5 Star Trek Shows in Development, 1 Could Star Patrick Stewart, Reports Say (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In the wake of shocking allegations against Star Trek: Discovery's showrunners, producer Alex Kurtzman recently took over the role of showrunning the latest Trek series' sophomore season. But according to multiple reports today, he's just signed a new deal with CBS that could usher in multiple new Star Trek shows. Variety reports that Kurtzman has inked a $25 million deal with CBS as part of a five-year plan to bring more Trek shows to TV in the wake of Discovery's success. According to the site, five series are currently in early development: A teen-oriented series set at Starfleet Academy from Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the duo behind the recent Dynasty reboot and Marvel's Runaways adaptation. A limited series with a currently confidential plot. A limited series based around the beloved character Khan, from the original Star Trek and the classic film The Wrath of Khan -- something that's been rumored for a while as being spearheaded by Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer. An animated series with another currently confidential plot.

Comments

Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[OrangeTide]

Looks like Paramount stole their business plans from Mel Brooks.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[OrangeTide]

Definitely it's about money. The whole leftist conspiracy you allude to has more to do with media coverage and social media than it does with the political beliefs of rich executives at production companies. Ultimately all of them, left and right, worship the same god, the Almighty Dollar.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[nitehawk214]

Pushing narratives gets views. Executives don't care if the watchers hate the product or love it. Causing controversy is much easier than producing a good product.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[Dragonslicer]

diversity... I really wouldn't want to see Star Trek fall victim to this kind of manipulation.

You didn't watch the original Star Trek, did you? Diversity was a significant part of Roddenberry's conception of the future.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[Anonymous Coward]

Causing unwanted and artificial 'controversy' is also a very effective way to destroy a media property. A good example of this is literally right in front of our faces: the /. web site. This was once the premiere tech-oriented online destination. Industry leaders used to participate here on a daily basis. Getting your product or service noticed by the /. community used to be a huge deal. It's hard to believe it these days, but /. used to be an extremely important and influential media outlet. Then we started seeing more and more submissions, many of them politically charged, that appear to only have been on the front page to generate 'controversy'. While this did result in lots of discussion, and presumably lots of advertisment views, in the short term, it also has had serious long term repercussions. Many of the top individuals who were influential in the industry wanted no part of this nonsense, and they left for other discussion forums. The low quality submissions also started driving away other regular users who made positive contributions to the community here. As the community has continued to disintegrate due to this forced 'controversy', we've seen, in my opinion, things get quite bad around here. The submissions, comments and moderating are now the worst that I've ever seen here. The sense of community is long gone; all we get now is bickering and name calling. In my opinion, the generation of 'controversy' here shook the foundations of this community, ultimately fracturing it in a way that is likely irreparable. If manufactured 'controversy' could ruin /. so completely, I can see it doing the same to other media outlets and series. It's a very risky stunt to attempt.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[AmiMoJo]

TV shows are about making money. Thank you Captain Obvious.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[OrangeTide]

Was Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd considered attractive in the 1984 film? at least I don't think their characters were considered to have any sex appeal.

There is a thin line to walk when you make a film that caters men's desire for sex appeal. You have to do it in a way that doesn't alienate the 52% of female moviegoers. The naive approach is to make a film that appeals to 100% of people equally, but then the film might be bland and uninteresting. A polarizing film or at least one that caters to a particular niche is an old formula. And I feel like Ghostbusters 2016 couldn't decide if it was a film for women, or a film for everyone, or a film for Ghostbuster fans. That vagueness in finding an audience is probably where it went wrong. And if I had the rights to produce a Ghostbuster film I would have gone after people in their mid 30's to 40's who watched the Saturday morning cartoon series as a kid, of course that isn't at all what Dan Aykroyd wanted to see. (P.S. probably good reason I'm not in charge of multi-million dollar film studio budgets)

Ultimately I think Ghostbusters 2016 was an experiment in marketing that was not successful in its goals and not an preview into a new world order of liberal-socialist PC police.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[Iamthecheese]

Diversity was an important backdrop. It wasn't ever pushed in the viewer's face. There was a black woman on the bridge, and very little was said about that. I'm okay with that kind of diversity. The modern kind of "diversity" is fake. It's diverse like a wax apple is a fruit. Diversity of opinion is forbidden and a whole race and sex are strongly depreciated. It's sexism and racism by a different name. By all means have a diverse cast. If it's a good show I'll watch it. But make every third person a fat black lesbian otherkin and you're not only not diverse, you're clearly throwing the whole show under the bus.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[BasilBrush]

Not just Uhuru, the regular cast also had Japanese, Russian, Scottish and of course Vulcan characters.

