Bryan Fuller is Showrunner on New Trek Series

[dahj]

They'd be fairly foolish to try turning out twenty-odd episodes of this series a season.

Why would that be foolish?

 

[Chekov's Phaser]

Why would that be foolish?

I think one of the benefits of the modern Golden Age of Television is showing that less really is more. Most shows not on network tv have somewhere between 8-14 episode seasons. This allows for these shows to tell more concise stories without as much filler. Does that mean they are automatically better? No. Are there exceptions? Yes. But I've seen Trek go the 20+ episode a season routine. I'd be much more interested in a smaller season and seeing what Trek can do with that.

Also less episodes means possible less money needed to be spent. So there is that.

 

[Christopher]

Also less episodes means possible less money needed to be spent. So there is that.

Or, more to the point, that more time and money can be spent on each individual episode, allowing for better production values.

 

[dahj]

Also less episodes means possible less money needed to be spent. So there is that.

Actually more can often be better financially speaking, because you can amortize the initial production cost(sets, props, uniforms, reusable CGI models, etc) over more episodes.

I'm all for shorter seasons by the way, but I also don't think it's foolish or impossible to have a good 20+ episode season.

 

[Terok Nor]

I agree that less is more. 12 to 15 episodes a season would be fine with me.

Christopher, I'm not ignoring your post but I don't have the time to give it the attention it deserves right now so I'm going to reply later if that's okay. I already see some points I agree with.....and some I don't

 

[RAMA]

That makes me feel old. I remember back in '86 and '87, when David Gerrold had a monthly column in Starlog talking about the development and casting and production of The Next Generation -- and then my surprise when he abruptly announced that he was leaving the show and there'd be no more columns. At the time, I think he explained that it was because he was pursuing the opportunity to develop a series of his own. It was years before I learned the real reasons for that unexpected departure. Let's hope there's less behind-the-scenes turbulence this time.

I remember this very well too. This reminds me of the anticipation for STNG because it came after trek being away from tv for so long.

 

[arch101]

I remember this very well too. This reminds me of the anticipation for STNG because it came after trek being away from tv for so long.

Ah,yes. Will I relive the excitement I felt when Mr. Probert's pencil sketches of the Enterprise D showed up early in the summer of '87?

 

[mos6507]

A reboot would be a good opportunity to rework the fundamental background and history of the Trek universe in a more plausible way

At risk of repeating myself, I think the Trek frame itself is incapable of being totally plausible. It may be made more plausible, but only up to a point. The future we see unfolding before us is kind of branching off in two simultaneous directions. Ecological collapse due to limits-to-growth on the one hand and some sort of Terminator A.I. apocalypse or singularity (depending on your point of view). Other than Elon Musk's endeavors, I see very little movement forward with manned space programs. It's a very different world from the space-race era of the 60s.

So if you started with a blank slate and tried to present a future show, you would not have ships with warp drive being manned by hundreds of humans in a Horatio Hornblower tall-ships fashion. So right there at inception, Trek has to let go of its past reputation of being plausible speculative fiction and admit to being more of a science-fantasy with morality plays bolted into it.

I think Babylon 5 (at the time) tried to be a more grounded Star Trek. And isn't The Expanse also trying to do that these days? Not relying on as much magic science? I could see doing sort of an "Interstellar: The Series" But it would just never feel like Star Trek.

If a property is so broken you feel you have to change everything about it, then just call it something else and cut the umbilical cord.

In the meantime, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the biggest grossing movie of all time on the basis of pure fanwank nostalgia, so it's really not even necessary to change things as long as they're not broken.

 

[theREVENGEofKAHN]

At risk of repeating myself, I think the Trek frame itself is incapable of being totally plausible. It may be made more plausible, but only up to a point. The future we see unfolding before us is kind of branching off in two simultaneous directions. Ecological collapse due to limits-to-growth on the one hand and some sort of Terminator A.I. apocalypse or singularity (depending on your point of view). Other than Elon Musk's endeavors, I see very little movement forward with manned space programs. It's a very different world from the space-race era of the 60s.

