Star Trek Discovery Gets Delayed After Losing Showrunner Bryan Fuller (variety.com)

It looks like we're going to have to wait even longer for CBS's upcoming Star Trek Discovery series, as the production's showrunner, Bryan Fuller, is stepping back. He will however still remain the show's executive producer. Variety reports: The decision was made late last week to hand the day-to-day showrunning reins to "Star Trek" exec producers Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts as "Discovery" gears up for the start of filming next month and a May 2017 premiere date. Fuller, who will remain an executive producer, will still be involved in breaking stories, and the show will continue to follow his vision for the universe that this latest "Trek" series will inhabit. Writer-director Akiva Goldsman is also expected to join "Discovery" in a top creative role. He's envisioned as serving as producing support for Berg and Harberts, Fuller and exec producer Alex Kurtzman as they juggle the demands of the series that CBS is counting on to be the marquee selling point for subscriptions to its CBS All Access SVOD service. Sources said there had been some strain between "Star Trek" producer CBS Television Studios and Fuller over the progress of production on the show, as Fuller is also juggling the final weeks of shooting and post-production duties on Starz's upcoming drama "American Gods" and prepping a reboot of "Amazing Stories" for NBC. Fuller has penned the first two scripts for "Discovery" and has hammered out the broader story arc and mythology for the new "Trek" realm. But it became clear that he couldn't devote the amount of time needed for "Discovery" to make its premiere date and with production scheduled to start in Toronto next month.

Comments

Easy win so load show up with friends

[EmperorOfCanada]

In theory a show like this is an easy win for the network. It is then very very tempting for executives to mess with it for a wide variety of reasons. Put a GF in minor role. Get some writers who you need for another project a place to park themselves. A great place to dump losses from other shows. Basically all kinds of things that aren't good for the show.

I suspect that the director wasn't playing ball with their 20th century ways and they replaced him with someone more "controllable" let's see how that works out.

If we are lucky the show is run by people even better at avoiding such crap. If we aren't we will get a half crap show that is loaded up with acting has-beens from the last 20 years who were owed favours by various CBS executives, hack writers who weren't even good in their Full House days, and editorial urine tasting contests where executives say, "NO NO NO to much science. We need people talking about their emotions. Let's see if we can get Oprah to dress up like we got Woopie to do."

Then the few union seniors who do make the show don't want to do star dreck (that is what they will call it) but they want to make some crap 80's drama like LA Law. So they will make LA Law in space. That was their first Union gig, and they haven't changed one bit since.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[phizi0n]

"CBS All Access" should tell you everything you need to know about this show. It's not network TV where everyone can watch it, it's not cable TV, it's not big budget premium channel TV, it's not big budget netflix/amazon streaming originals, it is a network TV channel's obscure streaming site that they are trying to lure nerds into paying for.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[SirSlud]

You could just find out what's happening on other websites that have better insight.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[Dutch Gun]

I just read the linked Wikipedia article. Apparently, they've already decided that the protagonist is a "female minority". So... that was one of the writer/producers' overriding concern about the new series, I guess? Making a social statement instead of just finding a great actor to carry the series? Well, Star Trek has always been an ensemble affair, and has been reasonably progressive in matters of casting without being too distracting about it (mostly), so hopefully it won't matter too much.

I never really liked the decision split the Trek universes' timeline - which always seemed a bit ham-handed to me to begin with. But now, having made the decision, now they're just sticking to the old timeline? WTF? Guys, pick a timeline and go with it. I'm getting tired of "universe reboots".

I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable-to-low, but part of me can't help but look forward to a new Trek series anyhow.

Re: Easy win so load show up with friends

[johnsmithperson123]

There's trying to represent everyone, and then there is tokenism. I get the feeling that Hollywood has moved far into the latter- I suspect LGBT people occur more often in Hollywood than the ~2% of the population that is such, for example.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Horse shit. It costs about as much as Netflix and all it offers is the CBS library. I already own all the Star Trek that there is, and can watch it any time without streaming on their shit service. What else am I going to watch? Murder She Wrote?

$7/month (or $10/month if I don't want to be forced to watch unskippable commercials) for one show, as opposed to all the content I can get on Netflix... fuck that.

