That’s what I thought.
Strange New Worlds' showrunners advise fans to write to Skydance and Paramount if they're interested in a "Year One" Kirk sequel series
- Thread starter Quinton
- Start date
That’s what I thought.
Not them, CBS. They said "we want to cancel the show". Akiva and Henry asked for a fifth season of six episodes and CBS said okay.
Yeah, I missed her post. I didn't see it until after I responded.
…maybe, but I can’t help feeling that might feel a bit too fan-video, you know? Like the Trek equivalent of some 90s BBV thing. (Not that I hated BBV’s work.)
BBV = ?????
I have to say, this seems a very strange argument going around this last page or so, and I do have to agree with Dukhat. If you didn’t specifically plan in advance that a series would end at a certain time, and your bosses come to you and say “Guess what? You’re going to stop now. …okay, you can have a little more to close down the series, but then that’s it.”… Yes, you’ve been cancelled. Which is generally what happens to every TV series, however long it runs…
…unless either
(a) you begin the series saying you will be making a series a certain length and/or to a specific intended conclusion, then shut down. And then proceed to do precisely that. Or,
(b) you decide at some point, “You know what? This story should end this way,” so you make that ending, then shut down. Or,
(c) you voluntarily decide to end the show yourself for some reason.
Strange New Worlds, and indeed every single Star Trek series ever produced so far aside from Picard, was cancelled. And that’s fine!
Picard was not cancelled, per (a). However different the three seasons were from each other, its three-years-and-done run was announced before the show ever began, iirc. And that’s fine!
Assuming the public story is true (I admittedly have doubts), the original Penny Dreadful was not cancelled, per (b). (Behind the scenes, maybe it was cancelled, I dunno. But if they’re telling the truth, that’s fine!)
The Sandbaggers was, per (c), not cancelled, exactly; the creator and main writer disappeared at sea, never to be seen again, and the production felt they couldn’t do it proper justice without him. (A couple of clunkers aside, it was a really great show, by the way.). And that decision — though not the reason for it, obviously — is fine!
The 90s La Femme Nikita was cancelled, in pretty much exactly the same way SNW was. Fine!
Blake’s 7, despite having what now seems an emphatic and thematically appropriate ending, was cancelled — the final episode apparently wasn’t intended to be. While devastating at the time, in the long run, that’s fine!
If there’s some odd legalese definitional technicality somewhere where someone can pull out a chart or something and say, “You know those shows that got cancelled? Per this, they weren’t!” — honestly, that’s a little strange. At best it’s a polite fiction; at worst it seems a way of not having to say something one doesn’t want to be true. (Which is something we’ve probably all done, somewhere.)
…unless either
(a) you begin the series saying you will be making a series a certain length and/or to a specific intended conclusion, then shut down. And then proceed to do precisely that. Or,
(b) you decide at some point, “You know what? This story should end this way,” so you make that ending, then shut down. Or,
(c) you voluntarily decide to end the show yourself for some reason.
Strange New Worlds, and indeed every single Star Trek series ever produced so far aside from Picard, was cancelled. And that’s fine!
Picard was not cancelled, per (a). However different the three seasons were from each other, its three-years-and-done run was announced before the show ever began, iirc. And that’s fine!
Assuming the public story is true (I admittedly have doubts), the original Penny Dreadful was not cancelled, per (b). (Behind the scenes, maybe it was cancelled, I dunno. But if they’re telling the truth, that’s fine!)
The Sandbaggers was, per (c), not cancelled, exactly; the creator and main writer disappeared at sea, never to be seen again, and the production felt they couldn’t do it proper justice without him. (A couple of clunkers aside, it was a really great show, by the way.). And that decision — though not the reason for it, obviously — is fine!
The 90s La Femme Nikita was cancelled, in pretty much exactly the same way SNW was. Fine!
Blake’s 7, despite having what now seems an emphatic and thematically appropriate ending, was cancelled — the final episode apparently wasn’t intended to be. While devastating at the time, in the long run, that’s fine!
If there’s some odd legalese definitional technicality somewhere where someone can pull out a chart or something and say, “You know those shows that got cancelled? Per this, they weren’t!” — honestly, that’s a little strange. At best it’s a polite fiction; at worst it seems a way of not having to say something one doesn’t want to be true. (Which is something we’ve probably all done, somewhere.)
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Sorry! BBV Productions was, and apparently still is, a company that made a bunch of low budget, very frequently Doctor Who-related audios and videos in the 90s — these were often productions where they, say, got the rights to make something “From the World of Doctor Who” starring the Sontarans or whoever, or else were we’re-not-quite-calling-them-Doctor-Who stories starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Alfred (for example), and also original stuff that still often (usually?) featured actors from DW in new roles. A good example of this would be the series The Stranger, which starred Colin Baker and started off seeming to be DW-with-the-names-changed before morphing into something rather different, if still in the same wheelhouse.
