Star Trek: The Next Generation Reboot With Patrick Stewart Reportedly in Development
Rumors of the Picard-centric reboot come amid Alex Kurtzman extending his CBS contract for a planned expansion of the Star Trek TV universe.
According to a THR article, there are unconfirmed rumors that CBS TV Studios is developing a Star Trek reboot starring Patrick Stewart in which he would reprise his The Next Generation role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. According to THR's sources, Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman are attached to the potential reboot. Not only is this an unconfirmed project, but THR's sources also say that the deal is far from complete and might not happen. Still, this would be huge news for Star Trek fandom—however you might feel about a Picard-centric reboot.
The rumors of the Picard reboot come amidst Kurtzman renewing his overall deal with CBS Television Studios, extending his contract by five years. This will keep him in partnership with the studio through 2023, for a reported $5 million per year.
Kurtzman was recently made sole showrunner of Star Trek: Discovery following the dismissal of previous co-showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg who left amidst reports of bullying behavior in the writers room. Goldsman, who served as an executive producer on Season 1 of Discovery, also left the show, reportedly due to a clash with the writing staff in terms of management style and personality, so it's interesting that he is still attached to the potential Picard-centric reboot.
In addition to his work on Star Trek: Discovery, Kurtzman's extended deal with CBS Television Studios will include an expansion of the Star Trek franchise on the small screen, including the development of new series, miniseries, and other content, including animation.
While this generally seems like good news for the Star Trek universe, it may also be disappointing, depending on what kind of Star Trek fan you are. While the move represents a reinvestment in the Star Trek TV universe, Kurtzman is not known for critical success. Previously, he has co-written the scripts for Transformers, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. More recently, he directed and co-wrote The Mummy. Not exactly the kind of nuanced science fiction writing Star Trek has, at its best, historically represented.
More news on the expanded Star Trek TV universe as we hear it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Third Eye:
If TNG came out today it wouldn’t make it a full season. For better or worse we are in the age of prestige TV and there’s little room for shows like Picard. To me, it’s easily the best Trek content since DS9, but I’m also part of its prime demographic.
I watched the Farpoint episodes last week. God, they were/are awful. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Donger:
I watched the Farpoint episodes last week. God, they were/are awful.
I wish I could remember my reaction to them in 1987. I distinctly remember my father and I being excited for new Star Trek and I remember watching the premiere, but I don’t actually remember my reaction. I mean, I was 10 and that was 33 years ago, so it’s not surprising. It definitely grew to become one of my favorite shows of all time, but I wonder if my/our reaction to it now is more because of what we’ve become accustomed to in quality of TV, or if it was underwhelming back then as well. Or maybe the pure excitement of new Trek hid the warts? [Reply]
Originally Posted by Third Eye:
I wish I could remember my reaction to them in 1987. I distinctly remember my father and I being excited for new Star Trek and I remember watching the premiere, but I don’t actually remember my reaction. I mean, I was 10 and that was 33 years ago, so it’s not surprising. It definitely grew to become one of my favorite shows of all time, but I wonder if my/our reaction to it now is more because of what we’ve become accustomed to in quality of TV, or if it was underwhelming back then as well. Or maybe the pure excitement of new Trek hid the warts?
I remember mine; I was massively unimpressed with TNG initially. Didn't like the new crew (especially Picard, who I found to be pompous, preachy and dull), thought Q was silly and annoying, and absolutely hated the design of the Enterprise D and the uniforms. Seemed like Riker was the closest thing they had to Kirk, but it was like he was going through space with his uptight dad, who stopped him from doing the Kirk things that would have made the show interesting. Watched a handful of episodes with little interest and then gave up on it completely. Completely understand why Patrick Steward later said that he didn't unpack his suitcase for the first few weeks. The show could have easily failed.
Then, around '89, I started watching again. This would have been around the start of the third season. The writing had improved dramatically. I still didn't care for the ship design, but it started to grow in me a bit. The uniforms changed and no longer looked like leotards, and there were no longer male background characters wearing skirts. The characters became more fleshed out, and they starting featuring the Worf/Klingon story arc. They also radically changed Troi's appearance and I then realized how hot she was. At that point I became hooked.
The following year the station that aired the show started showing reruns from the first and second seasons on a nightly basis, and I gave them another chance. There was a period over a couple of months where I basically saw a new episode every night, which was cool. Overall they still weren't very good, but there were a few gems here and there.
I saw Yesterday's Enterprise, my favorite TNG episode, when it first aired, before I saw the first season rerun where Yar was killed by the evil tar monster. At the time I barely remembered the character and had no idea that she had been killed off. When the Enterprise C came through the rift and suddenly Worf was replaced by Tasha, I remember thinking "who the fuck is that?" :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frazod:
I remember mine; I was massively unimpressed with TNG initially. Didn't like the new crew (especially Picard, who I found to be pompous, preachy and dull), thought Q was silly and annoying, and absolutely hated the design of the Enterprise D and the uniforms. Seemed like Riker was the closest thing they had to Kirk, but it was like he was going through space with his uptight dad, who stopped him from doing the Kirk things that would have made the show interesting. Watched a handful of episodes with little interest and then gave up on it completely. Completely understand why Patrick Steward later said that he didn't unpack his suitcase for the first few weeks. The show could have easily failed.
