I'm not a hardcore Star Trek fan, but was very disappointed with the new films. They're mostly generic action in space with some familiar names and Starfleet uniforms.

Every little thing that made Star Trek entertaining has been stripped away.

Not too surprising considering JJ Abrams told in an interview that "I would watch episodes but it always felt too philosophical to me".

Shows like BSG are pretty much unicorn's these days no one seems to want to make serious scifi the best we can hope for is for the random Canadian show to be picked up by SyFy and not being shredded (Continuum was good, Dark Matter seems interesting but very goofy).

SyFy is also trying to get of their asses together I'm still hoping that they'll pick up Ascension it's backdoor pilot / mini-series was one of the most interesting Scifi concepts of late and if they don't screw up 'Childhoods End' (which from the trailer looks like an HBO show which is great) I might actually believe that they still can produce something besides fake reality shows and wrestlemania.

I will fully admit that if there was any other legit Sci-Fi on TV I might not care as much about Dark Matter, but since there is slim pickings in that genre I await season 2.

The Christmas special in particular was pretty mind bending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jROLrhQkK78

The new season on Netflix will hopefully be at least 10 episode long so I might actually take another spin at it, waiting 10 years for another 3 episodes of Luther or Sherlock is bad enough I'm not going through this again.

With US TV shows I usually wait until at least the mid season or the 9 episode pickup because lately US TV shows especially from the bigger networks have less job security than the offspring of JRR Martin novels and the Walking Dead characters.

So far we had quite a "decent" year, 12 Monkeys has been renewed, Childhoods End and Westworld are coming, the CW actually managed to make comic book shows (never was a huge comic fan, infact i never had a chance to read a single book i think) cool, we are bloody getting The Man in the High Castle show on Amazon and Marvel's Netflix production is in full gear.

yup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_%28miniseries%29#Pot...

You've just described the Wrath of Khan, considered one of the finest films in the franchise.

Hell, a good number of episodes in every series in the franchise were just action in space... the Best of Both Worlds is literally just Us vs The Borg.

Fans have incredibly rose tinted glasses regarding ST. For every City on the Edge of Forever or The Inner Light there's at least one The Doomsday Machine or, worse, Spock's Brain...

Edit:

BTW, I actually think Into Darkness was pretty interesting. It reminded me of The Drumhead or similar, where they used an enemy or a crisis to examine the nature Star Fleet itself. It's just a pity they, once again, didn't actually use someone of Indian descent to play Khan...

Finally, we get to the end, and the most egregious difference between the two. In TWOK we get a tense cat and mouse chase through the nebula, which is won, CRUCIALLY, by out-thinking your opponent. The whole "2d thinking" thing and what not. I admit it's probably not the most air-tight of plot points, but it perfectly demonstrates the difference between the two movies, because ID ends with a loud (visually and sonically) fist-fight that is won by the person who punches hardest. Yay I guess.

Anyway, Star Trek is definitely not all sunshine and rainbows but it is crucially several things that the new movies are not: It prioritizes communication and curiousity over violence and dominance. It is not trying to be cynical or "edgy" in an attempt to be mature. The struggle of people working together to overcome a problem and find a positive solution or compromise can and is every bit as exciting as a phaser battle. And finally, that it is fundamentally optimistic, not in a the sort of "magic technology makes everything awesome" way that the new series seems, but that humans can come together and make things better for each other, the no-win scenario does not exist (mostly) and that we have to work hard to make this come true, but it is do-able.

In the context of the series, sure, where you have an hour a week to wax philosophical.

The movies are far more uneven in that respect. They attempted it in The Motion Picture. Result: total snoozer.

Khan is an action/revenge flick.

Search For Spock is another action/revenge flick.

Voyage Home is far more in the original mold, humans trying to make peace with an unknown alien force. But it also wavers between comical and absurd... no character development to be found here.

The Final Frontier... I'm not even sure where to begin. It's terrible. :)

The Undiscovered Country is, to me, the best mix of the lot... a bit action, a bit politics, the origin story of the Federation and the Klingon peace, commentary on racism, etc...

