Late last year, CBS announced a new Star Trek TV show (the first to air since 2005) to coincide with the franchise’s 50th anniversary, although it won’t quite coincide as the series premieres early next year and the anniversary is this year, so really it coincides with the 51st anniversary, but if it’s time they need to craft a better show, I’m sure we can forgive them.
The show, created by Alex Kurtzman (co-screenwriter of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies) and Bryan Fuller (creator of NBC’s under-appreciated and unabashedly grim Hannibal), will be completely unrelated to the Film franchise – which continues this month with the release of Star Trek Beyond – and will instead focus on an entirely new set of characters aboard a new ship exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilisations, and boldly going where no man has gone before.
The first season will consist of 13 episodes and will reportedly follow one continuous story throughout the season, as is the case with most TV drama these days, where you have to watch every episode to understand what’s going on, meaning they’ll be ditching the “new adventure each week” formula that’s become Star Trek tradition, which I for one was rather looking forward to returning to, but whatever.
CBS had previously announced that it would be airing in the US on CBS All Access (basically their version of iPlayer), but it’s now come to light that it will be arriving internationally on Netflix in 188 countries including the UK, “within 24 hours” of its US broadcast. Along with the new show, which is as-yet untitled, Netflix will also be adding all 727 existing episodes of Star Trek Television from the past 50 years to its library, making way for the binge of the century.
In other Trek news (and there’s been a lot lately), a fourth film has been announced featuring Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as the late George Kirk, who died in the first film when his son, now in his thirties, was born, so I’m not quite sure how this will work other than cashing in on Hemsworth’s rise in popularity since 2009 from playing a certain Norse god.
Also, while Abrams isn’t sure how the films will deal with the tragic and sudden death of Chekov actor Anton Yelchin, saying “it’s too early to talk about it,” he’s decided one thing – he won’t be recasting, out of respect. “I can’t possibly imagine that,” he says, “and I think Anton deserves better.”