... Bryan Fuller thinks so. The former Star Trek: Voyager producer and current Heroes scribe told Sci Fi Wire that he'd love to create a new Star Trek series."I think that a Star Trek TV series is probably a couple years away, just to let the feature franchise breathe," the Pushing Daisies creator said, adding that any new Trek series should take place in the universe seen in J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie.
Fuller said a new Trek series shouldn't focus on the Enterprise crew – he thinks the Federation flagship should stick to the big screen – but on a new ship with a new crew and "an entirely new adventure."
As much as I'd love to see Trek return to TV, I don't think now is the right time. Most of us are just getting used to the new Trek universe. I'd like to see at least two more Abrams films before a live-action TV spinoff hits the air.
I wouldn't mind seeing a new Star Trek animated series set on the new Enterprise, though. Or maybe it could follow Spock Prime as he works to rebuild Vulcan's culture and influence.
What do you think? Should Trek return to TV in any form?















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-15-2009 @ 2:30PM
Tony Montana said...
The animated TV series idea brings back scary memories of the ultra crappy Clone Wars series.
I'd be all for a new Star Trek series but JJ should be involved.
He's just the perfect guy to make an intelligent sci-fi series with very strong characters that can carry the show well.
Plus it'll give me my fix after Lost is gone.
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6-16-2009 @ 2:55AM
Hashbrown Hunter (OneGiantCluster.blogspot.com) said...
As much as the Clone Wars cartoon sucked, it was still miles better than the movie.
6-15-2009 @ 2:34PM
FAP said...
A) Voyager was a terrible show and a good start for restarting the TV franchise would be avoiding anyone on the writing or production staff.
B) I'd prefer to see how the future unfolds after TNG than see an alternative re-history of the past. I thought the whole other timeline from the movie was writing laziness. Kind of like wanting to write a haiku but using more syllables in one of the lines because you found a "killer word" and weren't clever enough to make it fit.
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6-15-2009 @ 6:36PM
izikavazo said...
I think Brian Fuller should sit back and watch what works and what doesn't with BSG, Caprica, the Stargate shows, the SW live action series, and J.J. Abrams movies and then go make somthing combining the best parts of all those shows. He can't make one using the other Star trek shows, it wouldn't work. There's no current audience for post TNG Star Trek shows, and maybe not even TNG.
He has to start new.
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6-15-2009 @ 2:52PM
Adam Berkowitz said...
I think they should focus on some other aspect of Star Trek, like Starfleet Academy--Give me a series about Starfleet cadets going through the program to become officers. Cameos abound, imagine any Trek actor you prefer popping up to teach a class or to lead an exploratory away mission (i.e., field trip.)
Each season brings the cadets one year closer to graduation. But the Season 3 finale ends on a cliff hanger. The cadets studies (and the escalating love-triangle) are interrupted when the core group is shuffled off to separate ships heading off to intercept the Narada. Understood, of course, is that not every cadet is coming back from this mission.
Then just when we though it was a show about becoming responsbile young officers, Season 4 totally adds fuel to the fire. Six months after the events of the first movie (and using the experience as a springboard) the series launches into a Star Fleet Marine Corps and/or a Military Intelligence program tangent which focuses on the development of Section 31 (one of my favorite tangents from Deep Space Nine.)
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A SERIES--(you're welcome, Mr. Fuller.)
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6-15-2009 @ 11:37PM
wew said...
it's a little too late for starfleet academy. For one thing, the first movie's over and done. And ppl are barely interested in school much less a fictional school. Ooh, warp calculus.
ppl want blood, battle, and heroics. You need drama and character buildup too but that's just part of the mix and not the central hook. Star Trek the movie worked not on character buildup or drama but the fact that you have HEROES running thru guantlets against a VILLAIN.
let's center on that. The audience has to be hooked into the story before you can make them love the characters.
6-15-2009 @ 3:34PM
hessian said...