The commercials again... UNSKIPPABLE. This isn't what the consumer wanted, this is what the network executives wanted.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[Hardhead_7]

So... that was one of the writer/producers' overriding concern about the new series, I guess? Making a social statement instead of just finding a great actor to carry the series?

Right. Gene Roddenberry certainly never used the show for social statements.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[fche]

The other original article in Entertainment Weekly blurts it out thusly: "the production has been searching for a diverse female lead for months". Because "diverse" means "non-white" apparently.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[secretsquirel]

Which is of course why all the networks are ensuring more and more that you can't get all their content on Netflix anymore, and forcing Netflix to turn themselves into just another network.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[meta-monkey]

In the old Trek series the humans were colorblind, and gender issues were pretty much ignored. I liked that. It was a bright future where everyone moved past that shit. I will not be shocked though if in Discovery in every episode we have to hear the captain explain that she's a strong independent wymynz what don't need no man as she triumphs over institutionalized discrimination against strong independent wymynz what don't need no man.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

For the first time in my life, I did not watch the most recent Trek movie. Enough is enough, and fans should grow balls and stop watching crap foisted on you.

If you like it, bon apetit.

I will watch this one's apparent premeire on TV, but will not watch it on CBS All Access (it won't come close to overlapping a Big Brother live feed, and in no way will I pay to watch commercials in any case.)

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[Dutch Gun]

I wasn't angry. I'd say I was just a bit disappointed.

Star Trek was always attractive for me because of it's positive outlook on the potential future of humanity, where we manage to overcome many of our baser instincts and natural prejudices. I was hoping that Star Trek, of all series, had become post-gender and post-racial in at least its casting as well as in the fictional universe. It had been moving that way for several decades, it seemed to me, overcoming casting barriers with each new series. Well, maybe that was a bit naive of me.

I did read about how it's based on Majel's "number one" character, which seems like a pretty interesting idea.

Re:Easy win so load show up with friends

[myrdos2]

In the old Trek series the humans were colorblind

I suspected as much - it explains the uniforms.

They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[Anonymous Coward]

So why worry

Set 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek series,[2] the series follows the crew of the USS Discovery as they discover new worlds and civilizations, while exploring the franchise's signature contemporary themes.[3][4] The season-long storyline revolves around "an incident and an event in Star Trek history that's been talked about but never been explored".[2]

Number One: A female minority character serving as a lieutenant commander aboard the Discovery. The decision to not make the character a starship captain, like previous Star Trek series' protagonists, was made "to see a character from a different perspective on the starship—one who has a different dynamic relationships with a captain, with subordinates, it gave us richer context".[2] The decision to call her 'Number One' was made in honor of the character of the same name portrayed by Majel Barrett in the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage". When the character was first pitched to CBS, she was to only be called Number One in the series, but her real name will ultimately be revealed before the end of the first season.[6]

They made their priority pushing diversity as the theme and put the science fiction in the back. If you want a tv show about freakish aliens pushing diversity point your browser at a San Francisco Web Cam, no need to subscribe to CBS.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[AmiMoJo]

Is having a female character really "pushing diversity"? Aside from anything else they have had a female captain (Janeway) and female fist officer (T'Pol) before anyway, so it's not even new.

What could be interesting is to see if they mention the fact that apparently by Kirk's time there were no female captains and little opportunity to become one. In the episode Turnabout Intruder it's stated that women can't become captains for some unspecified reason. Star Trek Continues tackled the issue in its most recent episode, but it would be interesting to see if they mention it here.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[Opportunist]

No, having a female captain (Janeway) isn't pushing diversity. Neither is having a black station commander (Sisko). UNLESS this is their main qualification and you get it paraded out every single episode how awesome it is that Janeway is a woman and that Sisko is a black guy. Because then it becomes a nuisance.

What made Star Trek great was that these things were exactly treated as non-issues. Like, say, in the future, we consider it ridiculous that we even have to mention that women can command ships or that black people hold power on stations. Even TOS had an alien as the second in command (and admittedly, it was made a theme far more often than necessary).

But what made the shows that had "minority bosses" great was that it was treated as normal, and, lo and behold, it was normal for the viewers. Remember anyone saying that a woman can't do that and that Janeway could command her ship was "unrealistic"? I don't. The only thing unrealistic about that women was her hair, what kind of futuristic concrete hairspray did she put onto that hairdo that it NEVER moved, no matter the damage to the ship?

