New Star Trek Series on CBS

[Werthead]

The new TV series doesn't really contradict the books. It's even referenced them a few times and at least one character (an archaeologist from Moffat's prose short stories) has shown up. But then canon has always been a fluid concept in Doctor Who.

The Star Trek novels have never been canon. They've always been said to take place in their own parallel universe to the TV show and movies. Jeri Ryan's novel about Janeway's backstory has been regarded as somewhat semi-canon, because Ryan then used it when writing the show, but not fully.

The only media franchise where the novels were and still are fully canon is Babylon 5.

[Jaxom 1974]

Jeri Taylor, Wert...Seven of Nine didn't write that story... 

[Rhom]

7 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Jeri Taylor, Wert...Seven of Nine didn't write that story... 

Ah... I was actually really impressed thinking she did!   

[DaveSumm]

Haha, yea I really thought for a minute there that Ryan was cast, then wrote a novel, then wrote for the show itself, all while appearing in it. Impressive!

[Werthead]

Sorry, got them mixed up. Although Andrew Robinson of course wrote a DS9 novel about Garak.

[Werthead]

Nicholas Meyer, the writer/director of The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country as well as a writer/producer on The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, has joined the new Star Trek series as a writer and producer.

He's now 70 but seems to be in good health. Apart from DS9, he also created my very favourite slices of the Trek universe so this is quite interesting.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Nicholas Meyer, the writer/director of The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country as well as a writer/producer on The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, has joined the new Star Trek series as a writer and producer.

He's now 70 but seems to be in good health. Apart from DS9, he also created my very favourite slices of the Trek universe so this is quite interesting.

I love the Wrath of Khan and the Undiscovered Country. I imagine this means that the series is going to be in the Prime Universe. 

[red snow]

8 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I love the Wrath of Khan and the Undiscovered Country. I imagine this means that the series is going to be in the Prime Universe. 

Prime as in the OS, etc?

I don't think we can conclude that. A counter argument is that the new show is set during the movie era of the prime universe but in the JJ version. Maybe they want to see how events in the prime universe would play out in the new one, given the altered events? His involvement could arguably make less sense if it's set post DS9/Voyager given he didn't have any part in those shows.

It would be a nice bit of symmetry if his involvement saves the JJ verse via the TV format (possibly harsh considering I've no idea how the new trek film will perfom) when he arguably saved the original Trek universe via some excellent films.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

35 minutes ago, red snow said:

Prime as in the OS, etc?

I don't think we can conclude that. A counter argument is that the new show is set during the movie era of the prime universe but in the JJ version. Maybe they want to see how events in the prime universe would play out in the new one, given the altered events? His involvement could arguably make less sense if it's set post DS9/Voyager given he didn't have any part in those shows.

It would be a nice bit of symmetry if his involvement saves the JJ verse via the TV format (possibly harsh considering I've no idea how the new trek film will perfom) when he arguably saved the original Trek universe via some excellent films.

Has it even been announced one way or another if CBS even has the rights to anything Abrams has done? 

[Lord Varys]

22 hours ago, Werthead said:

Nicholas Meyer, the writer/director of The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country as well as a writer/producer on The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, has joined the new Star Trek series as a writer and producer.

He's now 70 but seems to be in good health. Apart from DS9, he also created my very favourite slices of the Trek universe so this is quite interesting.

That is good news indeed!

Nicholas Meyer wasn't (or still isn't) a Stark Trek fan when he was brought into all that, and his Stark Trek movies were good movies because they were about characters and plot, nothing else.

Whether he'll be able to make a good Stark Trek show is another matter, but I'm positive that he'll be able to come up with good characters for the show.

I really hope this new show isn't set in the JJ travesty. I mean, there is no need for that considering that the movie franchise does not necessarily have to do anything with the new TV show, especially since they most likely will come up with a new setting anyway. It would have to be a really great show for them to convince me to watch it if they do that.

As to the other shows:

I only occasionally watched DS9 back in the day but I watched it completely a few years ago. I was somewhat underwhelmed because it wasn't nearly as serialized as people tried to sell me it was. Character development was much better in DS9 than in any other Stark Trek show, though, Voyager and Enterprise included. In fact, one could say that DS9 is the only Star Trek show with realistic and believable characters.

Enterprise suffered from the whole temporal cold war setting (a prequel which may have been a fucked-up prequel due to time traveler interfering with everything is no prequel at all) in addition to the whitewashing of the crew. I mean, TOS was more international than Enterprise. Two Americans, one Englishman, and black guy with an English name (no idea from which side of the Atlantic Merryweather's ancestors came from, but my guess is that he is effectively an American, too). Not to mention that the entire back story of Starfleet was American, too. I do not remember if Cochrane was established as an American back in TOS but they clearly did so in First Contact (something that also wasn't really necessary).

Then there was this whole weird antiquarian enthusiasm (watching old movies and stuff) that isn't very realistic is such a setting - it may be believable that one nut case that is into ancient stuff, but if you ask yourself how many people you know who are really into Jean-Baptiste Lully's Baroque music and dances you really get how unbelievable the pretense is that an entire ship of 22nd century spacers is into 20th century movies. I mean, I'm very much into silent movies but I don't know many people who share that passion, either.

