Scroll down to the sentence surrounded by bold "***" to see potentially new information regarding this series if you want to skip my other comments.
It does sound good so far. However I completely disagree about TNG and Voyager. They were very different and I actually prefer rewatching Voyager more than TNG.
I agree with you completely; VGR and TNG are really two different beasts, and I also prefer VGR. They have enough similarities that they're conflated more than I would like though.
I hope this is shades of Manny Coto... a writer that understands and knows real trek and delights in building upon its canon.
I'm admittedly still apprehensive about that animated series, (and admittedly more interested in the one for kids heading to Nickelodeon,) but those comments about McMahan do give me a slightly bit of hope. I'm still very much "Team Manny Coto" though, and do hope that he's considered for the production staff again if (or should I say when?) there's another round of Game of Thrones style beheadings behind the scenes. For crying out loud, this is the guy who took the turd that was ENT and polished it until it was mistaken for gold! I wish he had been the first person brought back when they ousted Fuller. (Heck, The Orville has even made me optimistic about Brannon Braga again, and that wasn't an easy task.)
As far as I was concerned, TNG should have just continued with new characters and a refreshed cast. Bounce anyone too expensive to keep, "promote" the rest, and mix in the Maquis with the crew of the 1701-D after it's lost in space. Shake things up.
While I would have been fine with seeing a "TNG Phase II" if you will, VGR was not that show, nor would I ever have wanted VGR to be that show. The beauty of TNG was that it was completely open–ended, much like a police procedural in a way. There's always another crook to catch, and always another planet to explore. The beauty of VGR was that it had a finite goal: get back to Earth. Both were shows about exploration, but one was about diplomacy while the other was about survival in a land where you might never see your home again.
Some neat news lately about the show, which may or may not be called Star Trek Destiny: The series will deal with Picard as a changed man after the destruction of Romulus in the Hobus supernova, which was a prime universe event shown in Star Trek 2009.
This reminds me that Maurice Hurley was gonna destroy Romulus in season 3 by the Borg, but before the Borg wiped out the Romulan civilization they managed to destroy one cube, and Picard was going to have to figure out how they did it. (Do you get chills just reading this?) That would have been something. But Hurley left before season 3 and BoBW.
I'm not sure whether I love or hate the title Star Trek: Destiny. On one hand it's another single–word title, and one that's used to death regularly, but on the other, it does sort of seem fitting for this particular series. If it's named after a ship, I'm not sure how I feel about a U.S.S. Destiny, although oddly enough, I could sort of see it working for a Klingon vessel named I.K.S. Destiny.
I never new about Maurice Hurley's idea, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand having the Borg wipe out the Romulans would have been interesting, on the other, it would have completely prevented so many interesting storylines in TNG from ever being told.
The destruction of Romulus and potential collapse of the Romulan Star Emprire has so many great story opportunities.
Really looking forward to this series.
Me too, specifically for the reason you've cited. The dissolution of the Romulan Star Empire opens up so many opportunities for Trek beyond where it is right now. If this series does well, I'm hoping we can get back to a proper show that moves forward instead of tinkering with the 23rd century stuff constantly.
If they follow anything from Countdown other then the destruction of Romulus, the Klingon's could make a move for Romulan territory after the fall of the Empire, and be a source for conflict in the series.
I'm definitely curious to see what's kept from Countdown. My understanding is that according to Abrams, it was supposed to be treated as either canon or semi–canon, although that flies in the face of how Trek canon has worked. On the other hand, I thought Kurtzman and Orci had a hand in it, and I'm not sure if Kurtzman would want to rewrite his own concept, or if CBS is treating Trek canon the way we remember it. (Read: if you saw it on a TV/Movie screen it happened, if not it didn't.) If nothing else, I could see Countdown being mined for ideas and then reworking them as needed, referencing material that could work in the series, and ignoring the rest of it. In other words, treating it as not canon, but taking concepts from it such as conflict with the Klingons and making them canon.
Yeah... Kurtzman hasn't convinced me he's not a hack yet... actually I kinda think of him as such... from the writing and directing perspective... maybe producing is his real forte.
From what I understand, we still haven't quite seen the portion of DSC where he's showrunner yet, although that should happen soon. I wasn't exactly happy with his writing on the movies, but I don't know if that's because Mr. Lens Flares and Mr. Conspiracy Theories just had more sway, or because he deserves to be lumped in with those two. So far DSC season two seems to be fixing a lot of season one's problems, but I honestly don't know if that's a result of backlash, a result of purging Harberts and Berg who I tend to think of as pure hacks, or a result of not having total chaos throughout production this go around and having some groundwork already laid. (Even if that groundwork was thrown together with duct tape and chewing gum.) The fact that this show was at the top of Kurtzman's wish list does give me hope though, and the fact he convinced Sir Patrick Stewart to do it after he initially only agreed to hear their pitch so that he could say "no" does give me hope. (This would be consistent with Sir Patrick Stewart's previous comments about doing more Trek too; he was done with the franchise as a whole and had no intention of coming back, so Kurtzman and his team must have really thrown something amazing his way to convince him otherwise.) It's easy to paint Kurtzman as a "hack" via guilt by association, but I really want to see something he's done where he's the one in charge as I don't necessarily think he's worthy of that particular demerit, at least not without more evidence to tell me otherwise. Based on some of the other stuff he's worked on (e.g. Hawaii Five–O,) I do think he might be responsible for some of the humor we've gotten in DSC season two, especially in Pike's personality.
On one hand I agree with this assessment as I alluded to above, on the other hand, this is the same guy who gave us Star Trek: Insurrection and who was excited to be the voice of the poop emoji. However, as noted above, he was effectively done with Trek and initally planned to turn this offer down, so I'm hoping that the show is as amazing as the production crew believes it to be. There's so much potential for this to be amazing, and for Kurtzman to basically be viewed as on par with or even above Nick Meyer and Manny Coto. On the other hand, if he botches this, I expect him to be held at a level of contempt below Berman and Braga during the second season of ENT.
***Some more stuff about the new show that I haven't seen anyone here mention yet***
- According to Patrick Stewart, this show could run for up to three seasons. I admittedly have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, we at least know it shouldn't be a one and done thing if it's successful, but on the other, that doesn't really feel like enough, and given how short the season will be, kind of feels like a tease of sorts. My hope is that three seasons of this will lead to a proper Trek series in the early 25th century if the goal is to still have some space between this and future series.
- Speaking of the setting, we now have an exact timeframe, again thanks to Patrick Stewart through an appearance on The Graham Norton show. While initial reports stated 20–25 years after Picard's last appearance, Patrick Steward said the show is set 19 years after TNG, which has subsequently been extrapolated out to ten years after Nemesis. That puts us firmly in 2389, still ten years before the 25th century, or about ten years earlier than we may have initially believed. Granted Patrick Stewart seemed to be a little confused by the timeframe himself, so this still may be slightly off.
- Kurtzman mentioned that the show would be more like previous prime universe Trek than DSC in terms of pacing, but noted that it would still be unique; make of that what you will.
- Additionally, Kurtzman stated that this show would "respect" the look and feel of what was established for this timeline via TNG–VGR and the movies while still adding something new. In other words, don't necessarily expect to see NEM style uniforms, but expect something similar.