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[lucm]

In the episode Turnabout Intruder it's stated that women can't become captains for some unspecified reason.

Everyone knows the reason. It's because one of the duties of the captain is to handle parallel parking on crowded space docks.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[gl4ss]

..look, if you write it into synopsis and PLAN for the whole series that it is a female minority then yeah it kind of is pushing diversity.

notice that they didn't specify something like "a female of asian descent" or "a funny fat black woman" - they had no idea what the plot is going to be besides facing odds and prejudice and prevailing against misogynist racist system by pure talent of the person. sounds nice yeah? sounds like star trek? of course not.

they had not decided on anything else than it is a woman and minority. never mind it has not been addressed that much which race is in minority in star trek except that nobody is really and they are all equal.

"so who is in this show? janet jackson? selma hayek?" "uh I don't know. it's just some female minority person, we can sort it out later" "so do I write the backstory as someone from .. where exactly? lost the family at a young age or what?" "hmm that doesnt matter, just make it very female struggle and put some racism in the backstory too so it's very good".

who the fuck designs a tv show like that - that's what I want to know. how many female captains there are in USA navy at the moment anyways? if you want to know why captains in star trek og series were all male. I doubt they thought up any backstory to that.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[AmiMoJo]

The Wikipedia article is wrong. If you read the source that sentence is based on, it doesn't mention "minority" at all. It just says female. Some Wikipedia editor is trolling.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that Star Trek original episode in which the crew encounters two survivors of a race which had one half of their body pitch black, the other half pure white. They stated to have killed each other in a "race war". And so they get asked why, since they were the same people. And to you, the viewer, they did look alike. The revelation: one of them was black on the left and white on the right; the other the other way around.

The beauty of that: you, the viewer, in all likelihood did not even notice that their colours were reversed until you got told so. Very poignant, and you shared the utter astonishment of the Enterprise crew that this was an issue at all.

Now, THAT is how you make a point about racism instead of these muh diversity officer appointments.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[rocket rancher]

What made Star Trek great was that these things were exactly treated as non-issues. Like, say, in the future, we consider it ridiculous that we even have to mention that women can command ships or that black people hold power on stations. Even TOS had an alien as the second in command (and admittedly, it was made a theme far more often than necessary).

Well said. Roddenberry's optimistic view of the future is the reason most often cited when people talk about the appeal of ST:TOS.

Trek, in its original run, was adept at tipping the sacred cows of gender, ethnic, and political identity (Uhura, Sulu/Uhura, and Chekov, respectively).

But I think you missed one sacred cow by dismissing the role Spock played in Roddenberry's attack on societal mores. Roddenberry wanted to skewer religious sensibilities as well cultural ones, so he gave one character green skin and pointed ears to make him look like a demon, and would have given him wings and a tail if it had been in the costume budget. Having a demon as a sympathetic character striving to be more human (a trope, btw, that has firmly embedded itself in the Trek franchise a la Data, Odo, and B'Ellana) Roddenberry was taking aim at the religiosity that was (and still is) a core American demographic.

The racism and religiosity that Roddenberry baited in TOS fifty years ago is still a legitimate target in the US, so it will be interesting to see which sacred cows Discovery is going to try to tip, if it remains true to its roots.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[nine-times]

They made their priority pushing diversity as the theme and put the science fiction in the back.

Hold on a second. Let's read back part of the section you quoted:

The decision to call her 'Number One' was made in honor of the character of the same name portrayed by Majel Barrett in the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage".

So you're claiming this is is "pushing diversity" and implying that this is somehow in violation of the legacy of Star Trek, when the character was inspired by a female officer from the original Star Trek pilot episode. And let's not forget that this is a show that included a black woman as an officer during the civil rights era, as well as a Russian officer during the cold war.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[hey!]

Are all men equal by that definition of "equal"? Or all women exactly like all other women?

"Men" aren't stamped out of some kind of archetypal "man" mold, nor are all women exactly whatever you think a "woman" is or should be. Both men and women are going to be distributed along a normal curve (or maybe log-normal) when it comes to their fitness for some particular job.

