For the record it's probably not even the best film with the words "Transformers," "Dark" and "Moon" in the same title.
Bryan Fuller Stepping Back From Showrunner Role on ‘Star Trek: Discovery’
- Thread starter donners22
- Start date
For the record it's probably not even the best film with the words "Transformers," "Dark" and "Moon" in the same title.
This is very true. Star Trek, despite the sense of wonder and humanistic themes, has always been a more intimate universe-- it's driven by individuals and interpersonal relationships. This has been enough to make it a beloved, and profitable, cultural artifact for a half century, but, unfortunately, studios are not content with making a lot of money-- they are driven to make obscene amounts of money.
As a life-long Trekkie, I am loathe to admit this, but as exciting as having Fuller on board was for me, with everything else he has on his plate, I am glad he is stepping back.
I want a fabulous, enriching, entertaining new ST show as much as they next fan, but I was always more interested in American Gods than Disco
To see Fuller step back is good for AG given they are hip deep in production. Meanwhile, Disco is seemingly still in the fermenting stages and, at least with him stepping back now, the new show runners can take the blueprint created by Fuller, Meyer etc and develop it accordingly, with sprinkled input from Fuller. Given the amount of time, effort, development etc that Fuller has put in over this year into Disco I understand why he has an Exec Producer credit, but I reading the articles it really does just feel like that... credit. And it is due and he should be acknowledged and paid for it. Meanwhile, Berg & Harberts are very experience TV writers/producers and wrote some very good stuff for Fuller in the past, so... I'm still hopeful.
Disco is going through a troubled birth, somewhat like TNG did (chaotic writers rooms, overbearing creative, The Rod, pissing everyone off, producers coming and going), and it took a little while for TNG to shake that off. At least in this instance, Fuller managed to convince CBS (or CBS just did it themselves) to give the team more breathing room to try and get the damned thing right first time.
It appears apparent to me that Fuller has done nothing but try to not only keep this show afloat, but ensure that when it does sail it doesn't hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Is he being penalised for not adhering to CBS plans, or has he stepped back voluntarily to allow him to refocus and the remainder of the team move forward? We will likely never know until some a new ST Compendium or other details the shows long/short history and everyone is far enough removed from it all to give honest comment.
Hopefully they can iron out the wrinkles, and Goldsman brings his TV game rather than his movie "writer for hire on films they just need characters to say things whilst expensive CGI happens".
The films he gets lambasted for (the Batmans, Lost in Space) are clear gigging scripts, cash in hand for whatever the company wants for their brand. Most of his other work for the movies has been straight up adaptations (a few of the half decent John Grisham novels, history autobiographies, a few YA novels, a few Dan Browns, a Matheson, an Asimov), all of which, apart from possibly Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind have been made by the Studios as standard, soulless market grabs. CM and ABM both have decent scripts, and frankly, I was very surprised as to the quality of the work he did as a writer on Fringe - though, of course, it's hard to tell from writers rooms like that, how much is Goldsman and how much is the showrunners (Pinkner/Wyman).
So, I guess it will depend on which Goldsman they have hired... the jobbing "we have this idea for I Robot, but we want to cut out all those boring, philosophical bits", or the creative "here's an interesting property, what is your take" one.
Hugo - just wants to see Ian McShane own Mr Wednesday
I want a fabulous, enriching, entertaining new ST show as much as they next fan, but I was always more interested in American Gods than Disco
To see Fuller step back is good for AG given they are hip deep in production. Meanwhile, Disco is seemingly still in the fermenting stages and, at least with him stepping back now, the new show runners can take the blueprint created by Fuller, Meyer etc and develop it accordingly, with sprinkled input from Fuller. Given the amount of time, effort, development etc that Fuller has put in over this year into Disco I understand why he has an Exec Producer credit, but I reading the articles it really does just feel like that... credit. And it is due and he should be acknowledged and paid for it. Meanwhile, Berg & Harberts are very experience TV writers/producers and wrote some very good stuff for Fuller in the past, so... I'm still hopeful.