But that's one film out of five.

So be fair: you're comparing two movies to an entire franchise and then complaining they aren't what you want them to be. If you more fairly compare them to just their film contemporaries, my opinion is that they stand up reasonably well.

That's not to say they aren't clearly designed for more mass-market appeal. The Undiscovered Country, for example, is pure fan service, whereas Star Trek or Into Darkness are clearly aimed at a broader audience. I just don't think they're significantly worse than their peers simply because they don't talk it out... ;)

Best of both worlds also showed Picard becoming the enemy, riker as captain having to try to stop the Borg at the cost of his friend, and some more good background on the Borg.

Plus the effects of that episode lasted into ds9 and first contact.

Structurally, yeah, obviously they're very different.

However, thematically, they share a lot of similarities.

In The Drumhead, Starfleet begins a witchhunt to track down a suspected spy they believe is working with the Romulans.

Into Darkness involves a group of people who attempt to manufacture a war with the Klingons, whom they perceive as a fundamental threat to the Federation.

Both examine racism, fear, and xenophobia in the context of the Star Trek universe, and the lengths people will go to if they feel they're morally justified based on those perceived fears.

Well, I can tell you're open minded and not too critical. I'm sure continuing this conversation will be incredibly productive and enlightening...

And at least a handful of good episodes exist. There are no such specimens among the (two) new movies.

So you're a "Trouble with Tribbles" kind of a guy/girl.

Nothing wrong with that at all, everyone has different tastes!

But we'll agree to disagree. While Khan is clearly an action film first, it's an exploration of Kirk as a character, which is interesting. And that ending...

Frankly, I'll put myself in the minority by stating that I personally think The Voyage Home was frickin' awful... really, a fish-out-of-water tale (well, mammal-out-of-water...) via time travel? sigh

But that's just my opinion. :)

Maybe worse, actually.

The "Captain Worf" show was AFAIK never in serious consideration. Michael Dorn was a huge fan of the idea and kept proposing it everywhere he went, which is the only reason it gained as much publicity as it did, but as far as I can tell it was never taken very seriously in the studios.

And I'm kind of glad for it - Worf is great, and Michael Dorn seems like a great guy, but Trek has always been about the ensemble crew and not revolved around any singular character. "Worf feat. crew" would've been a huge thematic departure.

In any case, I'm pretty sure this will be in the alternate universe (JJ Abrams-verse). It just doesn't make sense to have something in the Prime universe anymore, commercially at least. This makes me sad. The fact that Kurtzman is involved IMO suggests this is definitely a reboot-universe thing, as does the rumor that Bryan Singer might be producing.

That said, Brannon Braga and Rick Berman not being involved might be a good thing...

This is just standard operating procedure for CBS/Paramount, who have viewed Star Trek as a big enough draw to attract audiences to new distribution channels for decades.

Back in the '70s they planned to use a Star Trek: Phase II series to launch a new network that never got off the ground (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Phase_II).

Then in the '80s they used Star Trek: The Next Generation as the flagship for a new, syndication-only system of network-unaffiliated TV stations.

Then in the '90s they revived the dream of a Paramount network in the form of UPN (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPN), and created Star Trek: Voyager to attract viewers to that.

These efforts have had varying degrees of success, but they've never failed hard enough to shake CBS/Paramount from the conviction that new Star Trek is something people will want to see so badly that they'll be willing to change their viewing habits to get it.

Berman and Piller were a much better team.

Everything on a Sci Fi (or fantasy) show has to be custom-made; from the costumes to the wall decorations to the light fixtures to the furniture. Custom making these things isn't easy, because they first have to be designed so they look like they "fit" stylistically, then built. A show like Star Trek will also have extensive makeup / prosthetics to depict the many different races.

Besides, Star Trek is an active franchise with two recent, very successful movies. No studio exec would ruin a franchise like that with a half-assed, underproduced web series. Because you can't do Sci Fi cheaply without becoming B-movie quality, this show will have to have at a minimum Stargate Atlantis levels of production value. They may just be putting it on the web because the Star Trek demographic doesn't watch network TV and the web is a better way to reach the core audience for the show.

