Kurtzman gets 5 1/2 year deal with 3 new shows in the works

[eschaton]

I want that Starfleet Academy series! Give me Smallville Trek!

No thanks. The Magicians Trek though please?

I don’t want to get political either but it wouldn’t surprise me if these 2 groups are the same. I don’t check the trek videos on youtube so not familiar with these people. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t like any character who is not a heterosexual white male and don’t like shows that feature these characters

I mean, the use of Gamergate to recruit into white nationalist groups was absolutely a thing. Taking very strident stands against "woke" elements of nerd fandom is a great way to attract a lot of pissed-off whiteboy nerds who are socially isolated IRL and more likely than the average person to be susceptible to that sort of thing.

The Worf bachelor party episode in DS9 was hilarious.

Presuming Michael Dorn reprises his role, I think Worf would only really work as a straight man in a comedy show. Which means he'd need to be paired with either a really goofy secondary character, or a whole slew of them.

 

[eschaton]

Written and Directed by Akiva Goldsman...

That's just the pilot. My understanding is Henry Alonso Myers is actually running the writer's room. Since he did that for The Magicians that's...an amazingly good sign.

But I have liked his work on Star Trek so far and I think he was the one that brought Chabon to Trek. I used to have a very negative opinion of Goldsman but now i think he is fine.

I think he understands Trek much better than Kurtzman and I think he's okay at writing it. The fact he's directing the pilot is inexcusable though. He did such a crappy job with the episode of Picard he directed, even using stock footage.

 

[Noname Given]

What I dislike the most is revisionism when it comes to the Berman era. I tried making that point with someone on twitter that even the Berman era was losing fans and that there were pretty vocal criticisms about how he ran the franchise back then, and this guy insisted I was wrong because "most fans love the Berman era", you know, in spite of the fact that the ratings were consistently slipping throughout the 90s and 2000s, with ENTERPRISE getting cancelled after losing 10 million viewers.

But no, him and many other seem to have bought into this rose tinted narrative that the 1966-2005 years was a "golden era" for Trek.

The only Berman era show where the ratings increased for a time, before slipping during seasons 6 and 7 was TNG. ALL the rest bled viewers over time.

 

[Quinton]

The only Berman era show where the ratings increased for a time, before slipping during seasons 6 and 7 was TNG. ALL the rest bled viewers over time.

Yup.

 

[Ometiklan]

Wow! The lengths they are going to to hide that the Trek relaunch is a failure!!!

yeah, it's mind bottling.

 

[eschaton]

To play devil's advocate, we don't actually know if Kurtzman Trek is succeeding, only that it's doing better than anything else on Paramount Plus.

It might be a net loss, but less of a net loss than anything else they are doing. I mean, CBS only started its own streaming service because it saw the writing on the wall that it would just become a production studio for the other streamers if it didn't act. And even Netflix loses tons of money every year which they hide via creative accounting practices.

 

[Quinton]

To play devil's advocate, we don't actually know if Kurtzman Trek is succeeding, only that it's doing better than anything else on Paramount Plus.

It might be a net loss, but less of a net loss than anything else they are doing. I mean, CBS only started its own streaming service because it saw the writing on the wall that it would just become a production studio for the other streamers if it didn't act. And even Netflix loses tons of money every year which they hide via creative accounting practices.

Absolutely valid!

 

[Tuskin38]

Except that Treksters started to embrace TNG when it improved in quality with the hiring of Michael Piller in Season 3. I've perceived no noticeable increase in quality of Discovery, the third season of which was probably the most irritating of the lot. So, for longtime fans to come around to something, it actually has to be more than, you know, disposable pablum. Same thing with DS9, it increased in popularity when people started watching the more serialized show on home video and saw how good the writing and extended cast were. So, there isn't some magical timer that eventually makes a Star Trek show popular if it's bereft of any redeeming and lasting qualities, such as is the case with product made under the aegis of the blank-expression Mummy-Transformers guy.

