Star Trek Returns to TV

I didn't think he'd be up for TV anymore. But excellent news if he is.

Yep.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/366495-nicholas-meyer-star-trek

This is great news.

To quote @polarslam:

"!"

Jake wasn't in Starfleet, but he could make an appearance in the pilot. Dayton is right that Todd doesn't like series regular commitments.

With each new story on the series my anticipation grows.

I don't know who that is, but someone needs to put out the fire in her hair. She seems too distracted to notice, right up until she screams out in pain.

OMG finally a post by you I can agree with. The in-your-face style Hollywood does with gays is disgusting. It's like serving those characters on a silver platter. Same goes for all the forced interracial couples they like to parade in every single show (though those are handled better than gays).

IRL nobody cares. Hollywood treats these things like it's still edgy and special and stuff. Which is IMHO more racist and bigoted than the most backwater evangelical KKK member.

gays/interracial/black/Native American/special ed

It's the old spectrum of dealing with a group of people you think are unfairly treated by society. Do you go overboard in the opposite direction and give your autistic character superpowers, or pause the big-budget alien attack so your stripper can tell the First Lady that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her profession and she's proud of what she is so there? Or do you just portray them as normal people who have the same joys and problems as everyone else?

Part of why I like due South so much is that, while I don't think it has any gays, it treats everyone as people to simply be respected, not to be vilified or held in awe because of their profession or ethnicity.* It's what teh Hollywood libruls should want to be when they grow up.

Glad to hear Nicholas Meyer is onboard. He should at least put more honest effort into doing things right than B&B would be capable of.

*Well, okay, the FBI people were cartoonish in the Chinese restaurant abduction episode. But the big brass being arrogant and clueless is a detective story staple.

Or, you know, look at Doctor Who with "We're the fat, thin Catholic gay couple!" or whatever. Played for a chuckle, and then moved on. It can be done.

Totally, but keep in mind, a lot of us felt that way about Enterprise, too, which didn't exactly work out as hoped.

What I like about Meyer is that based on his work with The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country is that while in the past he has treated the Star Trek history and backstory with lots of respect he still is able to think outside the box so to speak.

For example, when doing The Wrath of Khan he considered a huge redesign of the Motion Picture era Enterprise to make it (his own description) more "Star Wars like". But when he saw how beloved the movie era Enterprise was and how the basic design was so part of Trek lore he decided to keep it basically the same though he used some new camera angles.

I would like to note that at least in regards to Scott Bakula as the lead actor in Enterprise I voiced some early reservations about whether he was the appropriate choice. I won't be brimming with optimism until I hear about the time period, setting, and some of the actors involved.

Noted.

Tony Todd's cool!

But Enterprise was coming off the heels of Voyager which a lot of trek fans didn't like at the time. Also trek was on continuously for almost 15 years. Now fans are craving for new trek because other than the movies it hasn't been on in 10 years. Perception changes with the passage of time.

NICHOLAS MEYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.startrek.com/article/nicholas-meyer-joins-new-star-trek-series

Scooped ya.


http://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/2811583/

Another advantage of Meyer being on board seems to be that CBS is taking the project very seriously both in terms of the actual talent they bring along and the perception they want to build among fans.

I'm still betting they go with a post Nemesis setting for the simple fact that it will give the series options to go in any direction without harping by the continuity hogs. Plus they can plausibly use virtually any of the living modern Trek actors as guest stars whenever they have a story that calls for it.

Variety.../same story.

Well....definitely not in Europe, but I remember one American soap opera that tried doing an interracial pairing between two characters that in the context made complete sense, but the network dropped it after the actors received death threats in the fan mail. This happened in 1998, BTW, and considering the attitudes I saw when other soaps tried to integrate gay pairings in the 2000s, this stuff is still a big deal, at least in America.

That being said, i think even us boorish Americans are moving beyond making Very Special episodes for such issues. Even kids shows have found ways to acknowledge that gays exist without making that the defining feature for the character these days.

I'm not seeing much of an issue on either front these days.

Hell, there are commercials with gay and mixed-race couples in them FFS.

I'd be fine with that IF they get back to a less "neat and clean" vibe. DS9 struck a good balance for it's time and holds up well but it still isn't as Lived in" compared to more recent work. While I'm not all up in the space battles like you, i do want to get the feel of a WORKING ship, with both the "grit" and the camaraderie that comes from that. Which I why I do think that getting out onto the frontier is something they need to think hard about.

That said, if they did go for that time frame, it will provoke the question of just how much involvement you want from living cast members - particularly from DS9 (I don't think they dare bring up Voyager, and TNG is dated)

honestly I DON'T think the trope is as strongly evident anymore. For example, they have a regular interracial couple that has never seemed at all remarkable, and for a time had a regular supporting character who's bi and had a lover that was ostensibly lesbian and no one on the show batted an eye except the main villain and that was only because it fucked with his agenda. The guy whos supposed to be Mr. Terrific has a boyfriend.

On Flask/Legends, Hawkman and Hawkgirl are mixed-race (which is kind of silly given he looks nothing like the Egyptian Warrior he's supposed to be but that's off topic)

Once Upon a Time had a lesbian relationship between Sleeping Beauty and Mulan for cryin' out loud.

The lead character on The 100 is at least bi; mystery of the week shoes like Castle routinely come across same sex couples ad find nothing remarkable about them. On Nashville there's a main character who's gay, and which does drive the plot some because they correctly portray the bullshit that follows from being an out gay country music performer BUT through the several relationships he's had, we've yet to see a stereotypical gay caricature and Will himself is a hunky masculine guy. And this is essentially a soap opera.

NONE of the characters I've mentioned exhibit ANY trace of the broad gay/lesbian stereotypes. None have received any "hey y'all look how accepting we are of THESE GAYS" treatment that might have happened a decade ago.

I didn't follow BTS stuff for Trek until way late in ENT's run, but it still surprises me to hear than anyone had a hope for that show to be any good, given Berman and Braga's involvement in it.

But honestly, the person who got the biggest shaft was Scott Bakula. The idiots had no idea how to write to his strengths as an actor...but then, that would have required a consistent view of who Archer was to begin with. Preferably before they sent out the casting call.

No. Because they cast Scott Bakula thinking "Hey! Here is a fairly well known actor mainly from the sci fi genre! Fans will love him! Who cars about the other crap??"

I said it then and I say it now, most of Bakula's notable roles had him working as a "lone wolf" character and not as part of a team. That was prior to NCIS: New Orleans but then again a cop in charge of a very small group of professionals (half a dozen) doesn't necessarily equate with a guy supposed command a starship.

To your last point, I hardly see how that's much different from Enterprise where the majority of his crew interactions were with the senior staff. If anything, I'd say SB was still a lone wolf, as the majority of his scenes were alongside T'Pol and Trip.

I've only caught maybe one episode of his new show, but for his sake, I hope he can be apart of one series that makes it to 100 episodes.

Quantum Leap was 97.