleet material " at times bit Shaw is generally positively accepted. Raffi was maligned for daring to have substance use but Shaw makes a marijuana joke and that's fine...
Never mind my general distaste for weed jokes or stoner culture, it seems quite odd to me that one is accepted but the other dismissed...
Discovery must have been doing badly, it was canceled and will never reach 7 seasons like TNG and DS9 - even Voyager. And only 5 *short* seasons, unlike the workhorse actors who did TNG, DS9, and Voyager.
The economics of streaming series in the 2020s is radically different from that of syndicated TV seasons in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s like comparing the production of cars in the 1970s and the 1930s. Or laptops from 1990 to those of today. Far more variables in play than “doing badly”, no to mention the analogy you’ve drawn is often a barely disguised version of a tired cliché.
If Discovery was as popular as people claim, it never would have been canceled. It would make no sense to cancel a show thats pulling massive ratings for a streaming service.
Again you are misreading the economic situation. Among the biggest expenses this far into a series is contract renewal for lead actors. Many popular series have been cut short for this reason, or have had major cast changes. Beyond that, every streaming service that produces original material is feeling the squeeze, particularly the smaller ones like Paramount. In the frenzy to copy the Netflix model, many services financed their efforts with debt—debt that unexpectedly increased via inflation (which also increases production costs). Even almighty Disney is cutting back production on things. Moreover, a five year run, in all eras of TV, represents strong success. As for “short” seasons, they are the norm outside US productions, so fewer episodes doesn’t mean “unsuccessful”. And Trek is expensive to make. A sitcom is a lot cheaper. Reality TV cheaper still. The issue of popularity is not to be ignored, of course, but it’s hardly the only factor at play. Look at all the streaming shows (and old fashioned network shows) that don’t complete one season, let alone five. TOS would have LOVED a five season run. And PIC, allegedly so popular as to bring back NuTrek haters in large numbers, is only getting three.
The vast majority of successful streaming shows get maybe two or three seasons. Four or five is extremely successful. More than five is extremely unusual these days.
Discovery was panned out as a flagship show for their new streaming service. The whole franchise was supposed to artistically align with Discos new look and way of storytelling/character depiction. We all know how this turned out to be.
You don’t drastically change the tone and setting of a successful tv series. Placing Disco in the 32nd century wasn’t planned, when the writers first created the series. It became a necessity due to the many canon violations which clashed with the writers wishes for a fresh start.
Disco is not a “bad” show. There are many, many shows which are way worse in all relevant artistic disciplines.
We should consider the possibility , that Disco never fulfilled the expectations of the studio, both financially and artistically.
Discovery is widely considered to be the least attractive iteration of all Star Trek live tv shows, maybe due to fact that viewers preferences shifted, but surely also because it is just not great tv.
Disco is a big budget streaming show, created during the time many will consider to be the “golden age of tv”. The show never had a chance against the big competitors, hell it didn’t even stand a chance against shows depicting nerdy people doing nerdy stuff.
By all means, Disco can be considered to be a mediocre tv show with about average ratings and average audience feedback. It just streams along with many other shows which eventually get canceled. 5 seasons might be more than average for most shows, but killing off the show after only 2 seasons would have canceled the whole franchise, which surely wasn’t the long term plan of CBS…
You don’t drastically change the tone and setting of a successful tv series. Placing Disco in the 32nd century wasn’t planned, when the writers first created the series. It became a necessity due to the many canon violations which clashed with the writers wishes for a fresh start.
Disco is not a “bad” show. There are many, many shows which are way worse in all relevant artistic disciplines.
We should consider the possibility , that Disco never fulfilled the expectations of the studio, both financially and artistically.
Discovery is widely considered to be the least attractive iteration of all Star Trek live tv shows, maybe due to fact that viewers preferences shifted, but surely also because it is just not great tv.
Disco is a big budget streaming show, created during the time many will consider to be the “golden age of tv”. The show never had a chance against the big competitors, hell it didn’t even stand a chance against shows depicting nerdy people doing nerdy stuff.
By all means, Disco can be considered to be a mediocre tv show with about average ratings and average audience feedback. It just streams along with many other shows which eventually get canceled. 5 seasons might be more than average for most shows, but killing off the show after only 2 seasons would have canceled the whole franchise, which surely wasn’t the long term plan of CBS…
Mission Log Live: A Roddenberry Podcast (which is run by Roddenberry Entertainment) does review call in shows every Monday then drop their show overnight. It’s interesting to me that a lot of these fans are in the same boat as some of those here who have been viewed as critical (myself included): they’ve generally liked the series, but have found flaws in it. Particularly the Jack mystery box.
