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CBS Delaying 'Star Trek: Discovery' To Maintain Quality (foxnews.com)
New submitter Zorro shares a report from Fox News: The premiere of "Star Trek: Discovery" on CBS' subscription streaming service, CBS All Access, was postponed nine months to maintain the quality of the brand. Executive producer Alex Kurtzman told the Television Critics Association Tuesday that they "spent a lot of time" discussing how to create this new world for TV that felt authentic to the "Star Trek" universe. Also during that time, executive producer Bryan Fuller decided to exit the series as showrunner to focus on other projects. Kurtzman said "it became clearer and clearer" that the targeted January debut would "compromise the quality of the show," so it was pushed with the blessing of CBS Chairman and CEO Leslie Moonves.
They've got a real stinker on their hands and they know it.
9 months to fix it? Good luck. That's long enough to tell us that there are serious fucking problems, yet not long enough for them to fix them.
I expect this will either be delayed further, outright canned, or just put out as-is and never spoken of again.
I know the headline is Fox News's and not yours, but it really should be "delayed", past tense, not "delaying". The article is talking about the delays the show has already experienced, not a new delay. The show is still scheduled to premier on September 24, as the closing graf makes clear.
The original Star Trek only ran for 3 seasons, but created a *HUGE* following, and led to several movies, a few of which were actually good. TNG was a reboot and it lasted for 7 seasons, and also had a HUGE following. It followed the same formula, and it did great!
Deep Space Nine - Star Trek on a space station. When the commander points his finger and says "Engage", nothing happens. That's why halfway through it's run, they brought in the Defiant.
Voyager - Gilligan's Island in space. I didn't care that the Captain was a woman, but apparently the rest of the demographic did. Halfway though it's run, they dropped Kes and got Seven of Nine for eye candy.
Enterprise - Star Trek with the guy from Quantum Leap. They deal with species that we never see in any of the other shows, and are missing the species that we WANT to see. Only lasted about 4 years.
There is only one formula that works. That's what the viewers want to see. CBS is *NOT* going to do that, so Discovery will suck.
From what I saw, they are trying to change too much. We typically don't appreciate "Re-imaginings" of such an established universe... Klingons should look like Klingons. Seems like they are trying to sell it to a new generation too much, and ignoring the existing fan base, which is IMMENSE. This is probably going to backfire.
DS9 was the best Trek show ever. It was the only one where the characters acted like anything remotely resembling real people.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I love DS9. The characters have depth, and the writers didn't treat each one as if they existed in a vacuum. They might have focused more on a particular individual for a specific episode, but the rest of the characters would still be believably intertwined in the story.
Also, it had well-written and well-acted antagonists - that tends to make a show stronger (just like how the best Bond movies always had strong villains). Gul Dukat was complicated, conflicted, and amazing. Weyoun wasn't quite as deep, but Jeffrey Combs sold it (he also may have been the best thing about Enterprise). The Founders were evil and awful, but as you learned more you could see how they were driven down that path.
I also really liked the way they wrote Benjamin and Jake Cisco. They weren't just father and son for the sake of the occasional plot line - they had a relationship which felt real (something TNG couldn't manage with Worf and Alexander).
It seems like the main complaint I hear about DS9 is that some people just don't like long story arcs... but I'm not one of those people.
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