So if you started with a blank slate and tried to present a future show, you would not have ships with warp drive being manned by hundreds of humans in a Horatio Hornblower tall-ships fashion. So right there at inception, Trek has to let go of its past reputation of being plausible speculative fiction and admit to being more of a science-fantasy with morality plays bolted into it.

I think Babylon 5 (at the time) tried to be a more grounded Star Trek. And isn't The Expanse also trying to do that these days? Not relying on as much magic science? I could see doing sort of an "Interstellar: The Series" But it would just never feel like Star Trek.

If a property is so broken you feel you have to change everything about it, then just call it something else and cut the umbilical cord.

In the meantime, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the biggest grossing movie of all time on the basis of pure fanwank nostalgia, so it's really not even necessary to change things as long as they're not broken.

This post bothers me and I'm not sure if it's because I think your wrong or because you might be right and I don't want to admit it.

 

[Christopher]

At risk of repeating myself, I think the Trek frame itself is incapable of being totally plausible. It may be made more plausible, but only up to a point.

Well, obviously, but there's nothing wrong with striving toward that point. That's how it always works. All fiction falls short of perfect believability, simply because it involves unreal characters and events, but as a rule, one tries to make it plausible enough to facilitate suspension of disbelief.

And that is what Roddenberry strove to do when he created the show. He didn't settle for just making up mindless nonsense like most SFTV creators; he consulted with scientists, engineers, and think tanks and tried to build a universe that was believable by the standards of the time. He didn't quite succeed, and his successors didn't make the same effort, but he was one of the very few SFTV producers who even tried to approach SF with the same basic level of competence and plausibility that's taken for granted in other genres. So don't tell me "Star Trek can't be plausible." For most of its history, Star Trek has been one of the only things in SFTV that was even marginally plausible.

So if you started with a blank slate and tried to present a future show, you would not have ships with warp drive being manned by hundreds of humans in a Horatio Hornblower tall-ships fashion. So right there at inception, Trek has to let go of its past reputation of being plausible speculative fiction and admit to being more of a science-fantasy with morality plays bolted into it.

First off, that's too reductive a way of looking at it. Being plausible in terms of physics and technology and -- more importantly -- characterization and behavior is different from being plausible in terms of "could this really happen in the future." As I said, there are degrees of plausibility. Something can contain an obviously unreal element but still not be fantasy, as long as everything around that element is handled in a credible manner. It's invalid to say that the only two possible options are "absolutely real" and "absolute fantasy." There's a ton of middle ground between those extremes, as there always is in life.

Second, as I've tried to explain, it's not about anything so simple as "Could this be our future?" Obviously none of this is real. It's fiction. It's stories. And stories are based on ideas. The more ideas you draw on, the more interesting and varied stories you can tell. The past 50 years of science fiction have come up with an abundance of amazing ideas that movies and TV have barely touched on because they're too stuck in the past, just recycling the same old tropes from older SFTV and film. So much has happened in the literature over the past half-century. New Wave, cyberpunk, transhumanism, biopunk, not to mention increasing representation of diverse viewpoints and voices (although giving ST an openly gay showrunner is definitely a major step forward in that respect). Past Trek has occasionally tried to pay lip service to those new ideas, injecting Borg here and nanites there and genetic engineering over there and so on, but trying to graft it onto a resolutely '60s foundation means that it tends to be handled superficially and intermittently, not allowed to be developed to its full potential.

I think Babylon 5 (at the time) tried to be a more grounded Star Trek.

As I said, Star Trek was practically the first SFTV show that was grounded compared to everything else around it in its day. Aside from a couple of '50s shows like Men Into Space and Tom Corbett, it was pretty much unprecedented in trying to be scientifically credible. The parts of it that Roddenberry oversaw directly -- TOS seasons 1-2, TMP, TNG's first few seasons -- had the strongest credibility, but unfortunately most of his successors treated it more fancifully. Though it was still more believable than a lot of the other stuff out there like Star Wars and Space: 1999 and Doctor Who, because it had those plausible foundations to start from.

