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

[Knight Templar]

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

I'm optimistic.

I think after the third newTrek movie that there will be a strong push to try a new series again.

That probably means a new series beginning in 2018 or so at the earliest.

 

[Anji]

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

I appreciate and welcome your optimism, Knight, but as a grand ole dame of Star Trek Fandom, I can tell you unless there is a significant shift in popularity (i.e. meaning there is a healthy profit to be made from merchandising) CBS will stick to the movies only.

Bottom line is there is no one who can take the franchise to the next level. Now, JJ is good, but he is just regurgiating what he has already seen. He knows how to fly the plane but has no idea where to take it.

We need a navigator.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

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

CBS isn't doing the movies.

 

[Mojochi]

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

It could all be overcome if the new series attempt were animated. If ever there was a time when an animated series could work, it's now. Animated tv programming is infinitely more widespread, mainstream, & popularly accepted now than it was back when they gave it the 1st go

I will never understand why they've never given another animated series a proper try. With the modern animating techniques available, it could be a billion times more amazing than TAS. It's a win/win. It doesn't even have to be TOS centered anymore

 

[C.E. Evans]

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

I will never understand why they've never given another animated series a proper try. With the modern animating techniques available, it could be a billion times more amazing than TAS. It's a win/win. It doesn't even have to be TOS centered anymore

The thing about TAS was that it was the only new Star Trek production being made at the time. The need to do another animated series vanished with the return of Trek as a movie franchise and a TV series.

Following the dismal performance of Star Trek X and the later cancellation of ENT, CBS did briefly kick around the idea of another animated series (set in the 25th-Century) for startrek.com, but that idea was killed following a subsequent regime change and possibly killed twice by Star Trek XI.

A new animated series might actually only come about if live-action Trek dies again, IMO.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

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

I don't think an animated Trek series is likely anytime soon, but Cartoon Network is entering overdrive with the original series it's airing now, including a new CGI Green Lantern series, the traditionally animated Young Justice which has been renewed for a second season, and of course CGI The Clone Wars which is going on its fifth season. There is definitely a strong market for animated science fiction right now; I'm an adult and I'm keeping up with all three. Disney also has its things going, though that's not on my radar.

 

[Ian Keldon]

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

How does Doctor Who coming back to British television reflect on the feasibility of Star Trek coming back to American television?

As Temis was trying to point out, it doesn't.

Two different development pipelines with different funding, standards, and expectations.

 

[Ian Keldon]

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

Bottom line is there is no one who can take the franchise to the next level. Now, JJ is good, but he is just regurgiating what he has already seen. He knows how to fly the plane but has no idea where to take it.

We need a navigator.

We need to get Trek back to what worked for 40 years.

Many Coto deserves his chance to show us what Trek can really be with a GOOD showrunner at the helm.

 

[Jax]

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

We need to get Trek back to what worked for 40 years.

Sydnication?

Network TV saw TOS cancelled within 3, ENT within 4 and the only reason Voyager survived for 7 was because UPN other shows did so bad.

Star Trek is better off in movie form for the near future.

 

[Mojochi]

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

I don't think an animated Trek series is likely anytime soon

Probably not, but I just wish someone would finally work up the guts to give it a try. I bet they'd be surprised how well it would be received, & how good it could be

A new animated series might actually only come about if live-action Trek dies again, IMO.

Probably so, but once this new film series runs its course, that could very well be what happens. I'd be fine waiting until then, but even at that time, a live action series will be a tough sell, whereas an animated one is a rather refreshing way to approach it

 

[horatio83]

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

Especially since american television is a joke.

No it's not. You just have to ignore the crap and seek out the good stuff. There's plenty of it out there, and Star Trek could be part of the good stuff. In fact, since it would have to be on cable, the odds are good that it would also be "forced" to be among the good stuff. It'll never show up on CBS and almost certainly not on the CW, two of the chief purveyors of scripted crap on TV today, so that's two strikes in its favor.

Anything that cares deeply satisfying its target audience, anything that is influences too much by marketing folks, has to be crap.
Great American TV series like TOS or The Wire did not care at all about satisfying anybody but the folks who made them.
In other words, art is not an on-demand product.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

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

Great American TV series like TOS or The Wire did not care at all about satisfying anybody but the folks who made them.

Say what? When it was a TV series, Star Trek was always about the ratings. Why else was the original series canceled? Why else was ENT canceled? The other series ran their courses only because ratings permitted it.

