Star Trek 2017: Five questions I still have

It’s been two weeks now since The Big News, when this is where my mind went in the first few hours …  while many fans went off, not on the potential show but on its potential delivery system.

But with all the immediate hand-wringing since by media types, pundits, and fans somehow armed with a Twitter account… there’s been absolutely no news on the content side of the equation. 

Which itself speaks volumes.

But it has been two weeks… and I still have a lot of unanswered questions.  Maybe the dust has settled enough for others to see this as well, but….

Here’s what I just want to know:

1)    How big is the show order? Eight, 10, 12, 18 episodes? As an expensive streaming show, how much investment and risk is CBS willing to stake, and for how far ahead a commitment? 

2)    Where they will shoot this for CBS Television Studio... in LA (at Paramount, a CBS studio, or elsewhere) … or out of town: Vancouver, Toronto, who knows? I ask purely for selfish and convenience reasons...as well as for that great pool of experienced Trek talent from all areas of production who would easily and seamlessly help jump-start a new production--no matter who was in charge or their best "same but different" vision. And who of course could use a job. 

3)    Is the "CBS preview" an hour-long promotional preview with interviews and demo features, or the actual pilot episode? 

4)    Is Alex Kurtzman to be an actual hands-on showrunner, or a Dick Wolf “nameplate” type who picks a showrunner and then moves on, leaving all in the hireling’s hands? And, if so, who IS that “real” showrunner to be, and then who else will be in on the format development of characters and setting? The actual CBS press release was not shy about admitting that writers have been interviewed—but did not to specify if they were actual show runners, or pilot writers, much less who had been hired. Obviously, no one, as of then—or even now: that hire and clarification will surely be a news-making moment. 

5)    And ultimately, of course, the big le-matya: The timeline choice between Prime and alt-JJ as the setting.

And that last brings up a couple angles in this tale you may not yet have considered:

It struck me, after the CBS-Bad Robot tug-of-war over the legacy fate of all things Prime, that CBS has that vested interest $$wise in building on the existing library and its spin-off products. By 2015, surely it is hardly Trekkie mumbo-jumbo to the network brass to understand this, and to push for hiring creatives who can easily design and tell stories in “canon” and still feel unencumbered and unchained in their storytelling/visualizing. (#primeisnotscary #primeisnothard )

Of course, many may be confusing the potential apples and oranges of this  “JJverse” vs “prime” question: there's also the visual canon versus the timeline canon—and then, the mistake of equating either choice as simply the 1980s and the 2010s. They aren’t, of course: a “modern Bad Robot” quality can be both indulged and intelligently applied to a pre-TNG setting or a post-TNG setting in Prime as well as alt-verse…if the right drivers are given the keys. Don't assume that a "Prime" show means it has to look like 1987 production technology, or even 1995. 

My own preference? Many of you know I've said it time and again for years, both in podcast interviews and live at cons--since the end of Enterprise: Prime, of course, since that's the franchise strength of 730+ hours... And in the "B/C" era, midway Kirk/Picard. It's the most open and most intriguing...and still plenty latitude for nervous nellies worried about "canon freak." The Tomed Invident? Cardassian first contact? Perhaps Bajoran and Breen, too? Evolving Klingon detente, and the Romuksns "silent" reaction against them? But only as touchstones--still lots of open spacescape to explore, both literally and figuratively.

Which leads to another reality that’s been overlooked here: Of all the potential showrunners we might like to see, with or without Trek credits already… how many of them are not tied up by contract to another studio and are even free and clear to navigate to CBS's Trek?

Seen in that light, this business-driven renaissance that had Kurtzman in the first press release might have been more about having his name and friendly CBS-based deal involved than his recent film experience—an experience he had already chosen to end for the third movie, even before former partner Bob Orci was taken off the project.

Yes, it will all come out in the wash—sooner than later, actually, in these next 15 months.  So many, many questions still unanswered—and maybe a few assumptions to be second-guessed as well.

STV: BLTN*: Open 'The Gates' TONIGHT for Robert Hewitt Wolfe

Thanks to my "lost August," I'm only now getting to blog this video I grabbed with Robert Hewitt Wolfe at Comic-Con. Aside from Majel's memorial service in early '09, I had not really seen much of "Wolfie" since his days in the Hart Building as a young writer on DS9—starting with the Bareil/Winn debut, "In The Hands of the Prophets."

Though slow to post it, this "Switching to Visual" is a good reminder TODAY that his second ep of the season for The Gates airs tonight on ABC (10 PM PT/ET). In this, we cover that AND the funner stuff of Comic-Con San Diego, too... all from the sparse decore of my signing table.

Just goes to show how the serendipity of any con for anybody at any time can be a fun thing... So thank you, Mrs. Fields, for being the magnet that drew us together!



*Better Late Than Never!

The Royalties on the Edge of Forever

Well, now we are REALLY in a retro-Star Trek era. Just like old times, Harlan is in a feud with Paramount.... er, Paramount/CBS, on the TV side.

After all these years and talk of having made up with the studio—or just mellowed out—Harlan Ellison is kickin' up a Star Trek ruckus once again and grabbin' headlines. And—can you blame him?—it's all about the offshoot money.

Sure, by modern standards, Harlan was never on staff, and penned only one episode. It's just that that "one epsiode" is perhaps the most iconic of the original series, so much so that it easily clears the bar for even Christmas ornament status...

TV vs. Movie: Think about this

On the heels of my last musings about What Hath ST2009 Wrought... or will ... I thought I better get on the record with this now.

I've said it before and I'll be saying it again:

By any measure, whether this movie sinks or soars—and I'm betting on the latter!—I'm wondering when everyone will wake up and realize it is JUST a movie.

I don't mean the quality ... I mean the fact that's it just two hours of film. Taking two years to produce. And it's another two-year wait for just another two hours.

If this is the safest way back to public respect for Star Trek by the all-knowing mainstream media and the all-funding studio investors, then so be it.

But Star Trek will never again be how we now think and remember it—the fandom, the escalating excitement, the onrush of cool factor—until it returns to television. Not until we return to the days when there's one weekly adventure after another being constantly cranked out, not matter what the format or era or character set (assumig it's top-notch, of course) will we really return to the heady days of the '90s and early Aughts.

We need characters evolving, gadgets a-gleaming and canon deepening more than just two hours every two years.

Sometime around May 15 or 20, a week or two after this movie opens to roaring success, everyone will wake up and suddenly remember that fact.