This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future.

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Good choices could lead to a resurgence of fan interest (and more importantly, interest from people who never before realized they were "fans"), so why isn't anyone interested in doing that? Why has space opera vanished from TV entirely?

For the reasons previously noted, including:

1) expense of production
2) perceived limited market (which limits maximum ratings)
3) perceived lack ratings within target market

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Of course nowadays part of the reason why shows might fail is that.

The network will only cancel it after one season. So why should I invest my time watching it.

Which turns the whole thing into self-fulfilling prophecy:

fans don't buy in for fear of premature cancellation which leads to networks quick to prematurely cancel which leads to fans not buying in and so it goes.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Which is why a JJverse series shortly after the release of the second movie would be a good move.

JJ won't even let Pocket put out tie-in novels, you think he's gonna let somebody do a tv series?

Yet they have released YA novels and comics set in the "JJverse".

At the same time they still have not released the 4 written, edited and ready to print regular novels either.

The writers have said publicly they would be open to a series, either LA or animated. Any such series, however, would have to go through CBS, which under Moonives will NEVER put a Trek series on the air.

 

[Dukhat]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

The writers have said publicly they would be open to a series, either LA or animated. Any such series, however, would have to go through CBS, which under Moonives will NEVER put a Trek series on the air.

That's not quite true. I've heard hearsay bandied about that Les Moonves "hates" Star Trek and science fiction in general (although I've yet to read a direct quote from him in which he says this).

However, Moonves is a businessman. Even if he does indeed hate Star Trek (which I don't believe is the case), if he thought a new Trek series would have a huge audience and turn a major profit, there'd be a new Trek series tomorrow.

The issue right now is that CBS doesn't need a new Trek series, not that it doesn't want one. Between its hugely successful sitcoms, procedurals, and reality shows, there's absolutely no need to spend the (to them) exorbitant amount of money to build sets, props, VFX, etc., on a show that television-wise has been considered a failure for many years.

And CBS is not going to sell the rights to TV Trek to anybody else. Why give a competitor an advantage, even if you're doing nothing with it?

This is why there will be no TV Trek for the foreseeable future.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

^ I'd say that's a pretty sound assessment.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

I don't miss Trek on TV these days - it was played out. A great movie like the last one made by Abrams every three or four years is fine.

 

[Kemaiku]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Agreed to an extent, I'd still like the odd novel, game or comic.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

I'm sure we'll get those - the investment and commitment for such projects is so much more limited than for a television series or film.

Trekkies like to think of Trek as the exception to every rule of the entertainment industry because it was once the exception to one or two. To expect a fairly successful series of medium-budgeted movies to generate several hundred hours of quality commercial television as spinoffs, return with enormous success to the big screen and have that somehow feed back into television again, back and forth, decade after decade is almost as silly and unlikely as a device generating energy via perpetual motion.

 

[Kemaiku]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Oh I know, even after such a straight forward demonstration with the last 18 year stretch just running itself out infront of them.

I'm all for fewer, better bites of Trek with low cost material like the novel and comic tie-ins inbetween, they take less time and money to prepare and don't interfere with what new live canon comes up.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

I find it sad that some fans seem to be so gleeful about the problems Trek Prime ran into with creative fatiuge.

It's very odd for someone who calls themselves a fan of a show to put down their own show and fandom.

 

[Dukhat]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Uh, it's not just one show, Ian. It's several shows, some good, some not-so-good, depending on your personal taste. One doesn't have to like every aspect of Star Trek to still be a fan of it; conversely there's nothing wrong with complaining about something you don't like. It's only when people adopt a mentality that everyone MUST like or dislike what THEY like or dislike or they're not *true* Star Trek fans or some such nonsense that it gets rather silly.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Uh, it's not just one show, Ian. It's several shows, some good, some not-so-good, depending on your personal taste. One doesn't have to like every aspect of Star Trek to still be a fan of it; conversely there's nothing wrong with complaining about something you don't like. It's only when people adopt a mentality that everyone MUST like or dislike what THEY like or dislike or they're not *true* Star Trek fans or some such nonsense that it gets rather silly.

I should have been more clear: when I referred to "a show", I was referring to Trek as a franchise, not any particular incarnation.

And there's a difference between differing tastes, and the almost gleeful way that some "fans" seem to all but dance on the grave of Trek Prime.