Trek doesn't work on network TV,
It's only true success came with TNG & DS9 - in first-run syndication - where the producing studio controlled every aspect of the series.
The network suits at UPN are as much to blame as anyone for the drop-off in quality with VOYAGER & ENTERPRISE.
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6-15-2009 @ 3:34PM
stan lee said...
just to ask..... where would this air? syndication for this would be hard to do because this has changed big time since TNG came around, the big four networks would not get ratings for cost out of this, the little two networks could not afford to do this right, scyfy is the only cable network that might want to do this but they seem to love their own movies and series (cause they are cheaper to make and then they own it).
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6-15-2009 @ 3:54PM
Franklin said...
"stan lee": Maybe CBS (as they own the TV rights to Trek) would air a new Trek series, or maybe NBC (the original network for the first Trek). Who knows, maybe even ABC (they picked up the "V" remake, which I still find surprising).
So I do think a major network would be at least willing to give a new Trek series a try. But I think Paramount would rather not diddle around with a new TV show at this point, for fear of diluting the goodwill they've managed to gain from the new movie.
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6-15-2009 @ 3:57PM
DOCC OCC said...
Section 31. Any true fans know what I'm talking about. Imagine a weekly adventure based show live StarGate.
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6-20-2009 @ 4:00AM
cooper said...
I have always wanted to see a Section 31 show, and honestly, given the trend towards "dark" sci fi on TV this seems like an easy sell to someone like *cringe* SyFy. I don't, however, see it being a weekly adventure show, but something more like a mix of 24, MI5, and Alias. Seasonal plot archs involving a lot of treachery and maybe some "new Dr Who" style moral ambiguity. You could even keep it in the TNG/DS9 timeline so as to not interfere too much with the new movies, but rewrite history a bit: The lack of Vulcan meant the Federation was in shambles after the Dominion War with the Romulans ascendant and a S31 that is playing a hard counter intelligence game against them.
6-15-2009 @ 3:58PM
DOCC OCC said...
Adam I missed your comments on it. I totally back what you were saying.
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6-15-2009 @ 5:42PM
fritz said...
If Trek were to return to the TV screen, I think it should take place years after the end of Voyager. Something like Star Trek: The Next Next Generation.
Don't move to far to the time of time traveling ships like was seen near the end of voyager, somewhere in between.
Give me the future not the past. (though i did like the movie)
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6-15-2009 @ 5:48PM
SteveO said...
I was never a big fan of TOS, but I love all 11 feature films - yes, even The Final Frontier - as well as DS9.
As hessian comments, quality declined from there, but I still enjoy reruns of Voyager and Enterprise.
IMHO, the single biggest problem with Start Trek in general, is that there's a general up-beat undertone to just about everything. Sure, the Borg are nasty - at least, before Janeway started duping them on a weekly basis - to say nothing of Kilingons, the Dominion, and other dark moments, but almost everything ends on a happy note.
For Trek to survive on TV, it has to evolve. Characters need to come and go, and in as spectacular a fashion as possible. Storylines need to paint the darker side of the Federation and its allies/enemies - Section 31 was a good start. This darkness will add tension and give ample opportunities for cliffhangers, which more often than not retain viewership between episodes, if I remember my entertainment statistics correctly.
And, as much as I hate to admit it, whoever produces a new TV Trek will have to ensure that less of the focus is on the technology and more on character development, in order to reach a broader audience, as the recent JJ Abrams flick has shown.
The geek in me wants more tech and more starship battles, but I would gladly trade a decent chunk of that for quality stories, good acting, and another [good] 7 years of Trek on TV.
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6-15-2009 @ 11:26PM
wew said...
well, first and foremost, a tv show has to meet requirements. It can't squander all the new faces the movie will bring to the tv show.
1. No technogeekery made up nonsense. warp factor fine. use engine, not warp core. use fuel, not dilithium crystals.
2. No more holodeck. no more replicators. have real food. no more alien cosmetics.
3. cut costs so that it doesnt have such a high standard to hit and it can actually last longer.
