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Is There Even A REMOTE Chance Of A New Trek Series?

Re: 14 page script re-boot treatment


I'd say that Star Trek dodged a bullet there, except for the fact that the treatment was never actually submitted to the studio or considered.

Trek would be much better off with the excellent reimagining that Moore did for BSG than with the jms proposal, but best off with neither. Something more close and respectful, like Abrams's version, would be preferable.
 
Re: 14 page script re-boot treatment


I'd say that Star Trek dodged a bullet there, except for the fact that the treatment was never actually submitted to the studio or considered.

Trek would be much better off with the excellent reimagining that Moore did for BSG than with the jms proposal, but best off with neither. Something more close and respectful, like Abrams's version, would be preferable.


Agreed..though I really hope no series is done until at least two movies have been released...there are 600+ hours fof TOS-TNG-DS9-VOY-TAS that people can enjoy for now

Rob
 
From what I understand, the movies bring in much more revenue than the TV series. Especially for high overhead productions like Star Trek.

I seriously doubt we'll see another Star Trek series for a long time to come. As several people have pointed out, the franchise is saturated... there is a lot of material out there for people to watch. There would have to be more time for it to "age" before another series is attempted. "Enterprise" failed. Why? Probably for a number of reasons, which would include that there wasn't enough of an interested audience.

Even if ST:XI is a smashing success and spurns on a sequel, I definitely don't expect we'd see a TV series from it (this is a completely separate production from the existing Star Trek franchise, with inception in movie form). Seldom does a series started from a movie end up doing well. It's almost always the reverse.

Plus there's another factor... fan fiction productions are going to keep gaining momentum. And then we may end up seeing some "indie" financing to produce even better versions. Maybe some groupings of mini-series? Down the road, if we end up with a couple of decent quality fan fiction productions, it'll be one less reason to embark on another big studio Star Trek series--it's already being done.
 
From what I understand, the movies bring in much more revenue than the TV series. Especially for high overhead productions like Star Trek.

I seriously doubt we'll see another Star Trek series for a long time to come. As several people have pointed out, the franchise is saturated... there is a lot of material out there for people to watch. There would have to be more time for it to "age" before another series is attempted. "Enterprise" failed. Why? Probably for a number of reasons, which would include that there wasn't enough of an interested audience.

Even if ST:XI is a smashing success and spurns on a sequel, I definitely don't expect we'd see a TV series from it (this is a completely separate production from the existing Star Trek franchise, with inception in movie form). Seldom does a series started from a movie end up doing well. It's almost always the reverse.

Plus there's another factor... fan fiction productions are going to keep gaining momentum. And then we may end up seeing some "indie" financing to produce even better versions. Maybe some groupings of mini-series? Down the road, if we end up with a couple of decent quality fan fiction productions, it'll be one less reason to embark on another big studio Star Trek series--it's already being done.

I think your post is even more far sighted than you think..well thought out. Because there are so many viewing channels, and competition from GAMING and INTERNET, the days of massive audiences watching a genre show (nuBSG proved this) are long over. You could have the so called greatest scifi show ever (FIREFLY fans point to that show..or nuBSG again) but still only a select few, scifi fans, will watch...

Genre based networks are the way TV will go, I think...WESTERN channels...MUSIC VIDEO channels...SCIFI channels...GAME SHOW channels...SOAP OPERA channels...Cop show channels..ect...ect...in fact, just looking at my DVR guide right now? That time has arrived..so an INDIE channel with fan productions of STAR TREK? I'd watch, as I'm sure most of us would...but it would, barely, pull in 2million...

Rob
 
As several people have pointed out, the franchise is saturated... there is a lot of material out there for people to watch.
The franchise isn't at all saturated. People pay attention to what gets shoved in their face, and not much else. The existence of 600 Star Trek episodes (or whatever) really doesn't count for all that much because it's not shiny and new and being waggled in front of everyone's face.

Imagine how many episodes of Gunsmoke there are in existence! That frakkin show ran for 20 years. Is Gunsmoke "saturated"? I'll bet before I just mentioned it you hadn't thought of it in a long time, if ever. That goes to show how hard it is to keep anything in the public eye.

Plus there's another factor... fan fiction productions are going to keep gaining momentum.
Fan produced material doesn't mean anything to the corporate honchos who will be looking for ways to capitalize on the success of Star Trek XI. If you want to predict their behavior, just ask yourself: how can I make the most money off this thing? One obvious answer, if there's the momentum of success caused by a hit movie, you jump right on that momentum and don't let it be lost. Momentum dissapates quickly as people are distracted by the next shiny thing being waggled in their face.

Down the road, if we end up with a couple of decent quality fan fiction productions, it'll be one less reason to embark on another big studio Star Trek series--it's already being done.
The people who own the license to make Trek aren't going to make money off these productions, so why should they factor into their calculations? If they pay attention at all, it would be to shut the productions down, assuming they ever reach the point of being competition. Maybe someday fan productions will be good enough to be worth people paying for. That's the point at which the lawyers swoop in and kill the whole thing off.

