Here’s what I think the new Star Trek series will be about
We’re two weeks away from San Diego Comic-Con, where Bryan Fuller will moderate a panel with actors from all five Star Trek television series. Excitement is high for this panel, not only because it’s San Diego Comic-Con, and William Shatner, Scott Bakula, Jeri Ryan, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner will be there, but that it looks like we’re finally going to get some concrete information about the new show: “…as well as what’s to come as the franchise gets ready to boldly return to the small screen.”
So, within the small amount of time we have left to speculate as wildly as we can, I figure’d it was about time to throw my own thoughts out there.
Prime Timeline or Kelvin Timeline? The recent, legal history of ‘Star Trek’ may have the answer
There’s no use in speculating beyond this point without first guessing as to which timeline the new series will take place in.
After following all the breadcrumbs I could find about the show, I’m forced to conclude it will be in the Prime Timeline. Though a new Star Trek in the Prime Timeline has been something I’ve wanted ever since I learned about Star Trek 2009’s setting within the new, Kelvin Timeline, I don’t believe I’m letting my wants get in the way of my reasoning here.
Let’s go back to nearly a decade before the announcement of Star Trek 2017, to when CBS split off from its parent company Viacom (which included Paramount, the movie studio). To make a long story short — and I’m hopefully getting this right, because reports of what I can find are slightly contradictory — the rights of Star Trek became entangled in the split.
Essentially, CBS holds the right to make more Star Trek television shows, and has control over all merchandise, whether it be movies or television shows. Paramount, on the other hand, has the right to produce and distribute Star Trek movies. As such, producing Star Trek television shows and movies at the same time would require a lot of cooperation between Paramount and CBS, corporations that have separate goals and means when it comes to making money, and who would have to cooperate to maintain universe continuity. This, understandably, would be very difficult.
In 2013, rumors (so, unconfirmed, but they do sound likely) swirled that one of the reasons Abrams left the Star Trek franchise is because he and his production company, Bad Robot, had a grand vision fora new era of Star Trek that included a unified set of movies, comic books, and television shows like those of Marvel and Star Wars.
This ambition didn’t come to fruition because CBS and Paramount can’t work that closely.
Competing ambitions between Paramount, CBS and Abrams’ production company Bad Robot over merchandising surrounding the first film in the rebooted “Star Trek” franchise led the director to curtail plans to turn the series into a multi-platform experience that spanned television, digital entertainment and comic books, according to an individual with knowledge of the dispute.
“J.J. just threw up his hands,” the individual told TheWrap. “The message was, ‘Why set up all this when we’ll just be competing against ourselves?’ The studio wanted to please Bad Robot, but it was allowing CBS to say yay or nay when it came to what was happening with the ‘Star Trek’ products.”
CBS used Star Trek 2009 (and now Into Darkness and Beyond) to market merchandising based on the original Star Trek series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (not to mention everything else Trek). Abrams and Bad Robot had an issue with this, especially for the release of Star Trek 2009. When they approached CBS asking to cease production of the original series merchandise because of brand confusion, CBS told them…well…they kinda told them to stuff it:
TheWrap has learned that Bad Robot asked CBS to stop making products featuring the original cast, but talks broke down over money. The network was making roughly $20 million a year on that merchandise and had no incentive to play nice with its former corporate brother, the individual said. In response, the company scaled back its ambitions to have “Star Trek’s” storylines play out with television shows, spin-off films and online components, something Abrams had been eager to accomplish.
So, it seems like making Star Trek television shows and movies at the same time would prove to be near impossible…unless, of course, the shows and the movies took place in their own timelines.
This benefits both companies the most, as they can do whatever they want so long as they keep to their respective timelines. CBS and Paramount don’t have to cooperate at all, except on merchandising for whatever movies Paramount wants to make (and Paramount will want to make more movies after Beyond, it’s one of their biggest movie franchises), and making sure the release of the show doesn’t overshadow the movie, and vice versa.
Presently, the merchandising CBS is selling now is predominantly Prime Timeline. Take a look at products listed on Startrek.com or ThinkGeek.