I found Egypt if you're looking for denial.

 

[Skipper]

yeah, it's mind bottling.

At this point the deception is at a Operation Fortitude's level!

Fortunately, a random guy on YouTube knows the truth!

 

[Jeyl]

Expanding a universe isn't just pumping out new shows left and right, but, exploring other areas for the franchise to go.

No he isn't. He's going back to what the franchise has already done and is retroactively changing why those events happened in the first place. When you take designs, characters and situations that have prospered and endeared for over half a century and say "That's not how it looked, that's not how it worked and that's not what it meant", that's not a new direction. It's revisionism.

 

[Noname Given]

Except that Treksters started to embrace TNG when it improved in quality with the hiring of Michael Piller in Season 3. I've perceived no noticeable increase in quality of Discovery, the third season of which was probably the most irritating of the lot. So, for longtime fans to come around to something, it actually has to be more than, you know, disposable pablum. Same thing with DS9, it increased in popularity when people started watching the more serialized show on home video and saw how good the writing and extended cast were. So, there isn't some magical timer that eventually makes a Star Trek show popular if it's bereft of any redeeming and lasting qualities, such as is the case with product made under the aegis of the blank-expression Mummy-Transformers guy.

If you compare the first 50 episodes of TNG to what Kurtzman's done to date (it may all add up to slightly more than 50 episodes across the 3 series at this point after three years) - the first two Season of TNG were garbage, and they couldn't even keep the writer's room stable UNTIL Season 4.

And not until TNG S3 "Yesterday's Enterprise" did some fans start to look at TNG as a 'decent' Star Trek show. "Best Of Both Worlds" was really when those that hated it started to give it a second look. (I know because I was in a big group a Trek fans back in those days. That 2 1/2 seasons and 60+ episodes in before the 'tide' started turning.) I stuck with it because after 13 years of no Trek on TV I really WANTED Trek on TV to succeed but the first two TNG seasons (comprising 48 episodes SUCKED HARD and still do for me.) I liked Seasons 3 and 4 better and yes that was due to Michael Piller AND the fact GR was too ill to really ride herd over the scripts the way he did in Season 1 and 2.

As an original series fan (watching since 1969 at age 6) , I enjoyed Star Trek Discovery from day one, and LOVED Season 2. I thought Picard started out ok but the more it went on, the more it sucked. I'm interested in Season 2 because they seem to be going with an alternate timeline story for the season that effectively jettisons Season 1 for the most part; and while I hated the 'Q' character until TNG S2 "Q-Who" I'm curious enough to want to see what they do with Q for an entire season and there's also the fact that we may be seeing Guinan (played by Whoopie Goldberg again unless her schedule/Covid-19 scuttled her being able to participate after accepting Stewart's on air invitation to appear in Season 2.) Lower Decks actually got me to start liking the 24th century setting because even with the outlandish comedic situations at times; it's doing what TNG only did occasionally (and DS9 did more often in it's later seasons)- and that's write 24th century like relatable human beings and not the utopian perfectly adjusted walking mannequins that GR always wanted for TNG. Part of what made TOS good was the crew conflict COUPLED with the fact that in the end they usually worked through those issues and solved the plot complications by the end and were all better for the experience. GR utopian garbage was just plain boring and Picard's sermonizing often completely hypocritical and wholly self serving.

Kurtzman and Co, have done a better job overall with the Star Trek franchise in 3 years then either Berman or Braga did in their 18 year run. This old Star Trek fan who saw TOS first run is enjoying their work on the current Star Trek franchise more than I ever enjoyed anything Star Trek after TOS, TAS, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Oh, and I also enjoyed the JJ Abram's Star Trek films more than anything from the Berman era, but still not as much as TOS or the first 4 TOS films). I'm also really excited to see how "Strange New Worlds" as it's in my favorite era of teh Star Trek franchise.

But that's me. YMMV.

