Will J.J. Abrams ever produce a TV version of Star Trek?

[RJDiogenes]

Abrams has a talent for setting up quirky, action-oriented TV series that start out great and end badly. His movies tend to be mindless action flicks. nuTrek was horrible beyond belief on its own merits; as a Trek film, it was worse.

If a new Trek series is made, I'd want it to be done by someone who understands and respects the source material, not someone who wants to turn it into Star Wars. I'd also want it to ignore nuTrek and continue with the original universe.

 

[The Wormhole]

No, I don't want a Star Trek series done as a Lost-style goes nowhere mindfuck with two dozen lens flares going off every fifteen seconds and registry numbers with leading zeroes.

 

[Warp Coil]

As others have indicated, Abrams has developed a pattern of creating and developing a TV series, launching it successfully, and then walking away. I honestly think the man suffers from ADD. He just can't focus on one project for too long. It seems like he's constantly juggling multiple projects at once, and just couldn't give proper time and attention to an on-going TV series. If Abrams were to actually commit to a new Trek series, he would likely help flesh out the universe and the premise with his fellow Trek collaborators (Kurtzman, Orci, Lindelof), possibly work on the pilot script, direct the pilot episode, and then walk away. He'd put Linelof or someone else in charge of the show at that point, but Abrams' name would appear in the credits every week.

Of course, I wouldn't mind if the Lost dynamic due of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were the showrunners of a new Trek series created by Abrams. I think it'd be pretty damned cool.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't know where this idea comes from that CBS wouldn't launch Star Trek while the movie series is going. That's exactly why they would - to tap into the PR value being created for them, at no expense to them, by Paramount. That's like being given free money.

What is CBS's motivation to launch Star Trek after the movies are done? Certainly not more than it is currently, which is to say, not much. They do very well with their cop shows, and the teen angst shows on CW, and Showtime doing its "imitate HBO" thing. I don't see any place for Star Trek or even any space opera in that mix.

 

[Saxman1]

I'd rather have a great film every few years like in 1979-86 than 1-2 so-so ST series that kill the franchise for a while. As one blogger said in the DS9 forum, Paramount's greed killed ST by insisting on too much polarizing ST at one time (two series and films at the same time, not a good idea for many reasons, the least of which is VOY and DS9 fans rarely accepted both series at the time). Berman, whom many love to hate, wasn't enthusiastic about Paramount pushing Voyager when TNG went to films. The studio told him fine, we'll get someone else to produce. He relented and the rest is history. He also didn't want ENT to immediately follow VOY, but again, the late, unlamented UPN insisted on another series to anchor their crappy network once again, even though VOY didn't do nearly as well as DS9 first-run.

Let Abrams make a couple of other great films (as I say this as a huge TOS first-run fan and TOS film fan) and see where things are at that time. Maybe an animated series might be a good idea. I certainly think the Clone Wars series is enjoyable and fun. Why not a new reboot animated series as mentioned above?

 

[NuFan]

I don't think there could possibly be a series if the movies are not successful.

 

[SPCTRE]

Another possibility is for Star Trek to follow Star Wars' lead and launch an animated series on the Cartoon Network. That could tap into the popularity of the movies by using the TOS characters with voice actors who can mimic the movie actors (too $$$ to hire for TV, probably). That also gets around the problem that the cost of live action space opera exceeds the value of the likely TV audience, especially if you're measuring in eyeballs-watching-ads rather than subscribers.

While I personally wouldn't be very much into it, I think that's one of the more realistic short- to mid-term scenarios for Trek's return to the small screen.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I didn't think I'd like The Clone Wars, either. Not a fan of that animation style and don't like shows pitched to kids. But I've gotten use to the animation (which sometimes does a very good job of caricaturing actors who did the live action roles and also fits in well with the more photorealistic animation of inanimate objects and natural landscapes) and just because the show is suitable for kids doesn't stop it from also being palatable to adults, if that's what the writers are going for.

After all, I originally started watching TOS when I was four. You could say TOS was "for kids" in that regards. I understood it well enough to want to watch more though of course, I was missing a whole lot.

I'd rather have a great film every few years like in 1979-86 than 1-2 so-so ST series that kill the franchise for a while.

I'd rather have great movies and a great TV series at the same time. Since different parties are doing the movies vs TV, there's no reason to believe that one is somehow going to siphon off creative energy from the other. Which wouldn't be the case anyway. If Paramount did both TV and movies, they could simply hire different teams for each, to ensure that nobody gets too tired out to do their job well. Managing creative teams is the sort of thing that entities like Paramount and CBS are supposed to be good at doing.

As one blogger said in the DS9 forum, Paramount's greed killed ST by insisting on too much polarizing ST at one time (two series and films at the same time, not a good idea for many reasons,

That blogger was wrong. The far bigger factor in Star Trek's demise on TV was that the TV business was changing. TNG couldn't be a success on broadcast nowadays because audiences have fragmented into smaller groups, organized by niche taste. Space opera of any sort is a very niche taste, yet is expensive to produce. If creative burnout of the Trek franchise were the problem rather than the economic unviability of space opera as a genre, then where are all the space operas on TV? Star Trek isn't the only one that isn't there. Why aren't there a couple on broadcast and two or three more on cable?

I don't think there could possibly be a series if the movies are not successful.

True. Star Trek would still be seen as a loser franchise if JJ Abrams hadn't changed that perception. However, he has changed it for movies, not necessarily for TV. At the very least, he hasn't made it any less likely that there would be a TV series.

 

[NextGen123]

When I see what J.J. Abrams has done with Alias and Lost, why couldn't he get a group of writers to do the same for Star Trek to modernize the concept a bit? I thought the brief scene( the one in the turbo lift after Vulcan's destruction) between Uhuara and Spock in the movie was brilliant and would like to see more of that in a well written tv show. I don't believe for a minute that viewers wouldn't watch a new Star Trek:Five Year Mission type of show.