CBS’ comments make more sense if the show is being placed in the Prime Timeline
Since the announcement of Star Trek 2017, everything CBS has said about it has been ambiguous. Parsing their statements looking for clues is hard to do, but when you consider everything I’ve pointed out here, it may not be such a useless endeavor.
Here are these quotes from the original press release:
“This new series will premiere to the national CBS audience, then boldly go where no first-run Star Trek series has gone before — directly to its millions of fans through CBS All Access,” said Marc DeBevoise, Executive Vice President/General Manager — CBS Digital Media. “We’ve experienced terrific growth for CBS All Access, expanding the service across affiliates and devices in a very short time. We now have an incredible opportunity to accelerate this growth with the iconic Star Trek, and its devoted and passionate fan base, as our first original series.”
“Every day, an episode of the Star Trek franchise is seen in almost every country in the world,” said Armando Nuñez, President and CEO, CBS Global Distribution Group. “We can’t wait to introduce Star Trek’s next voyage on television to its vast global fan base.”
Two things going on here:
- CBS is saying that, even with the latest Star Trek material from Paramount, the five television series do a lot — and I’d be willing to best most — of the heavy lifting when it comes to the fanbase. You want the best of Star Trek? You want Star Trek? You go to the shows.
- CBS is acknowledging Trek’s passionate fanbase, which has, and is, most invested in the TV shows.
Couple those passages with these recent statements from CBS Corporate President Les Moonves:
Star Trek is an expensive show, it’s the family jewel, obviously. The previous Star Trek shows that we sold to Netflix did extraordinarily well; I don’t think it’s a great surprise that Trekkies would go to the [streaming services] of the world. So we sort of felt that we had a tiger in the bottle.
When you put something on [All Access], it’s got to be something special, something you wouldn’t find on the [CBS broadcast network], something that will attract subscribers. As I said, Star Trek was kind of a no-brainer: there aren’t a lot of [properties] out there with that kind of following.
Our deal with them is that we had to wait six months after their film is launched so there wouldn’t be a confusion in the marketplace.
If CBS were to release a show set in the Kelvin Timeline, that would make the older shows irrelevant, and perhaps very fast. It’s a lot of money for CBS to leave on the table: from re-licensing the older shows to streaming services (all the older Star Trek shows just went up in the UK and Canada, and are up on Amazon), to selling them to fans with HD re-releases and special effects upgrades, like what has been done with The Next Generation and The Original Series. The case and opportunity for a Deep Space Nine remaster, for example, becomes much stronger if there’s a successful Star Trek series currently airing. A new show set in the Prime Timeline will allow all Star Trek series to support each other and give fans (new and old) a richer experience.
“Something that will attract subscribers” also makes more sense when you consider a show in the Prime Timeline. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that a show set in the Prime Timeline would generate far more excitement than one set in the Kelvin Timeline.
And, anyway, why would a show set in the Kelvin Timeline create confusion in the marketplace?
None of this, of course, isn’t to say there aren’t arguments to be made for the show being set in the Kelvin Timeline. Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote Star Trek 2009 and Into Darkness, is serving as executive producer. The logo in the teaser trailer CBS released earlier this year is pretty Kelvin Timeline-esque. It’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely.
The SDCC panel Bryan Fuller is set to hold with stars from the five Star Trek series and reveal details about the new show is telling, I think. Why would Bryan Fuller invite prominent Star Trek actors to be on a panel with him just for him to announce that the new series won’t have anything to do with those characters or the universe they’re in?
Right, then. If it’s set in the Prime Timeline, when will the show be set?
My bet is on a post-‘Nemesis’ series
It’s a conclusion I arrived at through a process of elimination. Of course, if I’ve guessed incorrectly at the context of the options available, then I’m terribly wrong — but that goes for this entire post. So, you know, whatever. I’ll outline my thought process below.
