Little C: Please Let Us Have A Good Star Trek
Readers, there's s troubling development going on in the nerd verse right now. No, I wasn't talking about the show set in a world where cars run on blood (although that trailer made my vision go all swimmy so I'm tapping out. Let me know if it's good and I will take your word for it). I'm talking about the current run of weird news about Star Trek: Discovery.
We're huge nerds in a lot of ways, so it should shock no one that CT and I have an enduring fondness for all things Trek. So when CBS announced they were doing a new Star Trek series and that Bryan Fuller was in charge... There were happy tears. But since then the start of the show has been pushed back multiple times. Fuller has been replaced as showrunner and then actively distanced himself from it. And then CBS announced that Star Trek: Discovery was going to air exclusively on their streaming platform. I can handle this news. If the show is worth it I will shill out the $8 a month to keep up. It's less than I spend on my nail polish addiction.
Here's where they may have lost me. The head of the network recently dodged answering when the show would come out which is not a great sign. And then the CEO of CBS Interactive, Jim Lanzone, said the following on a podcast. "Scifi is not something that has traditionally done really well on broadcast. It’s not impossible, for the future, if somebody figures it out. And things like Lost and Heroes have had parts of, you know, scifi, but historically, a show like Star Trek wouldn’t necessarily be a broadcast show, at this point. And so, you kind of look at the other networks we have, CW and Showtime, it just fit the with the digital audience and having that digital Star Trek audience."
What? No really. What? He claims broadcast networks can't make scifi work and then he name dropped the CW? Like 70% of their shows are scifi. There's nothing gritty and realistic about Legends of Tomorrow and THAT'S WHY IT'S DELIGHTFUL! The longest running scifi/fantasy TV show of ALL TIME is currently airing on the CW. And then he lumps in Showtime as if premium cable is striking out left and right trying to make a fantasy show work. THEY FIGURED IT OUT JIM!
Okay, sorry. I'm calming down. But here's why this bugs so deeply. This guy clearly has no idea how the modern nerd works, or even that the modern nerd is no longer a minority consumer for media. The top grossing films for the last few years are super hero movies. HBO cannot seem to throw enough money into creating high quality fantasy shows. You can't only half take something like Star Trek seriously because it's scifi. The geeks run things now and we are super unforgiving of people who don't treat our favorites with respect.
So I'm hoping that CBS can course correct. I'm hoping that the two showrunners that Fuller left behind are crafting a Trek that will fill me with the same hope and pure nerd love that the original and Deep Space Nine did. I'm hoping I don't have to gather a torch and join the angry mob that will storm whatever castle we can find if they screw this up.
Stay nerdy
Little C
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We're huge nerds in a lot of ways, so it should shock no one that CT and I have an enduring fondness for all things Trek. So when CBS announced they were doing a new Star Trek series and that Bryan Fuller was in charge... There were happy tears. But since then the start of the show has been pushed back multiple times. Fuller has been replaced as showrunner and then actively distanced himself from it. And then CBS announced that Star Trek: Discovery was going to air exclusively on their streaming platform. I can handle this news. If the show is worth it I will shill out the $8 a month to keep up. It's less than I spend on my nail polish addiction.
Here's where they may have lost me. The head of the network recently dodged answering when the show would come out which is not a great sign. And then the CEO of CBS Interactive, Jim Lanzone, said the following on a podcast. "Scifi is not something that has traditionally done really well on broadcast. It’s not impossible, for the future, if somebody figures it out. And things like Lost and Heroes have had parts of, you know, scifi, but historically, a show like Star Trek wouldn’t necessarily be a broadcast show, at this point. And so, you kind of look at the other networks we have, CW and Showtime, it just fit the with the digital audience and having that digital Star Trek audience."
 |
| source |
What? No really. What? He claims broadcast networks can't make scifi work and then he name dropped the CW? Like 70% of their shows are scifi. There's nothing gritty and realistic about Legends of Tomorrow and THAT'S WHY IT'S DELIGHTFUL! The longest running scifi/fantasy TV show of ALL TIME is currently airing on the CW. And then he lumps in Showtime as if premium cable is striking out left and right trying to make a fantasy show work. THEY FIGURED IT OUT JIM!
Okay, sorry. I'm calming down. But here's why this bugs so deeply. This guy clearly has no idea how the modern nerd works, or even that the modern nerd is no longer a minority consumer for media. The top grossing films for the last few years are super hero movies. HBO cannot seem to throw enough money into creating high quality fantasy shows. You can't only half take something like Star Trek seriously because it's scifi. The geeks run things now and we are super unforgiving of people who don't treat our favorites with respect.
Stay nerdy
Little C
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