I said confused not surprised.
Tawny Newsome and Justin Simien developing new live-action Trek series
- Thread starter Precious Tritium
- Start date
Ok well I'm not confused either. Because it's a common human reaction often used in every day small talk
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I applaud your clarity then.
The CSI approach of doing the exact same damn thing just in a different city wasn't even sustainable for that franchise. They got sixteen years with that premise before the well dried up, and the recent attempt at a revival only lasted three years.
Star Trek's attempting to mimic the MCU's direction of every different series being in a different genre, which works well for the MCU (or worked, for a while anyway) and is a worthwhile direction to try and take the Trek franchise in, as we learned by the time Enterprise ended, doing the same old adventures on a starship with the only variation being the time period and or part of the galaxy the ship is in was starting to run dry there as well.
Not quite. That formula has been retooled several times over the course of the years, IE, by the time the Second Doctor came along the show was no longer considered educational, and during the Third Doctor's era time travel was actually removed from the show (with rare exceptions) and the Doctor was stranded on a sort of modern Earth. And while Steven Moffat was in charge during the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor's eras, the show actually became about time travel rather than time travel simply being the mode of transport.
Considering how many similar police procedurals are successful and / or continues to be made ( like Law and Order) , I tend to think CSI petered out due to general writers fatigue and not " just "because people got sick the basic premise or formula. Have people gotten sick in Doctor shows yet? But I conceed I haven't watched many CSIs.
As for Dr Who, yeah the formula may have been "tweaked" ir retooled over the years but it is still the same basic core premise/general familiar expectation . IMO. TOS and Star Trek Enterprise have the same basic formula but Enterprise was quite different with its much more serialized nature especially season 3 where even general exploration was not the main objective . The differences within Dr Who has been in the "variations of a familiar theme" category IMO and not fundamental straying off what made Dr Who, Dr Who.
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NCIS tried it too (NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Hawai'i, NCIS: Sydney).
Now, IT'S running on fumes (they're now coming out with NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Tony and Ziva).
I find the examples of DIS Season 1 and The Orville to be very interesting, because they both lifted different things from Star Trek.
Discovery basically just lifted continuity. Michael Burnham being Spock's sister. Sarek being an important character. Harry Mudd, for some reason, being present. The MU playing an important role. Klingons. Yet the show in terms of direction, writing, story structure, themes, was pretty far afield from Trek up until that point.
In contrast, The Orville was clearly in a unique universe with no relationship to Star Trek canon. Yet MacFarlane went out of its way to structure the show like Trek - particularly "Berman Trek." The writing was semi-episodic, with sledgehammer allegories where you never have a doubt what they were trying to say. The direction, lighting, and set design is very reminiscent of past Trek series. They even brought back Trek writers, directors, and actors where possible. All of which makes it feel like a 90's Trek show with the serial number filed off.
There's a happy medium, I think, and SNW is getting towards it. I'd prefer more semi-episodic/semi-serialized shows in the future, because (aside from Prodigy) I don't think any modern Trek has successfully paced/structured a serialized season. Part of the reason is that Trek episodes have to feel like they're about something. Fundamental to the structure of the show from TOS onward is something of a didactic storytelling structure - something that was in a lot of ways lifted from anthology shows like The Twilight Zone/The Outer Limits (though generally with a less dark conclusion). Trek wants to ask a question, even if it doesn't always provide an answer.
DIS and PIC, though, both tended towards muddled themes, to put it lightly. It's hard to look at individual seasons of either show and draw conclusions. Interesting ideas are often touched upon, but generally not even given a full episode to shine. Often it feels like there's not really a layer to the story beyond the surface level - beyond the plot of the season, which happens because we needed to fill out 10-15 episodes. Which, admittedly, is how many serialized dramas are structured. But I think the lack of strong messages is part of why it leaves some people cold.
And yeah, I admit you can say the same thing for Trek movies. But many Trek fans prefer the TV series to the movies, and feel like most of the Trek movies feel like disposable action-adventure, which I think is largely for the same reason (I'd say aside from TWOK and TUC, the movies are fairly light on theme).
Both VOY and ENT were really kneecapped by the studio, though, because they were uninterested in having a new show, and just wanted to create something that would draw back in TNG fans. So VOY completely squandered the dramatic possibilities of Starfleet/Maquis friction, pissing away setup that was created explicitly for them in TNG, because the bigwigs were worried about having a crew that wasn't friends like on the Enterprise. And the original ENT plan - to have the first season entirely on Earth while the ship was being built - was vetoed.
The most logical thing, IMHO, for them to do is to double the episode count for SNW, since they now have a show most everyone loves, and with a semi-episodic format, there's no reason why they couldn't do a 20-episode season. That said, I know studios don't want to give writers and actors that level of job security these days. So instead I think they're going to fumble about for awhile, looking for another 1-2 shows that are different enough from SNW, while drawing much of the same audience.
I think 09 has a great theme, as well as TMP.