And finally, for those TNG fans who all during its run often told TOS fans to "Hey, get with the times, Star Trek has updated itself for the times..." <---- Yeah, you got a taste of what 'change' was like with JJ Abrams - and hey, overall Box Office wise after ST:TMP those films are the most popular films (adjusted for inflation) of the franchise:

( Here's the unadjusted numbers: https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Trek#tab=summary )

The adjusted for inflation list:

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979):$534,900,313
2. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013): $530,327,946
   
3. Star Trek (2009): $479,387,934
4. Star Trek Beyond (2016): $369,731,936
5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): $317,013,840
6. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): $265,512,134
7. Star Trek First Contact (1996): $254,583,088
8. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984): $223,746,629
9. Star Trek Generations (1994): $214,422,510
10. Star Trek Insurrection (1998): $190,264,434
11. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991): $188,674,987
12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989): $151,773,767
13. Star Trek Nemesis (2002): $99,244,852

So, yeah - to you hardcore Berman and Braga era revisionists:

Alex Kurtzman was involved with all 3 JJ Abrams films. Overall to date, he's been way more successful at keeping the Star Trek IP going and kept it more profitable at a faster pace than either Rick Berman or Brannon Braga ever did. THAT'S why he gets a huge $160 million 5 1/2 year contract extension - AND is getting even more Star Trek series made for Paramount+.

So as many a TNG fan said to me back in 1987 - 1994 as I lamented how different TNG was compared to TOS/TAS/The TOS Feature Films - "Get with the times, or move on and find something you do like...you can watch your TNG reruns all you like..."

 

[eschaton]

No he isn't. He's going back to what the franchise has already done and is retroactively changing why those events happened in the first place. When you take designs, characters and situations that have prospered and endeared for over half a century and say "That's not how it looked, that's not how it worked and that's not what it meant", that's not a new direction. It's revisionism.

Star Trek is basically alone in treating continuity in this way - that "if it was shown once, it's always true."

• The MCU lifts from historic Marvel properties, but doesn't feel beholden to them. Hell, they've even more or less de-canonized the pre-Disney Plus series.
• Dr. Who never gave a shit about continuity
• In Star Wars, Lucas kept editing the original trilogy to make them "fit" his ever-evolving plan.

I could go on and on, but the idea of Trek fandom - that everything, once established, must be used forever - is really unique. IMHO it's kinda a detriment to the franchise, because good storytelling often comes out of recontextualizing older material.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

I’m getting the sense that a lot of fans measure success by continued existence and expansion, as if long-term artistic impact were illusory and beside the point if the shows can reach enough people for whom the current iterations are good enough (even if they simply follow the shows to see what happens next or what happened way back when, as I do).

I mean, don’t we all seek out critically-acclaimed, award-winning films and series regardless of genre and pay attention to how they were made so the flaws in Star Trek become more and more apparent? For instance, with some of the best writing you can easily see where the author identified all obvious, trope-ical solutions and decided to avoid them. Star Trek doesn’t really care about such things, or it wouldn’t have had Booker and Kyheem reconcile by the end of the episode where they meet again, which is a classic beat in the franchise.

At the very least it should be possible to see where CBS is coming from but disagree with it in public, because fans are under no obligation to settle for any corporate vision, to give up and say, “Well, that’s Star Trek.” Sure, I’ll watch because I’m a fan, but Star Trek can be better because we know what can be achieved on television or film. It’s just a future world that can fit different kinds of storytelling. You can watch any number of experimental films or series and imagine them taking place in 2401, with all their different directors or showrunners, each employing an individual approach.

Maybe the financial calculation doesn’t support it, but again, there is what CBS can do and what I as a viewer would like to see, with no need to merge the two. It’s the difference between property owners and fandom, which can best support the franchise by maintaining a critical distance and always asking for more and better. It may not have any effect, but at the very least the gap would remain visible on the level of individual comments, even if there are people who don’t like that sort of thing and keep asking others to stop watching, liberally apply the word ‘hate’, or bring up extreme reactions because they are more easily attacked.

