I would think Fuller would want to come up with his own idea, rather than wading through spec scripts. After all, he is a Star Trek writer himself.
Letter to Moonves
- Thread starter xortex
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I would think Fuller would want to come up with his own idea, rather than wading through spec scripts. After all, he is a Star Trek writer himself.
Not to mention he has no official connection to Trek right now. If he wants to make a show he needs to pitch it to Moonves at CBS. I have no clue why he would pitch someone else's idea rather than his own. This pitch probably should have been made right to CBS and then if CBS likes it they can bring a producer in to make it happen.
Did you not read what AviTrek just said? Fuller has about as much of a connection to ST right now as I do. And anyway, it doesn't matter if you're Bryan Fuller, or Gene Roddenberry ressurected from the dead. No one would have a chance in hell of successfully pitching a Trek series to CBS right now, because a) Les Moonves hates Star Trek, and b) CBS would rather make twenty reality shows for the cost it would take to make one Trek show.
Here's a wacky idea:
If you feel so strongly that your idea has legs, maybe you could look at finding backers and (co-)producing an indy film on your own. That would a) get your idea out there in a form you have control of, and b) give you a concrete proof of concept to show a network exec.
Granted, doing this would preclude it from being connected to Star Trek, but to be honest it sounds to me like your idea can stand on its own without the franchise affiliation anyway.
Just a thought...
Probably. Nonetheless, the legal/contractual situation concerning using the content of submitted writing is as I stated.
You mean like Voyager?...or Enterprise?
Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm pinging on you.
My premise/idea would fit into and use as much as the Roddenberry/Abrams universe as possible together to make the ultimate origin story. For the love of Gene's universe now that it's alive and well again on the big screen. Thank God. The good thing is between movies they could always change and tweak things when and if objective aesthetics change.
I gotta admit, there's kinda something to your ideas, it's just hard to pick them out of the jumble.
"Xortex" is a nicely retro sci fi name (although it might sound too much like a prescription drug.) If Xortex is trapped between dimensions does he/she/it appear as a ghost or a disembodied voice? And why should Xortex be a simulation? The interdimensionally-trapped element is enough, to make this critter an AI life form is one twist too complicated.Yep. Nobody's ever thought of that one before. You might want to avoid mentioning "Twilight Zone" in your lawsuit.
Hey, looks like Bryan Fuller's two pilot ideas have gone nowhere - No Kill and Sellevision. NBC hasn't made a peep about picking up either. Fine with me, I didn't care for either concept. So maybe he'd be open to a sci fi idea. Never know until you try.
Is Xortex a natural type alien species or an AI lifeform?
Why in gods name do you think anyone would make anything with "crazy metaphysical ideas" into a network TV show?
Heck that would be a hard sell in any medium except maybe novels. Why not write a novel?
Apart from anything else it would prove you can write not just come up with a premise. All these wacky fan ideas miss what makes TV shows good, lets look at TOS: -
1. Premise - wagon train to the stars THATS IT.
2. Characters - Traditional white lead, his conscience, his logic in character form, some colourful background.
3. Scripts - Based on classic stories with a twist written by experienced writers.
Which of those three made it good? Well all of them, but honestly how do people get from the Trek we have seen to all these wacky concepts - it just would never work in weekly TV.
But that's pretty much the whole point of this section of the forum, isn't it? "Future of Trek" = "Place where you pull premises out of your ass that have no chance in hell of ever being created."
Putting aside the question of whether Star Trek should come back to TV (the topic of many other threads), I think it's a terrible idea trying to get a network to do Star Trek.
Star Trek has never done well in the long-term on a network. NBC cancelled TOS after one year and only kept it going because of fan pressure. They gutted it in season 3 and put it in a suicide time slot - they didn't want to keep it.
Voyager barely survived its seven years and frankly we have Jeri Ryan channeling the spirits of Emma Peel and Wilma Deering to thank for that. Ask the average joe on the street to name a character from Voyager and they'll name Seven of Nine. No one will give you the name Chakotay unless that street happens to be outside ComicCon.
And it's a miracle Enterprise lasted as long as it did, taking only the ratings into account.
However, TNG and DS9 thrived in first-run syndication. We didn't have people worrying week after week about ratings numbers. No one cared if American Idol was up against it. And funnily enough TNG (not so much DS9) really entered the public consciousness in a way Voyager and Enterprise never did. All through syndication.
Network TV is in my opinion in its last decade of viability. We're seeing the cracks starting to show in the hull with NBC's meltdown. Two networks have already collapsed and needed to merge in order to survive.
