MurphyCooper said clearly 'in my opinion', so that was already established.
Also, I agree with MurphyCooper about the writing being overall poor on DISCO, SFA, chunks of PICARD, and season 3 of SNW... which is a big part of the Kurtzman era.
Also, I agree with MurphyCooper about the writing being overall poor on DISCO, SFA, chunks of PICARD, and season 3 of SNW... which is a big part of the Kurtzman era.
Before Paramount decided to go with the J.J. Abrams' films, there was a pitch from Bryan Singer's production company for a series that would have been named Star Trek: Federation, which has a lot of similarities to Discovery post-season 2.
It would have been set in the 31st century and featured a Federation in decline with only 20 member states left. The action would have been centered on the newest version of the Enterprise, the first starship to carry the name in centuries. Klingon society has evolved into a sort of Zen Buddhist warrior ethos which has mixed spirituality with their views of honor in battle. The Ferengi have become a major power through economic manipulations. Similar to the Bajorans, Cardassian society has returned to its spiritual roots, and the Ferengi have monetized "pilgrimages" to the Bajoran wormhole as a religious event. At least in the initial running, a new threat called the "Scourge" would have been the "big-bad."
The biggest difference between the proposed Federation series and what we got with Discovery is there would have been no outside event like "The Burn" responsible for the Federation's collapse. Instead, the Federation has devolved into apathy and resentments from member worlds who felt policy was too human-centric. Part of the backstory for the concept was human society had become complacent and arrogantly believed in the superiority of their way of life. Instead of exploring outward to learn more about the universe, humanity turned inward.
Another similarity to ENT is just natural burnout.
By the time of Enterprise, it was the 4th series of the Berman era, after Star Trek being on TV for more than a decade all the way back to the start of TNG.
SFA is for all intents and purposes a spin-off/continuation of the later seasons of Discovery. It exists in Discovery's setting, it has characters from Discovery, and it uses the aesthetics and tone from Discovery. And Starfleet Academy is the 8th property of the Paramount+ shows after almost a decade.
For any long-running franchise, whether it be Grey's Anatomy or NCIS, the longer things go on and the more shows you try to spin off from it (especially when the spin-offs are meant for specific niches), the brand becomes more diluted and the audience falls off.
Why the 32nd century? it probably went something like...
Alex Kurtzman: let's time jump DISCOVERY into the 26th century... escape having to deal with all these canon nitpickers once and for all... then we BURN everything down...
Kirsten Beyer: well, there's this ENT episode that deals with the 26th century Enterprise-J... it was an alt-timeline and all, but...
Kurtzman: okay, fine... 28th century!
Beyer: uh, there's this recurring storyline in VGR about a 29th century timeship....
Kurtzman: Fuck it, the 30th century...
Beyer: uuhhh there's a major recurring character in ENT from the 31st century... and a VGR episode about a backup version of the Doctor set around then as well...
Kurtzman: Fuuuuck, there's no winning on this one... why bother even trying?
Beyer: you're actually clear from the 32nd century onwards...
Kurtzman: sold!
Alex Kurtzman: let's time jump DISCOVERY into the 26th century... escape having to deal with all these canon nitpickers once and for all... then we BURN everything down...
Kirsten Beyer: well, there's this ENT episode that deals with the 26th century Enterprise-J... it was an alt-timeline and all, but...
Kurtzman: okay, fine... 28th century!
Beyer: uh, there's this recurring storyline in VGR about a 29th century timeship....
Kurtzman: Fuck it, the 30th century...
Beyer: uuhhh there's a major recurring character in ENT from the 31st century... and a VGR episode about a backup version of the Doctor set around then as well...
Kurtzman: Fuuuuck, there's no winning on this one... why bother even trying?
Beyer: you're actually clear from the 32nd century onwards...
Kurtzman: sold!
I never cease to be amused that folks think of Kurtzman as some kind of anti-Trek zealot hellbent on destroying a multi-million dollar franchise all on his own out of pure spite.
A few points on this strawman caricature...
Kurtzman was the one who pushed the "Burn" storyline... even many of the most die-hard DISCOVERY defenders on this BBS take issue with the Burn explanation inside that particular mystery box. The Burn also did "burn down" the far future development VGR and ENT had done, and treated them as line item obstacles to be neutralized as quickly as possible.
And SFA was stuck with all that inherited pathway dependency.
Kurtzman devoted a good portion of his tenure to trying to make Star Trek appeal to a "modern audience"... yet also relied upon past storylines and characters as a crutch -- far more than at any point in the Berman era. So he managed to both piss off a good portion of the existing fanbase while making many of his produced seasons less accessible to a mass audience at the same time.
He also managed to push away noted writers like Walter Mosley and Andy Weir when they expressed interested in and / or were briefly hired to work on a NuTrek project... yet recruited staffers from failed out of the gate CW series, like some of the SFA writers.
Kurtzman seemingly wanted to take the Star Trek franchise in a more "CW" direction... more YA, less mature storylines, more feeling, less thinking. His major push for what should come next was SECTION 31 and SFA... and we now know how both of those turned out.
