Star Trek Discovery. [SPOILERS WITHIN]

Harlan Ellison, and he's smarter than God.
Just ask him.

I don't like the idea of "forced" diversity, but I do agree that having a diverse cast is a good idea.

DS9 wanted a black captain and they got Avery Brooks, who eventually grew into the role and did an outstanding job.

Voyager wanted a female captain and they got Kate Mulgrew (well, they got Genevieve Boujold but quickly fired her ass). Mulgrew is an accomplished actress but she sucked as Janeway. Whether that was the producers' faults or Mulgrew's is up for debate. I'd say the showrunners are largely to blame.

The point being is... um... I forgot.

Let's just all agree that Voyager sucked and move on.

It did not help the character of Janeway that they had her holodeck fantasy to be the servant of some mysterious rich guy. I think they were going for something like Maria from "The Sound of Music".

I'm not sure why anyone on the writing staff thought that would be a good idea for the character unless they felt with "new captain, need something outside the box".

Of course, sometimes the box is there for a reason......

I blame Berman and Braga, who created an interesting concept for the series and flushed it down the toilet with the second episode. The writing was all over the place with no clear vision or character arcs.

It's easy to blame Berman and Braga. Berman because he was a soulless studio bureaucrat and Braga because overall he was a low level writer, acted like a dickhead and thought he knew all about Star Trek just because Jeri Ryan agreed to have sex with him between her more regular partners.

Equal blame though goes to Jeri Taylor and the late Michael Piller. Piller escapes lots of well deserved blame thanks to his relatively young death.

Taylor (by her own admission) has been writing television for decades hoping to "butch up" the female characters.

I always caught more of a Wuthering Heights vibe, but it kinda makes sense. People in dominant leadership positions often find gratification by roleplaying a submissive/subordinate one. I know-let's call it "more than a couple of" professional dominatrixes, and the majority of their clientele have corner offices.

At upwards of $400/hr, they'd have to.

It might have been realistic. But I don't think it fit well with how they hoped to establish the character.

Really?
I figured it as part of the underlying misogyny of the era/writers? Even in charge, a woman must be sexually submissive.

Totally works as counterpoint with the implicit fantasy dominatrix persona that was 7/9.

Nick Meyer is working on another secret Trek project.

http://www.cbr.com/nicholas-meyer-star-trek-project/

Maybe he's working on the next movie or a TNG reboot?

I can see Nic Meyer getting approval for a TNG reboot that takes into account the Abramsverse that is tied kind of into the last Abramsverse movie in a couple of more years.

Exactly.

He's probably just spitballing at this point. Unlike Star Wars, the rights for Trek are an insane mess. Paramount owns the rights to make movies, CBS owns the rights to make TV series, but there's enough confusion about that that the two parties could be dicks and sue the shit out of one another over something which they claim infringes upon their rights. (For example, if the pilot is 2 hours, does that make it a movie? What if CBS decides to have a premiere viewing in a theater? Or what if Paramount decides to make a movie in the same time frame as Discovery, but doesn't consult with CBS? Or what happens if one of the characters in the series is the parent of a character who only appeared in one of the movies? If the lawyers want to be dicks, they'll find a way to justify suing over that.) I don't even know how the rights to things like comic books, video games, novels, and toys work out. From what I understand even the folks at CBS and Paramount don't understand that shit.

He may not even have been asked by somebody to do this, he might be doing it all on his own. Now, no doubt, CBS and Paramount, if the series takes off, would be interested in expanding the franchise in some manner. So, let's take one (unlikely) possibility, that the new series is insanely popular. Think how Iron Man basically told Marvel, do as much shit as you can, because you'll make serious bank off of it. In that case, both CBS and Paramount would want to copy the Marvel model, where you've got interconnected movies, TV shows, the works. If the series is popular like Orange is the New Black, or House of Cards, or Breaking Bad, you might see a smaller effort. Say, another series, or a bunch of video game titles, but not necessarily a series of films tied in with the show.

But odds are, they're throwing all kinds of ideas out there, so that if the show is popular, they can quickly move to capitalize upon it, rather than being caught flatfooted and telling fans it'll be years before they're even able to give an idea of what's coming next. Folks in the entertainment fields are only tangentially connected to reality, so the show could be dogshit, but they'll have convinced themselves that it's the greatest thing ever, and will hatch all kinds of crazy schemes, only to be stunned when the show debuts and promptly implodes.

