Strange New Worlds' showrunners advise fans to write to Skydance and Paramount if they're interested in a "Year One" Kirk sequel series

[Dukhat]

One of the things the SNW people have done right is to lean into Spock/Christina, expanding their backstory and turning the unreciprocated crush established by a throwaway line in "The Naked Time" into a mutual three-dimensional romance. What you observe is part of the leaning into it, I think.

To me it's more of taking what we saw in TOS out of context just to justify the story they want to tell, but hey, however you choose to interpret things is your bag, baby.

Why in the world would they want to do that, when so far they have wonderful actors playing beautifully realized versions of the TOS characters?

I personally would not use 'beautifully realized versions' as a descriptor of these characters (although I will agree that the actors are wonderful), but again, that's just my opinion.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Mileage varies.

 

[fireproof78]

Why in the world would they want to do that, when so far they have wonderful actors playing beautifully realized versions of the TOS characters?

Exactly.

 

[Mudd]

Why in the world would they want to do that, when so far they have wonderful actors playing beautifully realized versions of the TOS characters?

Reading the newest quotes from the producers at Trekmovie makes this whole thing sound like more of a pipedream.

Which is a real shame.

Looks like the franchise is probably headed back to Trek slop.

 

[Danja]

Exclusive: Akiva Goldsman Gives ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Update: “It’s A Real Dream”

The 'Strange New Worlds' co-creator talks Skydance and the Enterprise sets.

trekmovie.com

“Physical assets” also includes all of the props and costumes, which are currently stored at CBS Studios in Mississauga where the USS Enterprise sets take up several stages. Those sets, which have been been expanding each season so far, were quite expensive to build and incorporate significant amounts of technology. If the studio chose not to preserve the physical assets, they could recoup a significant amount of money by auctioning off the props, costumes, and even some set pieces. However, having to rebuild entire sets would be a hurdle any new show would have to face and could make giving the show a green light a more difficult decision in the new era of streaming belt-tightening.

 

[Starflight]

The thing that confuses me is that he's not laid out any clear difference between Year One and SNW, other than Wesley being the lead actor instead of Mount (and, I suppose, possibly Navia and Romijn being dropped in favour of a new Sulu and Rand).

Structurally, though, he already has the Year One show he's dreaming of; it's called Strange New Worlds. He even advertised SNW prior to its debut as being a return to TOS-style stories (dropping the buzzwords "optimistic" and "episodic" endlessly in interviews), though obviously that's gone out the window lately.

 

[Dukhat]

Expensive sets being torn down is nothing new. Neither is auctioning off props.

 

[Christopher]

The thing that confuses me is that he's not laid out any clear difference between Year One and SNW, other than Wesley being the lead actor instead of Mount (and, I suppose, possibly Navia and Romijn being dropped in favour of a new Sulu and Rand).

Structurally, though, he already has the Year One show he's dreaming of; it's called Strange New Worlds. He even advertised SNW prior to its debut as being a return to TOS-style stories (dropping the buzzwords "optimistic" and "episodic" endlessly in interviews), though obviously that's gone out the window lately.

The big problem with redoing TOS (aside from the logistical challenge of tiptoeing around its continuity if the show lasts more than one in-story year) is that the cast is so overwhelmingly white and male. It would be a step backward from the inclusiveness of the SNW cast. It would help some to keep a strong focus on Uhura and Chapel, and to give Sulu some real development at last.

Yes, maybe you could elevate Rand to the female-lead role she was intended to have at the start, but Rand is a problematical character in modern terms because she was created to be a source of unresolved sexual tension with her direct superior. The trope of a boss lusting after his secretary (which is basically what a yeoman is) was treated as routine in the '60s, when it was assumed that women were only in the workforce to hunt for husbands anyway, but it feels far uglier to modern audiences. Granted, the whole thrust of the Kirk/Rand character dynamic was that Kirk would never contemplate sleeping with a subordinate and kept those urges deeply buried when he was in his right mind, but even the fact that he wanted to is problematical in a modern context (even though she did too). So it might be better to avoid Rand altogether -- or to retcon out the sexual-tension angle like they did with Pike and Number One, but that pushes things closer to being an alternate continuity rather than a modern take on the same continuity as Goldsman and his colleagues still evidently want it to be.