Babylon 5 did try to be more realistic where certain elements of technology were concerned -- no artificial gravity, more realistic depictions of ship movements and explosions in vacuum (although the explosions got more conventional and unrealistic over time) -- but there were other ways in which it was still pretty fanciful. It still had humanoid aliens and psychic powers, its approach to medical science was laughable (treating health or longevity as a matter of how much "life force" you had, as if it were the charge in a battery), and it dabbled in mysticism with the stuff about souls.

And isn't The Expanse also trying to do that these days? Not relying on as much magic science? I could see doing sort of an "Interstellar: The Series" But it would just never feel like Star Trek.

This is way off-topic. I was never talking about scientific accuracy. As I said, I was talking about a half-century worth of new ideas that are waiting to be explored. We're not studying for a test here, we're talking about stories and ideas and creative possibilities.

If a property is so broken you feel you have to change everything about it, then just call it something else and cut the umbilical cord.

No. No, no, that is just completely the wrong way of framing the question. It's so very, very much not a value judgment. It's about having the courage and curiosity to try new things, and the confidence to recognize that novelty isn't a threat, that different versions of a single idea can enhance and complement and enrich each other rather than being in some petty competition against each other.

Nobody's talking about changing everything. That's nonsense. That's not how this works. Creating a new version of an artistic work is about keeping the core essence that makes it what it is while changing some aspects of how it's presented or handled, so that you can explore that essence in a fresh way. Often, in the case of a reinvention like Batman: The Animated Series or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's about distilling the best and most important elements of the original work while trimming away the fat and ditching the bad ideas.

Here, as in your earlier comments about plausibility, the mistake you're making is in treating a fictional work as a monolithic entity, an inseparable whole, so you assume everything about it is all-or-nothing. The reality is that a fictional work is an amalgam of many different elements. A reinvention is about keeping some while altering others. There are some core elements that define a character or a series, and there are other elements that are more optional and that you can change and play around with. Sherlock Holmes doesn't have to be a Victorian gentleman so long as he's a deductive genius and Watson's best friend. Batman can be either a grim avenger or a comedy hero as long as his relentless focus on fighting crime and endless preparedness and intelligence are still there.

In the meantime, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the biggest grossing movie of all time on the basis of pure fanwank nostalgia, so it's really not even necessary to change things as long as they're not broken.

I am constantly bewildered by the way some people think it makes sense to talk about creative decisions in terms of what's "necessary." What does that even mean? We're talking about entertainment. It's not about need, it's about possibilities. It's about things that are fun and interesting. That means taking chances, trying new things, seizing opportunities. And it sure as hell isn't about everyone being forced to do things the same single, inflexible way.

 

[Longinus]

I think Christopher definitely has a point. It would be a huge challenge, but if done (extremely) well it could be worth it. As many ST fans, I'm really attached to the old continuity though, and I'd like to see it to continue. This is where each of us have to make our own baby/bathwater-ratio analysis. I would certainly take a complete reboot over Abrams' half-reboot though. That to me just has worst of the both options, it got rid of the continuity I liked and yet kept the outdated setting elements.

 

[Terok Nor]

Sure, but that's a problem for 50 years from now. The creators of a TV series in 2016 have to think about the audience from 2016, not the audience from 1966 or 1987 or 2066. Every work of science fiction will become outdated eventually, but you still ideally want to give your audience at least a few decades to feel that it's plausible and not dated.

What if I don't care if it's plausible or not? I like the universe Star Trek has already created. I enjoy it, flaws and all. Let's face it, Trek has never been particularly realistic. It's an idealistic fantasy of the future. Sure, Roddenberry did his best to make it scientifically accurate but there's only so far you can suspend your disbelief and Trek crossed that line several hundred times including the recent movies.

Well, I'm sorry, but the makers of a multigajillion-dollar entertainment franchise are not going to base their decisions on the tastes of a single person.

Really? Next you're going to tell me Santa Claus isn't real

They have to consider their entire target audience and make the choice that would be best for keeping the franchise popular and viable as it moves into the future.

