Sunday 18 September 2016

Star Trek Discovery launch pushed back, and other updates

CBS have announced the new Star Trek TV series, Discovery, which was initially due to begin in January, is being given a few extra months for development and production, and will now launch in May instead. StarTrek.com posted a statement from executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Fuller:
Bringing Star Trek back to television carries a responsibility and mission: to connect fans and newcomers alike to the series that has fed our imaginations since childhood. We aim to dream big and deliver, and that means making sure the demands of physical and post-production for a show that takes place entirely in space, and the need to meet an air date, don’t result in compromised quality. Before heading into production, we evaluated these realities with our partners at CBS and they agreed: Star Trek deserves the very best, and these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of.
So we have about twice as long to wait for new Trek than we were expecting. But it should be even more fantastic and well made than we might otherwise have got. I can live with that.

In the US, Discovery will be distributed on CBS All Access, and is now switching places with the second series to be announced, a spin-off of the series The Good Wife, which will now be released in January instead of Discovery.

In other Discovery news, Fuller recently tweeted a hint in relation to a classic TOS episode:
A favorite TOS episode "Balance of Terror" is a touchstone for the #StarTrekDiscovery story arc
Speculate on that one!

Another interesting tweet came from Roddenberry Entertainment, hinting that the voice of the late Majel Barrett-Roddenberry may well have a familiar return in Discovery as the computer voice:
Majel's voice is recorded phonetically, and we're working to get her voice for things such as Siri, maybe voice of the computer on #STDiscovery
Finally, you can now read lots of tweets straight from the Discovery writers room, via the new Twitter account which has been set up for Nick Mayor's dog, who is apparently a frequent visitor.

Star Trek: Discovery is due to start in January next year, it will be distributed almost everywhere in the world on Netflix, except for the US where is will be available on CBS All Access, and Canada where it will be on Bell Media channels and services. To keep track of all the latest details from the new show, visit my Star Trek: Discovery guide page.




4 comments:

rassmguy said...

"Touchstone" just means "a standard or criterion by which something is judged or recognized." So there's no indication that Discovery will be about anything related to "Balance of Terror" or the Romulans. Fuller is just saying that the show will be of that high quality.

8of5 said...

It could mean any number of things: Tone, the type of episode that was, the type of characters featured, the racism issue, or some more direct link to something in-universe. Much as the previous comments about The Undiscovered Country could suggest a multitude of things the production team could be building on.

Fox said...

What I understand it to mean is that, like Balance of Terror and The Wrath of Khan, the new series will model its approach on old WWII submarine movies. Lots of militarism, lots of slow, high-tension combat scenarios... that kind of thing.

Unknown said...

It's gotta be about the conflict with the Klingons. Fuller said it's something every series has touched on and the Klingons have always been in conflict with the Federation even as allies. There's even a line in the Trouble with Tribbles episode about battles with the Klingons 13 years previous which is about the right time period for this show.

Pike era would be too early for Romulans since Balance of Terror is the first major incursion made by both sides since the enterprise era Romulan Wars. Klingons are definitely involved!

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