Star Trek is back, baby.
CBS announced that a new TV series of Star Trek will premiere in 2017. I simply cannot wait for this. It was personally some of the best news I’ve gotten in a long time. I teared up some.
There’s a lot to say about all of this. And I’ve read a lot of think pieces–some which I’ll try to link to here. But pretty much everything that can be said so far about the topic has been said. So a lot of this post is a synthesis of what I’ve read (if any of my students are reading–I’m trying to cite via hyperlinks, as is the custom for blogs). But I do want to focus on the distribution model for the new series, which is perhaps the most controversial.
What will the new series be about?
The announcement says that it will not be related to the new movie coming out, Star Trek Beyond. What does this mean? It probably won’t feature the new Kirk/Spock/McCoy etc. That’s all I get from that. Some have speculated that it will take place in the Prime timeline (Michael Dorn’s negotiations for a Captain Worf show seem to suggest this is possible). Others have expressed a preference for the Romulan War storyline we didn’t get to see in Enterprise.
This is all wrong and won’t happen.
The 2009 reboot was necessary to clear up the continuity so that future Star Trek could tell new stories without being bound by the extensive history of the Prime timeline. Paramount invested a lot of money in this new storyline. The new series is most definitely going to happen in the new timeline. We should stop calling it the Abramsverse or NuTrek. Fans use those terms to express the fact that they’re upset with the new direction of Star Trek. I’m among them. I’m not a fan with the plot technicalities introduced by transporters that can move people across thousands of lightyears, as shown in the new timeline. But I have to accept it. The new timeline is Star Trek now.
And that’s the way it’s always been.
Next Generation upset fans by screwing up the ideal of the Starfleet captain. Deep Space Nine upset the Rodenberry anti-war focus by telling a serialized war story (that, still true to Trek, was anti-war). Voyager upset TV tropes by portraying a competent woman in command. Enterprise upset fans by reinterpreting continuity and providing a cultural arc for the Vulcans.
Star Trek isn’t static. Star Trek is defined by the culture and the time that is written and produced. It is a response to that culture and time. As my hermeneutics professor, Dr. Strege, would say: Star Trek “forms and is informed by” the community that it exists in. It is always already a cultural artifact.
Star Trek always changes in each iteration. This one will be different. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Accept it. The new series is in the new timeline. Enjoy it. We’re all going boldly where no Trek fans have gone before.
Along with the next generation of fans, who know Trek because of J.J. Abrams. And God bless him for it.
How will people watch the Star Trek series?
They will have to pay 6 bucks a month to CBS to watch it via their streaming service. This I have one philosophical issue with.
As a practical matter, it makes sense. CBS has been trying to get into the future of TV via their own streaming service. I almost signed up for it when I was watching Madam Secretary. I most definitely be signing up now that Star Trek is on it. They got my money. It’s 6 bucks. I can afford it. And I want to watch it. Plus, now they have Supergirl. And I find CBS to have some of the better news programs on network news, from Scott Pelley to CBS This Morning to CBS Sunday Morning. So it’s fine. Whatever. I like CBS. I don’t mind spending some money.
But Star Trek is about a future where money doesn’t exist. Primarily because money leads to greed, and greed is something that humanity needs to grow out of. In Star Trek’s future, we grow out of it. We abandon greed. We become better.
But we’re not there yet. And that’s the philosophical issue.
On the one hand, it’s philosophically contradictory. It’s like Walmart selling Che t-shirts. It’s capitalism promoting socialism. It’s one philosophy supporting another philosophy that seeks to undermine it.
On the other hand, Star Trek has always been paid for. In the past, it’s been via ads. So there’s always been money involved. But there is something that feels especially perverse about asking viewers for 6 bucks to watch Star Trek, rather than viewing ads. Not everyone can afford the extra 6 bucks. I’ve been there. And Star Trek is about our future as humanity. It should be for everyone. It is essentially egalitarian. And now it is not. It’s Ferengi Trek. Quark would be proud of this move by CBS. I am not. I’ll watch, but I have misgivings, and I’m hoping they’ll relent in some way.
As Spock would say, “There are always… possibilities.”
Final Word
I’m excited. I’m happy.
And I think it’s important there will be a new series. Star Trek comments on our culture not only by offering dystopian warnings, but by offering us a positive outlook on the future that we can strive for.
We need this. This is a terrifying time to be alive, sometimes. And it’s going to be nice for once to have a voice in the culture that says we can go into the future… boldly.
Michael Maune 
Having read everything Heinlein, Asimov, and Clark ever wrote before Star Trek premiered, I never saw the original series as anything but derivative and dumbed-down, though it was somewhat starting to be redeemed by humor, character relationships, and self-aware tropes somewhere in the second year.
I lost interest in Deep Space Nine when it stopped being science fiction and started to be about political intrigues for months on end. I lost interest in Voyager when it stopped being science fiction and started to be about political intrigues for months on end. I don’t really care how well the people with cabbage-shaped heads get along with the people with walnut-shaped heads or whatever. The fact that such political intrigues take place in space instead of, say, Dallas or the West Wing does not make them science fiction.
But what really killed Voyager for me was the fact that it moved all over the schedule. Towards the end it showed on a different day and time nearly every week. We didn’t have a DVR then, and I got tired of checking the TV schedule every week to see when it would be on, setting the VHS up, and finding out I had recorded drivel because they had changed the schedule midweek. The same thing killed Enterprise for me. Our local affiliates changed when it was on at least once a month, and, frankly, I was too busy to keep tracking it down and waiting for the show to “hit its stride.”
For me, one concern about the new series is that CBS is already showing how important (or unimportant) they think it will be by not even giving it a slot in the schedule. Yes, I realize that GOT and other cable-only shows are finding a place now, but those are on channels that people have already subscribed to for other reasons.
The show’s name alone will attract die-hards, who will gleefully complain about canon violations or whatever, but will it motivate people who aren’t already die-hard fans into buying yet one MORE service, even one that will let them binge-watch every NCIS episode ever?
How to kill a Star Trek series? A: Let the writers go stale and keep rehashing the same old stuff instead of coming up with clever, compelling new ideas. B: Make it inconvenient for people to watch.
If it’s still on in three years, let me know, and I may subscribe to CBS’ channel for a month and binge-watch it.