 

[Anji]

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

Everything in television is about the ratings...hell, everything in LIFE these days is about the marketing data you can provide to a store you shop at. The USA is statistic crazy!

But guys, remember your Star Trek history. Remember back in the 80s when we all thought that Trek was dead, TMP flopped and TWOK was the franchise's last hope?

How many of us went to see that movie because we thought it was the last hurrah??? I did. And I "had my doors blown off" by the way Nick Meyer reworked Trek.

Meyer reworked Trek so it was accessible to the masses, not just to us geeks.

They need somebody who can do this. We need somebody who can take today's problems and internalize them into the Star Trek universe. Coto is an excellent suggestion. I was also a fan of Black. Black could've saved ENT had he been given the chance.

Whatever they are going to do CBS better do it soon. It's chic to be geek right now because of The Big Bang Theory effect. If they can ride that wave, the way Paramount rode the Star Wars wave, they may be able to resurrect this thing.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

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

Bottom line is there is no one who can take the franchise to the next level. Now, JJ is good, but he is just regurgiating what he has already seen. He knows how to fly the plane but has no idea where to take it.

We need a navigator.

We need to get Trek back to what worked for 40 years.

Many Coto deserves his chance to show us what Trek can really be with a GOOD showrunner at the helm.

The TV business has changed too much, so don't look to the past for ideas. Space opera has simply died as a genre because the general audience has splintered into smaller and smaller niches. There's still a space opera audience out there, but it's simply too small to support the expensive production now.

Instead of looking to the past, look to the future. There's a large number of new players trying to get into producing digital series - Netflix, Yahoo, Amazon, YouTube, DirecTV, etc.

There will be a chaotic shakedown period where everyone experiments and figures out what works and what doesn't, but I think the answer is clear: focus on what broadcast and cable TV can't provide, that is, ultra-niche programming (of which space opera is just one example) with an audience too small for the cost of production to support under current business models.

Solve the money problem by advertising, premium subscriptions and selling virtual goods. Each of these have significant problems: online ads provide only a pittance; it takes unusually compelling content to induce people to subscribe; and only a small percentage (1%-5%) could be expected to purchase virtual goods. So the final factor is global reach. Increase the base number from millions to hundreds of millions, eventually even billions, and even a very small percentage can add up to real money.

The global market is coming. Netflix is expanding its reach all the time, and there's no theoretical barrier to Netflix selling its own content wherever it pleases. Ditto for Amazon, YouTube, et al. The geographic limitations of current online content stem from the fact that Hollywood needs to go through a distribution system that changes from country to country, because of the historic importance of local theaters, TV broadcasters/cable companies and video stores that they didn't want to piss off by circumventing them.

Netflix has no theaters, broadcasters or video stores to worry about. They might need to be a bit careful since they still need to keep in Hollywood's good graces for content they don't produce, but the larger issue - that Netflix is becoming a competitor to Hollywood - is inevitable in any case. Amazon and Yahoo don't have that problem, to the extent it is a problem at all. YouTube is kissing up to Hollywood a little in their professional channels but so far it sounds like they're going the cheap talk show/gossip/comedy route.

Ironically, I can't think of a better test case for the above than Star Trek. It's got built-in global awareness, a fanatical audience that is likely to pay for new content, and a longstanding tradition of selling real-world merchandise, so the demand for virtual goods would simply be a natural extension of that.

The one huge barrier is that Star Trek is owned by a Hollywood dinosaur, CBS, which like all the other dinosaurs has no motive to help Netflix become a stronger competitor.

Anything that cares deeply satisfying its target audience, anything that is influences too much by marketing folks, has to be crap.

If that were true, everything on TV would be crap, and that's far from being the case. Audiences sometimes demand quality; satisfying them can result in very good content. That's how HBO, Showtime and AMC built up businesses from scratch.

HBO would not have kept The Wire on, season after season, if the ratings sucked. All its shows must prove their worth in attracting and retaining subscribers. HBO may like to say differently in their press releases, but it's marketing spin. It makes sense if they want to project a brand image that "we only care about quality," but don't confuse a branding campaign with the truth.

Other audiences demand crap, and they also get what they want. Audiences vary a great deal. The only commonality is that all of TV is always concerned with giving some audience what they want (as long as the costs aren't too high to be worthwhile).

 

[horatio83]

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

Great American TV series like TOS or The Wire did not care at all about satisfying anybody but the folks who made them.

