geektrek

From a business perspective, it is a tad ridiculous that CBS doesn’t have any Trek shows in development at this point. With a new movie coming, one that could potentially re-invigorate the franchise, it would seem pertanent to get onto the task of selecting another show to develop to capitalize on the new, forth-coming fanbase that will hopefully be generated by next summer’s release. If CBS wanted to strike while the iron was hot, they should have something on the boards now, not after the film’s release when the development of a new program could set back the airdate of the show by three years after the release of the film.
I had heard that Les Moonves, the head of CBS, actually hates sci-fi and is riding high on three CSI series, plus Survivor and Big Brother ( which his wife is the host of ).
The thing that Paramount did that was way off-base, and put CBS in this position, was let Rick Berman get so much control over Trek in the first place. Once GR had passed on, R Berman did a damned good job with TNG, and DS9 for a while. But he was the only person in charge of 4 series and a series of movies as well. That’s utterly ridiculous. You can’t have a coorperate structure without a shuffling/exit strategy. Disney suffered the same problem when they realized that Micheal Eisner had no successor and could have left at anytime, leaving the studio is absolute chaos.
I think that Berman was perhaps grooming Brannon Bragga to be his successor but chose poorly because his protoge in all those years didn’t really learn much about what Trek was about. When the Enterprise ax fell, Paramount looked angrily in Bragga’s direction.
Then Berman committed studio suicide by refusing to back any other Trek properties but a planned cinematic trilogy BASED ON ENTERPRISE!!!! He seriously thought he could get the studio to back a multi-million dollar series of films based on his maligned, cancelled TV series. It has been said that he left, rather than was fired but it doesn’t sound like he had much of a choice.
So now were stuck in Trek limbo on TV, mostly because Paramount didn’t think ahead. There was no “Hey, you think maybe our tentpole Sci-Fi series should have more than one guy in charge?” meeting. All of the heads of drama development at CBS are women - not the friendliest bunch to the notion of Trek/Sci-Fi. Right now, the television future of the franchise doesn’t look too bright.
However, there is a new movie coming, and should that film meet expectations, we might see a ray of hope for Trek’s television future.
One thing that CBS might want to look into is making a broader Trek program, for the whole family audience. Not saying less action, or sexiness etc. Just one free of obscure concepts, like lost in a weird quadrant or on a space station in a complicated political situation. One that is more family accessible. After all , your grandpa watched Trek 40 years ago, your mom and dad watched it 30 years ago, you watched it 15 years ago and your kids can watch it with you now.
Does CBS even have any shows the whole family can watch together? What airs on Sunday nights after 60 minutes? If you got my whole family together for Sunday dinner, you can bet your a*s the show we’d all sit down and watch would be a new Star Trek. Face it, the Simpsons has run out of gas, Family guy is not appropriate for children, what else is there?
We need a new Star Trek on Sunday nights on CBS!!!!

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