So never saw the Dr. Who series int he 1970s and 1980s :)

Personally I loved the campy Dr Whos a lot.

BBC - "Your almost Out of Budget and you have 3 part series to finish"

Producer - "No problem we will put a trash can over that guy and tape up a few trash bags, throw some kids paint on it and there is our new monster." "We will also call the gravel pit see if we can use it as a location during there lunch breaks."

And even with Dr. Who, most of the action takes place in the present day -- which helps with saving money on costumes and sets.

Seriously I think I would have loved working on those shows, or really really hated. I can't decide which.

It's not always the budget it's also the production Firefly managed to make very good use of VFX with relatively "small" budget, BSG didn't had an explosive budget either, Star Gate had also a relatively small budget with the VFX heavy episodes having less than 400,000$ effects budget they just used it rather well.

On the other hand you can have very high budget shows looking like B-movie quality, Terra Nova, Falling Skies and Fox's attempts at scifi Almost Human (which was a freaking amazing show and Fox exec's need to pay in blood) and their current Minority Report shows are very expensive but have very low quality looking effects.

And if you want the best example of how budget can easily be misused well then Agents of Shield had a 14M budget for the pilot and even the per episode budget was considerably lower it was still pretty damn high and they still managed to completely cock it up both in the visuals and the story/plot departments.

IF they'll build a solid production team hopefully there are some folks at Paramount Television that worked on previous shows and are still either alive and or working in TV production and give them budget and creative freedom to work then we might get a good product, if this is going to be brand managed like AOS then it's going to be completely bonkers.

AOS is tethered to the cinematic Marvel's universe and it's it's biggest flaw, it's plot is completely dictated by the movies and it spoiled Cap 2 for me and just became a running joke.

Agent Carter was considerably better because it was set back enough in the past that they can do anything without having to tie it in with the movies.

And this is my biggest must have for this show, either put it in the original canon, reboot it again, or throw it so far away from the movies that it couldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole or don't make it at all.

Sci Fi shows are the most expensive in their first season, because you have to design the universe up-front. A network exec doesn't know if the show is going to pull an audience, but he does know he's got to drop a whole lot of money to even find out. Which makes other options a lot more attractive, and explains the lack of high-quality Sci Fi on TV right now.

And like it or not, the cinematic tie-ins and continuity within the universe are what make Marvel appealing as a brand. DC has done a terrible job at this; the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie has different actors and takes place in a different universe than the last (or really, any) Batman movie. Having multiple Batman characters confuses audiences, and Marvel has done a really good job keeping things consistent.

But yeah as soon as you introduce alien worlds, having high quality on a small budget does get difficult.

Worth noting: for sitcoms, staff costs are often as high/higher than the SF shows that make it to the screen. For example, actors on _The Big Bang Theory_ are rumored to earn $1m per episode each. Ditto other shows like _Modern Family_.

Likely there are relatively few Sci Fi shows because the Sci Fi writ large has yet to figure out how to connect with audience sizes beyond a niche. If they achieve mainstream reach, the cost of the sets will not matter as much.

[emphasis mine]

Sounds like it is going to be on TV.

It's the old drug dealer sales approach: you always want to make the first hit free.

When I first read it I thought it was going to be US exclusive. Luckily I managed to calm down and re-read before I went on the rampage.

This sentence annoys me more every time I read it:

>"This new series will premiere to the national CBS audience, then boldly go where no first-run Star Trek series has gone before – directly to its millions of fans through CBS All Access,”

Why can they not simply write in a way is comprehensible?

"The first episode will be on CBS. Subsequent episodes will be on "CBS All Access"”.

Although it says that it will only premiere on TV and then move to the streaming service, I wouldn't be surprised if it is later added to the TV schedule, maybe once the second season starts, in a reverse trend of the current TV->streaming release delay.

I'd bet money that it will be. The potential for movie tie-ins alone will make it irresistible. (also the producer of the movies is involved)