Rumours, news and general speculation

[Graham Kennedy]

Only two that I know of. Soong himself and his ancestor.

Unless you include the androids in the family, which adds Data, Lore and B4, for five.

Sixth time's the charm!

[Mikey]

Plus he's been doing a great turn as the piano player in Patrick Stewart's hangout in Blunt Talk.

[sunnyside]

I'm hoping the rumors that it takes place between ST VI and TNG pan out, at least relative to between Enterprise and TOS.

I think like most of you I'd have liked to have seen something set maybe a generation after DS9/VOY/Nemesis, though it seems a very unpopular option among the writers. I wonder if it has something to do with the sheer weight of consistency one would have to maintain, and all the technology changes one would have to consider in that setting (for example losing the whole "we can't beam through shields" thing after Voyager). Also the galaxy map is starting to get rather filled out, with something known about all four quadrants and trans-quadrant communication established it's becoming less and less plausible to run across something the Federation has never heard of every episode.

Granted Trek writers have never let themselves be overly constrained by consistency or plausibility, but all things being equal they might like to just avoid all those issues.

[Mikey]

One would think "the sheer weight of consistency" would be considerably greater when there are continuity issues both before and after the timeframe in question, rather than just before. Such was the major problem with ENT, which many folks here predicted before it ran.

[Teaos]

Yeah consistency is harder when you have to keep true before and after.

[LaughingCheese]

I get the impression from interviews and such that the writers got kind of fed up with the late Trek era. They do seem to love the idea of prequels and *shudder* Starfleet Academy.

It was great game at least.

[McAvoy]

I loved the Super NES version. The PC version seemed to be unfinished to me.

[sunnyside]

One would think "the sheer weight of consistency" would be considerably greater when there are continuity issues both before and after the timeframe in question, rather than just before. Such was the major problem with ENT, which many folks here predicted before it ran.

I'm guessing some conversation like that took place before they decided to just toss out the continuity with the new movies.

But Enterprise was all about the Warp 5 program being incredibly central to the future of the federation and they couldn't seem to resist playing with the established races, so they were in the thick of it.

Taking place after ST VI gives the writers access to many of the popular races except Ferengi, and if their ship is on a journey of discovery they could just head away from the center of the galaxy and the established locations. Maybe they could presume they're close to Gorn and Tholians and play around with those species some.

I'm hoping they don't shoot for the time between Enterprise and TOS though.

Occurring at the same time as TOS might be interesting though.

[Graham Kennedy]

Posted by Bryan Fuller as a "make up test"

[Mikey]

Hmm. Looks like a fairly typical utility cabinet to me.

[Graham Kennedy]

Obviously that's not what it's about!

...the new enemies will be the Cabinet People of Carlov III.


In other news

"Style of sets, makeup and effects will be updated for 2016"

"New aliens and reimagining of existing aliens."

"10 years before Kirk's five year mission in prime universe"

"Shooting in a couple of months. no one cast yet"

"Character on a journey that will teach HER how to get along with others in the galaxy"

"Incident in Starfleet never explored says Fuller"

"Telling Star Trek Novel over 13 eps"

"commercial load is 25 percent less than CBS proper. about 12 minutes of commercials per Star Trek episode."

"Only 13 episodes per season for time being, according to exec"

"Section 31 may be an element of new series"

"I think Fuller said there will be robots. Need to check the transcripts."

"Does Amanda Greyson fit into this vision. "Maybe!" "She's not a central part of the show but we love that character." Fuller says he's a big fan of Winona Ryder!!"

""We don't know what level of diversity she will be" because she has not been cast yet"

"Willing to bring in existing characters besides Spock's mom. Young Dr. McCoy is possible but no plans for him yet"

"Kobayashi Maru will not be depicted in new series"

"When I asked he could describe the lead's rank, he said "lieutanant commander." As I was typing this just now, Bryan climbed into the audience, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered "she will have many ranks.""


Lots to unpack!

[Mikey]

Not a great lot of news, methinks.

[Graham Kennedy]

My first thought is, I can't work out why they are setting this ten years before TOS. For one thing, it means you can't use a lot of TOS elements. Basically anything Kirk and the Enterprise did or saw for the first time is out. Whereas if they'd set it ten years after TOS you could have used all that good stuff.

Also, the USS Fugly there just really badly does NOT fit into a pre-TOS timeline. And all that speculation about it being some kind of hybrid Klingon/Federation design is out the window. Not in that timeframe.

I hate to say it, but I think they plan to have a lot of "young X" characters. Expect to see young Spock, young Kirk, young Sulu, etc. The prequel obsession continues, no doubt. (Have prequels EVER turned out well? I can't think of an example.)

Second thought : reimagining existing aliens. That always sucks. It's nothing more than a planned, premeditated continuity error.

New aliens. *Sigh*. Yet more "why did we never see..." questions to deal with.

Sounds like a female lead. *shrug* Don't much care about that, except for the fact that the writers will probably once again bend over backwards to write her as if she's a paragon of perfection, even whilst she's clearly not. Give me a good character and don't care that she's a woman, writers!

"Incident in Starfleet never explored". Wild guess, but could this be Axanar? The timeframe is maybe right. And could that be why they decided to drop the hammer on the Axanar fan movie? I can't think of anything else significant that happened ten years before TOS.

Section 31. *Shudder* Please no.


