
A New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Will Debut in 2017 - Bud
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/arts/television/a-new-star-trek-tv-series-will-debut-in-2017.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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s5edvvddd
Produced by Alex Kurtzman who was also the producer of Michael Bay's
Transformers , Star Trek remakes which are basically the lowest common
denominator action movies, and Scorpion the series about incredibly incorrect
portrayal of hacking and hackers.

This is going to be action schlock, a series like TNG will never be made
again.

I don't want too sound too depressing, just letting you know to adjust your
expectations.

~~~
untog
I'll be the contrarian optimist: Star Trek movies are, on average, bad.
Compare Star Trek: Nemesis to an episode of TNG - it's guilty of everything
you attribute to the new Star Trek movies. The only reason it got a pass was
because of the goodwill that the TNG show garnered for its characters.

So I choose to believe/hope that a TV show isn't doomed to have the same
outlook as the movie. I expect I may well be wrong, but...

~~~
amalcon
Nemesis was rather poorly received among fans of the series. Though honestly,
so were most of the other Star Trek films.

Out of the pre-Abrams Star Trek films, four were generally well received (2,
4, 6, 8). The first and third films have a few people who like them, but are
broadly disliked. The fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth are almost universally
disliked.

Even among the four generally well received films, only #2 (The Wrath of Khan)
and #4 (The Voyage Home) are generally considered as good as the best
television episodes from the first two series. Maybe #6 fits in there -- that
one's actually my favorite, though I might be biased because it's the only TOS
one I've seen in theaters.

~~~
dasboth
Not the first time I've heard this odd vs even thing. Was The Voyage Home the
one with the whales? That premise was a bit silly although the film had its
moments. Which number was First Contact? I always thought that was way better
than the others.

~~~
amalcon
Since it was apparently a little confusing:

    
    
      1) The Motion Picture: The one with V'Ger
      2) The Wrath of Khan: The one with Khan
      3) The Search For Spock: The one that fixed the problem caused by #2
      4) The Voyage Home: The one with the whales
      5) The Final Frontier: The one of which will not be spoken
      6) The Undiscovered Country: The one with the Khitomer Accords
      7) Generations: The one with both Kirk and Picard
      8) First Contact: The one with the Borg
      9) Insurrection: The one where Picard openly rebels against the exact thing he did in that one episode
     10) Nemesis: The Wrath of Khan with TNG characters, by someone who didn't understand why The Wrath of Khan was good

~~~
ElComradio
Insurrection is underrated. It's by far the best TNG movie as far as pacing
goes. First Contact feels like it is stuttering and I think people like it
mostly because the Borg are always a hot topic for Trekkies.

~~~
amalcon
I don't _hate_ Insurrection. It's totally watchable, which is more than I can
say for Generations or Nemesis. It definitely has its positives. It has by far
the best writing of Data in any of the movies. Picard's love story is pretty
well done. I just don't find it quite rises to the level of the four "actually
good" movies. The plot only makes sense if you squint really hard.

First Contact did have its fair share of stupid (Borg queen, UGH). I just
thought the plot made way more sense than any of the other TNG movies.

------
gajomi
I am only somewhat familiar with Star Trek (mostly by way of TNG), but I think
it would be cool to see a conflict with a re-imagined version of the Ferengi.

I never heard any exposition on the details, but the Federation is supposedly
an essentially egalitarian post-scarcity economy with a religion of space
exploration. In contrast, the Ferengi always seemed much closer to our own
society: they are cold blooded capitalists with misogynistic tendencies, but
still manage to maintain a vibrant civilization in space, in which they uphold
contracts and maintain infrastructure. And so it would seem that at the
hypothetical interface between the Ferengi and the Federation there would be
not just a huge culture clash, but moral and political scandals of the highest
order, mostly concentrated around (1) the exploitation of Federation members
by Ferengi (2) incidental macroeconomic chaos within Ferengi society due to
the Federation sending free aid, setting artificial price restrictions within
their markets, etc.