Im listening to last night’s episode right now and they’re questioning whether or not, if the Jack mystery box is worthwhile, if the season will actually be rewatchable. That is an excellent question. And I guess one well know the answer for sure in about nine days.
It’s also interesting to me that while they have some access to the streaming era cast and crew, (They’ve been able to bring on Mike McMahon and the Hageman brothers for instance. Even Matalas appeared on another show on the network) that it does not appear that they had early access to the episodes. I think, as they are generally positive in their discussion of all of the shows, this feels different.
Im listening to last night’s episode right now and they’re questioning whether or not, if the Jack mystery box is worthwhile, if the season will actually be rewatchable. That is an excellent question. And I guess one well know the answer for sure in about nine days.
It’s also interesting to me that while they have some access to the streaming era cast and crew, (They’ve been able to bring on Mike McMahon and the Hageman brothers for instance. Even Matalas appeared on another show on the network) that it does not appear that they had early access to the episodes. I think, as they are generally positive in their discussion of all of the shows, this feels different.
Personally I much prefer Rios to Shaw, but there's a damned obvious reason why they didn't use Rios in Shaw's place--they wanted an antagonistic captain who wouldn't defer to Picard and Riker.
I think it might have something to do with the fact that Shaw is a straight white male. Rios was only two out of those three, while Raffi is none of those three.This is my big question. Rios was panned as "not Starfleet material " at times bit Shaw is generally positively accepted. Raffi was maligned for daring to have substance use but Shaw makes a marijuana joke and that's fine...
Never mind my general distaste for weed jokes or stoner culture, it seems quite odd to me that one is accepted but the other dismissed...
But the antagonistic aspect of Shaw really didn’t last that long. One could have played it off with Rios with conflicting priorities between his duties preparing for Frontier Day and his loyalty to Picard. The one aspect that might have been hard to pull off is having Rios call Starfleet and move the conspiracy theory forward. But perhaps having another character who was a liaison to Starfleet (think Remmick from “Coming of Age”) be that person might have handled that.
It was pulled because of money. The longer a show goes on the more money actors cost. With the financial situation of all studios feeling the pinch it makes sense to cut costs.
Such is the business right now.
There are very few streaming shows that have gone on more than 5 seasons. It's not the 90s anymore where shows lasted for many seasons. Even the extremely popular Stranger Things is only going to have 5 seasons (and less episodes per season). There are actually only 2 Netflix 1 hour drama series that have lasted for more than 5 seasons - House of Cards with 6 Seasons (ended in 2019) and Orange is the New Black with 7 seasons (ended in 2018). The Crown will be its third. Netflix has also only had two 30 minute comedy shows last for more than 5 seasons. Prime only has one show that has gone on for more than 5 seasons.
I think Shaw stayed antagonistic with Picard and Riker for half the season. Right up until the end of "Imposters" when the Titan had to make a run for it. Before that point, Shaw couldn't wait to be rid of Picard and Riker. He probably still feels the same way, even as of "Surrender", but there's no time to dwell on it. Plus his hero Geordi is there.
This really doesn't work with Rios. Rios doesn't really care about red-tape, paperwork, and duties. As soon as Picard would've needed him, he would've come up with some bullshit excuse to tell Starfleet and, if he didn't like what they said, he'd blame it on a jammed transmission.
And, elephant in the room, it's Picard. We've got to have that ONE character who reminds us that Picard used to be Locutus. This season it's Shaw.
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It's pretty naïve to think actor salaries alone sank STD. The budget per episode of STD is about $8-8.5 million. By contrast a single episode of 1923 is between $30-35 million.
In the end we'll never really know what the viewership was for STD or whether it really made any money or not. There was definitely an audience out there that loved it, but not nearly enough to keep spending that kind of money on. Trek already had a limited audience and they were always going to need a good chunk of the Berman-era fan base to sign on for this version to make it successful.
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And that pretty well sums up my own thoughts about STD. It turns out that letting people make vanity projects that cater to a minor amount of people was a bad idea. Turning around and labeling everyone that was turned off by it as bigots, racists, homophobes, *insert your favorite overused pejorative here*, was an even worse idea.
In the end we'll never really know what the viewership was for STD or whether it really made any money or not. There was definitely an audience out there that loved it, but not nearly enough to keep spending that kind of money on. Trek already had a limited audience and they were always going to need a good chunk of the Berman-era fan base to sign on for this version to make it successful.
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And that pretty well sums up my own thoughts about STD. It turns out that letting people make vanity projects that cater to a minor amount of people was a bad idea. Turning around and labeling everyone that was turned off by it as bigots, racists, homophobes, *insert your favorite overused pejorative here*, was an even worse idea.
Alone? No. A major factor in a contracting market? Yes.
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