Then they should set it in the old continuity since the target audience you speak of are those who watched the old shows on the various streaming services. That audience is the reason we're getting a new show in the first place.

The JJVerse is a divisive offshoot catered towards casual movie audiences. Sure, it has its popularity but I've yet to see any evidence it has created enough new Trekkies to replace or compliment the old ones. Seems to me people watch the movies and then forget about them. Hopefully the new tv show will have a more loyal following.

And that does not mean pandering to the conservative tastes of fans of the older incarnations of the franchise. It's certainly possible to satisfy the nostalgia of old-guard fans while also rebooting a continuity -- as with the Marvel and DC screen universes and all the loving continuity nods they integrate -- but it's still necessary to focus first and foremost on bringing in a whole new audience, since the old audience is inevitably dwindling and will die out eventually. So you're entitled to your preferences, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect you'll get what you want.

Out with the old, in with the new? Thanks for watching but this isn't your father's Star Trek?

Of course it's reasonable to expect I'll get what I want. I'm entitled to have expectations and hopes. I never said I'll definitely get what I want or that I demand to have it. My preference is another show set in the old continuity but I'll settle for a complete reboot. What I don't want is a show set in a universe where warping from one planet to another takes 5 seconds, beaming between star systems is a thing and death is irrelevant. I don't see a lot of possibilities with those limitation in place.

I don't even see how you consider me conservative. All I'm hoping for is that it's set in the same continuity as the other shows and that it's not as dumbed down as the JJVerse movies due to my dislike of them. In the words of the CBS themselves it will be a brand new cast of characters exploring new worlds and dealing with contemporary themes like Trek has always done. If I was having a tantrum about it not being set in the TOS or TNG era and featuring all the old actors and characters you'd have a point but I'd be more than happy for it to be set a couple of hundred years later.

And it's a false postulate that the old continuity would be "jettisoned." As I said, plenty of reboots incorporate a wealth of ideas from earlier versions of the continuity, but rework and recontextualize them. It's a chance to keep the best parts of the continuity while casting aside the failed or unfortunate or embarrassing parts. And let's face it, Star Trek has plenty of those.

Sorry, but I hate that. "This sucked so we're forgetting it haha". I find it insulting. I even criticise it in the older shows. I don't expect writers to be slaves to bad ideas but dropping large chunks of established continuity because it gets in the way of a current story has always seemed lazy to me. Minor plot points can be overlooked but pretending the Borg haven't been encountered yet or acting like the Klingons were never allies to the Federation is a poor excuse to rehash old ideas with a different spin on them.

That's why I don't particularly want a reboot. How long before we get a remake of Best Of Both Worlds or City On The Edge Of Forever? A new show set in the old continuity will force the writers to come up with new storylines rather than do their version of old ones. Voyager and Enterprise recycled old ideas but the benefit with a new show is that the world has changed so much in the past 10 years that these contemporary ideas can now be used to created new storylines. I'd say the laziness in the writers room back in the Voyager/Enterprise days was down to Trek overkill and people behind the scenes being burnt out.

Actually a lot of Enterprise holds up very well.

I don't agree. I tried to rewatch it recently and it was just as poor as I remembered it. To me it's the only true dud of the entire franchise.

A lot of fans have been rediscovering it and finding new merits in it.

I'm glad for them but it's still an awful show in my opinion.

When I was hired to write post-finale Enterprise novels, I rewatched the series twice, and I found that it worked much better when I moved beyond my initial "Oh, that's not what I expected/how I would've done it" reaction and just took it for what it was.

I didn't need to watch it twice to move beyond my initial expectations. It was clear early on that it didn't work as a prequel and that it didn't really know what it wanted to be. It came off more like a sequel to the TNG era with less advanced technology than a prequel to TOS and not just because of the advances in makeup and sets since the 1960's.

I take each and every Star Trek show and movie for what they are. Separately I think all the shows apart from Enterprise work on their own merits. Voyager wasn't particularly great but it was enjoyable for the most part. Enteprise bored me to death and I disliked the majority of the characters. It only got good when the writers went back to their original idea of it being a prequel but by then they'd wasted too much time on the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi and it was too late.

