Did the fans want a show set ten years before TOS but looks nothing like TOS? I don't think so.
Did the fans want a show about Pike on the Enterprise seven or so years before TOS? No, not until they brought him, Spock, and the NCC-1701 (that looks completely different from TOS) into DSC.
Did the fans want a show about Picard twenty years after we last saw him? Nope.
Did the fans want an animated comedy show about constant memberberries shoved in their faces and loud, fast-talking annoying characters? Nope.
Did the fans want an animated CGI show ostensibly for kids about a group of alien teens stealing a ship? Nope.
Did the fans want a show about Starfleet Academy in the year 3100? Nope.
Did the fans want a show movie about Section 31 and some bloodthirsty psycho on some sort of path to redemption? Nope.
Did the fans want a comedy show set on some hotel planet? Nope.
None of the people producing these shows asked the fans if that was what they wanted prior to making them. Nor did the fans give their input about what they wanted to see beforehand to the producers. Because there is no such thing as 'fan consensus,' and there is no such thing as 'we listen to the fans and give them what they want.' That's just a fantasy.
I agree with the general sentiment, because reading a lot of the comments on this board I sometimes think people lose sight of the fact that
Star Trek at the end of the day is a product, no different than any other commodity that is designed to make a profit. They're not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts towards the fanbase, or is it an entirely artistic endeavor solely meant to advocate the philosophical underpinnings of Roddenberry's "vision."
It's meant to make money.
Yes, in the ideal, Paramount would like it if the people who already like and are open to watching a
Star Trek series are happy with it, especially if it helps with positive buzz online, but the overall objective of all the series on Paramount+/Netflix are to be draws in order to justify their existence through increased streaming subscriptions and licensing fees.
Everything about the way they've programmed
Star Trek on Paramount+ seems to scream that a marketing department is telling the people in charge that they need NEW subscribers in order to get growth numbers and they're maxed out on the "old" fans. To that end, there's probably an assumption within that same marketing research that "the fans" who are diehards like us that are on a
Star Trek forum, even if we're not exactly enthused about the concept of the new material they're putting out in attempts to find new subscribers, that we'll still watch it. So they can do these attempts at a sitcom with a
Star Trek series in a hotel, because we'll still watch if only to complain about it, while they might have a chance to get views from someone that would never watch a
Star Trek series.
It's not that they're not trying to cater to the "old heads" with some of the material (e.g., probably
Picard and
Strange New Worlds were meant to satisfy those demos to a degree, and get people who watched
Star Trek on TV but initially said I'm not paying for another streaming service to reconsider), but I'd argue most of these shows seem to be in a constant search for either more female viewers or younger viewers.
- Prodigy was meant to be a kids show similar to what Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels did for getting younger kids while having their parents possibly interested too.
- Lower Decks probably was pitched as possibly being capable of getting teens and young adults in the Adult Swim demographic that would watch Rick & Morty or Bob's Burger.
- Discovery was an action show, but I also thought the relationship drama, and how people used to talk about all the "crying" and emotion in those storylines was because a lot of those stories were very soap-opera-ish in the same way Grey's Anatomy and a lot of the Shonda Rhimes shows are. And I always felt that it was meant to be a Star Trek that was trying to appeal to female viewers and previous non-Star Trek fans that liked those kinds of relationship dramas.
- The trailer and some of the news surrounding Section 31 indicates they want it to be like Guardians of the Galaxy, where there's a mix of comedy and action in an attempt to broaden it and make it more accessible.
- Everything that's been revealed about Starfleet Academy just screams teen-drama. That they're trying to get the sort of Riverdale and Vampire Diaries type of audience where you have action plus young-people angst about purpose and their lives having to confront new dangers.
The problem, though, is that if they're not successful in growing the brand in these attempts, that they basically dilute things where after a while what does
Star Trek mean to people when they hear the name and a new show or movie is announced? Do people get excited about that still? Or does it become a shrug among the fans at some point, where it's like "oh god, what are they doing now?"
Also, I'm wary of this sort of targeted demo marketing. My feeling has always been that if you make a good show centered around good writing and great acting, more times than not people from all demos will end up watching it and hopefully it'll find an audience. For example, I am not a fan of the fantasy drama. I could never get into
Harry Potter, and when
Game of Thrones began on HBO, I had no interest in watching it. But once I watched an episode and realized the fantasy elements of GoT are just aspects of a story about the politics of power, then I had an "in" to watching it. I think a lot of people of all ages, backgrounds, and genders will watch a show if it's good storytelling, not because the actors are young or it fits a specific mold.
