Why not just amalgamate all the new and upcoming Star Trek projects together under the same banner?

[trekfan_1]

We all know that we are entering an era where streamers are tring to save money and trimming things down production wise. I have an idea that would make allot of parties happy including allot of fans and also help reduce costs for Paramount.

The idea of a Star Trek anthology is not a new one. So its not exactly original. But I was thinking if the studio is looking to cut costs, why not just streamline all the current upcoming projects under the same production team in an anthology setting?

Name it “Star Trek Legacy” . As far as the Paramount bean counters are concerned it would be one single series that’s getting the green light.

An order of 10-12 episodes for 1 calendar year to start. Strange New Words would left alone as its own entity.

The episodes would be multiple parters , 2 hour streaming films. with the occasional one off original story "Long Treks"

Example:

Episodes 1 and 2 would be the Section 31 movie.

3-7 would be Starfleet Academy ( 5 episode “season”)

8-9 could be a Picard streaming movie and Matalas “legacy” characters also involved

10-12 could be full on Matalas S3 Picard sequel (Captain 7) with no Patrick Stewart.

The long talked about Gene Roddenberry bio pic could even fall into the the Star Trek Legacy banner if they want. SNW spinoff stories with Paul Wesley on the Farragut? Why not?

The branding will be marketed separately for each project so you can still sell this to Stewart as a “ Picard movie”. The Star Trek Legacy banner would be the “head office” title for the combined projects.

The production assets, writers and producers from all those projects will be streamlined and be part of the same over arching production team,

The projects that prove to be crowd pleasers and highly rated could eventually be bumped up to a Full independent show if Paramount sees cant miss profit with that show.

You can also sprinkle brand new concepts which can serve as test pilots to something completely new. .

 

[fireproof78]

Ok.

 

[Tosk]

And if the team they choose stinks, we're just stuck with a dud. I'd prefer multiple teams across different shows like we have now.

 

[trekfan_1]

And if the team they choose stinks, we're just stuck with a dud. I'd prefer multiple teams across different shows like we have now.

The team I would chose would involve people from Disco/section 31, SF Academy, SNW, Picard. So we would be getting the same basic talent we already have . Perhaps grab the best/core writers from each show. And as always like any production team - you can add /find new talent to come aboard on the go.

 

[Tosk]

I still prefer the diversity that comes from multiple shows/teams.

 

[trekfan_1]

I still prefer the diversity that comes from multiple shows/teams.

That's my preference too. But if Trek is cutting down on content, This has a " having your cake and eating too" aspect. Your still dishing out a diverse amount of stories across different Trek timelines. And if you hit gold, (and Paramount sees this) you can elevate one or more of those storylines to full fledged shows with more diverse and robust teams down the road.

But In a way, you can already achieve that if each project within Star Trek Legacy has their own distinct group of writers and style.

Also if you look at the modern shows, Disco, Picard, SNW (even Abrahams trek to a certain degree) - they all have a "cut from the same cloth" feeling in terms of production already. . (i.e Secret Hideout/Kurtzman era trek).

You can still diversify the writing and style/approach for each project independently though with the right vision.

 

[F. King Daniel]

No, I want variety in writers, styles and directors. I don't want the same writers writing the same shit and only the faces to change. Disco, Picard and SNW all have their own feel and it's better that way.

 

[FederationHistorian]

You are basically asking for an anthology based around future projects, which makes sense.

I’m open to giving it a try, rather than shoot it down.

 

[fireproof78]

So, when's our meeting with Kurtzman?

 

[Skywalker]

Discovery started off with the intent of being an anthology series with different seasons focusing on different eras until they realized that was a bad idea for budgetary reasons.

 

[Therin of Andor]

... until they realized that was a bad idea for budgetary reasons.

And Marketing, I would think.

why not just streamline all the current upcoming projects under the same production team in an anthology setting?

What kind of contract do you offer the actors to prevent them from engaging other work? Most series offer five-year contracts, with options for a sixth and a seventh year (ie. DSC actually avoided expensive contract negotiations for a Season Six by cancelling the series.) Longterm contracts give the participants a form of longterm security. For an anthology series, you'd be treating almost everyone like guest stars. That would prove expensive.

 

[Owain Taggart]

This would probably never fly from a production standpoint. If anything, it would put even more weight on the writers and we'd be back to square-one with the strikes.

 

[Discovery McDiscoveryFace]

Nice idea, it was something tried in the UK in the 1990s which was effectively a series of pilots grouped together. I think Father Ted also emanated from something like this. But practically for all the reasons above PLUS the problems of multiple standing sets and actor availability for things like ADR, it would cause more problems than it solves.