Certainly it had its weak points -- the whole second season meandered and lost its way, the treatment of sexuality tended to be sophomoric, and let's not even mention the finale -- but a lot of it was worthwhile and it added meaningfully to the continuity, really fleshing out races like the Vulcans and Andorians more richly than ever before.

I will agree with you that the fleshing out of the Andorians was a meaningful contribution to the overall franchise but I can't agree about the Vulcans. They came across as bullying jerks.

The other stuff Enteprise touched on - the Borg, the Ferengi, the Mirror Universe, Dr. Soong, Augments, the abysmal smooth headed Klingons explanation all seemed completely unnecessary to me. The writers had failed so completely to integrate Enterprise into the franchise as a prequel that they resorted to roping Riker and Troi in to talk about this "legendary ship" as a last ditch effort to validate the series. And we all know how that turned out.

There are tons of fanbases that are used to having multiple different continuities -- DC and Marvel fans, Sherlock Holmes fans, Godzilla fans, Transformers fans, Ninja Turtles fans, James Bond fans, Dracula and Frankenstein fans, etc. That's actually the norm, not the exception. Some fandoms embrace and celebrate their "multiverses."

Star Trek fans, though, have always been thought that alternate realities and timelines are to be avoided. Even the episode Parallels which JJ Abrams used to validate his universe involves Worf desperately trying to undo the divergence of realities. I've not yet seen a single Trek episode where alternate realities and timelines are not depicted as problems.

I can't speak about all those other franchises but I know James Bond was definitively rebooted with Casino Royale. All of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies share their own distinct continuities. Clearly Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee are not supposed to be the exact same Dracula or intended to be part of a multiverse.

I've always loved Star Trek's intricate continuity -- anyone who's read my books can tell that. But that's exactly why I'd like to see a whole new Star Trek continuity added to the mix. It wouldn't erase what came before. All the old shows and movies would still be there, and we'd still be doing books and comics to expand on them. But it would give us a whole new continuity to explore from the ground up alongside the old one. It would be more continuity, a continuity that could start from scratch and grow as we watched and add new ideas and reimagine old ideas in exciting new ways.

And that's your prerogative. I'm not stopping you from holding that opinion or hoping your expectations are met. So please don't do the same to me.

Maybe it's different for younger fans who came to Star Trek when it was already much more fully formed, but I've watched the ST universe expand and grow and evolve over the decades, experienced it not as some fixed whole but as a dynamic thing being made up as it went. And it would be exciting to see that process start over again, in a way that was completely unfettered and unpredictable. It's because I love the old continuity that I want to see a new continuity alongside it. So I just can't accept the notion that it's some kind of zero-sum conflict between the two. Star Trek is supposed to be about exploring strange new worlds, after all. The new doesn't invalidate or threaten the old, it enriches and complements it.

I've watched Star Trek since the only Trek available were the re-runs of TOS, the first 4 movies and the animated series. As a fan I pre-date TNG and all that followed. I've embraced all the changes that have come along but occasionally something is just not to my taste (Enterprise, JJVerse). I'm not the kind of fan who loves everything just because it's Star Trek. I'm not going to force myself to like something if I don't. I'm also not going to force myself to watch Enterprise or any other property just because it may be the only new Trek available.

Sure, and I like that sort of thing too. But the alternative can also be fun. I don't understand this bizarre notion that fans have to choose one or the other. That's self-defeating and narrow-minded, like saying you're allowed to like either cake or pie but can't have both.

I'm happy for the JJVerse to continue in the movies. I'd even be comfortable with it being the setting of the new show although it's not my preference. I'll give the show a strong chance to impress me. But if it's like the JJVerse movies (which I can't really see happening with Fuller in charge) I'll drop it. Hell, if it's in the old universe and sucks I'll drop it too. Hello, Enterprise! The show needs to be good above all else.

