Star Trek Discovery ***Season 2*** [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

fritzelly

pixelburp wrote: »

There's also the element that ostensibly this is a US show, with only Netflix ensuring international broadcast. Probably doesn't occur to CBS that non US folk might want to watch those miniepisodes. Heck if it wasn't for Netflix I doubt this thread would have been any quieter.

No American network finances a show with the view that this is a US show!
They generally make more money from selling it overseas than they do at home
They're are several shows that do really well overseas but do nothing at home and part of the reason they were renewed and Netflix is also a reason for reselling the shows to international audiences to finance further seasons

pixelburp

fritzelly wrote: »

No American network finances a show with the view that this is a US show!
They generally make more money from selling it overseas than they do at home

Given how they treat the Trek license, I don't rule out CBS being brainless. I like Discovery, but the studio don't seem to know what to do with the property.

fritzelly

pixelburp wrote: »

Given how they treat the Trek license, I don't rule out CBS being brainless. I like Discovery, but the studio don't seem to know what to do with the property.

Don't know what you mean by that - they produced a great first season of a new Trek show (promising a new show for years with nothing happening).
They played it for the money with CBS in the US (massive uptake for CBS All Access) and sold it on to Netflix for the global audience - if you don't think they made tank loads of money and with Netflix committed to licencing the second season
CBS seems to know exactly what they are doing and what direction Trek should be taking at the moment

Inviere

fritzelly wrote: »

When something is hard to get it becomes more of a commodity (isn't that how Apple works?)

Obtaining torrents/streams isn’t exactly difficult for most these days. In fact, it’s never been easier. When it’s not possible to pay for something you want to see, there’s only one other way to watch it.

pixelburp

fritzelly wrote: »

Don't know what you mean by that - they produced a great first season of a new Trek show (promising a new show for years with nothing happening).
They played it for the money with CBS in the US (massive uptake for CBS All Access) and sold it on to Netflix for the global audience - if you don't think they made tank loads of money and with Netflix committed to licencing the second season
CBS seems to know exactly what they are doing and what direction Trek should be taking at the moment

It's around the fringes that CBS have shown cynicism IMO, or bad faith anyway towards their own franchise & community. You look to incidents like the 'Axanar' debacle that has now left the fan community suffocated by a 'code of conduct' that IIRC basically shuttered stuff like Star Trek: Continues (open to correction, and on Axanar, that crew share the blame here by trying to commercialise their project).

The CBS lawyers are also fairly twitchy, just this week throwing a Cease and Desist towards an innocent virtual recreation of the Enterprise-D. This isn't uncommon - Fox / WB are equally aggressive towards these sort of things - but it's also petty and sours a community.

The 50th anniversary passed by without much fanfare from CBS; I'm not sure what they should have done, but again IIRC there was a token documentary and that was it. Meanwhile, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise remain without a remaster 'cos of greed over the equivalent for TNG that eventually flopped.

And as for Discovery itself, I think it eventually came good, but not without a lot of panic and chaos in the production. Remember how this was supposed to be an anthology series from Bryan Fuller? Yes, previous iterations have had rocky starts - and made the argument myself - but it's not really something Trek should be aiming for. About 3/4s of the first season was a mess, and its almost aggressive separation from preexisting series arguably alienated a chunk of its audience before it even came out.

The recent news about Picard's return and Alex Kurtzman's 'master plan' doesn't inspire faith either: I mean ostensibly the return of Captain Picard could be a good idea - if done right. But between this and Discovery it feels like CBS' plans are more about nostalgia trawling than forging a new path for the franchise.

And that's before we even talk about the holy mess that is the Paramount / CBS rights: no idea how that circle gets squared.

So honestly? No, I don't think CBS do know what to do with the Trek license, bar make some licensing money off Netflix.

AtomicHorror

pixelburp wrote: »

The CBS lawyers are also fairly twitchy, just this week throwing a Cease and Desist towards an innocent virtual recreation of the Enterprise-D. This isn't uncommon - Fox / WB are equally aggressive towards these sort of things - but it's also petty and sours a community.