So this raises the question: how much overlap do those populations have? The traditionalist view is that there are manly jobs for which no woman is suitable; the radically opposite viewpoint is that there are no differences at all between the populations for any job. But leaving aside jobs like NFL offensive lineman or surrogate mother, I'd say that unless you take one or the other of these extreme positions it's not necessary to have an opinion on precisely how much overlap there is. The only thing that really matters is the individual you are evaluating for the job. If a woman is the best candidate for an engineering position or CEO or whatever, it literally doesn't matter whether or not men are usually better at that sort of thing.

Re:They tell you upfront it isn't going to be good

[0100010001010011]

Set 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek series

God Damn It. Star Trek was about the future. I want a series set after DS9/Voyager. Stop @#(* with the timeline and do the formula that has worked in the past.

Star Trek movies were after TOS. TNG was after TOS movies. DS9/Voyager were after TNG. Enterprise went back in time and it all went to shit.

What happens after the Dominion War? Is there anything else in the other quadrants? Maybe make up some new techno bable and explore the 26th century. Make some new pretty ships.

I was a die hard Trekkie. I had the LCARS Star Trek encyclopedia. Knew all the specs of their ships and they managed to lose me with this constant mucking in the Trek 'past'. Now we have a movie franchise that just blew away all of the original timeline I grew up with.

Showrunner?

[TechyImmigrant]

I wonder what a showrunner is. Since I'm not involved in the production of TVs or Movies in any way, I don't have the first clue. Maybe TFS would explain this term before using it?

I'll keep in mind, in my future job at Slashdot, to remember to use obscure terms of art from my own field of chip design and cryptography. People will appreciate it I'm sure.

Re:Showrunner?

[Hognoxious]

I have a BA in Media Studies and *I* don't know what a showrunner is.

But I don't know what a lot of things are.

Re:Showrunner?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was a writer on Star Trek Voyager. Bad stuff.
Putting him together with Star Trek is like giving an alcoholic a drink. Much better off when kept apart.

Re:Showrunner?

[squiggleslash]

The term has existed for decades. Producers and directors frequently change from show to show - writers too. Directors have a little creative input but work from a script he or she has little say in. The Producer's job is to make sure the Director can do his or her job. And an "Executive producer" is the person who fronts the cash, they rarely have any creative involvement at all.

None of those describe the person who owns the show creatively, who approves the scripts, determines the core storylines, manages the show's bible, etc. That person is the showrunner.

The only confusion here from what I can see is that for some reason it's rarely a job title shown in the credits. Usually - though not always - the showrunner is also the show's creator, so they just gets listed under that title. Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul's showrunner, is listed as "Creator", for example.

Re:Showrunner?

[The-Ixian]

I am not sure why people hate Voyager so much.

I think it was really good Star Trek and I grew up watching TOS and remember when STTNG first came on the air.

As a matter of fact, Voyager is about tied with STTNG in my book for best Star Trek series. It has the highest number of good characters. Tuvok is, by far, my favorite ST character of all time. But Seven of Nine and B'Elanna are excellent as well.

I think Voyager was the last true Star Trek. After that it was all gritty "lens flare" Abrahms and serialized war stories.

Axanar

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know the executives are going to ruin this show.

While they continue to fumble to get a new show out, we should keep the heat on them to allow better things to get made like Axanar.

Prelude to Axanar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: Axanar

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww, poor baby. Did he say your trigger word, Axanar? Don't worry, we'll find you a nice safe space.

Re:Axanar

[The-Ixian]

I LOVE the comfort of the old Star Trek format. The utopian idealness is what makes Star Trek what it is, imo. I am not a big fan of Enterprise for it's serializing of the franchise nor it's attempt to make it "gritty". I really enjoy the stand-alone episodes that deal with big ideas, moral dilemmas, political questions and more. An over-arching story line is fine (Voyager, DS9).

Don't get me wrong, I love some serialized dramas, but it just isn't for Star Trek. I don't think that Gene Roddenberry would be super thrilled about the recent turn of his creation.

I just have a feeling this new ST is going to be inspired more by the recent reboot/alternate "terrist" timeline movies than about the old ST.

Hopefully I am wrong.

Because Enterprise Faired So Poorly

[EzInKy]

Enterprise could have and should have been the ultimate Star Trek prequel, and other than the stupid temporal cold war and Xindi things, I quite enjoyed the show. It was quite fascinating to see how new technologies and discoveries were dealt with by the crew.