Hard to realise the significance of a Russian character as one of the good guys at the height of the cold war.

And then of course you had episodes that were dedicated to condemning racism, such as "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" where the aliens were half black, half white.

And of course having Kirk and Uhuru kiss was quite literally "pushing it in the viewer's face", at a time when segregation was still an issue in some US states.

If you have a problem with diversity in 2018, you are an asshole.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[blindseer]

Enterprise suffered from not having much of a story.

Enterprise suffered for Starfleet not having much of a story. What is Starfleet? It's got a rank structure that we'd recognize as a navy, but then lots of noncombat organizations do. They fly around in ships that are armed, have science teams, do diplomacy, but they make it clear in many ways that they are not a military. They don't fight wars unless absolutely necessary. They don't have "soldiers" as we'd recognize them, only "security officers" or some such are armed with any regularity. It seems that there's more staff in stellar cartography than any other department on the ship. Not that you see these people, we see what the engineers, medics, and command officers are doing.

The Enterprise, in all it's iterations in the Trek-verse, is never described as a warship. It encounters warships and often it perseveres over the warships through some combination of smarts, luck, enemy incompetence or arrogance, or whatever combination of such that moves the plot. They are always on some kind of science mission, making way to some diplomatic function, responding to some call for assistance. What equivalent do we have in our world to this?

Probably the best approximation to Starfleet would be the Coast Guard. One of the biggest function of the Coast Guard is to assist in trade. They perform ship inspections, check paperwork, and so on. This is in addition to things we see Starfleet do like search and rescue, get called up to fight in wars, do science missions, and even in some cases have to be diplomats.

I believe that Enterprise would have been more interesting if it was described as a ship in what we'd recognize as something of a Coast Guard in space. They'd still be doing diplomatic missions, map out stars, respond to calls for assistance, and even fight as a light battleship and/or flying hospital in times of war. In addition they'd have to deal with things like make sure interstellar freighters met safety standards, check for people smuggling illegal aliens, and maybe even hand out citations for speeding. Maybe that sounds boring to many people but there were episodes of Enterprise where they did some of this stuff. Also, there's all kinds of TV shows about police forces. There's shows about ships at sea doing this kind of stuff, transfer that kind of plot to ships in space.

Seems to me that the powers that be tried real hard to not make Starfleet a military, and failed in many ways, and also didn't want Starfleet to look like "cops in space". Well, some organization needs to be the cops in space because people don't always behave. If that's not Starfleet then who is? Make a show about space police and I'd probably watch it.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[rtb61]

ie there is only one question I want answered about Star Trek, will Klingons continue to be ugly cannibals who clad their star ships in coffin armour and behave like idiotic Hollywood ideologues or change back. Not to forget, will star drives go back to being science based or push further into pixie dust territory and how long before captain nancy pants as a commanders name ie for the next expelled cadet that gets made captain of the federation of planet fleet flagsship by the commandant of that academy because he is too stupid to command a starship (well that is pretty self evident).

Will it be STEM Star Trek or liberal arts Stupid Trek. I'm betting liberal arts Stupid Trek where they strive to take the science out of science fiction not by choice simply by nature, that low IQ nature supported by nepotism nature.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[Voyager529]

I don't think the issue is with diversity, but with presentation. Yes, TOS had "Plato's Stepchildren" and "Last Battlefield" and the one with the nuclear war fought within a computer...but how often was putting a Russian in charge of navigation and shields a point of contention? How many times was Sulu's Japanese heritage brought up (remember, we didn't like Japan much after WWII, and it was still very much in living memory)? Uhura being black during the civil rights movement is what everyone remembers, but how often did her gender come up in the context of her being a bridge officer and other than Plato's Stepchildren, did her race come up more than maybe once or twice? The answers to all of these questions are "It didn't", "It didn't", and "It didn't", and "I'll have to double check...but I'm pretty sure it didn't".