Otherwise it would be necessary to create new characters, or give bigger roles to minor characters like, say, Tonia Barrows or Charlene Masters, to improve the gender and ethnic balance of the cast. Unless they decided to pull an April and cast a nonwhite actor as McCoy, but that would be a harder sell with a main-cast regular than with a character who only appeared in one animated episode and could have just been misdrawn. (I'm still hoping for Wynonna Earp and Vagrant Queen's Tim Rozon as McCoy.)

 

[Danja]

The big problem with redoing TOS (aside from the logistical challenge of tiptoeing around its continuity if the show lasts more than one in-story year) is that the cast is so overwhelmingly white and male. It would be a step backward from the inclusiveness of the SNW cast. It would help some to keep a strong focus on Uhura and Chapel, and to give Sulu some real development at last.

Maybe they could bring over Jenna Mitchell?

Expensive sets being torn down is nothing new. Neither is auctioning off props.

"We still have the sets!" is not the greatest selling point for a new series.

The new show might not necessarily NEED all of the sets.

 

[Starflight]

Yes, maybe you could elevate Rand to the female-lead role she was intended to have at the start, but Rand is a problematical character in modern terms because she was created to be a source of unresolved sexual tension with her direct superior. The trope of a boss lusting after his secretary (which is basically what a yeoman is) was treated as routine in the '60s, when it was assumed that women were only in the workforce to hunt for husbands anyway, but it feels far uglier to modern audiences. Granted, the whole thrust of the Kirk/Rand character dynamic was that Kirk would never contemplate sleeping with a subordinate and kept those urges deeply buried when he was in his right mind, but even the fact that he wanted to is problematical in a modern context (even though she did too). So it might be better to avoid Rand altogether -- or to retcon out the sexual-tension angle like they did with Pike and Number One, but that pushes things closer to being an alternate continuity rather than a modern take on the same continuity as Goldsman and his colleagues still evidently want it to be.

Given the early CMO situation, maybe they could just skip Piper and have an original female character in the role, who is for whatever reason replaced by McCoy at the end of the first year.

I think Rand can work as a character if written carefully; maybe have her as a promising officer who Kirk takes a mentorship role with. I suppose the issue is that the romantic tension defined the original character and so any reimagining that discards that is essentially just a new character. It's tricky, but there might be a way to show it as a one-sided attraction on Rand's part (which Kirk recognises and discourages, as he did with La'an), as long as the character is well-drawn enough outside of that dynamic.

SNW's done a good job at developing female mentor characters too, which perhaps takes a little bit of the edge off the white/maleness of the TOS crew - Scotty can now mention that Pelia taught him certain things, Spock can refer back to what he learned from Una's command style as he becomes a First Officer, Kirk's currently studying under a female Vulcan captain on the Farragut, etc.

 

[Christopher]

"We still have the sets!" is not the greatest selling point for a new series.

The new show might not necessarily NEED all of the sets.

But even reusing some of them could save a lot of money. There's precedent for shows reusing sets from other shows. For instance, 1989's Alien Nation inherited the police station sets from Cagney & Lacey, and I believe Lucifer's first two seasons reused the police station sets from Continuum before it relocated production from Vancouver to LA. The Battlestar Galactica reboot's sets for the battlestar Pegasus were recycled from John Woo's rejected The Robinsons: Lost in Space pilot, IIRC.

I'm not sure I can think of any show being created for the specific purpose of reusing pre-existing sets, but there are probably some sitcoms that fit the bill. Galactica 1980 was created to amortize props, costumes, and stock footage from the original Galactica, but it didn't have many sets in common. Certainly there have been individual episodes made to reuse existing sets, like the Mission: Impossible episodes filmed in Hogan's Heroes' Stalag 13 backlot and The Brady Bunch's living room (and no doubt "Submarine" was written around an existing submarine mockup from a movie or something, though I don't know which one), and there have been low-budget films that have done it, like how Roger Corman shot both Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors on sets left over from Diary of a High School Bride.