Seldom does a series started from a movie end up doing well.
Since the movie started from a series, your example is irrelevant. The actual situation is TV to movie back to TV (more than once, too). Star Trek has a unique ping-pong history going between TV and movies, which has made people quite a lot of money over the years. The corporate honchos are not likely to ignore that.
Because there are so many viewing channels, and competition from GAMING and INTERNET, the days of massive audiences watching a genre show (nuBSG proved this) are long over.
That poses a challenge to Star Trek on TV but it poses a challenge to everything on TV that isn't a reality show or a cop/laywer/doctor show. That doesn't just mean TV producers throw up their hands and admit defeat. It's their job to overcome obstacles like that.

And BSG proved that even a pretty off-putting genre show (far more prickly and difficult to get into than Star Trek is ever likely to be) can survive for four years on TV, with audiences that play in the 1M-3M range - a truly puny number. But who cares what the number is, if the balance sheet is in the black, taking into account all the factors - production costs, ad revenues, overseas revenues, merchandising revenues, DVD sales, etc. There are ways to make the total mix work out, and a lot of it is based on figures we'll never see.
 
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As several people have pointed out, the franchise is saturated... there is a lot of material out there for people to watch.
The franchise isn't at all saturated. People pay attention to what gets shoved in their face, and not much else. The existence of 700 Star Trek episodes (or whatever) really doesn't count for all that much.

Imagine how many episodes of Gunsmoke there are in existence! That frakkin show ran for 20 years. Is Gunsmoke "saturated"? I'll bet before I just mentioned it you hadn't thought of it in a long time, if ever. That goes to show how hard it is to keep anything in the public eye.

Plus there's another factor... fan fiction productions are going to keep gaining momentum.

Fan produced material doesn't mean anything to the corporate honchos who will be looking for ways to capitalize on the success of Star Trek XI. If you want to predict their behavior, just ask yourself: how can I make the most money off this thing? One obvious answer, if there's the momentum of success caused by a hit movie, you jump right on that momentum and don't let it be lost. Momentum dissapates quickly as people are distracted by the next shiny thing being waggled in their face.

I couldn't disagree with you more. In fact, over saturation has been pointed out by Berman--Shatner--Nimoy--RDM--Fuller--Frakes I could go on and on...

It would take someone 5+ weeks to watch everything that has already been done, 24 hours a day. I don't know a better example of over saturation...

3 yrs of TOS
7 yrs of TNG
7 yrs of DS9
7 yrs of Voy
4 yrs of ENT..

28 seasons of TREK clearly beats GUNSMOKE and SIMPSONS (for now)

and by the way? Even JAMES ARNESS (by the way that is him in my avatar) admits Gunsmoke went on five years longer than it should have...and GUNSMOKE, even at the end, was a RATINGS winner...cant say the same about STAR TREK...

Over saturation is what STAR TREK definately suffers from ..IMO..

Rob
 
Could be. IMO there will be a new series sooner or later, but we probably won't like it. I really would like a time travel series in the era of Captain Braxton. You know, a more detailed look from the perspective of the Federation time police, showing them fixing time anomalies and trying to find a cure for temporal psychosis. Of course TPTB probably wouldn't make a show like that.
 
Over saturation is what STAR TREK definately suffers from ..IMO..
No, it suffers from a partially correct public perception that it is tired, hokey old junk and definitely suffers a great deal from public indifference - the opposite of oversaturation. The public doesn't know anything about Star Trek and what it does know is negative. This perception is not the fault of the public, it's the fault of the people who mis-managed the brand for so many years.

The opinions of the likes of Berman, Stewart and Frakes count for nothing. They are not decision makers. The decision makers who hold the rights to Star Trek are embarked on revitalizing it, as a valuable brand that still has plenty of life in it. Since corporate fortunes are built around brands, it's no huge surprise that they'd do this.

The first step in this process will be to change the public perception of Star Trek from "stupid old crap I don't care about" to "sexy new interesting fun stuff I want to see more of." And from the looks of things, they're well on their way to achieving that goal.

Once that step is complete, the next step is to capitalize on their success, in any and all ways possible. More movies, more novels, more video games, more frakkin' commemorative plates and figurines will be part of the mix. Why should TV be arbitrarily excluded from this list? Corporations do anything and everything to make money. Sometimes they are faced with challenges, but the suits earn their paychecks by figuring out how to surmount those challenges.
IMO there will be a new series sooner or later, but we probably won't like it.

Who's "we"? If there's one thing I've learned about this place, if there's an opinion that exists, someone here will have it.

Frankly I'd be happy just to see people wearing Starfleet uniforms back on TV. I survived the dark days of VOY and ENT, after all. I am far from choosey. :rommie:
 
As much as I would love to see a new series( By J.J. & company) If Nu-Galactica could only pull in ratings LOWER then ''ENTERPRISE'' on average, & on a sci-fi network! Then I don't see any chance of a ''NU-series'' series making it in this industry!
 