I view this stuff in a matter of degrees. Many cancellations occur with neither any form of forewarning, nor the opportunity to go back and adjust anything. That’s the norm.
Discovery’s cancellation wasn’t quite so bad. They didn’t get to do more than film a coda, but the fact that they even got that much is unusual. And Strange New Worlds managed to get a six-episode order, which is all the more unusual. Short of convincing the powers that be to just give them an entire farewell season, that’s the closest you can get to an “ideal” cancellation scenario.
The only modern live-action Star Trek series that has gone out entirely on its own terms has been Picard, but Strange New Worlds has been given a rare reprieve, and even Discovery got more than most. What this tells me is that, for whatever combination of variables are involved, Paramount has deemed the brand and its contributions important enough not to commit to the sort of completely cutthroat cancellation process that many of us tend to associate the word with. (Obviously, that perspective gets tossed out an airlock with Prodigy, but yeah.)
I call these fringe cases which Star Trek has been lucky enough to receive “softer cancellation”. It’s a far better place to be than most television productions will see.
Discovery’s cancellation wasn’t quite so bad. They didn’t get to do more than film a coda, but the fact that they even got that much is unusual. And Strange New Worlds managed to get a six-episode order, which is all the more unusual. Short of convincing the powers that be to just give them an entire farewell season, that’s the closest you can get to an “ideal” cancellation scenario.
The only modern live-action Star Trek series that has gone out entirely on its own terms has been Picard, but Strange New Worlds has been given a rare reprieve, and even Discovery got more than most. What this tells me is that, for whatever combination of variables are involved, Paramount has deemed the brand and its contributions important enough not to commit to the sort of completely cutthroat cancellation process that many of us tend to associate the word with. (Obviously, that perspective gets tossed out an airlock with Prodigy, but yeah.)
I call these fringe cases which Star Trek has been lucky enough to receive “softer cancellation”. It’s a far better place to be than most television productions will see.
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It's OK.
Thanks!
P+ announced Disco's cancellation while the cast was at sea on the Star Trek cruise.
That was a rollercoaster.
USA Network cancelled it abruptly.
The fans launched a campaign. They sent in hundreds upon thousands of sunglasses -- Nikita collected sunglasses -- to the network asking for another season (they got another season to wrap up the storyline).
Just like Enterprise.
Who knows?
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Yeah, I remember. And in a move that feels familiar, it was a short wrapup season — by the standards of the day. One might might look up Season 5 and object that this “short” season was eight episodes, as long as or longer than many regular seasons today; but that was coming after a 22-episode Season Four, as was pretty standard for a season length back then.That was a rollercoaster.
USA Network cancelled it abruptly.
The fans launched a campaign. They sent in hundreds upon thousands of sunglasses -- Nikita collected sunglasses -- to the network asking for another season (they got another season to wrap up the storyline).
If the Paramount Execs really wanted the show to end with season 4 it would have ended with season 4.
Except that's not what they're doing.
The behind-the-scenes specifics of how these shows are commissioned would be interesting to learn more about.
I'm assuming - based on nothing other than my probably-entirely-wrong intuition - that Goldsman is just doing this as a PR thing to create buzz, rather than it being a case of him actually needing fan letters to help him get a new show greenlit. I get the feeling SNW might have been approved before the petition too, Disco season two is a backdoor pilot start to finish.
I'm assuming - based on nothing other than my probably-entirely-wrong intuition - that Goldsman is just doing this as a PR thing to create buzz, rather than it being a case of him actually needing fan letters to help him get a new show greenlit. I get the feeling SNW might have been approved before the petition too, Disco season two is a backdoor pilot start to finish.
Pike was a relatively blank slate. At the at the start of SNW, he didn't have decades worth of backstory behind him.
The same cannot be said for Kirk & Co.
It's been mentioned that Studios pay more attention to social media and fan reaction than they did before; so fans expressing support for the idea doesn't hurt.
And yes Akiva did mention that he was pushing for a Pike series all while he was working on ST: D season 1; but also said that the fan response to Anson Mount as Pike on ST: D season 2 did help him get Paramount to Green Light Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
This is becoming a semantic argument. In my opinion, I do not see this as a cancelation. But for those that are ardent it is, I have question for you. Season 4 and season 5 was recently renewed in advance. And season 5 's order was reduced. So.....hypothetically if they announced SNW has been renewed for another 4 seasons with a shortened 8th season wouks you still say the show has been "canceled "?
At the very least , this is not a pulling the plug on an underperformed show type of cancelation at all.
At the very least , this is not a pulling the plug on an underperformed show type of cancelation at all.
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Are you privy to the conversations between CBS /Paramount and their show runners? For all we know they were absolutely prepared to end the show after season 4, but Goldsman might have begged them to give him some more episodes to satisfactorily end the series, and they were good enough to grant him that.
I could ask you the same question. How do you know when they were "absolutely prepared to end the show"?
Especially now since it's not ending with season 4 is it?