I've been following that project and this is a real shame.

That's the second one of those projects they have shut down. All that work from devoted fans to create something that would probably never be profitable, appealing only to other fans with a real love of TNG. A project CBS would simply never fund and could therefore never be said to be in competition with.

All that creates is bitterness and resentment.

The creatives behind Discovery have an exciting vision for Star Trek, but the greater CBS are idiots.

pixelburp

I suppose to be devil's advocate, it was technically CBS' legal reps who made the C&D and without understanding fan communities presumably saw the recreation as 'too good' for amateur work - but ultimately the direction came down from the studio itself. It's a phenomenally petty action, and just erodes the good will between your fanbase and franchise - especially after Axanar being a big enough rift to begin with. And especially given Discovery ruffled enough feathers as it stands.

CBS don't give a damn about Star Trek beyond how much money it can make, and I suspect the fact the rights are split between two studios means they only see it as a half-franchise, not something worth too much investment, lest it benefits someone else.

In fact, I only barely remember it and can't find the source, but I swear I read the CBS CEO claim their apathy towards Trek was down to a belief nobody watched Sci-Fi anymore. This being a station whose content is lobsided towards all those police procedurals that clog up the airwaves (NCIS, SWAT, Hawaii-5-0 etc.). They literally wouldn't know what to do with Trek because it just isn't their bag.

Inviere

AtomicHorror wrote: »

I've been following that project and this is a real shame.

That's the second one of those projects they have shut down. All that work from devoted fans to create something that would probably never be profitable, appealing only to other fans with a real love of TNG. A project CBS would simply never fund and could therefore never be said to be in competition with.

All that creates is bitterness and resentment.

The creatives behind Discovery have an exciting vision for Star Trek, but the greater CBS are idiots.

To make matters worse, the devs of Stage9 purposely didn’t release the latest version of their work in VR so it didn’t conflict in any way with the release of the TNG Bridge Crew DLC. They released a desktop only version of it, and everyone was hyped for the newest VR version. So much for good will. Assholes.

TheValeyard

It was an amazing project. Loved the VR and non VR version.

This kinda CBS crap just pisses everyone off.

fritzelly

Many years ago went to the see the Star Trek exhibition in London. Apart from the Enterprise bridge everything else was pretty crap. Expecting to see real stuff from the series but most stuff looked like cheap remodels - even the phasers looked like some one had just carved some wood to look like a phaser. I wonder was CBS involved in that? Probably

AtomicHorror

fritzelly wrote: »

Many years ago went to the see the Star Trek exhibition in London. Apart from the Enterprise bridge everything else was pretty crap. Expecting to see real stuff from the series but most stuff looked like cheap remodels - even the phasers looked like some one had just carved some wood to look like a phaser. I wonder was CBS involved in that? Probably

It's entirely possible the crap was legit. Background props don't tend to hold up well to close inspection, particularly from pre-HD era TV. Unless it's a "hero" prop, it'll be pretty crude.

Ethereal Cereal

AtomicHorror wrote: »

It's entirely possible the crap was legit. Background props don't tend to hold up well to close inspection, particularly from pre-HD era TV. Unless it's a "hero" prop, it'll be pretty crude.

The phaser Archer used in the mirror episode of Enterprise was actually a toy phaser that was on sale at the time.

TheIrishGrover

Yeah, I mean it's not like they hate Trek - it makes them a lot of money. However it does seem strange how they treat it. Star Trek is possibly the most famous franchise on TV. Everyone knows about it, even if they don't watch it.
It never has received the mainstream crossover that some genre shows have: The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Lost etc. But it still has a large following that generates a pretty large and reliable income.
Production costs are probably quite high for a station that has few genre shows. Their shows consist of comedy and cop shows (The Big Bang Theory, various NCIS shows etc). And the whole convoluted legality of movies etc certainly doesn't help. Especially as, while the movies do OK, they are never gonna be up there with the Superhero and Star Wars movies.