If you're going to insist on trying to get Trek back on TV, in my opinion interests would be better served in focusing on either cable outlets like Syfy (lots of people hate Syfy but they did give us the new BSG) or channels like AMC. First-run syndication is pretty much dead except for a few oddballs like Legend of the Seeker (which gets shown at 2 AM on the channels I receive where I am). But cable is thriving and that's where Trek should go if it comes back.
Budgets aren't an issue. Doctor Who lasted for years on a $1.98 budget and even today its budget is less than most US shows yet it manages to come up with cinema-quality stuff most weeks.
The ideas are great, but IMO approaching Les Moonves with it is the same as someone trying to approach Michael Grade about doing Doctor Who. DW would never have come back under Grade, and likewise I do not believe Trek (even with the movie being a big hit) has a friend - in terms of viability as a TV series - in Moonves. Not everything has to be produced for CW or CBS, just as not everything made by Fox has to go on, well, Fox.
Alex
Star Trek has never done well in the long-term on a network. NBC cancelled TOS after one year and only kept it going because of fan pressure. They gutted it in season 3 and put it in a suicide time slot - they didn't want to keep it.
Voyager barely survived its seven years and frankly we have Jeri Ryan channeling the spirits of Emma Peel and Wilma Deering to thank for that. Ask the average joe on the street to name a character from Voyager and they'll name Seven of Nine. No one will give you the name Chakotay unless that street happens to be outside ComicCon.
And it's a miracle Enterprise lasted as long as it did, taking only the ratings into account.
However, TNG and DS9 thrived in first-run syndication. We didn't have people worrying week after week about ratings numbers. No one cared if American Idol was up against it. And funnily enough TNG (not so much DS9) really entered the public consciousness in a way Voyager and Enterprise never did. All through syndication.
Network TV is in my opinion in its last decade of viability. We're seeing the cracks starting to show in the hull with NBC's meltdown. Two networks have already collapsed and needed to merge in order to survive.
If you're going to insist on trying to get Trek back on TV, in my opinion interests would be better served in focusing on either cable outlets like Syfy (lots of people hate Syfy but they did give us the new BSG) or channels like AMC. First-run syndication is pretty much dead except for a few oddballs like Legend of the Seeker (which gets shown at 2 AM on the channels I receive where I am). But cable is thriving and that's where Trek should go if it comes back.
Budgets aren't an issue. Doctor Who lasted for years on a $1.98 budget and even today its budget is less than most US shows yet it manages to come up with cinema-quality stuff most weeks.
The ideas are great, but IMO approaching Les Moonves with it is the same as someone trying to approach Michael Grade about doing Doctor Who. DW would never have come back under Grade, and likewise I do not believe Trek (even with the movie being a big hit) has a friend - in terms of viability as a TV series - in Moonves. Not everything has to be produced for CW or CBS, just as not everything made by Fox has to go on, well, Fox.
Alex
Lost got away with it. Granted they're a special case. But then, BSG got away with it, too.
The secret seems to be: take care of the crowd-pleasing elements first and you can do whatever wacky shit you like later. Sexy people are stranded on an island and wait...is that a dinosaur!?! Humanity is destroyed by robots! Space battles! Ray-gun battles! Robots wearing sexy red dresses!!!
So throw some stuff like that into the first season and wait till you've locked in an audience to shove any metaphysics at them. At that point, you don't even need to make sense. Just make sure your robots keep wearing sexy red dresses.
No it didn't there is a subtle distinction.
The premise of Lost is "plane crash maroons disparate group on remote weird island".
The premise of BSG is "last survivors of human colonies flee from Cylons".
I have no problem with whacking metasphysical crap in the show, its fun, but it will never fly as the premise of the show. It is too complicated to write around for a weekly TV show.
Trek is a fun, straight up space opera, nothing more, nothing less.
Well yes.
Well if the OPs premise is merely "Trek a bit like TOS but with added metaphysics" surely all that stuff with the Prophets in DS9 has that down pat. The OP seems to be advocating some wild wacky "trek meets the weird shit at the end of 2001" show. It might make a great episode, and in fact he mentioned a great episode ("Frame Of Mind") where it was done, but it would make crappy serialised TV.
Put simply, any over-complicated premise is going to sound shit unless you back it up. I doubt there has ever been a genuinely successful TV show with a premise you cannot sum up in one sentence. Apart from anything else the network execs will only give you one sentence to sell it.
Do you really think the average viewer is gonna get a comfortable idea of your premise from that statement?
It's definitely not "last human survivors on the run from robotic invaders" or "the crew of a spaceship explore strange, new worlds" or "seven wacky strangers marooned on a deserted island".
