I can see that.
As much as I'd miss the visual variety, I'm forced to agree that this is the best way to put out Streaming Trek economically.
Reading this now, it just occurred to me that Discovery could become a training vessel. It saves them from having to build new sets. And, effectively, it would be kind of like DSC Season 6 but not. I think instead of having new series that completely from scratch, one series will transition into a replacement series. DSC becomes SFA. PIC becomes LEG. I'm really not liking typing "LEG" but I'll go with it for now.
Assuming the Titan survives, it looks to me like Seven would the Captain. Though I think Jeri Ryan probably doesn't cost as much as Sir Patrick Stewart, and she'd be the only Legacy Character who'd be a regular. I think they can have one without breaking back. But the entire TNG cast back and Seven, like with PIC Season 3? Something had to give. I think it's actually pretty amazing what they've pulled off this season, given how much they probably had to pay to get everyone back and also recreate the Enterprise-D set(s).
Exactly. Apparently that Enterprise D set (from the Variety feature on it) was extremely expensive and time consumng to build. But good news! They saved it this time.
I think basically everyone with a pair of eyes knew that Strange New Worlds was coming once they saw the 1701 bridge in the last episode (or two?) of Discovery Season 2. That bridge was so lavishly detailed, so beautifully built and so clearly very expensive, it had "we're spreading the costs of the new show by taking some money from an existing one" written all over it. And that's not a bad thing. It's far from the first show to ever do that.
One encouraging thing about a potential Legacy show is that from a production standpoint, i think producers agree with the economical angle now. Season 1's biggest CGI moment was the stupid flower defense system in Episode 9. Gosh, imagine how expensive that was, not only making these fluidly moving organic things, byt syncronizing it with view through the bridge window as live actors are apparently looking at this thing encapsulate the ship. It's like... why? That's Hollywood level sure, but so unnecessary and so expensive.And the irony is, it didn't have an ounce the oomf that the Intrepid rising above the Titan like an awakened, pissed off dragon did in Episode 5.And that was just a Starship model moving a little with some fire effects on a nacelle.
This comes up in a lot of directors and producers interviews about film making in general. CGI has made scriptwriters and some producers basically gluttonous, but also lazy. They want to do more elaborate things (that might not be necessary to the story or performances), and say "CGI can make it happen", and the thing that gives is it eats up the budget.
My guess is the belt tightening at Paramount, like everywhere else, has us see only 2 live action Trek shows - SNW and SFA - simultaneously, rather than three. I would (sadly) be surprised if Legacy happens before SNW has wrapped for good (and let's be clear, Section 31 is never happening unless its an event miniseries of like 5 episodes as a one off, in a repackaged concept). But they could easily support 3, or 2 with more episodes, if they just gave up the losers game of trying to compare to Mandalorian and the Star Wars shows on a CGI basis. Star Trek did CGI well, and pioneered it for TV, but it's not the 1990s anymore, and the competition really isn't a TV show... it's a chopped up movie with a budget three times the size backed by the largest media conglomerate it the world.
)
