Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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?...
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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.