Star Trek Discussion

trying...

hat sounds familiar to me - hat it was Voyager that kicked off the UPN.

just goes to show, even the god of chaos gets confused sometimes.

Voyager was the Trek series used as the flagship program for the Paramount Network, although it wasn't the first Trek series to be developed as such. Back in the 70's the laws regarding TV networks changed in the US, allowing more to be created. Paramount wanted in on the action and started to set the groundwork for their own network, with Star Trek Phase II developed as their flagship program; TOS had proved astonishingly successful in syndication and the demographics showed the people watching were those they were aiming for. Besides, it was also the only property Paramount had with name recognition that wasn't outdated or already on air/about to end its run. (Mission Impossible was the other property they owned that was up to date. But at the time it was coming towards the end of its run and would have ended before the network was established).

Many will now tell you that Star Wars caused the cancellation of Phase II, and the development of that shows pilot into the first of the Trek Films. This is half right. Star Wars was responsible for the decision to produce Star Trek The Motion Picture. But Phase II had already been dropped at that point. Both down to Paramount deciding not to progress with a network at that time, and down to how much it would have cost to produce a live action Science Fiction series at that time. (The Original Battlestar Galactica actually proved Paramount right in regards costs, and the limits of special effects technology for TV, by the late 70's).

Flash forward to the early 1980's, a decade or so after the idea of a new Trek Series had been banded about. Trek had three highly successful films to its credit with a fourth in production. Plus the Original Series was still showing remarkably high viewer figures after some 20 years in syndication. So Paramount took a risk; Lets make a new Trek series. They followed this up with a second risk; Lets produce this series exclusively for the syndicated market.
They dusted off Phase II, updated elements, brought in a younger cast (excepting Patrick Stewart, who is actually the same age as William Shatner) and reused sets build for the films to create Star Trek The Next Generation.

Deep Space Nine's production wasn't really based on anything that had been developed before, at least not in regards Trek. But it too was developed and released straight to the syndicated market.

Voyager was different, as Paramount was creating its own network by the mid 90's and needed a flagship program. So in a repeat of history Paramount decided to go with a Trek series. Unlike Phase II the network and series was created. So unlike its sister programs Voyager was not produced for the syndicated market...which it could be argued was the point Trek started to run into long term problems.

The earlier series, and Enterprise which succeeded Voyager, were renewed season per season. Indeed the only reason The Next Generation got a second season, or a third for that matter, was because there was literally nothing like it on TV at that time. Deep Space Nine kept getting renewed because it was good, or at least as good as TNG during its first two seasons.
Voyager however was guaranteed a seven year run from the start.

This seems to have created problems Paramount, even today, doesn't seem to have fully understood. Most troubling of which was complacency, with lazy reused stories and themes and a belief they understood Trek better than the audience; a potentially fatal flaw in any TV production.
When Voyager ended the Paramount Network followed shortly afterwards, there not being anything else on there to interest people.

Enterprise was, again, produced for the syndication market. But this time Paramount got a shock when the audience started tuning out, feeling that the new series wasn't that interesting and was far too much a case of 'been here, seen that'. By the time they started to address these issues it was too late.

Star Trek Discovery seems to be a strange case of Paramount learning lessons while also making the same mistakes. They didn't fall into the trap of guaranteeing more than a single season, instead deciding to base renewal decisions on viewer numbers. However they are trying to use Discovery as a flagship program as they did Voyager. Ignoring that while you need a good flagship, that ship actually needs a decent 'fleet' to back it up.

Leaving out Paramount's dedication in alienating their own customer base. The fact is that their business model is deeply flawed. Sure, networks like HBO have had considerable success with their online services. But HBO has a reputation of creating high quality programming, and while you technically pay for their online services the payment is actually for the network overall. CBS/Paramount has none of this.

A more logical and reasonable model would have been to either make this a pure TV series you could also get online, maybe adding the incentive of being able to get new episodes a day or two earlier than the broadcast date. Or to have released it as a pure Netflix program, which would have a much greater reach than CBS and meant that any complaints about release dates/locations would have been directed at NetFlix rather than Paramount.

Fun, but the site doesn't work very well for me. Constant buffering and jittery playback no matter what resolution it is played at. Rather spoiled the flow of the video. Oh well...

My apologies, I didn't anticipate that. For me, it worked flawlessly. I've found it on youtube instead. This should help.

your post inspired me to look back at what my comment on it was.

Other news;

The main character is, get this, Spock's sister. You know, the one he never at any point mentioned or hinted existed any point in any episode or film. We all remember her, right?
She's not a Vulcan though, instead having been adopted by Surak (Who also never mentioned having any children other than Spock, even when he was mind-melded to Picard who gave a good account of all Surak's regrets over his life.) and raised on Vulcan. On the plus side we at least have our 'familiar face' they promised us.

The bad guys are Klingons, again. Because clearly if there is one thing we haven't seen enough of in Trek its Klingons. These are not the Klingons of the Original OR Next Generation era though. Instead they went with the JJ version, or a version of the Klingons seen in the second JJ film. This in no way causes problems with continuity, logic or even trying to work out exactly what universe this is meant to be set in. I mean, its not like they did a two part Enterprise episode explaining WHY Klingons looked so different between Archer and Kirk's time or anything.

In comes 'personal conflicts between crew members', because it's not like this was a basic principle of Trek or anything. And making a grand return is that great love of everyone who's seen the JJ films; The lens flare. Because if there was one thing the audience really wanted it was to be blinded by someone shining a flashlight into the lens every ten seconds.

TNG benefited from there not being any real competition for its first few seasons, and in being a syndicated series. DS9's first two seasons were not that great either, but were more polished, again had little competition and had the great advantage of being able to reply on the good reputation TNG had built up.

Discovery has none of these things.

There is FAR more competition around, at this point principally 'The Orville'.

It's not syndicated, meaning its less accessible and requires viewers to hand over money to see it regardless of where you live. This, as I've noted, was the major problem with Voyager.

It can no longer rely on the Trek name to bring in viewers. Paramount/CBS have managed to wreck the reputation of Star Trek as a franchise over the last few years. The JJ films were the first dent, the money grabbing 'CBS All Access' cracked others and the the moronic 'Fan Film Guidelines' gleefully punched a hole right through it and flipped the bird at everyone on the other side.

Discovery might have been able to recover from one or two of these problems with careful handling, and if the series actually looked any good. But it hasn't been handled well, instead we have studio execs thinking they know better than both the audience and the people who actually make their shows. The result being a virtual revolving door of producers exiting the production, pushed back release dates and drama behind the scenes no-one has been able to hide.
It also doesn't look that good. People hate the look of the Klingons, hate the look of the ship (or the initial look at least), hate lens flare and keep sighing and pointing out that the trailers look more like Star War's than Star Trek. It doesn't sound that good either, not when 'dark, gritty' etc are being thrown around. Ignoring that while Trek could and did do episodes along those lines, it was always about being 'bright and hopeful' at the end of the day.

This is why when you look at comments and news about Discovery, practically everyone is saying that they are more excited about 'Orville' than they are about 'Discovery'. The former certainly looks and feels more like Trek than Trek does right now.