 

[Timofnine]

But all of Nu-Trek is consolidated in to an amalgamation under the Alex Kurtzman banner is it not? Isn’t he the boss?

 

[Danja]

For an anthology series, you'd be treating almost everyone like guest stars. That would prove expensive.

That's what ABC did with The Goldbergs: They had 1-2 leads and cut everyone else back to guest starring/recurring status (Even though they appeared on the show every week! )

 

[Frontis]

Well I wouldn't complain about some accordance. It can feel weird when for example the Klingons in SNW and DISCO are so different but at the same time some characters and other elements appear equal in both shows.
But I'm not sure that the same banner is the ideal solution.

 

[locborg]

First and foremost Trek needs a new showrunner. Consolidation wont happen under Kurtzman, his goal is to slowly drain all life out of the franchise.

They should talk to Chatgpt 5.0 and give the job to it instead

 

[Dukhat]

First and foremost Trek needs a new showrunner. Consolidation wont happen under Kurtzman, his goal is to slowly drain all life out of the franchise.

They should talk to Chatgpt 5.0 and give the job to it instead

No.

 

[mswood]

There are large problems with this idea. One of the perks doing a series and expecting said series to last multiple years, is it allows you freedom to do in your production things that you couldn't do with shorter length material where you would have no idea on if anything created specific for it would get regularly used. If you did it would actually be vastly more expensive.

To actually make something like this work you would need to have your primary sets be functional for each concept idea (be it tv movie one off, or recurring series). So a huge part of the visual stamp for each thing would be very much watered down. Imagine for Example trying to make DS9 work with only using redress sets from TNG. And how that would impact the visual identity of your show.

It limits costumes, FX, pretty much every single physical aspect of the production., just to keep the overall budget the same.

On the acting side. You certainly would be able to attract people for the tv film side of the equation. But for reocrruing short run tv shows. Thats a different story. Now going too long, has its issues (see Berman era and TOS length) where only so many actors are willing to commit long term to year round employment for one character. Doing shorter then what is common currently brings fourth its own issues. Now doing a miniseries and one and done, not an issue. It's a one time commitment, easy breezy. But doing short run, with needing to have cast options on if it returns, and having first say on availability would make contracts more expensive, You would have to have pay or play terms in them. And again since each shorter length possible series, means you would have to offer it for each venture. That had costs. Not only for simply the play or pay. But to induce actors to be willing to sign a contract that can ;limit them years in the future for a product that could seriously interfere with other opportunities down the road.

Paramounts typical ten and others typical 8, still provide enough financial incentive, and provide windows for other work, to interest people. And having a job that still gives you a salary of in this case 10 episodes helps make up for some missed opportunities. As an Anthology based schedule could vary dramatically year to year for planning. While most full series, are designed to start and end in roughly the same period each year. Now of course thanks to covid and then strikes that did seriously mess with that normal schedule, but they are getting back into regular patterns now. Actors like that because it allows them to plan for other activities. An anotholy production schedule would have so many variables. We try X number of projects this year. X number succeed, we have then planned some replacement concepts, but the production requirements for those projects, would be better suited due to redressed and repurposing of designs to fit this schedule this year, and a different schedule next year. All based on different concepts being created.

Now back in TNG's day we the fan base be it those from the 60's those who discovered Trek from syndication or the film series or even those just trying out a new series. Seemed perfectly ok with redressed sets, preexisting footage, models from previous works, and reused or repurposed costumes. And there were two reasons for this. One we desperately wanted new Trek. Period. And that the sci-fi material that was in competition to Trek was at the time abysmal. So even old footage, old costumes, old sets, still looked better than any other sci-fi on television.

That is not the case, not even remotely anymore. TV has become vastly superior visually (sets, costumes, stunts, editing, design, ect) in pretty much every format on TV.

Look at the diatribe thrown out in streaming Trek when they have had to clearly take short cuts. With Picard's season 1 ending probably being the largest of the group. But plenty of scattered why are the reusing this ship or that model. When they are in universe a hundred plus years out of time. This would increase dramatically, over anything we currently get. And it wouldn't be limited to SVX.

How much would that impact, viewership. And more importantly people subscribing. And even more importantly those keeping their subscriptions.

One of the key differences between TV and film is that with Film we are under the expectation that we are not going to form long term attachments to the characters we are watching, and thats even with all the sequels we get today.

With TV the expectation is we are going to form attachments, and we are going to want more of those attachments. People are hesitant to start new programming, because what if it gets cancelled. Using a mixed anthology format doesn't help that segment of the tv viewing audience.