I don't see Star Trek: Discovery tanking though. I see it at worst being (generally) mildly disappointing to fans and mildly underperforming CBS expectations.

Don't forget the manner in which it's broadcasted. While internationally, they have a deal with Netflix, they will have expectations for CBS All Access. Usually the corporate types have high expectations. Unrealistically so. No, CBSAA won't grow by 30 percent thanks to ST: D (that's not a good abbreviation, marketing department!). The show doesn't look cheap.

I can see CBS starting this thing and Netflix taking it over at some point. Personally I can see it succeed there but not on obscure, purely domestic CBSAA.

Nicholas Meyer? Aren't there enough versions of Sherlock Holmes running ATM?

It wouldn't surprise me if Paramount tried to roll out a shared cinematic universe and I have my own ideas on how to do it, but not everything has to be a cinematic universe.

What's my idea, you ask? People often say Trek belongs on TV where they can tell better stories, and I agree, but with a shared cinematic universe you can tell a longer story. You could establish a set of new characters that are rolled out bit by bit and have episodic movies or you could have a TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT crossover, or give each series it's own movie and then have them crossover like the Avengers, you could flat out steal the Axanar idea, you could take existing characters like Garth or Pike or Robert April or any number of characters and roll them out one by one like Marvel does, but all of those ideas have to have proper marketing and a Kevin Feige like person who can helm it. If properly handled, you could have some epic Star Trek rolled out over several years, every fan could get what they want. You could have an action movie, then a drama, then a space adventure, then, some horror, then mostly comedy fun, then time travel, then something like Interstellar, ect.. If they could pull it off, we would have Trek for many years and not one foot in the grave like it is now. That's what I would do, but I'm not in charge.

If it were entirely on Netflix, it would do just fine, but CBS really wants All Access to be a thing. I'm a huge Survivor fan and they're constantly pushing All Access while watching Survivor. I'm not paying for that shit.

This might actually be the shittiest "Hitler Reacts..." video I have ever seen. It's so bad, I may have to make a "Hitler Reacts..." video about it.

While not a bad idea, you're forgetting two things:

a. for a cinematic universe to work, most or all of the movies in it have to be smashing successes. The best laid plans go down when one or two tank because the studio will pull the plug. And that means wide appeal. The Trek name alone guarantees that it's either hated by 'the fans' or ignored by the public.

b. You'd have to completely reset canon for something like that to work. Recast every beloved character yet again. Huge fucking gamble. Worked with Chris Pine as Kirk, surprisingly. I cannot imagine it would work with Patrick Stewart. So, not only recasting but start from the beginning with new characters. 'The fans' would scream bloody murder...

I'm sure they could improve on the first few seasons of TNG.

Hmm, they could spin it off of Discovery.

I mean, we accepted the nuTOS crew by having Nimoy give the handoff.

Have Discovery and Ent-D fall into the same time hole, and have to combine their warp fields to get out like in the novel "Federation", and by passing it off of canon, we accept the nuTNG recasted crew is them.

Then, spin it off, and have the new adventures happen between "all good things..", and Generations.

I would start it with the Kelvin universe crew, have them encounter the Romulans who are starting shit with the Klingons. The Klingons recruited the help of the Federation. Then have your usual pew pew thing, then the Enterprise is crippled and Garth has to rescue them about half way through. There would be a subplot where the Romulans discovers the Gurdian planet and there's a race against time to stop them from using it and then Garth sacrifices himself by flying his ship into it. This undoes the Kelvin universe and we are back to prime universe with the Discovery crew. It ends with Garth alive right at the point where he goes nuts, he's set up as the villain for the next movie.

Netflix better take it over because I'm not paying more than I already am.

I've got Netflix and Hulu. That's it. I'm not paying for CBS All Access especially when there is nothing on CBS worth watching.

So looks like I'll be skipping this show.

I'll probably watch the premier episode on CBS and then watch the best parts of subsequent episodes show up on youtube.

Can we pretty-please just fuck off with the timey-wimey, handover-reference, shit please? I'd like a successful, well scripted, well acted Star Trek series. Then I'd like some more.

And wrapping a cord of canon round its throat, garrotting the life out of it, whilst shitting fan-pleasing shoehorned plot-references down the audiences throat and expecting them to swallow it and like it, will not achieve that.

Calm down, CBS isn't listening to us.

With Dayton due a job change, I can't afford to take that chance!

What does that mean?