STAR TREK returns to TV...

[blackmocco]

Rumblings about this happening turned into reality a few months back but here's an exciting announcement (for me anyway!): Bryan Fuller, ex-DS9 and more recently the superb Hannibal TV show is joining as one of the co-creators.

"My very first experience of Star Trek is my oldest brother turning off all the lights in the house and flying his model of a D7 Class Klingon Battle Cruiser through the darkened halls," Fuller said in a statement. "Before seeing a frame of the television series, the Star Trek universe lit my imagination on fire. It is without exaggeration a dream come true to be crafting a brand new iteration of Star Trek with fellow franchise alum Alex Kurtzman and boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before."

Hoping they cut the ties with any of the previous versions (particularly the JJverse) and go a la Next Generation with it. Jump another hundred years ahead, new cast, new ship, new adventures.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/hannibals-bryan-fuller-is-producing-the-new-star-trek-t-1758068994

[Ghost MacRoth]

Yep, think they need to be around the era, or at least the feel of TNG to get it to work.  Hope they do a good job, as I'd love to see a Tek series with the advantages of all the new production tech.  Might even get to be a bit darker judging by various other recent TV stuff.

[blackmocco]

Yep, think they need to be around the era, or at least the feel of TNG to get it to work.  Hope they do a good job, as I'd love to see a Tek series with the advantages of all the new production tech.  Might even get to be a bit darker judging by various other recent TV stuff.

If Fuller's take on Hannibal was anything to go by, we can expect some seriously weird sci-fi tales...

[Ghost MacRoth]

Well, I liked Farscape, so I'm on board for seriously weird!

[Professor Bear]

The only problem is that Fuller was responsible for some truly terrible Star Trek episodes even by Voyager standards.  Remember the one where the Voyager crew goes to Holodeck Ireland and falls foul of a racist mob that think their technology is "fairy magic"?  That was Fuller.  The one with the hologram version of Osama Bin Laden flying around space "liberating" holograms? Fuller.  He even managed to ruin some pretty promising third party stories bought by the show like Barge of the Dead and Gravity.
As a showrunner he might be good, though.  I mean, we all loved that last season of Voyager he produced, am I right?

[blackmocco]

Yeah, he's done some fucking duff alright. But at that stage Star Trek was so utterly crippled with the constraints of the network and producers, I can't imagine how hard it must have been to craft anything entertaining out of it.

Never cared much for Voyager, to be honest. It really had the most honest of concepts for a Trek show - ship lost in unexplored deep space trying to get home/crew made up of rival factions - but it never lived up to any of it. The crew got along fine by the end of the pilot, no tension ever really explored between them, there was never any real genuine peril to their journey, nor any serious investigation into using alien technology to shorten their journey somehow.

I guess in my head I loved the idea that by the time this ship made it home, it could have looked something nice and jacked-up like out of Star Wars, with mismatched engine nacelles and whatnot. Instead it always played it safe, stylewise. The cast were pretty bland beyond the hologram doctor. Wasted opportunity. Look at how much fun Ron Moore had with the same concept with BSG, y'know? Could have been a great opportunity to take all of Roddenberry's edicts about Star Trek and stretch them to breaking point.

As for Fuller, I trust he'll have something to bring to this. The man's got vision when he's left to his own devices.

[TordelBack]

The crew got along fine by the end of the pilot, no tension ever really explored between them, there was never any real genuine peril to their journey...

It's really worse than that, because on those very few occasions when the Federation and Maquis crews were at odds, or when there was some actual peril, the show was at its best.  Unfortunately nearly all of those episodes turned out to be hallucinations, time-shenanigans or holodeck snafus, almost as if the makers knew what would make a good series, but just didn't do it.

[Goaty]

Best example of Star Trek that should be - Stargate Universe

[von Boom]

The crew got along fine by the end of the pilot, no tension ever really explored between them, there was never any real genuine peril to their journey...

It's really worse than that, because on those very few occasions when the Federation and Maquis crews were at odds, or when there was some actual peril, the show was at its best.  Unfortunately nearly all of those episodes turned out to be hallucinations, time-shenanigans or holodeck snafus, almost as if the makers knew what would make a good series, but just didn't do it.