Roddenberry's most amazing statement throughout TOS was paradoxically the most subtle - these things were such non-issues that they weren't worthy of anyone's attention. Uhura wasn't perceived by the crew as "a black woman", she was "the communications officer, and a damn good one", and everyone from Kirk on down respected her as such. Same for Chekov and Sulu. The whole ship was egalitarian in that sense - skills and rank were respected, but nobody treated anyone else better or worse based on race or gender. As it should be.

I don't know the GP, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he would have an issue with a diverse cast in itself. The issue is when that becomes such a point of focus that it starts being the defining characteristic of the individual at the expense of anything that would give the character any real amount of depth. When a show starts doing that, the push for diversity starts seeping into the scripts. Even then, there's presentation to be had. The infamous interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura was controversial based on its existence, but the story itself didn't depend on the shock value of that scene. Roddenberry did this sort of thing well. Few today can say the same - characters intended to provide diversity tend to make that diversity a featured part of the story, rather than "the person doing the thing who happens to be a non-SWM".

Sometimes things do need to be pointed out directly, but most of the time, treating it like a non-issue is the best way to illustrate how normal something is in the future. Few directors can do this well.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[AmiMoJo]

The original series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" had aliens who were literally half black and half white, fighting a racist war with the half white half black ones. It was extremely "in your face" and obvious. Then there was the first on-screen interracial kiss, again very obvious and if you read the history of the episode something that Roddenberry had to push very hard to include.

In the TNG era you had episodes that were quite overtly about the oppression and "treatment" of LGBT people, featuring a genderless race of aliens and one who does not conform to their traditional concept. Not to mention episodes based around Data's rights as a person/machine, Trill relationships when their gender suddenly changes, respecting the rules and laws of other cultures, racial/genetic supremacists, travellers, Native Americans and so on.

DS9 introduced a lot of religious aspects, and looked at how a principled and progressive society could fight a war. Voyager was all over the place but did lots of social justice episodes, not least the recurring theme of criminal rehabilitation and examination of humanity from Seven's point of view.

So maybe Trek isn't for you, and that's fine.

Re: Spaceballs 2: the quest for more money

[Carewolf]

And will the Klingon continue to be racist blackface villians? I was surpriced that they not only gave the a black textures (sure more different texture colors to alien races, and including black, yay), but then added negroid features and then made them culturally primitive psychopaths...

It is the most racist thing I have seen on TV in decades.

And then added on top with a toxic masculine main character that just happens to be female. The show was trolling the left.

dude I hope its flute guy

[Anonymous Coward]

the jean luc one should totally be about his life as flute guy

Is Star Trek still a real thing for scifi fans?

[magarity]

What's Discovery even like; I completely lost interest in the whole franchise after the "re-imagined' of Wrath of Khan.

Re:Is Star Trek still a real thing for scifi fans?

[beheaderaswp]

What's Discovery even like; I completely lost interest in the whole franchise after the "re-imagined' of Wrath of Khan.

It's as if fungus was the core of the Standard Model. And tartigrades were the conduit of the universe.

I know... it doesn't make sense. Apparently a can of Lotrimin spray will collapse the entire universe... theoretically of course.

Re:Is Star Trek still a real thing for scifi fans?

[OzPeter]

What's Discovery even like; I completely lost interest in the whole franchise after the "re-imagined' of Wrath of Khan.

The whole "pay for the streaming service to just watch one program" thing kinda of stopped me*.

*That plus I thought the show sucked anyway. Between watching the first episode of that and also of The Orville .. I could see more potential in the latter.

Re:Is Star Trek still a real thing for scifi fans?

[TeknoHog]

It's as if fungus was the core of the Standard Model. And tartigrades were the conduit of the universe.

The tardigrade count is strong in this one.

Re:Is Star Trek still a real thing for scifi fans?

[jwhyche]

There was a rumor a while back to do a Star Trek Academy or something like that.

Personally, I would like to see a Star Trek from the point of view of the Klingons. Not those crappy Klingons from the discovery series, but real Klingons from TNG universe.

Please, just let it die.

[sizzzzlerz]

So we've got 5 Star Trek shows in the works and 7, 8, or 9 Star Wars prequels, sequels, whatevers, as well. This isn't innovation. It's not new ideas. And it certainly not exciting. It's whipping a dead cow laying out in the desert somewhere for the past 2 years in order to get a few more drops of milk.