 

[Danja]

I'm not sure I can think of any show being created for the specific purpose of reusing pre-existing sets, but there are probably some sitcoms that fit the bill.

Magnum P.I. was created to reuse sets that were left over from Hawaii Five-O (which had been cancelled the previous year).

NCIS Hawai'i reused sets from Alex Kurtzman's Hawaii Five-O reboot.

L.A. Firefighters DESTROYED sets that were left over from Space: Above and Beyond.

 

[Christopher]

Magnum P.I. was created to reuse sets that were left over from Hawaii Five-O (which had been cancelled the previous year).

NCIS Hawai'i reused sets from Alex Kurtzman's Hawaii Five-O reboot.

L.A. Firefighters DESTROYED sets that were left over from Space: Above and Beyond.

Good catches. Interesting that history repeated itself with Five-O, but odd that it wasn't the Magnum reboot that benefitted. Although I see that the two reboots had Peter Lemkov and CBS Studios in common but not Kurtzman/Secret Hideout.

Also, wasn't there a White House-based series that reused the sets built for X2: X-Men United? I know its White House sets were reused by the Stargate SG-1 episodes with William Devane as the President, but I think I heard about another series using them too.

And I forgot one I should've remembered from my childhood -- Filmation's Jason of Star Command recyled the sets, costumes, props, and miniatures from the previous year's Space Academy. I'm not sure if it was created for that purpose -- it was more of an homage to old-time adventure serials like Flash Gordon -- but it posited that Star Command was a subdivision of Space Academy to justify reusing the assets (though I think it would've made more sense the other way around).

You'd think reuse of sets would happen more often in sci-fi, given the expense of building unusual and futuristic sets. But maybe it's because the sets are so specialized and can't be as easily repurposed as a police station or school or hospital set.

 

[Danja]

Good catches. Interesting that history repeated itself with Five-O

CBS is notorious for reusing sets.

 

[comsol]

Didn't the Lou Grant series reuse the Washington Post sets from All the President's Men?

 

[Christopher]

And of course, we're forgetting the example closest to home: ST:TNG recycled the Enterprise sets created for Phase II and repurposed for the movies, and then Voyager remodeled the TNG sets, so that the sets originally built in 1977 were in nearly continuous use until 2001. (Which was only possible because they were originally built for a TV series and thus built to last, unlike feature film sets, which are only meant to be used for a few weeks and then swiftly torn down to make room for other sets.) So there would certainly be precedent for sets built for one Trek production to be kept standing and reused in subsequent ones.

 

[FederationHistorian]

The big problem with redoing TOS (aside from the logistical challenge of tiptoeing around its continuity if the show lasts more than one in-story year) is that the cast is so overwhelmingly white and male. It would be a step backward from the inclusiveness of the SNW cast.

But there is no issue in remaking TOS from a diversity perspective. Year One would have more than enough characters to work with.


Kirk, Uhura, Spock, Chapel, Scotty, Ortegas, Sulu, La’An, M’Benga, J. Mitchell, G. Mitchell, Dehner, Kelso, Rand, Riley, Piper, Alden.

I see 3 Black characters (Uhura, M’Benga, Alden), 3 Asian characters (Sulu, La’an, J. Mitchell), 1 Latina character (Ortegas)

A Year One show could also elevate Charlene Masters from TOS a main character. And use whatever background characters from SNW and DIS that exist as well. Comms has Shankar, Zuniga, Christina and Nicola in addition to Uhura. While helm has Amin in addition to Ortegas and J.Mitchell, and when its time, Riley and Sulu.

Make some of the male characters queer (Kelso? Riley? Piper? Alden?) and there’s further representation.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Rahda.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Rahda.

Her too.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I really don't see why there can't be enough adventures to sustain a few seasons of a TV show set before "... Corbormite..." besides "Where No Man..." (or whatever comes first canonically*). Or even in between TOS episodes, for that matter, if not especially this.

* - Does anybody have an authoritative list of TOS episodes in canonical timeline order, by the way, or is there no such thing even? And no, I'm not talking about stardate order because that wasn't intended to be chronological; Gene said so around that time.