Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread

[Dukhat]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Finale Season Was 'A Negotiation', With a Movie Option Also Discussed, Star Says - IGN

Various options for the future of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds have been discussed, including the possibility of a two-hour movie.

www.ign.com

So, first CBS/Paramount originally wanted to end the series after season 4, but the producers fought with them to get a fifth season. Then, CBS/Paramount shifted gears again and wanted to have a two hour series finale movie instead of a 10-episode fifth/final season, and the producers had to fight again to get 6 episodes instead?

This does not sound like CBS/Paramount wants to make Star Trek: Year One. Or a President Archer show. Or Star Trek Legacy. Or any of the other crap we've heard rumors about. This sounds like CBS/Paramount wants to end this show as quickly as humanly possible and cease making more.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Sadly, I agree.

 

[gweeps]

I can see the series finale being called, 'To Boldly Go'.

 

[Quinton]

So, first CBS/Paramount originally wanted to end the series after season 4, but the producers fought with them to get a fifth season. Then, CBS/Paramount shifted gears again and wanted to have a two hour series finale movie instead of a 10-episode fifth/final season, and the producers had to fight again to get 6 episodes instead?

This does not sound like CBS/Paramount wants to make Star Trek: Year One. Or a President Archer show. Or Star Trek Legacy. Or any of the other crap we've heard rumors about. This sounds like CBS/Paramount wants to end this show as quickly as humanly possible and cease making more.

I don’t get the impression they shifted gears from a fifth-season greenlight toward a two-hour movie greenlight. My understanding is that season four was set to be the end, but with a two-hour movie as a financially acceptable way to end things on the writers’ terms. When the producers made it clear that two hours wouldn’t be enough, negotiations were tight, but ultimately, a truncated fifth season was approved.

Which likely would not have been in the cards if Paramount wanted to wash its hands of Star Trek on TV altogether. And is it really fair to call all that stuff “crap” and rumours? Ignoring people who try to sell the idea that any of this will ever actually happen, it’s all pitches and pitch concepts; I wouldn’t classify such things as rumour. There are real people in actual show-making careers who have expressed interest in creating these things. That doesn’t mean any of them are ever made, nor does it inherently suggest anything of the sort, but it’s a far cry from, like, if somebody on YouTube starts claiming that Star Trek: Sisko Returns is happening or whatever.

 

[eschaton]

So, first CBS/Paramount originally wanted to end the series after season 4, but the producers fought with them to get a fifth season. Then, CBS/Paramount shifted gears again and wanted to have a two hour series finale movie instead of a 10-episode fifth/final season, and the producers had to fight again to get 6 episodes instead?

This does not sound like CBS/Paramount wants to make Star Trek: Year One. Or a President Archer show. Or Star Trek Legacy. Or any of the other crap we've heard rumors about. This sounds like CBS/Paramount wants to end this show as quickly as humanly possible and cease making more.

I think that CBS/Paramount wanted to "clear the deck" to allow Skydance as much flexibility as possible regarding what was done with Star Trek.

David Ellison is Trek fan, and since the merger, has said a lot of affirmative things about more Trek in the future, both on TV and in theatres. Whether this means building off of the Kurtzman era or a soft reboot remains to be seen.

 

[Jayson1]

That's the question. On one hand it makes sense to me to move on from Kurtzman and have Ellison bring in his own people to run Trek. But I also think I heard he and Kurtzman get along so who knows what might happen. I do think getting a Trek movie in the theater though is going to be important to them. Maybe it's that Early Federation idea or maybe they bring back the Kelvinverse crew one more time, I don't know. I am just kind of shocked they haven't even considered rebooting TNG. I mean it kind of makes sense even if it's something I don't want them to do.

 

[Danja]

That's the question. On one hand it makes sense to me to move on from Kurtzman and have Ellison bring in his own people to run Trek. But I also think I heard he and Kurtzman get along so who knows what might happen.

Ellison already has his person in charge of Trek: Alex Kurtzman.

 

[Noname Given]

So, first CBS/Paramount originally wanted to end the series after season 4, but the producers fought with them to get a fifth season. Then, CBS/Paramount shifted gears again and wanted to have a two hour series finale movie instead of a 10-episode fifth/final season, and the producers had to fight again to get 6 episodes instead?

This does not sound like CBS/Paramount wants to make Star Trek: Year One. Or a President Archer show. Or Star Trek Legacy. Or any of the other crap we've heard rumors about. This sounds like CBS/Paramount wants to end this show as quickly as humanly possible and cease making more.

You misread the article - No one 'fought' to get a two hour streaming film - SNW S4 would be the last Season yes, but the series would conclude with a 2 hour Streaming film. The producers said they didn't think they could do a satisfactory series wrap up with a 2 hour film, and then fought for a 5th season - and in the end got 6 episodes for a 5th season; but yeah, it appears the 2 Hour streaming film was always planned post S4.

 

[Dukhat]

You misread the article - No one 'fought' to get a two hour streaming film...

That's not what I said.

 

[Noname Given]

That's not what I said.

Okay, but you did say:

So, first CBS/Paramount originally wanted to end the series after season 4, but the producers fought with them to get a fifth season. Then, CBS/Paramount shifted gears again and wanted to have a two hour series finale movie instead of a 10-episode fifth/final season, and the producers had to fight again to get 6 episodes instead?

They didn't 'shift gears' - a 2 hour movie was always planned after the end of SNW S4.

 

[Jayson1]

Ellison already has his person in charge of Trek: Alex Kurtzman.

But he didn't hire him. He might like Kurtzman and want to keep him but he is also inheriting him from the previous owners.