Let's face it, JJTrek was entertaining enough (for an AU), but it wasn't Trek Prime. There is still plenty of things to see and stories to be told in the Prime universe. We just need the right creative team behind it (I maintain it should be Manny and the Reeves-Stevenses), and a studio/network willing to buck conventional wisdom to back it (which is the stumbling block so long as Paramount is invested in JJTrek and CBS under Moonives holds the TV rights).

 

[Killandra]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

On the other hand, it's nothing new for networks to cancel a series after just a few episodes, or for them to be reluctant to invest in the expensive production of a science fiction series. That's why SF series have always been comparatively rare and short-lived. (Ira Steven Behr's first genre show, Once a Hero back in the '80s, was cancelled after three episodes. The first adaptation of Human Target in 1992 -- which had more genre elements and visual effects than the more recent version -- lasted seven episodes.) And yet we still managed to get new Star Trek for 18 years straight. Rules have exceptions, and patterns have variations.

I agree. There are always exceptions. While yes, Enterprise was a flop, the new movie while it makes some of us die-hards cringe, it was still enjoyable and like it or not, it has brought new blood to the fandom. New blood=renewed interest. Renewed interest=higher demand, which usually, but not always translates to market potential.

While the writing definitely had a hand in ENT's demise, the fact that Trek was becoming saturated and the majority of fans were experiencing burn out also must be taken into account. The few years off from Trek I think is what was honestly needed. Trek's successful history cannot be denied. Every long running series has its ups and downs and with success running high again, perhaps after the new movies run their course, it will be time to return to the 24th century. The good news also is with the advancement in technology, many large sets can be done via cgi to reduce cost...just hopefully not too much. As much as I like cgi, it can some ways hinder more than assist in the verisimilitude. Regardless, Trek is a proven franchise that is worth the risk.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

I find it sad that some fans seem to be so gleeful about the problems Trek Prime ran into with creative fatiuge.

I just find it off-base. The reason there is no TV series now is because of business-related obstacles. Any creative fatigue has been solved by the fact that the same creative team will not ever be writing for a future show, and any franchise fatigue (as opposed to creative fatigue) that existed has long since worn off. People don't remember pop culture stuff for years and years without being prodded by continuing content and multimillion dollar marketing campaigns, so why should they have any opinion about TV Star Trek now? Time has wiped that slate clean.

Just speaking in the abstract, here's no sensible reason not to root for a new Star Trek series on TV. Whatever timeslot it would have would be filled instead by yet another cop show or Kardashian crap. Even a bad Trek series would automatically be more interesting than 90% of what's on TV now.

 

[Lindley]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Shmuck.

Warning for flaming, comments to PM.

 

[Amaris]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Oh I know, even after such a straight forward demonstration with the last 18 year stretch just running itself out infront of them.

I'm all for fewer, better bites of Trek with low cost material like the novel and comic tie-ins inbetween, they take less time and money to prepare and don't interfere with what new live canon comes up.

Agreed. What's nice is that JJ's movie did exactly what was intended; it drummed up interest, got people talking, made the studio some money and brought Trek back to the big screen in a big way. Now we have the second movie coming, and people are already buzzing about it. That's good! Throw in a few comics, a novel or two, a video game or somesuch, and everybody's happy. We don't need a TV series right now.

The future of Trek is in the other media, where it's doing very well.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

I find it sad that some fans seem to be so gleeful about the problems Trek Prime ran into with creative fatiuge.

I just find it off-base. The reason there is no TV series now is because of business-related obstacles. Any creative fatigue has been solved by the fact that the same creative team will not ever be writing for a future show, and any franchise fatigue (as opposed to creative fatigue) that existed has long since worn off. People don't remember pop culture stuff for years and years without being prodded by continuing content and multimillion dollar marketing campaigns, so why should they have any opinion about TV Star Trek now? Time has wiped that slate clean.

Maybe in the public eye, but definitely not in the network's eye (no pun intended).

Just speaking in the abstract, here's no sensible reason not to root for a new Star Trek series on TV. Whatever timeslot it would have would be filled instead by yet another cop show or Kardashian crap. Even a bad Trek series would automatically be more interesting than 90% of what's on TV now.

But would it pull ratings?