And actors cost more with that.
So how much money should they toss that way?
Picard had its second season already mapped out (they had throw it out when the Covid restrictions came into being).
Why stop at twenty? Why not go back to the Old Skool 26?
Getting money out of Paramount is like pulling teeth as is.
Undersea combat? Hella expensive.
Courtroom drama? TNG and SNW went there.
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Production timelines preclude an effects-heavy show of SNW's quality having more than 10-13 episodes completed in a timely manner. These seasons are already taking as much time to produce as the old 26 episode days.
Additionally, if you listen to any interview given by writers of the 90s and earlier - not just on Star Trek - they all can't imagine how they were able to keep up with the unstoppable juggernaut of production. Sure, one could say just increase the size of the writers' room, but given that the WGA continually has to strike to avoid studios turning writing into a gig economy, that's easier said than done. It's incredibly difficult for a staff of say 6-8 people to write a 20+ episode of television.
Of course, none of this is even getting to the punishing hours the rest of the crew deals with for 40+ weeks a year.
Beyond that, a 20-episode season is a big commitment for cast members who don't live in Toronto. I'm sure there's plenty of the cast that have no intention of living in Canada full time, so having the ability to get their bit of filming done and be able to head back to LA or NYC is much preferred.
Well, I think a lot of how of writing staff was able to churn out 26 episodes a year back in the old days had to do with the formula. I really don't know how to better articulate it than that. There was a certain basic structure to what I call the "BermaTrek formula". A certain sameness that eventually added to the assembly line feel of the later Berman era shows. Having a basic storytelling structure or formula in place for a writing staff to work with would make it easier to construct 26 distinct stories in a single year. Basic formula, add guest stars and plot twists, and voila! You have a Star Trek story. Move on to the next story; repeat process.
While they certainly produced a lot of good episodes with the formula, it also produced a lot of chaff. And by the time we got to Voyager the formula was starting to feel (surprise!) formulatic, and by the time we got to Enterprise the formula was just starting to feel old. Years later, I can look back on a lot of it more objectively and appreciate it as its own thing rather than feeling like it's the same old thing I've seen week after week for over a decade. I think it's telling that my favorite Star Trek show by far of the BermaTrek era was Deep Space 9, which was the least traditional and formulatic show of the bunch.
This is one of the reasons why I may appreciate the new era of Star Trek more than most. I lived through BermaTrek. All 18 years, 25 seasons and 624 episodes of it. I did not want to see a repeat of the same old formula. If I wanted that, I would have been watching the Orville. (Ba-dum-tiss!)
I have appreciated all of the new Treks for their different, less traditional, takes. I like that they centered their first show on a character who was not a captain in the beginning, and then showed her journey to that destination. I liked that Picard, at least in the first season, tried to tell a story from the perspective of those on the outside of Starfleet looking in. If they had continued Picard in that direction, I would have been much happier than with the regression that we got in later seasons*. And the animated shows had their own unique takes on the Star Trek universe. By the time we got to Strange New Worlds, which is a return to a more traditional form of Star Trek storytelling, it felt earned. However successful these shows were in what they were attempting to do is up to the judgment of the individual viewer, but one thing that they largely weren't, were formulatic. And they were all Star Trek.
That's why I am anxious to see what Tawny and Justin have in store, should it ever actually materialize. It may not be what one might expect from Star Trek, but it just might very well be good Star Trek. I am willing to give it the same benefit of the doubt that I've given all of the shows in the new era. And, as I said in a Section 31 thread, I've seen every piece of Star Trek ever made, and I have no intention of stopping now.
*I say that as someone who very much enjoyed Picard season 3 for what it was, but I also recognize it for what it was. Take from that whatever you will. Season 2 on the other hand, is probably the worst season of all the Star Trek canon, right up there with Enterprise season 2. Just horrible.
While they certainly produced a lot of good episodes with the formula, it also produced a lot of chaff. And by the time we got to Voyager the formula was starting to feel (surprise!) formulatic, and by the time we got to Enterprise the formula was just starting to feel old. Years later, I can look back on a lot of it more objectively and appreciate it as its own thing rather than feeling like it's the same old thing I've seen week after week for over a decade. I think it's telling that my favorite Star Trek show by far of the BermaTrek era was Deep Space 9, which was the least traditional and formulatic show of the bunch.
This is one of the reasons why I may appreciate the new era of Star Trek more than most. I lived through BermaTrek. All 18 years, 25 seasons and 624 episodes of it. I did not want to see a repeat of the same old formula. If I wanted that, I would have been watching the Orville. (Ba-dum-tiss!)
I have appreciated all of the new Treks for their different, less traditional, takes. I like that they centered their first show on a character who was not a captain in the beginning, and then showed her journey to that destination. I liked that Picard, at least in the first season, tried to tell a story from the perspective of those on the outside of Starfleet looking in. If they had continued Picard in that direction, I would have been much happier than with the regression that we got in later seasons*. And the animated shows had their own unique takes on the Star Trek universe. By the time we got to Strange New Worlds, which is a return to a more traditional form of Star Trek storytelling, it felt earned. However successful these shows were in what they were attempting to do is up to the judgment of the individual viewer, but one thing that they largely weren't, were formulatic. And they were all Star Trek.