 

[Dukhat]

They didn't 'shift gears' - a 2 hour movie was always planned after the end of SNW S4.

Ok, I stand corrected. But that was hardly my point. My point was that this does not bode well for future CBS/P+ Trek productions. I guess we'll know better in February.

 

[Danja]

But he didn't hire him. He might like Kurtzman and want to keep him but he is also inheriting him from the previous owners.

He's keeping CBS CEO George Cheeks.

Who's to say he won't keep Kurtzman too?

 

[Jayson1]

He might do it. I think he might actually be happy with lots of what he has acquired. Taylor Sheridan being a big one. He also has the rights to Mission Impossible,Top Gun and Transformers. He already got ride of Colbert and all the money wasted on carrying a dead format show. People have liked most of what Kurtzman has done that wasn't Section 31 and Discovery. He can bring in a big movie director for a Trek movie. Let Kurtzman just do the tv stuff.

Or he could clean house with most of their talent except Taylor Sheridan and I assume a strong desire to work with Tom Cruise and bring in all brand new people.

 

[mswood]

Ratings plummeted, while as I suspected it didn't track in the top ten. The threshold to make the top ten was considerably lower than I anticipated.

The show failed to deliver even 279 million minutes. A Mammoth week to week decline.

 

[Starflight]

Ratings plummeted, while as I suspected it didn't track in the top ten. The threshold to make the top ten was considerably lower than I anticipated.

The show failed to deliver even 279 million minutes. A Mammoth week to week decline.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm always really interested to hear how streaming Trek shows are doing but the statistics seem so opaque.

 

[cooleddie74]

Ratings plummeted, while as I suspected it didn't track in the top ten. The threshold to make the top ten was considerably lower than I anticipated.

The show failed to deliver even 279 million minutes. A Mammoth week to week decline.

Eh.

The show's ending after Season 5 anyways. ENT languished in the basement of the Nielsens for a good chunk of its own network run and TOS peaked at #52 in the year-end numbers, and that was during its first season. The numbers mean little to nothing to me when the show's fate has already been determined.

 

[mswood]

SNW So far this season
Week 1 - 471 Million Minutes viewed
Week 2 - 472 Million Minutes Viewed
Week 3 - 397 Million Minutes Viewed
Week 4 - Unknown - Less than 279 million Minutes Viewed

The third week decline (a decline of some degree is expected due to the release window).

The week four decline is terrible. Just shockingly bad, made even worse because we don't know how much the decline actually was,

Now the first three weeks results are excellent for Trek in the streaming era.

The best weekly data for Trek so far
1. 472 Million Minutes (SNW season 3)
2. 471 Million Minutes (SNW Season 3)
3. 400 Million Minutes (Picard's finale)
4. 397 Million Minutes (SNW Season 3)

Note: Since we only get a top ten list for originals, we often don't have data on an episode. And because the threshold to make the top ten can change greatly from week to week, there are times int eh last three years you could have had 430 million viewers and not made the top ten or go as low as 187 million minutes and manage to make the top ten.

So becuase of that once Paramount signed a deal with Nielsen to release numbers we have had many weeks were we don't know what the ratings were just that they didn't meet the threshold of that week, and had to have done worse than what ever that threshold for that week was (this week was 279 million minutes).


Data was Picard season 3 (episodes 3-10), Discovery season 6, SNW seasons 2 and 3, Prodigy seasons 1 & 2, and lower decks season 4 and 5 all aired when Nielsen was tracking Paramount.

So we truly don't have any solid numbers for Picard season 1, 2 and the first 2 episodes of season 3. Or for the first season of SNW, or the first 5 seasons of discovery, the first three episodes of Lower Decks. Now we know from press releases, that Picard opener outperformed any of Discovery up to that point, and that SNW opener outperformed Picard. How much and at what level is completely unknown.

Discovery only managed to track four times with 257, 241, 285 and 269 out of the weeks that didn't rank the threshold that would have made it were between 218 - 279.

Picard only had 3 episodes that tracked (out of eight possible) with 310, 276, and 400. Out of the 5 weeks that it didn't make the top ten the threshold need was between 279 - 409.

SNW season 2 tracked all but two weeks, with 338, 393, 351, 324, 395, 362 and 304. The two weeks it didn't track the the threshold need was 346 - 381.

 

[mswood]

Eh.

The show's ending after Season 5 anyways. ENT languished in the basement of the Nielsens for a good chunk of its own network run and TOS peaked at #52 in the year-end numbers, and that was during its first season. The numbers mean little to nothing to me when the show's fate has already been determined.

Well I would disagree to some degree. For example if for example SNW season 4 had 400 plus ratings for every episode or higher, and that they still killed the show.

It would certainly give credence that the reason it was cancelled was less to due with finding an audience and more to do with the new studio wanting to go in a different direction. For example wanting to tell stories set in the TOS era (be it the Prime timeline, the JJ verse, or a different reboot).

Now thanks to the difference between broadcast and streaming, and what data is released between those two types of broadcast. You get less legitimate things that one can soundly make judgments on.

A broadcast show takes a dive, and one of the first things you would look at was their something else that aired at the same time, that might have had a heavier than normal impact. Did the DVR ratings show an uptick showing that people watched it a higher or lower level than normal. Was the show preempted for markets in the US.

With streaming since we don't actually get episode or even season ratings, and because people have a large window of when they can watch those types of comparisons are very difficult to rationally make.

Now with both Discovery and Picard, one of the things I was looking for was if the shows saw in increase for the finale, or if they went out on a whimper (both peaked). That was something nice to see.

 

[cooleddie74]