I enjoy the creative potential of building and evolving a pre-existing continuity, and I also enjoy the creative potential of starting fresh with a new take on a continuity. Both can be exciting and rewarding. And we've already had half a century of Star Trek exploring a single large continuity (though sometimes only in the most nominal sense and requiring a huge amount of squinting to pretend that two radically different interpretations fit together at all). We've done that already, quite extensively and fulfillingly. So now I'd be interested to see the alternative. Let's have both. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

I respect your viewpoint on this matter. I can also see the merits of this for you personally. As just a fan watching the show I do enjoy the fact it's all supposed to be connected together even if it's not always seamless. I like it when Worf mentions Kirk and Kor on Organia or Sisko mentions Kirk fighting the Gorn or Janeway references Locutus of Borg. I remember all those events because I watched those episodes. It feels like a reward I'd hate to lose that.

 

[AviTrek]

Then they should set it in the old continuity since the target audience you speak of are those who watched the old shows on the various streaming services. That audience is the reason we're getting a new show in the first place.

Nope, that audience is getting older and dying. If that was the only audience for a new show then we'd just get a remaster and maybe a direct to video special combining the old casts in a fanwank special.

We're getting a new show because CBS wants to keep it's property valuable for the next 50 years. That means bringing in new viewers who will become just as passionate and keep watching for the next 50 years. Going back to the old continuity that their parents watched is an easy way to make the show irrelevant for the next generation.

 

[Terok Nor]

Nope, that audience is getting older and dying. If that was the only audience for a new show then we'd just get a remaster and maybe a direct to video special combining the old casts in a fanwank special.

We're getting a new show because CBS wants to keep it's property valuable for the next 50 years. That means bringing in new viewers who will become just as passionate and keep watching for the next 50 years. Going back to the old continuity that their parents watched is an easy way to make the show irrelevant for the next generation.

Who says all the people streaming the old shows are old and dying? I'm far from it, thanks.

The Abrams movies don't have the fanbase the old shows have. They can't shift merchandise for a start. It appears the viewers of these movies aren't particularly passionate about them to me.

 

[hux]

Nope, that audience is getting older and dying.

The Abrams movies don't have the fanbase the old shows have. They can't shift merchandise for a start. It appears the viewers of these movies aren't particularly passionate about them to me.

The new show shouldn't be for any Trek fan, old or new; it should be for people who appreciate great TV story telling. I didn't especially have any desire to watch a show about a meth dealer in some Yank desert city but I did... cos it was very brilliantly done.

Enterprise was aimed at Trekkers. It was shit.

 

[Terok Nor]

The new show shouldn't be for any Trek fan, old or new; it should be for people who appreciate great TV story telling. I didn't especially have any desire to watch a show about a meth dealer in some Yank desert city but I did... cos it was very brilliantly done.

Enterprise was aimed at Trekkers. It was shit.

Which Trekkers? The ones who loved Threshold, Sub Rosa and Spock's Brain? I never felt that show was aimed at me. If anything I felt like the writers wished it wasn't Star Trek and only accepted it was when the axe was already swinging or when they needed a rating boost by having the Borg or the Ferengi guest star. I do agree it was shit though.

I also agree they should concentrate on making the show good above all else. Who wants a crappy show set in any continuity?

 

[AviTrek]

Who says all the people streaming the old shows are old and dying? I'm far from it, thanks.

The Abrams movies don't have the fanbase the old shows have. They can't shift merchandise for a start. It appears the viewers of these movies aren't particularly passionate about them to me.

I'm not old and dying either, but there is more to the fanbase than us. Star Trek is celebrating it's 50th anniversary. That means a 20 year old fan when it debuted is now 70. That 70 year old may be healthy now, but odds are he or she won't be alive to celebrate the 75th anniversary.

TNG debuted in 1987. A hypothetical 20 year old fan in 1987 is now 49. That means they're now outside the key nielsen demo. A TV show debuting in 2017 needs to attract viewers in the 18-49 demo when it airs and build a fan base in that demo for years to come. That means fans born between 1968 and 1999. Picking an arbitrary 10 year age as a cutoff for the youngest point someone became a fan, that means a TNG fan needed to be born between 1977 and 1984. Suddenly you've cut the demo range for a new Star Trek in half with a 1968-1984 age range. Sure DS9-ENT expands that range a little, but it also had fewer fans to begin with.