Another series ripe for a reboot is Stargate. It is such a shame that its writers so jumped the shark with SGU. Members of forums I frequented quite loudly told them how the direction they were taking was destroying the franchise, but of course they knew better than Stargate fans what Stargate fans wanted to watch.

Re:Because Enterprise Faired So Poorly

[jedidiah]

The original ideas for the Romulan war were just stupid anyways. NONE of it made any sense. They needed a new canon either way. This is a good example of some of the weaknesses in TOS that just needed to get pushed out an airlock.

You simply can't fight an interstellar war (in Trek terms) without Warp drive.

Re:Because Enterprise Faired So Poorly

[denzacar]

Maybe he just generally hates people with mental illnesses?

The Great Bird of the Galaxy....

[beheaderaswp]

This is such a sad situation, as corporations are cashing in on the legacy of Gene Roddenberry.

Since his death, the echoes of his influence have faded. Resulting in a "Star Trek in name only" sci-fi universe. It's sad, but predictable. Personally, I'd be gratified if the show never made it out of the gate. The reboot movies were marginal at best, and we cannot expect much better from the series.

The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was a psychodrama in space- do we want to see that aboard the Enterprise?

Re:The Great Bird of the Galaxy....

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

This is such a sad situation, as corporations are cashing in on the legacy of Gene Roddenberry.

Since his death, the echoes of his influence have faded. Resulting in a "Star Trek in name only" sci-fi universe.

Unfortunately there are always people like you. I'll bet you watched maybe a handful of episodes of anything not TOS or STTNG (maybe not even that) and dismissed them. Or maybe you've never seen anything after STTNG. The people I know who bitch the most in the USA about airline security are people who never, ever fly. The people who bitch the most about Trek after TOS are those who never watched it either.

As a long time fan, I can tell you that Roddenberry's influence and importance to Trek is vastly overrated. Season 3 of TOS was pretty much done with him in a caretaker role. Season 3 wasn't perfect (Spock's Brain) but it did have some really good episodes too. The Next Generation only got good after Roddenberry's influence waned due to health issues and Michael Piller basically ran things. Roddenberry had a fairly negative influence on STTNG in my opinion. He demanded rewrites that weren't necessary or better just to push his own particular vision of the future. He was kind of infamous before STTNG started for maybe being way too focused on trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of TOS, not because he loved Trek, but because he loved the money it brought. He was also kind of infamous for not paying his employees very well, which led to the situation where to avoid giving some assistant a raise he gave the guy a new job title instead and in theory made that guy the sole determiner of what was and was not Star Trek canon. That led to this guy saying that Star Trek The Animated Series was not canon, a decision still not accepted by a large number of Trek fans. Note that Roddenberry himself never said that the animated series wasn't canon. He let some dude who worked for him make the determination because it allowed him to avoid giving the guy a raise. I appreciate what he did, with some reservations, for Trek. Note that good people like David Gerrold and DC Fontana had little to no impact on STTNG because of issues either directly with Roddenberry or issues with others that he could have but chose not to resolve. Roddenberry deserves some big criticism in my opinion for the whole Gates McFadden issue where she was fired after season 1 because she complained about the sexist scripts in the season. Patrick Stewart has stated that he was shocked when she was fired because he and others on the show felt the same way about the scripts. Note that Roddenberry had a huge influence on the season 1 scripts so he was either personally responsible for a lot of what she complained about or simply did nothing to tone it down. Roddenberry may not have been the person who fired her, but he sure as hell didn't fight it and jumped at the chance to bring on his old friend Diana Muldaur to replace McFadden. McFadden returned for season 3 probably because Roddenberry's health had declined to a point where he couldn't really do anything on STTNG any more. But he deserves some praise too. He let Denis Crosby out of her contract in season 1 as a person favor to her when he didn't have to. Wil Wheaton also has very good things to say about him. It's a bit of a mixed legacy.

After MacGyver

[Anonymous Coward]

After MacGyver my trust in CBS to warm up any old series is below zero. Every geek's favourite smart, gun hating, extra-legal, teetotaler, loner, semi-vegetarian pacifist who actually understood how things worked has turned into an idiotic gun loving, face punching, government employee always accompanied by a sidekick that just wants to drink beers around the world's fakest campfire.

My prediction

[slapout]

Will probably be full of SJW stuff and
1) Canceled after 3 months
2) Continue, but no one will watch it