Then this happened...

it's a mixed bag especially since its slated only to go to CBS' streaming service (hello extra charges) but for now I'll be cautiously optimistic.
Star Trek is something I ultimately couldn't care less about, so I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic. On this particular note, however, you guys may want to consider what else those extra charges actually mean. For dedicated Star Trek fans, far from being a potential problem, this should be seen as a potentially great thing.

Star Trek is, in many ways, "yesterday". It's not a show that can be successful with a popular audience while sticking to its original formula. The show came into existence originally in a radically different time - a far more optimistic time in general, and far more enthusiastic about technology and space in particular. Even as late as the 1990s, this enthusiasm still persisted, and that's why as late as the 1990s, Star Trek shows did well, while remaining fairly faithful to the premise of the original. Today is a radically different world. Far from being enthusiastic about the future, many young people are actually pessimistic. People are not thinking about conquering the Moon and Mars, people are thinking about maybe, hopefully paying off their student loans by the time they retire. General attitudes are also a lot more egotistical - selfish, or at least self-centred. It's all about "you owe it to yourself", as so many advertising slogans tell us. It's a very hard audience to sell Star Trek to.

This is why - in my opinion - Enterprise was so different (and still didn't do so well). This is why the two new movies were so different (and, above all, why these movies attempted to "reboot" the franchise). This is why something like Battlestar Galactica, rewritten into a bizarre and oftentimes laughable social commentary on America's "culture wars" was successful.

But, here's the thing. People like you still exist - obviously :). There's a whole generation who grew up loving Star Trek. Indeed, two generations. There are grandparents out there now, who love Star Trek, having started with TOS. There are parents, too, who started with TNG. It's just that their children aren't necessarily into it - Enterprise didn't succeed. All this, I would argue, means that as long as Star Trek is being asked to compete for ratings on TV, where a sci-fi show naturally must compete for the young audience, it will either be written into something totally different in spirit to the Star Trek that you love, or it will quite simply crash and burn. But a streaming service! Hello, extra charges indeed! This allows the show to seek out that older audience, who may not have time to watch the show on TV at its regularly scheduled time, but for whom, spending a few dimes on being able to stream the episode any time they want is really no big deal at all. In that case, a more traditional Star Trek show has a far greater chance of being commercially viable - in the same way that a traditional space sim required Chris Roberts to take the crowdfunding route.

The fact that they are taking that streaming route, therefore, to me would indicate that they want to try to appeal to that original audience, rather than appealing to the broadest possible audience. If this is the case (and of course, that's just my analysis of it), then you can look forward to something you will greatly enjoy indeed.
 
Star Trek to me at least, has always been something of a mirror for the times its being written in. I agree that TOS and TNG were very optimistic (humanistic?) shows. But DS9 was an interesting experiment on how far would a supposedly group of moral people bend and twist their morality to suit their ends when faced with a potentially civilization ending enemy; in short, how far must the ends go to justify the means. Of course, there is still the veneer of optimistic moral superiority on the Federation characters (even though the hero of the show colluded with a spy to knowingly assassinate an ambassador, frame the opposition for the act, thusly drawing them into the fight on the "good guys" side). Very Machiavellian and not something Picard or Kirk would likely ever consider. Voyager was written in a post Iraq-war context but struggled to regain the "magic" of the hopeful exploration series because American society (as it is an American show so it's going to be slanted in that context) was still fairly fragmented over the events of the previous decade. So it was a miss, so was Enterprise in that regard due to franchise fatigue and a poor writer's pool. Too bad too because I thought Scott Bakula did an outstanding job.

The Reboot movies were ok but both were exceptionally pessimistic. Into Darkness (all self-congratulatory winks and nods by the writers not withstanding) was a simplistic rendering of the current drone policy pursued by the US and others munged with a re-litigation of the context around the Iraq war.

Really Star Trek is at its best when it rips something from the headlines and plays around with it, not bashing aliens of the week (in my opinion of course) but that's why its always been more successful as small-screen format. Which is why most of the pitches I've read of late deal with "the end of the Federation" or "the Federation's waning influence" a reflection of how America (as the Federation is an optimistic version of the country writ large) views the rise of other nations to challenge its dominance.

So I agree that what we get will probably be a vastly different Trek than previous iterations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I do think though that if CBS wanted it to reach the broadest possible audience it would offer it as an OTT offering as well as a standard linear broadcast; that way it could reap revenue from both ad sales and subscription charges. Realistically if they aired new episodes on the OTT service first and then broadcast them later (say two weeks or so) you might find a happy balance.
 
I got very bored of Voyager, but I thought Enterprise was just refreshingly fantastic. A much more pioneering show similar to the original. I felt like it really hit its stride in the 3rd and 4th seasons when it got cut down prematurely as space shows in general fell off the map.

So clearly, people have vastly different tastes in Star Trek, but we have tons of Star Trek fans here. Whatever we get in 2017 won't make everyone happy, but it's absolutely fantastic that they are returning to the series. I'm pretty optimistic/confident there'll be lots of good stuff there to see.
 
I am looking forward to it and hope it does well. TV is filled with too many similar shows: lots of crime procedurals, medical shows, and reality shows. I'm just unsure about it being on a streaming service. I will admit that I have jumped in and used and streaming services yet, but I worry that by it being on CBS's service the show may have a limited audience. Most people probably subscribe to a Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix or some other service that has movies and shows from a variety of sources. How many people will subscribe to CBS's service where they only have access to CBS shows?
 
