With three or four years between new installments in the rebooted Star Trek films, fans can get pretty restless. And that’s in addition to their crazed anger at the existence of the alternate timeline at all. Perhaps that pain could be eased by a new TV series – or kind of a TV series.
CBS announced today that Star Trek will be returning to episodic TV in 2017. There’s just one catch – the show won’t actually be on TV. The first episode will air on CBS, but all subsequent ones will be exclusive to the network’s paid streaming site, CBS All Access. You know, like pop culture’s idea of a drug dealer – the first one’s free but then you have to pay. In this case $5.99 a month.
Alex Kurtzman, co-writer of Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness, will take on an executive producer role along with Heather Kadin (who works with Kurtzman on Scorpion and Sleepy Hollow). Thankfully, they won’t be bringing along his frequent partner Roberto Orci. Orci is the one responsible for the Truther conspiracy elements that keep popping up in their collaborations, most notably in Into Darkness.
According to the announcement, the new series “is not related to the upcoming feature film Star Trek Beyond. Whether this means it will be set in the “Prime Universe” or simply not involve Chris Pine’s Enterprise is unknown. Which do you want it to be?