Say what? When it was a TV series, Star Trek was always about the ratings. Why else was the original series canceled? Why else was ENT canceled? The other series ran their courses only because ratings permitted it.

You totally missed my point. You cannot create something great if you behave like a whore.

HBO would not have kept The Wire on, season after season, if the ratings sucked. All its shows must prove their worth in attracting and retaining subscribers. HBO may like to say differently in their press releases, but it's marketing spin. It makes sense if they want to project a brand image that "we only care about quality," but don't confuse a branding campaign with the truth.

Of course they wouldn't have. But, guess what, HBO allowed Simon to do whatever he wanted to do. That's not a "brand image", it is just the way it was.
If you take a look at the very beginning of Trek you see the very same pattern. The first pilot was terrific but once the studio folks thought that this sci-fi series needs a Western touch because Westerns were so popular on TV, obviously a very stupid concept that debunks your entire marketing talk (hell, we talk about art folks!), the second pilot was far weaker.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

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

But, guess what, HBO allowed Simon to do whatever he wanted to do. That's not a "brand image", it is just the way it was.

No. That is their brand image. And just because they said that in their public statement doesn't mean it's 100% true. Do you believe everything corporations tell you?

And there's a wide degree of latitude between "giving your customers what they want" and "behaving like a whore."

If you take a look at the very beginning of Trek you see the very same pattern.

Then why wasn't TOS an unmitigated creative disaster from the start? How did they manage to eke out even one decent episode, after the whoremasters took over? (And given what I know about Roddenberry, he was as big a whoremaster as anyone, in more ways than one. )

 

[horatio83]

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

No, but I believe Simons. The network did not interfere creatively and that's why the series was good, the marketing gurus have not been in charge. The series was after all about what happens to a society when this kind of thinking is dominant, something you obviously totally missed.
Whether you like it or not, art is not an on-demand product. It's like with love, you don't fall in love because you "demand" a person with certain traits, after you fall in a love one person on the world becomes everything to you. Not that I expect somebody who probably thinks in terms like "dating market" to actually understand this.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

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

Great American TV series like TOS or The Wire did not care at all about satisfying anybody but the folks who made them.

Say what? When it was a TV series, Star Trek was always about the ratings. Why else was the original series canceled? Why else was ENT canceled? The other series ran their courses only because ratings permitted it.

You totally missed my point. You cannot create something great if you behave like a whore.

Yeah, I often don't understand points that make no sense. "Behave like a whore", huh? It's hard to count the number of ways that Star Trek adapted itself in order to get on the air, and stay on it, setting aside of course various self-serving and dubious narratives which attempt to rewrite actual history.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

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

Not that I expect somebody who probably thinks in terms like "dating market" to actually understand this.

"Dating market"? This is about the TV business, not your own personal issues. You have no fucking clue what I think about the "dating market" because I have never once expressed any opinion on that topic in all my years at TrekBBS and certainly have not in this thread. Try to keep focused on the topic at hand.

TV is run as a business. That includes HBO, Showtime, all of cable and all of broadcast. They are governed by the same rules as any business is.

And The Wire, as good as it was, had many aspects that make it a marketable product. For starters, it was about cops and criminals, a very durable and well-worn TV trope. Simon couldn't have chosen a less creatively risky topic if he'd tried.

Simon can talk all he wants about creative freedom, but if he'd decided to turn the show into something completely unmarketable, say space opera, I doubt HBO would have said, "oh gosh golly gee, whatever you want!" Simon kept his show going because he knew very well what the limits of creative freedom are, at HBO. Those limits are different than if he were at CBS, but they exist regardless.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

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

By total coincidence, I just ran across a recent New York Times article on the very topic of how TV in general, including HBO, makes decisions about shows based on what the viewers want, not based only on what the creators want. The article is on "superviewers," eg annoying people like us who spew their opinions all over the internets.

Superviewers can’t make or break a show — if they could, “Community” would be the highest-rated TV show in the history of ever. But they do influence programming, particularly on cable, where intangibles like buzz can be as crucial as overall viewer numbers. HBO, for example, recently canceled several series — “Bored to Death,” “How to Make It in America” and “Hung” — while sparing another one, “Enlightened,” despite its being the lowest-rated of the bunch. This was in part because those other shows had not generated the kind of significant fan engagement or critical support that can lead to award consideration. They had not, in short, earned the passion of the superviewers.

So much for "art" if HBO lives in fear of TWOP and TrekBBS.