That's why I am anxious to see what Tawny and Justin have in store, should it ever actually materialize. It may not be what one might expect from Star Trek, but it just might very well be good Star Trek. I am willing to give it the same benefit of the doubt that I've given all of the shows in the new era. And, as I said in a Section 31 thread, I've seen every piece of Star Trek ever made, and I have no intention of stopping now.
*I say that as someone who very much enjoyed Picard season 3 for what it was, but I also recognize it for what it was. Take from that whatever you will. Season 2 on the other hand, is probably the worst season of all the Star Trek canon, right up there with Enterprise season 2. Just horrible.
NCIS has run for over twenty years, or thirty exactly if you count JAG. JAG aside, the first cancellation in the franchise didn't come until close to eighteen years after the first series started.
Pretty sure that 20 episodes of SNW would work out to be cheaper than 10 of that and 10 of something else. Only one group of standing sets is a big cost saver, and logistically speaking, paying one crew twice as much is going to be cheaper than paying two crews.
That doesn't necessarily translate to the cast, admittedly, as their salaries will rise over time. But I can't see it ending up more expensive solely because of that.
There's no reason an entire season needs to be "in the can" when the season starts airing. It was the norm in the old days that the season was both airing and filming at the same time. Hell, if VFX delays were a problem, I don't think fans would mind if it seasons were split into "Part 1" and "Part 2" six months apart either.
IIRC the showrunners for SNW have outright said they want more episodes, but the studio has reacted with great hostility every time they asked. So the problem is on the studio side.
Anyone who's worked as an actor/crew member for more than a few decades will also say they loved the stability of the older system, where if you had a role in a TV show, you'd basically have a full-time job for years. Under the modern system, unless you're a top-billed actor, you basically have to be working multiple projects a year to make ends meet.
Also, on the writing side, Berman-era Trek (pretty uniquely for shows of its time) always allowed unsolicited scripts to be submitted, so there were always a backlog of rough story outlines the writer's room could work on polishing. They were never starting with the tank emtpy, even if they sometimes made a turkey.
Studios won't permit unsolicited scripts (too much legal liability).
At this point, we’re right back to having shorter seasons. A break of six months or more doesn’t denote part A/part B any longer. Those are separate seasons.
You know the only reason TNG created the open submission policy in the first place was because turnover in the writer’s room in the first two seasons and into the start of season 3 got so bad that they were overworked and behind on production? That slush pile wasn’t depended on nearly as much as you think. The writers sat through a lot of bad pitch meetings to find the seldom diamonds in the rough. I believe the open submission policy ended with Voyager and Enterprise, so it was never an “always” thing.
These days, there’s no way productions and studios would take the legal risk of such a policy. It opens things up to spurned writers lobbing bullshit lawsuits if the show accidentally uses a concept from a script they turn down because a staff writer thinks of the same thing.
Not an answer.
I suppose it's semantics. But my point is if you want to have more episodes of semi-episodic Trek on a spaceship, it's cheaper and easier to just have more SNW come out faster than to have SNW + an equal amount of something else.
That makes no sense. The money and time spent to produce episodes of science fiction show A is equal to the money and time spent to produce episodes of science fiction show B.
All you're advocating for is making more SNW at the expense of a second Star Trek series, all for what? More SNW just to have more SNW?
And JAG ran for ten fucking years.
People know what they like and like what they know.
Three reasons:
- More episodes of an established show are, as I noted, cheaper than an entirely new show. You already have most of the standing sets in the studio. You've already designed uniforms, props, makeup and prosthetics, etc. Even VFX are likely a bit cheaper, because you already have high-texture renders of things like the ship available off the shelf. There are also probably some savings related to payroll and staging. Balanced against this is that the salaries for the cast for SNW is likely higher than Starfleet Academy (or whatever), but I don't think it will cancel out these other savings.
- SNW is already (we think) successful in a way that earlier Paramount+ Trek shows have not been. At least, there seems to be no major element of Trek fandom which really dislikes the show - none of the divisiveness that we've seen with DIS, PIC, or even LDS. So it's less risk-averse for the studio to double down on the thing already successful than to try and roll the die again on a questionable format.
- While this doesn't necessarily apply when considering the case of Starfleet Academy versus SNW, there's zero reason for Paramount+ to develop another episodic space-based exploration show like SNW as long as it's on the air. Even during Berman Trek, we didn't really have two running concurrently, since DS9's format shifted pretty rapidly away from TNG, with VOY only attempting to move into the "generic Trek" slot after TNG was done. So if you just want "basic Trek" it's better to ask for more SNW episodes than to think you'll ever get Legacy (or whatever).