Any show that decides to limit itself to that narrow range will be DOA and at best case have 16 years before it's few fans age out of the 18-49 demo. You try making that pitch to CBS. If the show is going to be successful it needs younger viewers who didn't grow up with classic Trek. There is no way around the numbers.

 

[Longinus]

Yes, the new viewers will not care about the old continuity, but they most likely wouldn't be deterred by it either. All Trek shows have been pretty self-sufficient in a way that knowing the previous continuity was not a requirement for enjoying them, and I'm sure the new show wouldn't be an exception. I was a kid when TNG debuted and it was the first Star Trek show I ever saw. At first I had no knowledge of Kirk & co at all. The few references to the old show no way harmed my enjoyment. Once I realised that there was a larger continuity I immediately rented all the films with the original crew and loved them to bits (it took a while longer to get my hands on the actual TOS episodes.)

 

[Rahul]

Hell, that's how Star Trek has survived the last 50 years: people watched it. On re-runs. Now on Netflix. Hell, I was too young to see TNG on it's initial airing. Most people I know are in their 20s. No one of them has seen Star Trek on it's initial run.

YOu know what happens? They somehow get into it, whether it's their parents with whom they watched it for the first time, friends that recommend it to them, or hell, seeing the JJ-movies or through the freakin' big bang theory!

And what happens next? They check out the old stuff. A lot. I can assure you: everyone who is into Trek, the biggest bulk they have seen is the old stuff.

Setting the new series up as a (very loose) continuiation (in the same way as every Trek series was before) can only help. If you set it up as a follow-up to 800+ hours of television and movies, or as a follow-up to a (then) 6+ hours movie continuity makes no difference (although one of them offers more chances for cross-overs and guest appereances, and basically ALL references will be to traditionell Trek nonetheless).

So yeah. I would prefer it to be set in the old continuity. I can live with the new, but I see problems with that (the need to re-introduce basically all the recent Trek-staples like the Borg, holodecks, Caredassians and such for starters).

But all that means jack shit if the new show isn't able to stand on it's own feet, and attract new viewers by itself. (THEN being able to lead those new fans to tons of old television series for streaming is basically a cash cow in it's own right. But still, for this to happen the quality of the new series needs to come first, and everything else -timeline, continuity- needs to take a backseat)

 

[theREVENGEofKAHN]

Hell, that's how Star Trek has survived the last 50 years: people watched it. On re-runs. Now on Netflix. Hell, I was too young to see TNG on it's initial airing. Most people I know are in their 20s. No one of them has seen Star Trek on it's initial run.

YOu know what happens? They somehow get into it, whether it's their parents with whom they watched it for the first time, friends that recommend it to them, or hell, seeing the JJ-movies or through the freakin' big bang theory!

And what happens next? They check out the old stuff. A lot. I can assure you: everyone who is into Trek, the biggest bulk they have seen is the old stuff.

Setting the new series up as a (very loose) continuiation (in the same way as every Trek series was before) can only help. If you set it up as a follow-up to 800+ hours of television and movies, or as a follow-up to a (then) 6+ hours movie continuity makes no difference (although one of them offers more chances for cross-overs and guest appereances, and basically ALL references will be to traditionell Trek nonetheless).

So yeah. I would prefer it to be set in the old continuity. I can live with the new, but I see problems with that (the need to re-introduce basically all the recent Trek-staples like the Borg, holodecks, Caredassians and such for starters).

But all that means jack shit if the new show isn't able to stand on it's own feet, and attract new viewers by itself. (THEN being able to lead those new fans to tons of old television series for streaming is basically a cash cow in it's own right. But still, for this to happen the quality of the new series needs to come first, and everything else -timeline, continuity- needs to take a backseat)

Exactly! Not to mention all the old shows will also be available on CBS All Access for new viewers to go back to. It only helps CBS get the most out of those shows if they give new viewers reasons to watch them.