If one redesigned the Ferengi with a non-goofy appearance and a cool demeanor
they could be made relatable, in the same way that one can relate to the
various capitalist villain archetypes: wall street narcissists, oil tycoons,
drug kingpins and so on.

~~~
dnautics
I think it's star trek canon that the Ferengi never had any internal problems
with slavery (of other Ferengi) or genocide.

I think it would be much more interesting to explore the creepier side of this
supposedly egalitarian post-scarcity economy... I mean think of how wierd it
is that a military organization is in charge of scientific exploration, that
all the individuals on the starship are tracked at all times, etc...

~~~
gajomi
Yeah a look into the Federation society could be interesting.

One thing that always bothered me was why people weren't basically just
spending their time hanging around the food replicators and fornicating in the
hologram machine. I can buy that the crew of a starship would be chosen for a
strange combination of discipline and risk-aversion (not to mention Starfleet
adding something to the water), but it seemed to me that there would have to
be all kinds of exotic hedonism, resource intensive "art" projects and crazy
philosophies on the surface of the planets.

~~~
ethbro
If you haven't read it, this might be relevant to your interests:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series)

I thought it had some interesting "Okay, so no more scarcity, now what?"
plots.

------
erickhill
A similar story like this one was posted this morning.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492824)

Within one hour it had nearly 200 up-votes, and over 120 comments. Then,
suddenly, it was flagged and buried into the archives of Hacker News.

While this may not be "Hacker News" it is obviously content that resonates
with a large percentage of the HN community. I hope the mods just let it be
this time.

~~~
Bud
They didn't; it dropped from #2 to out of the top 200 or so instantly. I
emailed the mods to ask if I had done something wrong, and was informed that
this post was "off-topic", because it was not "deeply interesing" and/or did
not satisfy intellectual curiosity.

Very aggressive modding, and very silly modding.

~~~
krapp
The truth is, the only intellects that matter here are those of the mods. If
they don't find a subject interesting, it's objectively uninteresting.

------
pmontra
Am I the only one who doesn't like those links to the NYTimes requiring
registration or social login? Here's the news from another source
[http://www.startrek.com/article/new-star-trek-series-
premier...](http://www.startrek.com/article/new-star-trek-series-premieres-
january-2017) (courtesy of the other thread)

~~~
Bud
Easy to dodge the paywall:

1) copy the part of the url containing the story's title 2) paste just that
part into the URL bar (to do a Google search) 3) the story will come up as the
first hit, click on it, boom, no more paywall

This works for quite a few major sites. (WSJ, New Yorker, etc.)

~~~
InclinedPlane
Or, just click the link that says "web" for the story, then click the top
link.

------
kanzure
other thread fell off the frontpage already?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492824)

~~~
gre
Someone killed it. Don't want hn to become slashdot /s

------
pasbesoin
Didn't think it would happen, but in private conversation I've been
hoping/advocating for giving Whedon and his associates the opportunity to do
the next series, if he/they were interested.

It would probably be a bit different -- I don't know where he would take it --
but there would likely be interesting characters and character development.

As it is, I want something that returns to the kind of quality I found in the
middle and later seasons of TNG, once it really caught its stride.

I also thought some of the Voyager episodes were quite engaging, particularly
those involving Seven of Nine and some of the other... "trans"-human
characters.

Star Trek, whatever series, has always been particularly good when it comes to
exploring what it means to be... "sentient", to choose a word perhaps less
open to misinterpretation that "human", though I would choose to define
"human" as something other than our specific species. And characters at the
boundary of "human" (I guess that _is_ the word that really speaks to me) have
often been very interesting and effective vehicles in this regard.

P.S. Perhaps it is in part that some of the other series became more
interesting to me when some of the TNG writers migrated to them. I don't or no
longer know the series timelines (in this world, as television shows)
sufficiently to consider this more closely, off the cuff.

------
ZanyProgrammer
After the last decade of TV, what a lot of people refer to as the Golden Age
of Television, I'm not placing my hope in something that CBS is producing. I
have a feeling it'll be a dash of the Abrams-verse, mixed in with Voyager and
Enterprise writing and style. I'm hoping that's not the case, but I worry that
whatever debuts on CBS will appear incredibly underwhelming compared to the
last 10 years or so of television drama.