As someone said, the 50th anniversary passed last year with barely a blip. Sci-Fi has never been hotter and it would have been a perfect time to carpet bomb media with Trek updates: Movie, "New series starting TODAY!!!!!", reinvention/reboot. Retrospectives etc.

So, while I don't think the hate Trek, I do believe that they begrudge the costs involved for the revenue received. They'll keep it going in case it suddenly does go full-on mainstream but really they are just dabbling their feet.

pixelburp

A trailer for the first of these "Short Trek" episodes; definitely looks like they're keeping them cheap & cheerful 'bottle' style stories:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juJEA6Hz9Nw

Optimus Prime

New poster for season 2. That look a bit like the Romulan insignia to anyone else?

pixelburp

That red, winged ... something could be seen in the trailer too. Presumably the origin of these dots across the galaxy

Optimus Prime

yeh it just reminds me of the Romulans, when you take into account their log, and the bird on their old ship from the original series.

fritzelly

Poster is a link to Spock so Romulans may be part of it

Evade

Optimus Prime wrote: »

New poster for season 2. That look a bit like the Romulan insignia to anyone else?

If that does turn out to be Romulan would that be STD dropping all pretense that it isn't a reboot?

FutureGuy

If you haven't seen the trailers...

The poster has 7 red blips, teh same as in the trailer. The winged entity is also in the trailer.

It's nothing to do with Romulans in my opinion.

Optimus Prime

Ive seen the trailer, it just reminded me of the romulan insignia, sure we will find out in due course anyways.

AMKC

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

Yeah, I mean it's not like they hate Trek - it makes them a lot of money. However it does seem strange how they treat it. Star Trek is possibly the most famous franchise on TV. Everyone knows about it, even if they don't watch it.
It never has received the mainstream crossover that some genre shows have: The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Lost etc. But it still has a large following that generates a pretty large and reliable income.
Production costs are probably quite high for a station that has few genre shows. Their shows consist of comedy and cop shows (The Big Bang Theory, various NCIS shows etc). And the whole convoluted legality of movies etc certainly doesn't help. Especially as, while the movies do OK, they are never gonna be up there with the Superhero and Star Wars movies.

As someone said, the 50th anniversary passed last year with barely a blip. Sci-Fi has never been hotter and it would have been a perfect time to carpet bomb media with Trek updates: Movie, "New series starting TODAY!!!!!", reinvention/reboot. Retrospectives etc.



So, while I don't think the hate Trek, I do believe that they begrudge the costs involved for the revenue received. They'll keep it going in case it suddenly does go full-on mainstream but really they are just dabbling their feet.

As someone said, the 50th anniversary passed last year

That was two years ago now and getting nearer to three yeas ago now.

tromtipp

The winged thingy could be a caduceus symbol - I'm re-watching Enterprise and it's prominently displayed in the sickbay there - maybe they are going to give us a story about a doctor.

Spear

To me the wings seemed more reminiscent of a phoenix symbol. Given how they tried to hide the twists last year, I doubt they'd be so on the nose as to announce any Romulan presence so blatantly.

tromtipp

maybe it's a phoenix-caduceus to symbolise a doctor risen from the ashes . . .

Spear

tromtipp wrote: »

maybe it's a phoenix-caduceus to symbolise a doctor risen from the ashes . . .

That possibility occurred to me too, since the casting was made public fairly early.

Optimus Prime

I wonder if they will address that spore that landed on Tillys Shoulder

TheValeyard

Optimus Prime wrote: »

I wonder if they will address that spore that landed on Tillys Shoulder

Its part of the Star Trek Shorts

pixelburp

Spear wrote: »

That possibility occurred to me too, since the casting was made public fairly early.

That was very surprising, had thought they would at least keep that one secret. I do wonder what capacity he's back: I'm presuming it's just a continuation of Stamet's 'visions'.

TheIrishGrover

Oh is the doctor back? In some capacity? That's good. I liked him as a character and actor and I liked their relationship. Thought his death was the typical American "Bury Your Gays" in that they tend to kill off any sympathetic gay character.