Kurtzman was the great beneficiary of the streaming bubble. Lots of money flowing in with less questions being asked than at other points in production history. Even then, many of the series he supervised experienced intra-season creative upheavals and reshoots. We "know" about the DISCOVERY season 2 shutdown. Publicly released State of California production tax credit data also indicate that PICARD season 1 had effectively three whole episodes worth of reshoots.
Was it all sheer malice? I don't think so... but, if Kurtzman even "gets" Star Trek is a fair question... he did a Blu-ray commentary on TVH circa ST09, and can be reviewed as an early time capsule. Nothing about his filmography indicates that he should have been the guy to ultimately become the head of the Star Trek franchise. He just got lucky, failed upwards, and did a masterful job playing the CBS / Paramount office politics and upheavals of the late 2010s / early 2020s. Has he even made anything original that stands on its own merits and succeeded? His filmography since becoming a showrunner or screen writer has almost all been adaptations of the material of others. The best line on his IMDB that comes closest is FRINGE... but Kurtzman and Orci just developed the series with JJ Abrams, and then turned immediate day to day creative control over to Jeff Pinkner. At best, credit for contributing to great casting, and making a SLIDERS / THE X-FILES mashup work much more than it could have...
If anything encapsulates the Kurtzman era of Star Trek, it's "sheer fucking hubris".
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Including the fans.
A BBS should be a place for nuance, not rapid fire Twitter posts.
The Kurtzman era seems to generate far more meta-examination than that of the shows themselves -- if SFA and S31 are any recent indicators. So if this really is "it" for the 32nd century, or this production era... we'll have a lot of evergreen content to cover.
Team Kurtzman: yes or no is rather boring at this point. How this all happened is much more interesting.
The Kurtzman era seems to generate far more meta-examination than that of the shows themselves -- if SFA and S31 are any recent indicators. So if this really is "it" for the 32nd century, or this production era... we'll have a lot of evergreen content to cover.
Team Kurtzman: yes or no is rather boring at this point. How this all happened is much more interesting.
When the insults towards Trek producers cease I'm sure we'll get more nuance on the posting. As it stands,there is way more interest in casting shade towards the production teams for not getting Trek than engaging with the material.
It certainly isn't new to this era, as I recall the drive by sniping at Abrams or earlier and Braga or Berman. But it's very frustrating that demeaning a human is considered nuance in entertainment choices.
Should people call for personal violence against him etc? Fuck no. But offering legitimate criticism shouldn't result in bad faith accusations of "so what you're saying is Kurtzman should suffer a brutal public medieval punishment on Hollywood Blvd" either.
Just because some people have personally insulted him or crossed the line into even darker internet shit talking doesn't mean he should receive transactional immunity from all criticism.
Kurtzman has a nine figure deal with CBS / Paramount up until to some point this year. He can handle some power user complaints...
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Obviously.
Then critique the work rather than assume malicious intent or that he is somehow stupid. And I'd say the same around Berman.
Has Kurtzman's tenure been fantastic? Know. I don't agree with the 32nd century but it's still Star Trek to me. The Burn is a non-issue to me. So, if there are issues I'll acknowledge them but that's not a question of producer or audience intelligence. It's a matter of how the art and story works in the entertainment aspect.
I'm still not sure why anyone cares. If a current show isn't for you and you don't like it, don't watch it. Unless a viewer has some sort of financial stake in the "franchise" (still hate that word), then the franchise doesn't exactly cater to fandom's wishes or god forbid, Head Cannon! *boom*
It's not a religion.
It's not a religion.
Successful "bad Star Trek" means more new Star Trek, either good but more likely to also be bad, is likely to be produced.
Unsuccessful "bad Star Trek" means less new Star Trek, either good or bad, is likely to be produced.
Streaming is all based on audience retention and completion metrics.
Yes, a few fans bitching on the internet are just a few fans bitching on the internet.
But what happens when the underlying reasons that made a few fans bitching on the internet turn it off also applies to the wider general audience?
Anecdotally SFA launched with some good numbers. Yet it never trended in the Nielsen's, and was quickly canceled. One potential read on the situation is rapid audience drop off.
As someone who'd like more "good" Star Trek produced, I'd hope Paramount+ management and the people Skydance brought over from Netflix would read this as SFA and the underlying assumptions that informed the particular take it offered on the franchise were a failure (ie, CW YA-style writing crossed with very high streaming per episode budgets), not Star Trek more broadly.
Just like with S31... making Star Trek streaming films is on paper a good idea. They just need to be "good". S31 failing doesn't mean Star Trek streaming films are a dead end, just that they need a different approach.
Well, not producing Star Trek is certainly a new approach to be sure. I think that might be the safest bet.
SNW fans especially should care about ratings and viewer retention... SNW's shortened fifth and final season was announced prior to the season 3 premiere.
Then SNW took a tumble in the ratings mid-season 3.
Less viewership... less likelihood of a SNW follow up...
Then SNW took a tumble in the ratings mid-season 3.
Less viewership... less likelihood of a SNW follow up...
Umm, alrighty then.
I tried watching that once, but I stopped after five episodes. The production values were crap. It looked like something out of the late '60s.
