[audacity]

There is still so much to explore in that time line, not sure why they would abandon it.

There was definitely a "changing of the guard" when Rick Berman left (or was fired?), and I think the new guys just don't want to be slaves to too much "established canon". If we measure success by audience response, I think it's fair to say that rebooting the series with a new timeline has been successful. I'm not implying that they couldn't have been successful in the old, existing timeline, but I think doing the reboot allowed them to:

- Use the iconic characters of Kirk/Spock/McCoy
- Give a nod to the original timeline events without being bound to them (e.g. Star Trek Into Darkness)
- Be in the Kirk time period without the audience knowing what the future brings

I think the future being known to the audience hurts storytelling, it makes it less exciting. So, the real choices were to continue the story in a post-TNG time frame (and lose access to iconic characters) or to do something along the lines of what they did.
@wprager - I quite like Quinto as Spock. I think that was a fantastic casting decision, but I guess not everyone agrees.

 

[Dr.Dave]

New CBS STAR TREK Television Series to Live Long and Prosper in Canada with Bell Media

CBS Studios International and Bell Media today announced a licensing agreement for the new STAR TREK television series in Canada. With Bell Media’s acquisition of the exclusive linear television and subscription video on demand (SVOD) rights in English and French in Canada, each episode of the new STAR TREK series will be available simultaneously with its release in the U.S.

The rollout for the new STAR TREK series in Canada will mirror the launch in the U.S. The first episode will premiere on CTV on the same night as CBS. All remaining episodes will initially be televised on Bell Media’s cable networks, Space (in English) and Z (in French), and then later exclusively on CraveTV, Bell Media’s streaming video-on-demand service.

Bell Media has also licensed all 727 existing episodes of the STAR TREK television library, which will return to Space (in English) and debut on Cinépop (in French), and will also be found among CraveTV’s leading lineup of premium television series.

 

[Dr.Dave]

Netflix will be the exclusive premiere home of “Star Trek” in 188 countries (excluding the US and Canada). Each episode of the new series will be available globally within 24 hours of its U.S. premiere.

Source: https://media.netflix.com/en/press-releases/netflix-to-beam-new-cbs-star-trek-television-series-in-188-countries-around-the-world

 

[audacity]

Is anyone else disappointed that they'll need to watch Star Trek using old fashioned technology (i.e. broadcast TV) instead of the futuristic Netflix?

I mean, sure, I do have a HTPC which I can use to record the episodes, but it just seems like a lot of hassle. And commercials.

 

[tux]

Netflix futuristic? Wake me up when I can watch Star Trek from my holodeck.

 

[audacity]

Get a Samsung Gear VR and you can watch Netflix on it. Being able to do that is pretty cool!

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/38626

 

[reidw]

@dr dave: Just found this thread. Thanks for the update on the new Trek. I was beginning to wonder if Canadians were going to be able to see it legally. It gives me reason to keep Space on my TV. I had been thinking of cutting it off after the last season of Falling Skies this fall as aside from Dr Who which won't be back until late 2017, FS is the only show on Space I still find worth watching. Almost all the rest seems to be based on zombies taking over the world plus endless Castle and Bones reruns, neither of which have anything to do with Space's original concept.

 

[s40]

I like Dark Matter on Space, it is a reasonably good SF show in the old style of SF, but I am looking forward to seeing the new Star Trek show on Space.

 

[wprager]

I like Dark Matter, but it's more of a futuristic action show than science fiction. Although the latest episode has the Android meeting a group of self-aware androids. That's more like it, even though it did feel like a complete rip-off of Humans.

 

[DialgaChampion]

I wonder how many Americans are ticked off that A) the new series is being filmed in Canada, and B) Canadians actually get to watch it on TV, instead of being forced to sign up for CBS All Access. Airing it on Space Channel is probably the best broadcast decision Bell has made in a very, very long time. Now watch our satellite TV bills go up again to pay for however many millions of dollars Bell spent on acquiring the rights to this.