Then, around '89, I started watching again. This would have been around the start of the third season. The writing had improved dramatically. I still didn't care for the ship design, but it started to grow in me a bit. The uniforms changed and no longer looked like leotards, and there were no longer male background characters wearing skirts. The characters became more fleshed out, and they starting featuring the Worf/Klingon story arc. They also radically changed Troi's appearance and I then realized how hot she was. At that point I became hooked.
The following year the station that aired the show started showing reruns from the first and second seasons on a nightly basis, and I gave them another chance. There was a period over a couple of months where I basically saw a new episode every night, which was cool. Overall they still weren't very good, but there were a few gems here and there.
I saw Yesterday's Enterprise, my favorite TNG episode, when it first aired, before I saw the first season rerun where Yar was killed by the evil tar monster. At the time I barely remembered the character and had no idea that she had been killed off. When the Enterprise C came through the rift and suddenly Worf was replaced by Tasha, I remember thinking "who the **** is that?" :-)
It's hard to decide which character displayed the worst acting early on: Picard, Trio or Tasha. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Third Eye:
I wish I could remember my reaction to them in 1987. I distinctly remember my father and I being excited for new Star Trek and I remember watching the premiere, but I don’t actually remember my reaction. I mean, I was 10 and that was 33 years ago, so it’s not surprising. It definitely grew to become one of my favorite shows of all time, but I wonder if my/our reaction to it now is more because of what we’ve become accustomed to in quality of TV, or if it was underwhelming back then as well. Or maybe the pure excitement of new Trek hid the warts?
It's a miracle it made it out of season 1 or season 2. Season 2, in particular, had cast changes, changes in the writer's room and a writer's strike, if I remember correctly. In any case those two seasons featured several of the worst episodes of the series.
I remember watching it weekly, being excited because it was new and cool, but even at 13 and 14 I recognized just how bad some of it was. Then there was Best of Both Worlds at the end of season 3,.and everything changed. One of the best cliffhangers ever and it became one of my favorite shows. [Reply]
There are some really, really good episodes of TNG. There are also tons of bad ones (especially in the early seasons). There's no way it would have survived today's environment if made today. [Reply]
Watched this documentary a few years ago that Shatner made on the making of TNG. Basically told the story of how difficult everything was with Roddenberry in the first few years. [Reply]
Is Gene Roddenberry overrated? I kinda think so. TOS was basically Forbidden Planet: the Series. He had a couple of good ideas but a good bit of the best stuff came from other people. He didn't really do much post-TOS and many of his ideas for TMP and TNG were terrible.
P.S. He did do an awesome job with The Cage, imo. Top 3 TOS ep for me. [Reply]
Watched this documentary a few years ago that Shatner made on the making of TNG. Basically told the story of how difficult everything was with Roddenberry in the first few years.
Wow, that was enlightening. Roddenberry basically ruined the first TNG season the way Lucas ruined the Star Wars prequels. Both were bloated, pompous asses with complete control who wouldn't listen to anybody else. I suspect that a big part of the show improving was a result of his failing health limiting his interference. [Reply]
There were some good early TNG episodes, I think. Conspiracy, Too Short a Season, Measure of a Man, Peak Performance, Time Squared, and Elementary Dear Data are all good, imo. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frazod:
Wow, that was enlightening. Roddenberry basically ruined the first TNG season the way Lucas ruined the Star Wars prequels. Both were bloated, pompous asses with complete control who wouldn't listen to anybody else. I suspect that a big part of the show improving was a result of his failing health limiting his interference.
The whole documentary is worth watching and kind of gets into that. As Berman and Piller started exerting more control, the show definitely got better. I read this the other night about TNG's "Family" (which is a great episode at the beginning of S4 but which would have never got made if Roddenberry still had the same power he did in the first few years):
Originally Posted by :
Ira Steven Behr: It was simple. I created this planet called Risa, which was a pleasure planet. The captain was stressed out and needed a vacation. He went on this vacation and there was a holosuite there – or a holodeck – I guess a holosuite, we called it.
Ronald D. Moore: It was a holodeck.
Ira Steven Behr: Holodeck. It said, “Face Your Greatest Fear!” and it was like a carnival place. It wasn’t what it became, this sensual, open-sexuality place – Gene turned it into that! It was like this carnival atmosphere place; a true vacation resort. And he thought, “Oh, cool, this is going to put me in a good mood. What I need is to fight some Klingons without thinking about the repercussions of it, or go after some Romulans or whatever it is.”
And he goes into this holodeck, and it was all about the captain being promoted to admiral, and losing the Enterprise, and Riker being bumped up to captain of the Enterprise. Basically, though we never really hit it on the head, it’s about growing old. Not to grow old, but your time of life changing and suddenly you’re not going to be the guy going off on adventures, you’re going to be sitting at a desk somewhere, SENDING people on adventures. That’s his greatest fear.
