STAR TREK: DISCOVERY STARTS THIS FALL
There have been many. many iterations of Star Trek. At last count we’ve had about, oh, 30 movies and 48 TV shows. Or something.
Okay, our math might be a little off. But the truth is, the public’s appetite for all things Trek shows no signs of abating. Nor should it! If there are, famously, 8 million stories in the naked city, there must be, like 80 billion out in the galaxy-rich reaches of outer space, right?
So what can we expect from this new Trek, announced earlier this year?
DISCOVER DISCOVERY
NPR:
Discovery is the first Star Trek TV series in a dozen years, and it was developed without many of the gatekeepers who turned TV versions of Trek into predictable, muddied messes many years ago.
The premise is geek heaven: The Walking Dead alum Sonequa Martin-Green plays a human who was adopted and raised by Sarek, father to Trek’s most beloved character, Spock. Critics haven’t seen a screener yet, but Trek nerds are optimists. We want to believe in a utopian future, so we’re gonna keep the faith that Discovery will go where no Trek show has gone before. The first episode will air on CBS, and the rest of the season is only available on CBS All Access, the network’s streaming site.
Adds Screenrant:
There’s quite a bit riding on Discovery’s success. The future of the franchise’s rebooted film series is still in a sort of limbo, as last year’s Star Trek Beyond, while critically acclaimed and embraced by fans, was a financial disappointment at the box office. While cast members like Karl Urban have said they’d be game to return for a fourth outing, there’s been no solid indication that Paramount is gearing up for another Star Trek movie.
And while the success of the films is not unimportant, Star Trek is, in its purest form, a television series. The heart of the franchise has always been telling episodic stories that deliver important lessons about big, bold themes of humanity’s aspirational spirit, with well rounded ensemble casts that always end up feeling like families. Discovery is already ditching one of those cornerstones, as the show will reportedly be highly serialized, a first for Star Trek outside of the later seasons of Deep Space Nine.
This should be good.