Disco is going through a troubled birth, somewhat like TNG did (chaotic writers rooms, overbearing creative, The Rod, pissing everyone off, producers coming and going), and it took a little while for TNG to shake that off. At least in this instance, Fuller managed to convince CBS (or CBS just did it themselves) to give the team more breathing room to try and get the damned thing right first time.
It appears apparent to me that Fuller has done nothing but try to not only keep this show afloat, but ensure that when it does sail it doesn't hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Is he being penalised for not adhering to CBS plans, or has he stepped back voluntarily to allow him to refocus and the remainder of the team move forward? We will likely never know until some a new ST Compendium or other details the shows long/short history and everyone is far enough removed from it all to give honest comment.
Hopefully they can iron out the wrinkles, and Goldsman brings his TV game rather than his movie "writer for hire on films they just need characters to say things whilst expensive CGI happens".
The films he gets lambasted for (the Batmans, Lost in Space) are clear gigging scripts, cash in hand for whatever the company wants for their brand. Most of his other work for the movies has been straight up adaptations (a few of the half decent John Grisham novels, history autobiographies, a few YA novels, a few Dan Browns, a Matheson, an Asimov), all of which, apart from possibly Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind have been made by the Studios as standard, soulless market grabs. CM and ABM both have decent scripts, and frankly, I was very surprised as to the quality of the work he did as a writer on Fringe - though, of course, it's hard to tell from writers rooms like that, how much is Goldsman and how much is the showrunners (Pinkner/Wyman).
So, I guess it will depend on which Goldsman they have hired... the jobbing "we have this idea for I Robot, but we want to cut out all those boring, philosophical bits", or the creative "here's an interesting property, what is your take" one.
Hugo - just wants to see Ian McShane own Mr Wednesday
This is the first chance I've gotten the get on this thread, and I just wanted to see I am disappointed to hear about Fuller stepping back, but as busy as he is I can understand. I was surprised to hear he was going to be doing both this and American Gods, so I this news is not unexpected. I am glad he's not leaving the show completely, and it sounds like there's a good group behind him so I'm still very optimistic.
Fuller's still heavily involved. Not fussed.
Then, too, maybe the idea of "quality" is a more complicated question than it appears; if stupid, programmatic entertainment is all that's required to have a hit, why are there so few hits? I think NCIS is an incredibly dull program, but on some level, it's state-of-the-art TV, because ordinary, plodding shows don't have as big an audience. They're doing something right to an exceptional degree.
I'm not surprised he's stepping down; it feels like they were just sitting on Discovery and not actually doing anything with it.
One time I asked another forum how NCIS has such a large number of viewers and keeps getting renewed year after year. The majority of replies claimed because their grandmas watch it to fall asleep to.
NCIS works primarily because of characters and chemistry. And while the plot lines of each episode may start to get rote, there is always an emotional thread running through, and different character moments that are seemingly inconsequential in one episode will come up later on, down the road.
No matter what, characters drive a show.
^ Yep. There's also a familiar pattern, and people like patterns. It's comforting. It's stupidly simple- shows like NCIS work because it's easy viewing, it's fun and light.
Was Breaking Bad a better show? Probably on many artistic levels. could you relax after a hard shift and just clear your mind watching it? Not at all. Are there better comedies than Friends and Cheers? Of course! But those shows were again comfortable, easy viewing that entertained people.
The same logic applies to Star Trek and the TNG v DS9 argument.
One of the appeals of Supergirl for me (watching season one on Netflix). It is fun and light, breezy viewing. Those types of shows are every bit as important as the Breaking Bad's of the world.
I agree about Supergirl. Have you seen The Flash? That's another fun and light show. I had thought Hollywood had forgotten how to make shows like that. For so long everything was dark, dark, dark that it finally drove me away from TV altogether. But these two shows surprised me.
Fuller is waaaaay overrated. All his Star Trek episodes were bad-- spirit folk, course oblivion, gravity, juggernaut, mortal coil, Empok nor or middling like Fury and Alice
Pushing daisies and Hannibal were pretentious artsy bores.
