This is the 31st entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. In some ways, I hope this is the penultimate entry.
And so, in a few more hours here in the United States, we’re about to see the launch of Star Trek: Discovery, the seventh (!) Star Trek TV series (yes, I’m counting the animated series, too).
I had planned on having a longer Star Trek retrospective finished by now. I’ve been working on it for a good chunk of the summer as readers may recall, but I’m still wrapping that up. In the meantime, you may be interested in my July post about what to look forward to with Star Trek: Discovery.
The stakes for Discovery are uncomfortably high. Perhaps not since The Next Generation (TNG) first aired 30 years ago has a Star Trek series got the same scrutiny about its potential success or failure — and I doubt fans will be as forgiving as they were back in the 80s, when many TV shows could try and “find their audience” for the first season or two. This was easier when you had less channels. Even TNG, which was syndicated, didn’t have the multi-faceted media competition Discovery will have now.
I’m happy to hear the beginning buzz is positive. Nevertheless, the expectations are very high both by longtime Star Trek fans and modern audiences. Many doubtless want to experience sci-fi bliss akin to being in the Nexus, that other dimension of delights favored by El-Aurians and Enterprise captains.
It’s almost certain that Discovery won’t be perfect. None of the series are. Nevertheless, it feels like knives are already being sharpened on social media, either to defend or attack the series (it’s probably because I visit a “briar patch” of Star Trek sites and Facebook pages). The dissection, dismissal, and defense of Seth MacFarlane’s recent Trek-inspired series, The Orville, almost feels like it’s a Spanish Civil War for fans looking forward to Discovery and those just waiting for it to let them down. I doubt it’ll be “Planet Hell,” but it sounds like anything less than 90% Nexus won’t do.
Adam Rogers has a great piece in Wired which charts out the very tricky bit of navigating Star Trek: Discovery needs to do as it attempts to win over longtime fans, fill corporate coffers, and become the poster child for how to be a flagship show for a streaming service. Check it out before you check Discovery out. I’m sure I’ll compare notes with some of you on the aforementioned social media.
I’ll be back for at least one more Crisis entry.
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