 

[horatio83]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Doug Drexler said this while being interviewed about Blood & Chrome:

Drexler: It's huge. I worked with Gary Hutzel, who once again is our visual effects supervisor. He is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We had a blast. In one very important way it was different from anything else I’ve ever worked on. The entire show was green screen. There were no sets. This happened because of the shape of the economy. Building sets for a television show like TNG or the last Battlestar Galactica is just prohibitively expensive. No one wants to take that chance. Besides, the way the networks have been doing business lately, it’s kind of bizarre. They’ll cancel a show after one episode. If a show doesn’t perform right out of the gate, they cancel it. In the day when you thought a show would be kept on the air for a year, you might take a chance because you think it will develop an audience over time. With the current network mindset, there’s no chance of building an audience, when after one or two episodes, it's canceled. It’s just impossible. So, they want make a show as inexpensively as possible, so if it’s canceled after one or two episodes, no one gets their head chopped off.

Note not only the bolded part, but the italicized part of the bolded part.

No network exec is going to look at the performance of Trek on TV over the last decade or so of it's run and front the money for a new version at all. CBS certainly won't, esp under Moonives.

A Trek series produced under this type of short-running executives is most likely not going to be worthwhile to be watched. Somebody might wanna tell these guys that there is a difference between investment and instantaneous gratification.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Trek's ratings started sinking consistently beginning with the second week of DS9.

Yep. I can relate to that. Diehard ST fan here, from the release of ST:TMP, who spent several years backtracking through TOS and TAS and tie-in merchandise to catch up, ran a large local ST club, but was totally underwhelmed by DS9's premiere, "Emissary". I did keep pace with each new episode, out of more a sense of duty, but I didn't go out of my way to see them - not in the way TOS movies on the silver screen, and TNG on TV, were compulsive viewing.

I was in the doldrums about DS9 until "Blood Oath", with the return of the three TOS Klingons - even though it annoyed me, at first, that most past fannish attempts to explain Klingon makeup changes got blown to bits by this ep. Ah well, but it was such fun, and Jadzia Dax finally got more to do.

So if even I had had sufficient new ST by then, I'm not surprised the general public had already begun to drift away.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

That's good! Throw in a few comics, a novel or two, a video game or somesuch, and everybody's happy.

I'm not happy. But I make it a point to never be content with any situation when I could be getting more.

(I don't read the comics or novels or play the games, just not my thing.)

I see no indication that CBS is holding off on Star Trek because they think the market is saturated for it. They hardly hold off on cop shows because of a saturated market (for which they are 90% responsible.) They are ignoring Star Trek because they have easier ways to make money at their fingertips, eg, more cop shows.

CBS has become the most successful network to a large extent by defying franchise fatigue. 12 seasons of the original CSI series, and 8 and 10 seasons of the spinoffs. When's franchise fatigue going to kick in?

A Star Trek series would get survival-level ratings, or maybe better, only if it were crafted to the outlet where it airs. There's no Star Trek that will work on CBS, and what I could envision working on the CW would be horrible, so let's just set those options aside.

On Showtime, a successful Star Trek series would have to be more grownup in its approach than we've ever seen from broadcast-based series - more believable in its politics and character psychology, probably more sex, definitely more violence - and could blow everything else out of the water, quality-wise.

The real obstacle is whether Showtime would "stoop" to picking up a franchise that people associate with free TV. That flies in the face of premium cable's business model of charging people for content that they can't get anywhere else. Even if Star Trek doesn't actually exist anywhere else on TV, it still has that association and could undermine the Showtime brand.

In my dreams, I envision Star Trek on FX - that's probably the place where the results would be the best, after they shape it to their audience. TNT is probably the most realistic location for it, with cable-level ratings expectations but more of a mass market sensibility than FX or Showtime, but TNT's Star Trek would be more family-friendly and smarmy than on other cable outlets.

As for whether any of these places would nurture a struggling show, why would it need to be nurtured? If it is intelligently crafted to the audience where it is shown, it stands a good chance of success for anyone willing to take a risk on it. And if it doesn't take off immediately, cable is the best place for nurturing it through the rough patch. Since Star Trek can't survive on broadcast anyway, and nobody would be crazy enough to try it there, the fact that broadcast is a vicious environment for new shows doesn't matter.