...and please, fellas, redesign the ship. Please?

[Mikey]

My thoughts exactly. Those who don't learn from history... All the issues that 'Trek fandom had with ENT weren't because the writers weren't talented or because the production values were lacking, they were from self-imposed inexorable errors that "prequel-ness" ensured. Now, here we go again with the added insult of "we're going to purposefully spit on what you know." At least Abrams took the facile-but-effectual out of "divergent milieu."

[Graham Kennedy]

More detail :

The star won’t be the captain but rather be a lieutenant commander, “with caveats,” he said. “We’ve seen six series from the captain’s point of view; to see a character from a different perspective on the starship — one who has a different dynamic relationships with a captain, with subordinates, it gave us richer context.”

I wonder if this will actually work. The original intent for The West Wing was this - that the President would be somebody who showed up fairly infrequently, whilst the show was mostly from the POV of the staff, with Rob Lowe as the lead. That lasted one episode, because the President was the one everyone wanted to see. I wonder if they might end up with their own star sidelined by the supporting actor?

“There’s an incident and an event in Star Trek history that’s been talked about but never been explored. To do this series, we’re telling a much more serialized story, to dig deep into a very tantalizing storyline. And we have a character who’s on a journey, and in order to understand something that is alien, she first has to understand herself.” The event is something that was referenced in the original series, but not the Romulan War (“close,” he says) or Section 31 (but that could play a role) or Kirk wrestling with the Kobayashi Maru test. It’s only been referenced, never seen, he said.

Still betting on Axanar. It's the only thing I can think of that even vaguely fits.

On selecting a diverse cast: “Star Trek started with a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast … our lead of the show is going to be subject of that same level of who’s the best actor and also what can we say about diversity on the show. We haven’t cast her yet, so we don’t know what level of diversity she will be, but that’s forefront in our minds. We’ll probably have a few more aliens than you typically have on the show. We wanted to paint a picture of Starfleet where we’re going to have new exciting aliens and also new imagining of existing aliens.” Fuller noted some of the changes might upset hardcore fans used to seeing things a certain way. “We’re producing the show in 2016. We have to update the style of the effects, the style of the sets, the style of the makeup.”

Still don't care what ethnicity or gender the lead is. Be cool to see more aliens though, especially if we might possibly get non-humanoid aliens in the background. I still want to see a Sulamid! They're so weird and nobody has ever even drawn one!

Somebody asks if there will be robots. Fuller says, “Yes.”

Hmmm. Okay. But not a sentient robot, one would hope. Data was the first.

Star Trek: Discovery will be set in the “Prime Universe” (so in the timeline of the original shows, not the J.J. Abrams reboot films), about a decade before Captain Kirk’s five-year mission. “We can redefine the visual style,” he said. “We get to play with all of the iconography of those ships and that universe. Since we are doing this series in 2016, and all of the other series have been produced [at a time that] isn’t as sophisticated as we are now with what we can do production-wise, we’re going to be reestablishing an entire look for the series — not only for the series, but for what we wanted to accomplish with Star Trek beyond this series.”

That sounds seriously ominous to me. Sounds like they're planning to ditch any effort at continuity with TOS.

On how much Star Trek will push the content envelope since it won’t be constrained by broadcast standards: “Well there’s a reason we call it S.T.D.,” he said, mocking the show’s initials. “We’re going to have a broader spectrum to explore those issues, but it’s still Star Trek. It will probably be slightly more graphic content. We discuss language every day. Is it appropriate for somebody to see a bridge blow up and say ‘Oh s—.’ I imagine we’re going to shoot scenes a couple of ways and see what feels more authentic in the editing room.”

I'd be fine if they do a more "adult" show. These people deal with death on a semi-regular basis, I'm not gonna balk if they say fuck.

Will the Discovery look like the Enterprise? “Saucer section, the cells, and the design that we leaked early on has changed considerably. But it’s still very much inspired by those [Ralph McQuarrie] illustrations.”

*sigh*

This is the single most depressing thing about the new series.

Marc DeBevoise, president and COO of CBS Interactive points out that he expects Star Trek: Discovery to get about 15 million viewers for its series premiere on CBS. He noted that Star Trek TV shows tend to average 2 million to 5 million viewers for their first two years as reruns on Netflix. “We think this is a pretty good bet for us to make to grow our subscriber base next year,” he said.
One reporter noted All Access shows will have commercials for new programming, so “Why do I have to pay you $6?” he asked. In other words: Why pay a premium for content that has advertisements? “The value is the depth and breath of the service that you can’t get anywhere else,” DeBevoise says. Another critic accused them of asking people to effectively “pay for CBS twice.” DeBevoise countered: “This original content is not on CBS, this is extra value.”

I won't be paying for it, you can count on that. I'm not even completely convinced I'll be watching it at all.

Earlier Wednesday, CBS was hammered by critics during its executive session for having six new fall shows starring white male actors. But Fuller’s idea to seek out a diverse cast isn’t a reaction to the recent surge of CBS diversity criticism. The former Hannibal showrunner first enthused about the idea of a black female captain in a hypothetical Star Trek series back in 2013. “I want Angela Bassett to be the captain, that’s who I would love to have,” he said. “Captain Angela Bassett and First Officer Rosario Dawson. I would love to do that version of the show and that’s in the future to be told.”

Still don't care what colour or gender anybody is.