Like I said I want to be positive..But, I'm afraid the new ST series will take a familiar turn: After slow first seasons they will introduce a new sexy cast member (!) to get those horny teenagers onboard!.. Failing that they might (probably) introduce a huge galactic conflict against a previously unknown alien race who just wants to kill everything in the galaxy.
 
Dont tell me that, I have been awaiting the third series on tv for some time now (yes we're abit behind in sweden)

And talking about tv series lacking mass appeal - I always hoped for a second series of Space Above and Beyond.

It ends well though, they did the series and characters justice. Season 3 is also the best.

I am torn.
I disliked Enterprise. I could stand the two new movies but I would have preferred something different.
I loved TNG, DS9 and Voyager. More of that would be nice.

I hated Enterprise, it felt like "Star Trek dumbed down, sexed up for the masses". Classic and TNG still best. DS9 and Voyager were great too.

I suspect the next one will even be more dumbed down, sexed up trying to grab a bigger audience. But these studios just don't get it. Space Sci-Fi tv shows have a niche appeal, it will NEVER have mass-appeal no matter how sexed up it is. All they do by going down that route is alienate their loyal core audience.
 
Just recently got the blurays of TNG all series, been working through them, love the detail so much clearer than TV.

I thought the reboots were quite good, and I'm approaching the new series with an open mind (Never watched Enterprise, quite liked DS9 & Voyager), but for me TNG is where it's at in terms of my favourite of the Star Trek universe, Picard is a God!
 
I got very bored of Voyager, but I thought Enterprise was just refreshingly fantastic. A much more pioneering show similar to the original. I felt like it really hit its stride in the 3rd and 4th seasons when it got cut down prematurely as space shows in general fell off the map.

I'll drink to that. I really enjoyed Enterprise, especially after the paint-by-numbers feeling behind Voyager.
 
I liked TNG, did not like DS9..I liked Voyager but did not like Enterprise.

Maybe the new series will be a "like" going by that logic...
 
Lessee, where do I fall on the spectrum here......I loved TOS and TNG, DS9 grew on me (my parents - a pair of avid Trekkers - were more willing to let me watch it than B5, though anymore I'm of the opinion that B5 was far and away the better show), I was excited for Voyager until it started sucking (around the time every damn episode I watched was about the Doctor and B'ellana's attempts to make him miserable, so the second season I guess) and started overusing the technobabble, and I thought Enterprise was okay-ish (it's hard to dislike Scott Bakula). I even like a few episodes of TAS, though I can't honestly say I've watched through that whole thing yet (watching Chapel and Uhura whoop up on She-Ra and her damn minions was entertaining...).

I owe a fair amount to Trek and its influence on my life - without it, I might not have liked Starflight, and subsequently Wing Commander, and subsequently we'd live in a world without RPGs for either...
 
keep in mind it's not coming to television, but rather to CBS's digital streaming service starting january of 2017. I love that there is potential new Trek to be had but this sort of makes it seem like if people aren't subscribing and watching like crazy then CBS will pull a firefly and claim nobody wants new trek.
 
keep in mind it's not coming to television, but rather to CBS's digital streaming service starting january of 2017. I love that there is potential new Trek to be had but this sort of makes it seem like if people aren't subscribing and watching like crazy then CBS will pull a firefly and claim nobody wants new trek.


It does look like it will be only on the sreaming service in the US... How it will be available in other countries remains to be seen. The press release said that it "will also be distributed concurrently for television and multiple platforms around the world by CBS Studios International."

In canada it looks like I'll end up having to subscribe to the horribly named Shomi service which seems to have an exclusive streaming deal with CBS Studios international who also already have the streaming rights to the remastered TOS and TNG episodes:
http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/news/shomi-teams-up-with-cbs-studios-international/1003351842/
 
I'm hoping that the exclusive CBS service thing only pertains to the "free streaming" part (after your $6 membership). Whenever Amazon or Netflix locks up a show as an "exclusive," you can almost always still buy it digitally via something like iTunes. That's what I do for the few shows I watch. When the season premiers, I buy the season pass and get a ping whenever there's a new episode and I can watch it on my TV via AppleTV. Pretty much any show destined for DVD goes this route these days, so I think there's a chance.
 
I have to assume CBS, which has been running the numbers trying to make a Trek TV show for a decade now, has a better idea how to finance this thing than most every wag on the Internet :)

If you listen to the investor call, they mention that over 50% the budget has already been made back through the international broadcast deals made so far... so it's not at all a situation where they're throwing it on their Netflix knockoff and praying Trekkies spend six dollars.

(Add to that that Star Trek has been a loss-leader in terms of ad revenue since the mid-90s... but there are a LOT more secondary revenue streams compared to the average series.)
 
ck9791 said:
Does anyone know if CBS plans to put Ds9 or Voy on Blu-ray?

Sadly it is looking like no for the time being. TNG didn't sell well enough to justify the cost of redoing the effects on those two. Of course a Star Trek renaissance could change that!
 
My biggest issues with buying the various Star Trek sets (ever since they started putting them on DVD) has been the price point. If I had unlimited funds I really wouldn't care but they've always priced them in a way that limits who would give the sets a second look. I try and pick up the sets when I see them on sale. Only now, most of these are available to stream anyway. They may not be the remastered versions but I could (at least until recently. I'd have to check if it's changed) stream every episode for the price of my Netflix subscription.
 
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