It's done, guys. It's over. Time to let go.

I'm impressed

[meglon]

5 Star Trek Shows in Development

I didn't know Seth MacFarlane could develop so many shows all at once.

Re:I'm impressed

[mfearby]

And they're all far better than any of these new Star Trek series will ever be. I never thought I'd say this but "Enterprise" is almost watchable compared to "Discovery". I'll probably check out the one with Patrick Stewart, if it comes to pass, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for it, not unless they sack the Klingon makeup department and hire some better writers.

"beloved" character Khan

[fahrbot-bot]

A limited series based around the beloved character Khan ...

The series will revolve around Khan's earlier days as founder of a non-profit educational organization and the challenges he, and his students', faced in fast-paced the world of on-line academia and, later, how the stresses of life and continuing education drove him actualize his genetic-designed potential for world domination. The rest, as they say, will be History.

Re:No, thanks.

[doconnor]

Star Trek has always been "leftist propaganda". The difference is the Internet is around to inflame people's passion.

--
proud subscriber of alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die

The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan ...

[Anomalous Co-worker]

I have long wanted the books by Greg Cox to be made into a TV series for two reasons: 1. It is centered on 20th century Earth, and has minimal alien involvement and only Kirk's influence from the future. 2. It can truly start with a clean slate.

Re: Is Star Trek still a real thing for scifi fans

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that Voyager was created during the very early years of the public adoption of the Internet and the WWW. Although some episodes may seem dumb today, at the time it was pushing societal boundaries in many ways, before information traveled as quickly as it does today. One example is the depiction of Ensign Harry Kim. If I'm not mistaken, this was one of the first, if not the very first, character in a mainstream production to suffer from micropenis syndrome and the difficulties it entails, such as the inability to form and maintain romantic relationships with women. Instead of being ostracized, he was shown as receiving compassion and care from his fellow crewmates. For many viewers this was their first introduction to a physical disorder that can be particularly challenging to deal with. But that's really what Star Trek has long been about: challenging societal norms in a non-confrontational manner that serves to enlighten, rather than to anger.

Pay Streaming? No Thanks...

[rally2xs]

If they can get it on my cable TV somehow, the cable I'm already paying big $$$$ for, then maybe I'll set the DVR. Oh, and despite the sexy graphics of the Discovery show, I stopped at the 1st episode where the female captain goes one-on-one with a Klingon and doesn't die. Female-lead combat command also ruined The Force Awakens for me, as it is seriously unrealistic in that, although women could probably do these things, you don't find many aspiring to such roles. Getting them "all over the place" in the flick... fantasy. Kirk could barely go 1-on-1 with Klingons, so its preposterous for a female sans Marvel Universe super-powers to be doing it. Wonder Woman yes, any other woman, no... Just gimmie a break, make it available without extra $$$, and don't do silly-s-stuff like women-lead combat units and then maybe...

Is it about the future?

[0100010001010011]

I grew up on TNG and DS9 because it was about the 'future'. Both series had a good balance of soap opera in space and technobable. TNG brought us the Borg. Voyager the Delta quadrant. DS9 the changlings and the wormhole. And then they went and started redoing established history. Stop overwriting canon so that we can see "Kirk" on screen.

I want to see what happens after DS9. Something set as far ahead of DS9 as TNG was ahead of TOS.

Get some tech consultants and map out some future tech. Get out beyond the quadrants of the Milky Way. Make up some new aliens, in the future. It makes no sense to say "eh, in the past we had these aliens but they somehow don't exist anymore by time TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY do".

There's so much existing IP that there should be no shortage of material. Borg, Cardassians or Changlings part of the Federation? Federation disbanded? Mirror universe travel 'normal' as interstellar travel? (Without being Sliders).

Time it right and you can still do cameos like Scotty in TNG (even if you screw up the episode so much that you have them beaming through a shield). The DS9, TNG and VOY crews should still be mostly alive, especially Data and the Doctor.

At this point they're just going to set a series in 2028 and call it 'ultrapre-history Federation'.

Re:All Access?

[pr0fessor]

It was basically lens flare after lens flare. The Orville on the other hand was hilarious.

