I think you guys are too pessimistic about the prospects for the success of a good, canonical (old universe) Star Trek tv series. Enterprise didn't fail because it was in the old universe, it failed because it was boring and stupid until it was too late.
It failed because niche programs don't work anymore on network TV.
Lost was the last hurrah. From now on, networks will be the home of mass market genres - cop/doctor/lawyer shows; family-friendly sitcoms; and reality TV.
The only sf/f that networks even attempt will be the likes of
V,
The Gates and
Persons Unknown - timid iterations of well-worn concepts (and even then, the ratings will suck.) I'm hoping against hope that
Terra Nova can be a rare outlier, playing off Spielberg's name, but overall we need to look to cable for anything interesting in the future.
I wasn't very impressed with
ENT, but it's certainly no worse than, say,
Warehouse 13, and that's a big hit on Skiffy. If CBS were somehow to allow
Star Trek on Skiffy, and the budget could be hammered down to a cable level without lowering the production values to shameful levels (
Star Trek should have some standards), I think it could survive just fine on Skiffy.
The real question is: what would motivate CBS to go to all the effort of reviving
Star Trek on TV, if neither CBS, CW or Showtime are the right place for it?
What matters most is that a new series be well written, acted, and directed.
I could type my fingers bloody listing all the perfectly good TV series that were cancelled prematurely despite deserving to survive. Don't depend on quality to get ratings.
people just doubt that anyone in charge will even bother to make a prime universe show after the hype created around the new movie.
Exactly. I doubt they'd do it under any conditions -
Star Trek doesn't fit CBS's strategy at all - but in the slight chance they'd do it, they'd follow the success (JJ Abrams) and not the failure (Berman).
But what I mean by "following JJ Abrams" is not the details about the history of a given timeline - whether the Feds know who the Romulans are, whether Vulcan is blown up - but the insistence that
Star Trek on TV do what Abrams did to be a big success and not what Berman did to run it into the ground. Whatever that was. The suits wouldn't care about the details, but they'd want some assurance that the people they put in charge of
Trek on TV know what that difference is.
Yeah, I just dont think it will matter to TPTB that a show is in this or that timeline.
The suits wouldn't pay enough attention to content to know what timeline anything is in (or that we're not talking alternate
timelines but alternate
realities - they'd howl at the notion that they should worry about such picayune distinctions!) All that would concern them is success vs failure. It's really quite simple. Abrams = success. Berman = failure. The how's and why's of it wouldn't interest them. They would no more care why
ENT failed (Bakula; bad theme song; regurgitated plots) than they care whether
Trek XI is an alternate timeline or an alternate reality.
People may have watched the reboot. But no one in their right mind loves the reboot. They may make a cut rate sequel to cash in (sequels generally are pretty much guaranteed half the box office of the original, for any movie, it seems.) But Star Trek is just another popcorn franchise now. When the sequels peter out, Trek will be acknowledged to be dead and no one will care any more, at all.
The movie franchise is a huge hit, and are a long way from "petering out." Plenty of people, including plenty at Trek BBS, love the reboot, but that's not even relevant. Franchises can make a shitload of money just by being reliable, accessible entertainment. I don't see a lot of
Avatar-related chatter around here, but that doesn't mean the next film won't be another mammoth hit.
The only question is: is CBS interested in capitalizing on the movie's hit status with a TV series, despite the fact that
Star Trek doesn't fit their TV strategy at all?