First, here’s Nick Meyer, one of the executive producers of Star Trek 2017, revealing one of the most concrete — yet still incredibly vague! — bits of information we currently have about the show:
The one thing I can relate to you is that The Undiscovered Country — according to Bryan [Fuller] — is a real sort of taking off point, or touchstone for how I guess he’s thinking about the direction of the new show. I don’t want to be misquoted and I don’t want to misquote him, but he’s fond of that film. Let’s put it that way.
The Undiscovered Country was an analogy for the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and in the Star Trek universe, brought lasting peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. From Meyer’s comments, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to guess that the new series will start, and cover, a similar in-universe event.
One might be tempted to think that Meyer’s remarks could suggest that the new series will take place between The Undiscovered Country and The Next Generation, as rumors reported by Devin Faraci have suggested. Bryan Fuller rumor-busted that idea in an interview with MovieFone, though:
I’ve read that we’re [set] before “Next Generation,” after [“Star Trek VI: The] Undiscovered Country,” which is false. I’ve read that it’s an anthology show, which is not accurate. So it’s interesting to see those suggestions, and seeing the truth mixed in with them and going like, “Oh, they got that part right…” But it’s sort of on the truth-o-meter on PolitiFacts. It’s sort of like some truth, and a lot of like, “No — pants on fire! That’s not true.”
Given the context of Bryan’s comments, it’s notable what he did not debunk. Faraci also reported four additional things Bryan doesn’t mention here, any of which could fit into his “Oh, they got that part right…” or “a lot of like, ‘No — pants on fire!’’ observations: the show will be “heavily” serialized (which we have learned is seemingly true), feature villainous Klingons, will not take place on an Enterprise, and will take place within the Prime Timeline.
Now, it’s reasonable to assume Bryan didn’t have all four of those specific rumors in his head during his interview with MovieFone, so it’s hard to say which of the four other rumors will turn out to be true or really, really wrong.
As I’ve laid out here, though, we can be reasonably sure the new show will take place in the Prime Timeline. In fact, one of Bryan’s comments in the same interview with MovieFone probably offers the best evidence we have for this piece of speculation.
Interviewer: Would you like to revisit any characters? Is there a window open to bring in characters that have been established in the canon?
Bryan: Eventually. Eventually.
To be sure, there’s some ambiguity in this question and answer, as Scott Huver, the person who interview Bryan for MovieFone, admits. But he also had this to say when I asked him over Twitter about the context of his remarks:
In response to whether “characters established in the canon” meant Prime Timeline or Kelvin Timeline
So, from my limited perspective, there’s only one event the Prime Timeline that fits the following conditions: the show will not take place between The Undiscovered Country and The Next Generation, it will feature characters “established in the canon”, and it will, at least in the beginning, have a story comparable to The Undiscovered Country.
From my limited (re: outsider’s) perspective, there’s only one event in the Prime Timeline that fits those three conditions: The destruction of Romulus, as shown, ironically, in Star Trek 2009.
The destruction of the home planet of the Romulan Star Empire, one of the three great Alpha Quadrant powers, will have caused significant chaos within the Prime Timeline. This means it frees the writers up extraordinarily well—quite a playground to explore.
The loss of their home planet will likely force the Romulans to enter some temporary truce with the Federation, similar to what happened between the Federation and the Klingon Empire in The Undiscovered Country. It will also, probably, have caused the reach of their empire to shrink, opening up new areas for the Federation to explore. As well, new aliens to rise up and make their presence known, because before they had the Romulans to quell any uprisings. Other races in the galaxy will no doubt want to take advantage of the Romulans’ time of weakness….
And because the annhilation of Romulus took place in 2387, eight years after the events of Star Trek Nemesis (so, the new show will take place in 2387 or later), that gives Fuller and co. a fantastic opportunity to revisit characters “established in the canon”. It’s hard to fathom the levels of excitement and hype the fans will go to when they hear that we’ll be seeing Worf, Picard, Garak, Kira, Seven of Nine, Tom Paris, or Martok in a future episode. A propsect too good to say no to….
Now, let’s check back here in two weeks to see how laughably wrong I am!