There were a few episodes where it seemed like they might start to get into the Star Trek groove, but they all fizzled away into nothing.

The one that stuck with me the most was the introduction of the Hirogen. They could have harassed Voyager throughout the series, but they had one episode and never heard from again.

[blackmocco]

The crew got along fine by the end of the pilot, no tension ever really explored between them, there was never any real genuine peril to their journey...

It's really worse than that, because on those very few occasions when the Federation and Maquis crews were at odds, or when there was some actual peril, the show was at its best.  Unfortunately nearly all of those episodes turned out to be hallucinations, time-shenanigans or holodeck snafus, almost as if the makers knew what would make a good series, but just didn't do it.

Well, it's all down to economics and syndication in the end. That's where the magic money is for networks with TV shows. Once they hit the number, they can sell the show off in blocks for reruns on other networks. Good for them, I guess. The pisser is that because the show will be airing all over the world at all different times, TV channels like shows that you don't have to spend too much energy trying to follow, hence why the likes of CSI and Law & Order, etc do so well. They're all pretty much standalone episodes, and Star Trek was crippled by this style too, hence any potentially show-changing event being hit with the reset button by the end. Look at the likes of BSG in contrast, which was pretty much the same concept but completely told over season long arcs (bad example, I suppose, seeing as next to nobody watched the fucking thing).

Anyway, hopefully the new one won't be so crippled by those kind of demands.

[Zarjazzer]

Not yet convinced by the new look...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DnQLI1XDzI

[CrazyFoxMachine]

I was concerned with film producers involved this was going to be bollocks but Fuller is a complete genius at his best and at least very bizarre at his worst so I think this is going to be gloriously interesting or interestingly glorious. Hopefully both!

[Professor Bear]

Anyway, hopefully the new one won't be so crippled by those kind of demands.

I'm not sure that Voyager can be said to have been "tampered" with by network meddling very much, as it actually started out as a cornerstone show of Paramount's (then)new network and was more or less a lock for its entire run.  DS9 and the Trek movies were also shot on the same sound stages so they were permanently assigned to Trek production, on top of which the network were pretty hands-off when it came to Trek* so it was infamous as its own little studio-within-a-studio.  The only interference Voyager suffered was from Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, who wrestled the show away from its original creator - tv veteran Jeri Taylor - after TNG and DS9 work dried up.
Voyager's failings were entirely internal.


* Having been convinced by arguments with Roddenberry that they didn't understand how Trek worked, which was probably true as Roddenberry clearly didn't, either.

[The Legendary Shark]

I think every Trek series so far has been mainly just okay episodes interspersed with a fair few duffers and a handful of absolute gems. The idea always seemed superior to the execution. For me, Enterprise came closest to what the show was all about but even that was far from perfect.
.
That said, I always preferred Star Trek to Star Wars and I always will.

[blackmocco]

Anyway, hopefully the new one won't be so crippled by those kind of demands.

I'm not sure that Voyager can be said to have been "tampered" with by network meddling very much, as it actually started out as a cornerstone show of Paramount's (then)new network and was more or less a lock for its entire run.  DS9 and the Trek movies were also shot on the same sound stages so they were permanently assigned to Trek production, on top of which the network were pretty hands-off when it came to Trek* so it was infamous as its own little studio-within-a-studio.  The only interference Voyager suffered was from Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, who wrestled the show away from its original creator - tv veteran Jeri Taylor - after TNG and DS9 work dried up.
Voyager's failings were entirely internal.


* Having been convinced by arguments with Roddenberry that they didn't understand how Trek worked, which was probably true as Roddenberry clearly didn't, either.

No, I agree. It's really just a network format I'm talking about, not the actual day-to-day running of the show itself. I know Berman and Braga were totally responsible for the shows and their style and that's what ended up biting them on the arse in the end. Just that the network in general preferred shows that worked as standalones as opposed to season-long arcs for syndication. TNG was created as straight-to-syndication, a TV first.