Gene went STARK RAVING MAD. It was like, “Picard fears nothing. If it’s time for him to grow old, to become an admiral, he becomes an admiral! He would not think about that, AT ALL. Picard is John Wayne!” Well, John Wayne had all kinds of fears and guilt and angers and bitterness in his best movies… “No. John Wayne is a hero, Picard is a hero, we are not doing this episode.” Even though I guess this had happened a lot on the show in the first couple seasons, it hadn’t hit us.
It hadn’t hit me, or certainly Ron either… it was just like, it’s dead! But Michael loved it, and it was gonna happen, and Rick was saying, “Look, there’s nothing we can do.” And that’s when Gene sat there, “…but I LOVE the pleasure planet! Get the captain laid!” “Patrick wants to get laid; he doesn’t do enough f—ing and fighting, you gotta get him laid!” Suddenly, it turned into sexual fetishes, and we were gonna have women making love to women in the background, and men kissing men… it’s like, I’m thinking, “I have entered into some kind of Phantom Zone. Some kind of strange new world!”
I walked out of the office, Gene’s office… and Gene was very nice, but it was like NO discussion. I turned to Rick, and I said, “Men kissing men? Women caressing women?” He goes, “Oh, don’t listen to anything Gene says. Write a story where the captain gets laid and has some fun.” And it was like, that was it. If that’s the show… and I wrote it, because I’m a whore! And, you know, it was okay, but it wasn’t what it set out to be. And that’s ultimately why I left.
Ronald D. Moore: And what a difference a year makes, because the next season, I wrote a show called “Family“. Picard goes back home to Earth, with his brother and so on. Same kind of setup, I wrote this story; he goes home and has this fight with his brother, it’s an old family animosity and bitterness that boils to the surface of these two brothers.
Gene HATES it. I had my version of this meeting, not by myself; it’s with me and Rick Berman and Michael Piller, we all go into Gene’s office. Gene goes through this whole thing about how much he hates this script. “It says terrible things about Picard’s parents; these brothers don’t exist in the twenty-fourth century; they have such profound personal animosities; this would never happen. I don’t buy any of this, this is not a Star Trek episode. There’s no action in this; there’s no jeopardy. We can’t do this show.”
I was like, shell-shocked. We walked out of the office, and I remember going into that hallway of the Hart Building with Rick and Mike and saying, “What do I do?” At that point, Rick and Mike just looked at each other and said, “Don’t worry about it; we’ll take care of it. Go write your script.” I went, “Okay…” and I went off and wrote it, and never heard another word. Somehow, they were then dealing with Gene in a different way and that script just went through after that point. He just stopped kind of throwing out scripts and chaning things from that point forward, and just started slowly to change.
Originally Posted by Frazod:
I remember mine; I was massively unimpressed with TNG initially. Didn't like the new crew (especially Picard, who I found to be pompous, preachy and dull), thought Q was silly and annoying, and absolutely hated the design of the Enterprise D and the uniforms. Seemed like Riker was the closest thing they had to Kirk, but it was like he was going through space with his uptight dad, who stopped him from doing the Kirk things that would have made the show interesting. Watched a handful of episodes with little interest and then gave up on it completely. Completely understand why Patrick Steward later said that he didn't unpack his suitcase for the first few weeks. The show could have easily failed.
Then, around '89, I started watching again. This would have been around the start of the third season. The writing had improved dramatically. I still didn't care for the ship design, but it started to grow in me a bit. The uniforms changed and no longer looked like leotards, and there were no longer male background characters wearing skirts. The characters became more fleshed out, and they starting featuring the Worf/Klingon story arc. They also radically changed Troi's appearance and I then realized how hot she was. At that point I became hooked.
The following year the station that aired the show started showing reruns from the first and second seasons on a nightly basis, and I gave them another chance. There was a period over a couple of months where I basically saw a new episode every night, which was cool. Overall they still weren't very good, but there were a few gems here and there.
I saw Yesterday's Enterprise, my favorite TNG episode, when it first aired, before I saw the first season rerun where Yar was killed by the evil tar monster. At the time I barely remembered the character and had no idea that she had been killed off. When the Enterprise C came through the rift and suddenly Worf was replaced by Tasha, I remember thinking "who the fuck is that?" :-)
I had a very similar experience. Watched the first few episodes, decided it was garbage, stopped watching it and moved on. I thought Picard was crap. Put a French guy in as Captain so the Enterprise could just surrender to everyone. Give him an even cheesier version of Kirk as his XO. Copy Spock but make him an android. Troi was fucking useless. Blah. At some point I saw the episode 'Conspiracy' (mind control worms, Picard and Riker explode a guy's head with a phaser) either on its original air date or in reruns and enjoyed it. Gave it another chance and the show was noticeably better by then. Still not all that great but tolerable. Eventually it won me over. [Reply]