That having been said, I do wonder if Syfy will get it eventually. I heard that some time down the road, CBS will be distributing the series through other methods (probably after several seasons, or after it ends its run). It's just such a pain having to go back to using the garbage 9400 to record it, when the Hopper 3 has a much better interface, with detailed descriptions of episodes and such.

At least Bryan confirmed the new series is set in the prime universe, so we don't have to worry about any reboot Abrams/Kelvin timeline nonsense.

What I'm really wondering about though... because the new series is not restricted in terms of runtime, like a traditional TV show, each episode may vary in length, so Bell's going to have fun fiddling around with commercials on Space. Normally each episode of an hour-long TV series has around 44 minutes of show and 16 minutes of commercials, but with this new series, you might have one episode running 44 minutes, then another running 58 minutes, and so on, so either we're going to get less commercials when the episode's time runs longer, or Bell is going to add more commercials by just stretching out the episode to 90 minutes in total. Anyways, it'll be interesting to see what they do.

I'm also curious when Bell will put back the old Star Trek series on Space again. There was literally a riot on Space's Facebook page back in March when Bell initially lost the Trek TV rights and pulled all Trek series entirely from the channel, and replaced it with the Twilight Zone (acquired from CBS/Syfy). It's been almost an eternity since DS9 and Enterprise have aired on TV and I can't think of any better way for them to build up excitement around the new series, than by giving time slots on the schedule back to the old series. We're only about 5 months away from the premiere, so hopefully the previous Trek series get some airtime again.

 

[reidw]

@DialgaChampion:
A) I doubt if any would care or even know about the Canadian connection
B) Putting it on CBS All Access is going to teach CBS a big and painful lesson about the real level of interest in streaming. If it gets cut after a season it will be primarily because viewers weren't interested in watching or willing to pay for it over the not always reliable internet.

As for showing the old series I have just one question. How many times can an audience watch the same programs over and over again? I've found that each showing of an episode only serves to reveals problems with the episode that weren't noticed on initial viewings. The law of diminishing returns sets in.

And although this is off topic, I've found that if any series illustrates this law it is Castle. The stories just do not stand up to multiple viewings. If Space drops their seemingly endless all night Castle reruns for say DS9 I could live with that.

 

[gbamber]

All the old Treks are scheduled to return to Space.

You missed on option concerning run-time. They could cut out scenes like was done with Dr. Who to fit it into one hour.

Or have it run until a quarter after like they did with Ripper Street.

 

[reidw]

Cuts could be made to Doctor Who without doing too much damage to the stories because the producers built in disposable scenes/cut points. This was done to allow markets all over the word to tailor the series to local requirements and practices. The BBC is used to doing this. The Americans aren't. I'd put my money on Space allocating one hour and 15 min. time slots to accommodate varying program lengths.

 

[gbamber]

Never ever ever cut a show ... no fan of any show can stand that.

Keep Trek trekking at full length!

 

[reidw]

Back in the 70's when Star Trek Original went into syndication, just about every channel showing it made cuts to allow for extra commercials. Some stations had better editors than others. What you saw varied from station to station.

 

[gbamber]

Some stations chopped up "Charlie X" for certain suggestive scenes and "The City on the Edge of Forever" for a drug scene, and "Plato's Stepchildren" wasn't shown due to the inter-racial kiss. Censors suck.

 

[MCIBUS]

If you think putting it on Space was good for Canadians and bad for US subs imagine if they had put it on CTV!!

True those in the US that sub (to being able to receive the signal)to Bell Sat or Shaw Direct might be happy because of Space/CTV or those close enough to the Canadian boarder being able to picking up the OTA signal of CTV.

But why Space? By putting it on CTV they would not only get them more viewers(as CTV is available on basic/starter packages or OTA, compared to Space where you need to pay extra for it?

I don't know what the deal was between CBS & Bell for showing Star Trek in Canada, but I have a feeling part of it was they couldn't show the series on CTV(minus the pilot episode).