All I can say is, be on the lookout for the very best out there so that Star Trek can assume its proper place in context, and it becomes easier to say, “Regardless of why I think that CBS is fine with it, here are the problems for me as a viewer: …”

 

[fireproof78]

I mean, don’t we all seek out critically-acclaimed, award-winning films and series regardless of genre

No.

 

[Tuskin38]

No he isn't. He's going back to what the franchise has already done and is retroactively changing why those events happened in the first place. When you take designs, characters and situations that have prospered and endeared for over half a century and say "That's not how it looked, that's not how it worked and that's not what it meant", that's not a new direction. It's revisionism.

All of Trek is guilty of this, not just the new stuff.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[fireproof78]

No he isn't. He's going back to what the franchise has already done and is retroactively changing why those events happened in the first place. When you take designs, characters and situations that have prospered and endeared for over half a century and say "That's not how it looked, that's not how it worked and that's not what it meant", that's not a new direction. It's revisionism.

And what does that mean? Retroactive continuity is an ongoing thing in long running franchises. That's exactly what other franchises have done, and even Star Trek has done in the past too. So, I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean beyond "It's change." They are no disparaging anything. Just expanding and providing the opportunity for new information from a familiar era. Which is what a prequel is to do any way. Not just repeat what was previously known.

 

[Jeyl]

I could go on and on, but the idea of Trek fandom - that everything, once established, must be used forever - is really unique. IMHO it's kinda a detriment to the franchise, because good storytelling often comes out of recontextualizing older material.

I’d rather have good stories that honor and respect older material than reshaping it into what it wasn’t. Unless you’re only in this new era of Star Trek for Michael Burnham, we haven’t had a good story told yet in this new era.

This idea of “recontextualizing” to tell good stories? Sure. Let’s look at Will Riker. His son is dying and the only way to cure him involves something that is against the law. The Riker I know would try to find a way around. He’s done worse for less. But that wouldn’t work for the ‘good storytelling’ that Picard was aiming for so they ‘recontextualized’ his character into accepting the law rather than do everything in his power to save his son’s life. You call that good storytelling, I call it character assassination.

Or how about the basic premise of TNG’s ‘Lower Decks’, an episode about characters who aren’t of senior rank and how they deal with the crew, the assignments they’re given and having to face the risks that no one even on the bridge would face?

But let’s ‘recontextualize’ any notion of that and not only have characters who don’t serve on the bridge behave like unprofessional idiots, let’s literally have them continually badmouth their superior officers, cause grievous harm to their fellow crew and make light of truly horrific situations.

Good storytelling.

 

[fireproof78]

"Honor" and "respect " have become such buzz words that I can't take them seriously. I think TMP disrespects TOS because Kirk is an ass.

 

[Jeyl]

All of Trek is guilty of this, not just the new stuff.

I seem to recall that the Enterprise in ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’ looked like the original series Enterprise when that episode aired on DS9. I even recall the USS Defiant, the sets and the position of the dead crew to look the same as it did in ‘The Tholian Web’ when ‘In A Mirror Darkly’ first aired. They took great care into recreating the look, sound and feel of the original sets because that was part of Star Trek’s identity.

There was a real sense that the people who actually worked on these shows loved Star Trek as much as we did. I don’t get that feeling with ANYONE on these new shows. Not Discovery, not Picard, not Lower Decks. No one. They are all too happy and eager to change what was so their work can be looked at as the real reason why things are what they are in Star Trek.

 

[Jeyl]

"Honor" and "respect " have become such buzz words that I can't take them seriously. I think TMP disrespects TOS because Kirk is an ass.

At least the film established that Kirk has been out of the loop for years and that simply taking command of an updated Enterprise was not as easy as simply sitting on the chair. His behavior is not only called out, but made a point that could it jeopardize the mission. Kirk was put on the spot by new and familiar characters and they were both right.

If you want films that really glorify Kirk being an a#%, check out the two Star Trek films written by Kurtzman himself.