Re:All Access?

[MrL0G1C]

No, Pirate Bay will also have downloads available.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Rick Schumann]

Before any of you waste your mod points on me because you don't like my opinion read this:

A teen-oriented series set at Starfleet Academy from Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the duo behind the recent Dynasty reboot and Marvel's Runaways adaptation.

Now, do you really think that's such a great idea? Most of you hated Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG and wished his character would get killed. How can you get behind this bullshit? Garbage.

Discovery?

[markdavis]

>"In the wake of shocking allegations against Star Trek: Discovery's showrunners"

Discovery? Is that really a thing? I am a huge Trekkie and have not seen a single episode. Their distribution model sucked, and I have heard it is nothing but "PC overkill" combined with total fantasy. Strangely, I don't know ANYONE who has actually watched "Discovery" and when I ask them, they have no interest in doing so, even the Trekkies like me. But....

Meanwhile, the Orville came along and THAT became my Star Trek after Enterprise. Enterprise was a bit shaky, but was just getting into its grove when they killed it. Reminded me of the issues with Deep Space 9, until STTNG ended and the writers apparently focused their attention on DS9 and it improved a lot. Anyway, who would have thought "Orville" would have somehow hit the Trek nail on the head??? I am still in disbelief.

I loved the original, REALLY REALLY loved ALL of The Next Generation, loved most of DS9, really loved all of Voyager, loved much of Enterprise, after the awkward start. Most of the original Trek movies were so-so (Wrath of Kahn clearly the best). The Next Generation movies were all quite good. And I really loved the reboot movies. But now it seems Paramount has really lost their way, at least with TV (and especially in combination with CBS).

Re: Discovery?

[mfearby]

I agree with you about The Orville. It's 5 starts compared to Discovery, which I'd give 1 star. TNG, DS9, and VOY are all my favourites, but Enterprise had a weakling for a captain and it drove me mad. I watched a few episodes of Discovery (appropriate acronym: "STD") and regretted it. The Orville is where it's at, now.

Re:Is this a joke?

[dgatwood]

A teen-oriented series set at Starfleet Academy from Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the duo behind the recent Dynasty reboot and Marvel's Runaways adaptation.

Now, do you really think that's such a great idea? Most of you hated Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG and wished his character would get killed. How can you get behind this bullshit? Garbage.

I could actually see this concept working, if it is done well.

Wesley was, indeed, annoying — to the point that IIRC there was a whole newsgroup dedicated to coming up with ways for his character to die — but it wasn't because the concept of kids in space was so horrible. No, Wesley was annoying because the writers didn't know what to do with him. As a result, nearly every Wesley episode could be summed up as "Wesley broke something. The ship is about to blow up. Wesley somehow figures out a way to fix what he broke. Everyone lives to see him break things another day."

I seem to vaguely remember the episode where Captain Picard got stuck in an elevator with a bunch of kids as an episode that worked reasonably well. In fact, I'm really hoping that the show involving Patrick Steward is the "teen-oriented" show. He could play an academy teacher or headmaster or similar, after having retired from active duty. I think the interaction between him and young people would play very well on TV when it isn't being forced by a character who doesn't really fit the context (Wesley).

I'm assuming such a show would be about Starfleet Academy, though it could also work approximately as well if it involved slightly younger people who were still in school and were studying in hopes of joining Starfleet Academy. Either way, the premise is easy, and reasonably well grounded in the Star Trek universe. The open question, of course, is whether they can come up with writers who are capable of coming up with plots that are both plausible sci-fi (in the context of the Trek universe) and involve young people, without getting so mired in angsty teen drama that nobody wants to watch it, and without the plots quickly devolving into "Saved By the Bell In Space" levels of superficiality under the mistaken belief that young people are incapable of conscious levels of thought.

Yes

[OrangeTide]

Because it's not racist to make a simian comparison to a white person. Pointing out that a picture of G.W. Bush makes him look like a chimp, and that Trump looks like an orangutan is doesn't have the same historic baggage as comparison a black person to an "ape" or "gorilla".

I guess one solution is for you to open a book once in a while. If you want to avoid being turned into "toast" (whatever that means) and socially ostracized by polite society. If you're blind to the last few centuries of American history, then tread lightly.