^
That's because, despite what it's rabidness fans preach, it really wasn't all that high-quality of a show and had a limited scope of audience. Enterprise, had higher production value, wasn't nearly as pretentious, was easier to follow, and was more accessible to the once-in-a-while fan.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
Who's "we"? If there's one thing I've learned about this place, if there's an opinion that exists, someone here will have it.
Sorry, I was feeling really cynical about having another trek series after ENT being the last one. I couldn't stand to watch it. But yeah, now that I think about it, if there's a new series, it will probably be better than that. :)
 
As much as I would love to see a new series( By J.J. & company) If Nu-Galactica could only pull in ratings LOWER then ''ENTERPRISE'' on average, & on a sci-fi network! Then I don't see any chance of a ''NU-series'' series making it in this industry!

The economics of it will be by far the trickiest part, much more so than the series content. There's no network on broadcast or cable that strikes me as the obviously right home for a new series. I think to be a success, Trek on TV will have to be a mix of various revenue streams, both old and new (DVDs, paid downloads, all that crap).

If the movie is the huge international hit I suspect it will be (and the big blockbuster movies nowadays make 50%+ of their revenues overseas), then international licensing could be bigger part of the mix for a Trek TV series than is ordinarily possible for American shows. And for a lot of them, like CSI, Heroes and Lost, it is a signficiant part of the mix. For Supernatural and Stargate, international ervenues apparently are what keep them on the air.

Temis the Vorta said:
Who's "we"? If there's one thing I've learned about this place, if there's an opinion that exists, someone here will have it.
Sorry, I was feeling really cynical about having another trek series after ENT being the last one. I couldn't stand to watch it. But yeah, now that I think about it, if there's a new series, it will probably be better than that. :)

I sure hope so! :rommie: But I'm cynical in a different way - I'm not at all sure how much the quality of the series has to do with its survival - for ANY series. What's needed is a smart business plan for keeping Trek alive on TV while assuming that on someplace like NBC and FOX, it's not going to survive on Nielsens alone, while if it appears on basic cable, the audience will be too small to support a sizeable budget and there's the branding issue of whether a "big name" is devalued by being associated with anything but broadcast TV.

AMC may be a primo brand, but it's not mass market. Skiffy is a joke. The people in charge of the Star Trek brand will envision it as too mass market for AMC and too good for Skiffy. It will be interesting seeing what they do the solve the problem. Giving up on TV altogether is one "solution" but I hope they try to make it work.
 
I couldn't disagree with you more. In fact, over saturation has been pointed out by Berman--Shatner--Nimoy--RDM--Fuller--Frakes I could go on and on...

It would take someone 5+ weeks to watch everything that has already been done, 24 hours a day. I don't know a better example of over saturation...

3 yrs of TOS
7 yrs of TNG
7 yrs of DS9
7 yrs of Voy
4 yrs of ENT..

Over-saturation has nothing to do with volume. Doctor Who is the longest running sci-fi series and comes close to Trek concerning its output, yet it's going strong.
When those people talked about over-saturation, they usually meant that Trek in one form or another had been on TV continuously from 1987 to 2005 and that people weren't excited about it any more and lost interest. There might be some truth to it (although there are examples against this theory, like The Simpsons or Doctor Who), but I think it wouldn't have been a problem if VOY and ENT hadn't been perceived as often retreading the same old stories. I, too, believe there should have been a longer break between VOY and ENT to give the people in charge of Trek some time for serious soul-searching and analysis about what went wrong with VOY ratings-wise or to find new creative staff.

As much as I would love to see a new series( By J.J. & company) If Nu-Galactica could only pull in ratings LOWER then ''ENTERPRISE'' on average, & on a sci-fi network! Then I don't see any chance of a ''NU-series'' series making it in this industry!

They were lower? :wtf: While ENT was still on, I remember reading here that it regularly lost out to BSG. Is it more successful in re-runs? :confused:
 
Except, Doctor Who was pulled from the air because of ratings. It took a break, a new creative team is brought in, and now it's going strong again. Remind you of anything else?
 
Except, Doctor Who was pulled from the air because of ratings. It took a break, a new creative team is brought in, and now it's going strong again. Remind you of anything else?

Yep...
Remember Timbuk3, in the charts in 1986? 'Things are going great, and they're only getting better.'
But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
 
In my opinion, there will never be a new series, for starters, no one is interested in sci-fi anymore, the only sci-fi series now are stargate: atlantis and Battlestar galactica, which has just finished. no one wants sci fi :( all people care about now is reality tv or crime drama. maybe things will change? after all there is supposed to be another stargate series coming out. but i would love to see another ship with a brand new crew. partly the problem, is that the production of trek is so, erm... simple? the special effects werent great, but they did the job perfectly. and the sets were clean and simple.if a new trek series came out i doubt it would be like it was. i think it will all be bare metal and pipes. i am not sure what will happen in the future of trek. i just hope it never dies.
 
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, NCC 1701-B, but the production of Star Trek is not simple at all. Unless you're referring to TOS, the special effects of Star Trek were always pretty expensive. ENT has high production values and therefore cost quite a lot to be made. A new Trek series would certainly be expensive.
 
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