So him exiting is a good thing however his replacements are just as bad or worse. Akiva GoldsmAn worked on fringe along with orci and kurtzman who are hacks and can't write a decent script. I heard joe Menosky is also working on the series and his trek writing record isn't all that outstanding either having penned the likes of The Fight, Darkling, concerning Flight, Rivals, Masks , Emergence, Muse, The Thaw. His best work was under the late michael Piller on TNG with episodes like Clues, Hero Worship, Times Arrow Part I, The Chase. And his collaborative work with Brannon braga. So things don't look good writing wise with the staff they assembled in the first place.
And frankly I haven't seen any contemporary writer capable of decent writing I'd if feel comfortable with working on a new series with
The best thing would be to look for older more experienced writers.
And a show can be episodic and still not be formulaic or procedural. Tng was episodic and the best of the trek shows and it wasn't anything like a formula show like NCis or csi. It told a variety of stories. That said I also don't mind serialized shows but not the ones we've gotten in last decade that are in the mold of Lost with time jumping, non linear storytelling , limited premises, bloated casts, unanswered questions etc. I prefer more traditional serialized storytelling with modest cast, parallel linear arcs with no gimmicks.
Pushing daisies and Hannibal were pretentious artsy bores.
So him exiting is a good thing however his replacements are just as bad or worse. Akiva GoldsmAn worked on fringe along with orci and kurtzman who are hacks and can't write a decent script. I heard joe Menosky is also working on the series and his trek writing record isn't all that outstanding either having penned the likes of The Fight, Darkling, concerning Flight, Rivals, Masks , Emergence, Muse, The Thaw. His best work was under the late michael Piller on TNG with episodes like Clues, Hero Worship, Times Arrow Part I, The Chase. And his collaborative work with Brannon braga. So things don't look good writing wise with the staff they assembled in the first place.
And frankly I haven't seen any contemporary writer capable of decent writing I'd if feel comfortable with working on a new series with
The best thing would be to look for older more experienced writers.
And a show can be episodic and still not be formulaic or procedural. Tng was episodic and the best of the trek shows and it wasn't anything like a formula show like NCis or csi. It told a variety of stories. That said I also don't mind serialized shows but not the ones we've gotten in last decade that are in the mold of Lost with time jumping, non linear storytelling , limited premises, bloated casts, unanswered questions etc. I prefer more traditional serialized storytelling with modest cast, parallel linear arcs with no gimmicks.
Last edited:
You mean so they can deliver more of the same? No thanks. I'd rather have up-and-comers than continuing to recycle writers.
These up and comers suck big time. They can't write a script. Tons of plotholes, poor plot logic, poorly drawn characters, lots of gimmicks, dark just to be dark. And they recycle like crazy. Don't have a fresh idea among any of them. From andrew kreisberg, Geoff johns, greg berlanti, jj Abrams, Edward kitsis, mike Kelly, Martin gero, natakie chaidez Jeremy carver and on and on No. Give me an old timer
Last edited:
Like Akiva Goldsman?
Sounds like Star Trek to me. How many times did Kirk talk a computer to death? Or violate the Prime Directive?
I wasn't saying all older writers from the 80s/90s were perfect. Just look at the x files reboot last year. All old x files writers like chris carter and it sucked So not saying every old school writer was great or still is as great as they once were. but the old guard weren't caught up in the gimmicky nature of storytelling which has become the norm with overly large casts, too much focus on episode structure, fixation on unwieldy mythologies that fizzle, ridiculously fast pacing and creating series with such a narrow premise that can't sustain more than a season worth of material
The old guard paced things properly. Had better skills at casting and developing interesting characters. They also had imaginations and creativity which is absent nowadays. I just think writers should get back to basics. And not throw everything including the kitchen sink into a script. Television and film has never been as bad as it has been in last 15 years to the point it's absolutely unwatchable
The old guard paced things properly. Had better skills at casting and developing interesting characters. They also had imaginations and creativity which is absent nowadays. I just think writers should get back to basics. And not throw everything including the kitchen sink into a script. Television and film has never been as bad as it has been in last 15 years to the point it's absolutely unwatchable
Last edited:
Similar threads