You have to do Enterprise because that's what ppl know. But you need freedom to do your own stories, but contradicting abrams' movie will be a Big No.
So here's what you do:
1. Lots of dirt and blood.
2. Recast everyone on it. From Jim Kirk to Sulu, no need for Chekov. Add in an extra girl so that Kirk can sexually tense something. Shade their faces.
3. Now make everyone an Admiral. And age them 60 years. They all have their ships. The first episode is Twilight of the Federation.
Spend money here cuz everyone is gonna die.
Spock is the only one that survives because he's the only one at starfleet academy. He takes the grandkids of kirk, his own daughter, etc and escapes into an alternative timeline.
They come back with a really powerful spaceship and lots of training. They stole it from Spock who forbade them from coming back.
They launch a rebellion. Overarching goal is to rescue their parents. some wnat to stay and fight the bad guys, others want to rescue their dads/moms and go back to their alternate home. And story goes from there.
Star Trek: Federation's End. tada.
you get linkage to the movie, without contradicting it. make your own universe. have less pricy space battles because it's a timeship, not a warship, it can only cloak. Away missions aren't to explore new expensive cultures but to go to earth and find out what prison their parents are in and break them out.
cheap, dramatic, effective, ratings.
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6-16-2009 @ 9:09AM
Eric H said...
Yes ratings, in the .5 range.
6-16-2009 @ 1:08AM
John said...
I don't have a pilot pitch like everyone who has commented before me in this thread. I have ideas, who doesn't for this narrative?
What I will say to Bryan Fuller is this: License the franchise from Paramount, and launch it first on the web. Distribution costs are minimal and it lets you try a couple different storylines out. Announce them as 9 episode mini-series (ala Dr. Horrible) and work out some material.
You stay on as showrunner, bring Abrams on as an extra EP if you must (and I imagine Paramount would like this).
For financing, you can get Hulu as a partner and exclusive distributor, or iTunes (whoever comes with the better deal). Work out 3-4 9 episode arcs and see what works and develop the best of the lot. Work on characters and storylines, don't concentrate so much on effects right out of the gate.
Use virtual sets (cost effective) and existing set pieces from whatever the next movie is. Remember, to launch big and keep an audience you need buzz - you don't need the old guard of Star Trek fans - you need new fans who are passionate for the content. The base will come around.
Lastly, bring me on as a writer.
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6-16-2009 @ 3:02AM
Hashbrown Hunter (OneGiantCluster.blogspot.com) said...
Also if networks here about an idea for a Star Trek show centered around the academy, they'll just turn it into "The O.C. In Space"
- Sex
- Drinking
- Underage Mishaps
- Stupid Melodrama
- Nothing at all interesting or different from real life except for an alien here or there.
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6-16-2009 @ 3:11AM
Mike said...
I think the tv series should wait for the 2nd JJ movie to fix the timeline.
Spock might as well tell them now they have to go back to the 80s to get some whales then while they are there leave a vulcan message for when the vulcans stop by for the Zef Cochrane show. Warn them of the coming Romulan ship and how to destroy it.. and vow to never help the romulans thus preventing the ship from ever coming back in the 1st place.
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6-19-2009 @ 9:31AM
Karen said...
I love Star Trek in pretty much all of its incarnations; but it's been done to death, and staying within the bounds of it's established cannon and formula is too limiting.
I think part of the yearning out there in the fan pool is not so much for Trek specifically, but just too have another weekly space-travel adventure show on the air. With the Syfy channel so consistently sucking, and Galactica gone, there's just no place for a Trekkie to turn for that starships and space adventures kick.
I'd absolutely love to see a brand new show that hybridizes Star Trek and Babylon 5. The zip and fun and adventure (and yes, sunny optimism) of Trek, mixed with the gritty realities of life in space that Trek was always missing. (What if we run out of air? water? fuel? food? What do we do with all these aliens that DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH or even look remotely human?)
Wouldn't it be a blast to have a show like that to get behind?
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