TNG did a much better job at bringing past culture into the whole thing with not everybody being into that stuff. At least as far as I recall right now.

In addition, Enterprise would have worked much better if it had had a much more serialized beginning from the start, and if they had had the creative freedom to stick to their ideas. The temporal cold war was effectively forced on them because the studio wanted 'something futuristic' if I remember correctly, and the non-exploration of Merryweather came because they failed to continue to explore the whole 'truckers in space' plot involving his family.

There is also no real character development going on. I mean, it seemed pretty obvious in the first two seasons that Archer and T'Pol had a thing for each other, with that stupid Trip-T'Pol plot coming out of nowhere in season 3. That was underhanded and cheap, in my opinion, just as most of the 'character development' in Voyager was.

[drawkcabi]

Stark Trek? What's that a show about characters traveling bleak landscapes that always spout "Winter Is Coming" and are always getting killed by betrayal everyone could see coming but them?

In TOS they actually mentioned Zefram Cochrane was from Alpha Centauri. a couple of the books, that as said are non canon, explained it a couple ways. One said that humans managed to get about half way to Alpha Centauri without warp drive and met a group of Centaurans in interstellar space, including one Zefram Cochrane who was working on this thing called warp drive. The movie First Contact eliminated the possibility of that in canon. Which is fine because it was pretty stupid.

The other book explanation is that Cochrane retired on Alpha Centauri before as an old man near death flying alone out into space in his ship not to be heard from again until Kirk and co. encountered the rejuvenated version of him.

 

[Martini Sigil]

I don't think I've watched anything on CBS for years .... and if it weren't for comic books I could say the same about broadcast television as a whole... and while I'll certainly give this a shot... Trekkie that I am.... I have little faith that they'll be able to effectively transpose this brand into this century, especially in this medium...

[red snow]

20 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Stark Trek? What's that a show about characters traveling bleak landscapes that always spout "Winter Is Coming" and are always getting killed by betrayal everyone could see coming but them?

 

Galactic winters or the advancing Borg from beyond the galaxy while the Federation, Klingons and Romulans all battle over who is alpha quadrant emperor? I'd probably watch that. Not sure what a Wall would be unless they went for DS9 and the wormhole (which was always a cool idea).

[drawkcabi]

TOS had the Great Barrier at the edge of the galaxy. If you went through it, it turned people with psychic potential into light weight Q.

ETA

Then there is the great barrier at the center of the galaxy keeping prisonor the Devil, but that is Trek V so doesn't count.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, drawkcabi said:

 

TOS had the Great Barrier at the edge of the galaxy. If you went through it, it turned people with psychic potential into light weight Q.

ETA

Then there is the great barrier at the center of the galaxy keeping prisonor the Devil, but that is Trek V so doesn't count.

If they replaced the Q-lite powers warglike abilities then this could work.

Probably best to forget about the devil at the centre of the galaxy although that could be more fun now there's supposed to be supermassive black holes.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I'm nearly to the end of Enterprise and it's a shame it didn't get a fifth season.  I particularly like the fact that Shran is around so much.  

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I hated that the last episode of Enterprise was essentially an Episode of TNG. I think it should have ended with Terra Prime instead.  

[SerHaHa]

Regarding the final episode of Enterprise, some of the actors had similar feelings Arch Maester, and sounded off about it and were FURIOUS that their series/story wrapped in such a manner, with TNG characters watching their story as sort of a holodeck history lesson type deal.  Jolene Blalock has in a couple of interviews I've seen and read sounded off about this and said how furious she was, and how it made her and others involved in ST:E feel "less than".  "Less than"...she said it, not me.

Anyhow, regarding the new upcoming series, STILL no valid intel about it - many fans are waiting to here during what time frame/century/year/etc it'll be based, and if it was Michael Dorn/Worf's proposal that won the bid, or if they went another "direction".  Considering Tony Todd said he's been shortlisted as a possible lead character, and also considering who they've hired for writers, there is STRONG evidence that it may well indeed be a new "Capt Worf" series as Dorn and friends pitched.  I volunteered some time/$ to help with that "We Want Worf" campaign, and I would be both happy and surprised if the efforts of all involved actually swayed the suits at CBS in any way.

I'm not especially picky, I just want "new" Trek on TV, and will be quite happy if they produce anything of say Voyager (blah) quality or better. 

It'll be great to discuss the new series and episodes with this crowd, having missed the DS9/B5 rewatch threads when they initially went down, I expect to be right in the middle of the new Trek series threads here, and in good company.

 

edit - I found one of the Blalock quotes from back in 2005.   http://screenrant.com/the-appalling-finale-of-star-trek-enterprise-vic-344/

 

 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Rick Berman actually apologized for the way it ended. 

http://www.startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-2

[Corvinus85]

10 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

It'll be great to discuss the new series and episodes with this crowd, having missed the DS9/B5 rewatch threads when they initially went down, I expect to be right in the middle of the new Trek series threads here, and in good company.

If you wish you can head over to this thread to discuss DS9. I'm a first time watcher, so I started the thread not too long ago.