------
kingmanaz
The "dark" fetish in television, particularly in sci-fi, is growing
increasingly tired. Shows like TNG, which would take one on a voyage to a
positive, better future, are being replaced by blue-tinted melodramas filled
with beige characters. Trek's downward spiral began with DS9, and the trip to
the future has gotten progressively dingier with every subsequent effort.

I'll be hoping for a Trek with new worlds filled with new solutions to current
problems, but expecting another dreary Breaking Bad tinged with Walking Dead,
this time--yawn--amidst the stars.

------
transfire
Another three seasoner? This time written for action where the only "moral"
around is "death to the terrorists". I hope not, but I do worry.

------
InclinedPlane
No thanks, I'll pass.

I adore Star Trek, but this ain't it. It's just action crap dressed up in Star
Trek's clothes. Which is a shame because too much of Sci-Fi on television and
in the theater is just action, we need more thoughtful and interesting science
fiction, the sort of stuff that made Star Trek a cult hit and transformed it
into a cultural phenomenon despite running for less than three seasons
originally.

~~~
elif
Wow, it was nice of them to send you a review copy of season 1.

------
dbcooper
If only we could have Bryan Fuller as show-runner, with Mads Mikkelsen as
Captain.

~~~
kaonashi
Officer's mess would be interesting.

~~~
dbcooper
:)

Lets get some Rick and Morty writers in there too.

------
leepowers
It's just an announcement - it's way too early to tell how the series is going
to turn out. That being said, I would be surprised if the reboot becomes a
cultural landmark like TOS. I just hope it's at least good, compelling
television. At best I hope it captures the genius of good Star Trek: exploring
new ideas, concepts, and perspectives, with clever & humane writing, capable
acting, and good special effects.

I hope it's not too heavy on the action/drama, like _The Walking Dead_ or
_Game of Thrones_. These are both excellent series that are highly
entertaining to watch. But they make me _feel_ first and _think_ second.

Good Star Trek episodes are like puzzles. You're thinking "what the heck is
going on?", "what strange phenomena is this?", etc. The best ones draw you in
and then delight you with the reveal. They almost have a Twilight Zone quality
to them.

------
ecopoesis
Strange that CBS is going to be putting this only on streaming (CBS All
Access). I'm not sure if that's a brilliant bet on the future or a foolhardy
miscalculation.

~~~
gkoberger
You wouldn't like Star Trek on CBS proper. Shows on TV need to be mainstream
to work, given how advertisement works. By putting it online, they're changing
the expectations: it doesn't have to appeal to everyone. Rather, it can be
made for a niche audience, which is good for Star Trek.

That's why Arrested Development (in theory) can work on Netflix but not FOX.

~~~
WorldMaker
Yeah, I don't think Star Trek meshes with CBS demographics right now. They'd
likely end up with NCIS: Star Trek Edition. That said, I probably wouldn't
mind a young adult soap opera Star Trek for the CW network.

The issue with CBS' digital efforts is that they are a strange island unto
themselves and Star Trek alone is unlikely to get too many more visitors to
their island. They really need to consider a partnership with Netflix, Amazon,
Hulu, or something left field like Vudu or HBO Now. But of course they are
stubborn and probably won't.

(Does it make financial sense to anyone right now to spend $5/month on just
CBS shows when the same could go to most of a Netflix or Hulu subscription
with a much broader content base?)

~~~
WorldMaker
What's with all the downvotes? Was it the CW comment? If so, are the
downvoters not currently watching CW's Flash? That sort of light-hearted,
inter-personal drama-fueled show would work for Star Trek, I think.

------
RevRal
Chiming in with a slightly relevant blog post from Peter Watts about a re-
imagined "Spock's Brain":
[http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=4335](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=4335)

------
Bud
I've just heard from the HN powers that be that this post was flagged for
being "off-topic".

That's right: Star Trek is off-topic in a techie geek forum.

I have officially seen everything.

I'd be very mildly ticked about this, if it weren't so amusing. :)

------
Nimsical
Silicon Valley's productivity will fall by a few percentage points during that
week. So excited :P

