Would Sam Egan Be A Good Showrunner for A New Series

[Aike]

Would Sam Egan Be A Good Showrunner for A New Series?

One of my favourite shows is The Outer Limits. I always enjoyed the episodes written by Sam Egan. For instance, the episode Tribunal is one of the best time travel stories ever made in my view.

I haven´t seen any of his later work on the sci-fi series Jeremiah or the short-lived series Masters of Science Fiction. But to me, it seems that he´s one of the few writers and producers out there who´s got a good grounding in science fiction in general.

In my view, one of the bigger problems of the later Trek shows was that most of the writers like Berman, Braga, Behr, Moore and so on, weren´t sci-fi writers and sometimes had very little experience in writing anything else than Trek. Simply put, it wasn´t as imaginative and fresh as TOS was where most of the writers had more life experience and knowledge of sci-fi.

So would Sam Egan be a good choice as the showrunner of a new Trek series?

(Obviously, one problem could be that he isn´t that young. I don´t know his actual age, but he´s been working in Hollywood since the 70s, so he´s probably born in the late 40s or early 50s.)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Then he's too old to be considered for this kind of a job.

There's a new Abrams interview out in which the interviewer suggests that Paramount would probably offer J.J. the job of running any new series. This is so obviously true that I don't know why it's not more widely acknowledged - he's been in charge of a number of highly-regarded and pretty successful series, everyone out there seems to want to work with him in TV and he's just produced and directed the most successful Trek film ever.

So it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that if Abrams isn't the next Trek showrunner then someone who works for him will be.

 

[Aike]

Then he's too old to be considered for this kind of a job.

There's a new Abrams interview out in which the interviewer suggests that Paramount would probably offer J.J. the job of running any new series. This is so obviously true that I don't know why it's not more widely acknowledged - he's been in charge of a number of highly-regarded and pretty successful series, everyone out there seems to want to work with him in TV and he's just produced and directed the most successful Trek film ever.

I´ve seen that interview and agree with that. Still, doesn´t his production company Bad Robot have an exclusive deal with WB?

Therefore, CBS/Paramount may not be able to get him.

And, even if Abrams got the production deal it´s unlikely he will write and produce the show himself. Obviously, as you point out, someone working for him like Damon Lindelof or Orci and Kurtzman would be his first choices. But who knows?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I assume this is the new article.

"There's been talk about it but none of it has been mine," Abrams revealed about rumors of new Star Trek TV Series. "Obviously I'm open to anything. The key to doing another TV show is what would the approach be that would be worthy of the audience. If there's a good idea that's fantastic."

"Obviously what you do in a film you couldn't do week to week in a series. The advantage of a series-- when you look at something as good as 'Battlestar Galactica' you see that, despite its great visual effects, there was a level of character and interpersonal drama that never would have taken place had that been a film. [A movie series and a TV series] can definitely co-exist," he said.

"The question is, who runs that show. Whats the vision of it? How does it work?" To MYV's suggestion that the studio would likely approach Abrams before anyone else, he responded in his usual humble manner. "I don't know. It would be nice certainly."

Seems reasonable. I've never seen what obstacles there are to a new TV series that can't be overcome, as long as a financial motive exists, and it obviously does in the wake of the movie's success. Why wouldn't a reinvigorated franchise be exploited in every possible medium? Wasn't that the point (from a business perspective) of reinvigorating the franchise?

As for a "good idea," why overthink it? Go simple and straightforward - 23rd C Starfleet crew, going boldly, not the movie characters but with the same personal qualities, heavily character based.

And because I know this will come up, just because ENT was a flailing flop doesn't mean another series needs to make the same mistakes. Abrams has the right idea - lower budget means you must depend more on characterization, which I would hope Star Trek would have anyway.

Even if Abrams isn't directly involved, he would have enough power to ensure that the TV series was in the right hands. He doesn't want a TV-based disaster to sully his big-screen efforts.

The bigger issue is where a Star Trek series would air. I've been discounting the notion of it airing on CBS but just as a change of pace, maybe that wouldn't be so impossible. CBS would have to shield the show from their usual standards for ratings, but the network is successful and can afford to take a risk with an experiment. The advantage to CBS would be a way of building a future strategy of a youth-skewing show - CBS' elderly audience should be a concern to them - and can also be aired on Skiffy.

Even if CBS' audience is demographically wrong, it's big, so even a small percentage of the overall audience could be profitable. CBS might attract viewers from younger-skewing networks and use Star Trek to start building a new core of younger viewers - it's gotta start doing that sooner or later. It can reach the "nerd" audience on Skiffy.

Seems to cover all the bases, so why not? It's a tricky business proposition but it has a decent chance of success. Someone with ambition, who's bored with the notion of sheparding yet another CSI spinoff, might champion it.