 

[reidw]

@MCIBUS: Space gives it a better chance of surviving on TV. To put a show on CTV requires a large audience. Star Trek doesn't really have that and overall has never had that on broadcast television except perhaps in the second season of the original series. It's science fiction and that genre usually doesn't do well on the networks for very long. Space is the perfect home for it as the ratings don't have to be as high. It also gives Space something to show beyond the Castle reruns.

 

[DialgaChampion]

Putting it on CBS All Access is going to teach CBS a big and painful lesson about the real level of interest in streaming. If it gets cut after a season it will be primarily because viewers weren't interested in watching or willing to pay for it over the not always reliable internet.

As for showing the old series I have just one question. How many times can an audience watch the same programs over and over again? I've found that each showing of an episode only serves to reveals problems with the episode that weren't noticed on initial viewings. The law of diminishing returns sets in. And although this is off topic, I've found that if any series illustrates this law it is Castle. The stories just do not stand up to multiple viewings. If Space drops their seemingly endless all night Castle reruns for say DS9 I could live with that.

That's my concern. As it is, Discovery's entire first season will only consist of 13 episodes (half of the length of previous Trek series, which is usually 20-26 episodes per season). If not enough people subscribe to All Access on a continual basis, Discovery's life might be shorter than Enterprise's... even shorter than TOS's possibly...

Also, regarding the repeats, I find it depends on the program. With the Star Trek series, I never seem to mind seeing the episodes over and over again, probably because there are so many of them. What was it? 700-some split between all the Trek series? So it literally takes forever, even watching them at 1 a day, for you to go through an entire Trek series, before it starts from the beginning again. Same thing with the Stargate series (except Universe). Castle on the other hand (thank goodness ABC finally axed it by the way) is like many of the newer sci-fi shows... they don't have the same kind of viewer retention. Newer sci-fi TV shows (I'd like to say post-2010, maybe with the exception of Dark Matter and Killjoys) aren't the type of sci-fi shows you would want to watch again. They're basically one-and-done series, just like the rebooted Galactica was back in 2004, which I was so bored with watching the first time around, I literally would rather watch paint dry than re-watch that series again.

You missed on option concerning run-time. They could cut out scenes like was done with Dr. Who to fit it into one hour.

For the LOVE OF GOD, no. Just, no. When I watched the Christmas Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy, it was blatantly obvious what scenes they cut out of episodes to meet the 22-minute runtime (I'm guessing the episodes used to run around 25-26 minutes back then in the 1950s). Even BBC America is notorious for this with Star Trek TNG. Until Bell puts the old Trek series back on Space (guessing maybe late August?), for the moment, I'm stuck watching TNG on BBC America. And even though BBC America is airing TNG's first 4-5 seasons in HD now (unlike Bell/Space, who only have the HD rights to the 1st season), whenever they cut parts out of an episode, I can tell immediately. There was one episode of TNG where two crewmembers were talking to each other, and they cut to commercial RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONVERSATION AS ONE GUY WAS TALKING for crying out loud. I mean, couldn't you at least wait until the guy was done finishing his sentence?

It's science fiction and that genre usually doesn't do well on the networks for very long. Space is the perfect home for it as the ratings don't have to be as high. It also gives Space something to show beyond the Castle reruns.

Primetime networks hate the sci-fi and game show genres. All they care about are comedies, dramas and reality programs. Remember when CBC used to air Doctor Who? Then the series got pushed off to Space when CBC dropped it. Personally, I'll be watching the Discovery pilot on CBS (specifically to avoid the simsubs on CTV, which I'm sure Bell is counting on for advertising revenue).

 

[Dr.Dave]

Until Bell puts the old Trek series back on Space (guessing maybe late August?), for the moment, I'm stuck watching TNG on BBC America. And even though BBC America is airing TNG's first 4-5 seasons in HD now (unlike Bell/Space, who only have the HD rights to the 1st season)...

Bell said in an email that the old series would start on Space in Sept. Since Bell signed a new contract for all 727 episodes for Space and CraveTV, I wouldn't be surprised if they got all the HD rights.