2017 and the Netflix Deal

This week's news that we finally have an international broadcaster for Star Trek 2017 broke like an atom bomb. For the first time all three of the main SKoST writers give their thoughts! 

NB: All three were independently written...

Clive - Payment Shocker?!

2016 - the year that should be remembered for Star Trek fans uniting behind the 50th anniversary but may well become known as the Year of the Moan.

Beyond, Axanar and now the 2017 series certainly get their places on that list because today it's been announced that the series will be making its way out of the US to 188 countries on Netflix. 

As things go this is another massive revelation in a week that has also seen George Kirk announced for a return in the fourth movie (more on that elsewhere) and a stupid spoiler of a trailer (more on THAT elsewhere too) that may well have just ruined the latest movie in a heartbeat. Fans are split it seems with some more than happy it's on Netflix while others disappointed it's not on Sky or just downright livid it won't be free to view. Indeed, it's going to be pretty much the same state of play as if you wanted to watch it in the US via CBS' new All Access subscription.

For some reason people seem shocked that CBS have sold the show to Netflix but hey, isn't that what this is all about? Surely they would logically sell it to the business that offered them the best deal and I guess in this case it was the subscription channel. 

Cards down here, I do subscribe to Netflix but only took it up recently. The addition of every single televised episode of the show to the service a week after I joined was, admittedly, manna from Heaven and I'm not complaining because it's easier than sticking a DVD on and I have every story at my fingertips. I did believe the rumour that SKY had almost signed on the line and stated so in the most recent podcast but I've had to eat my words with this news. It makes sense for Netflix to have it seeing as they already have the whole package and I would place a bet now that the classic movies will be reappearing very soon. 

What may well make this unusual is that instead of bombing the service with the whole series we're going to get one new episode a week for 13 weeks. So, what's the questions we should be asking? What day of the week is it going to be loaded onto Netflix? What time? How long after the US will we get it (within 48 hours apparently) or will it be available everywhere at the same time? I can just imagine us all sat poised refreshing the player to get it the instant it drops.

Even if the series had gone to SKY you can imagine that people would still have complained because it's still a paid TV service. Netflix is a bigger player in the UK than SKY's own sub service, NOW TV and rocks around five million subscribers and is rapidly growing. It's not the 12 million that SKY has but it's making big inroads and could well be a force to be afraid of in the future especially if it's grabbing big scalps like the new Star Trek series. 

CBS will never make everyone happy but hey, that's life so let's just get on with it. If you want to watch it you'll pay. If you don't you'll wait for the DVD or Blu-Ray.

Ian - Speed Issues

As someone with neither Sky or Netflix I was interested in seeing where the next series of Star Trek would take us. 

Sky, who have had first-run Star Trek since The Next Generation or the relative newcomer on the block Netflix. Personally there is advantages and disadvantages to either platform. As CBS have gone with Netflix we can have a look at that platform.

The biggest fear with Netflix is internet connection. Locally (Ireland) we have traditionally had poor internet but recently we have been upgraded to fibre so this won't be an issue luckily for me however but there are plenty will find this the major problem. One other thing I will be interested to see is how the home release is handled. Will we get the great content that has become the hallmark of the recent Blu-Ray releases and we worth purchasing or will it be just a half done home release that will just cater for people who lack decent internet?

One other thing I was glad to see was that we will get the episodes 24 hours after they air in the US. This continues the tradition we had since Deep Space Nine and will hopefully allow people's enjoyment not be ruined by spoilers(Beyond I am looking at you!!)

We will also get all the previous TV shows available online with Netflix. This alone along with the new content makes it worthwhile signing up seeing as you get a free month!

Tiff - Bigger Picture

When Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager came to air on TV in the late '80s and early '90s, the whole system of how TV shows were distributed and broadcast was far more straightforward. 

There was a huge downside back then, by the time broadcast rights were decided upon for UK and the rest of the world, the series had often been on air for up to 2 years!. 

I remember well, how being a Star Trek fan was so frustrating back then as we waited to see when Star Trek would air, on SKY One usually. 

If you didn’t have a SKY subscription then you would be in Trekkie hell, waiting forever to see if BBC TWO would maybe, perhaps air The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine in their 6pm slot. 

So despite some cries of dissent about Netflix acquiring the new 2017 show, I fully support it. 

The very concept of the new show being instantly available (not to mention the entire trek back catalogue) to a world-wide audience is something that would have been unimaginable in the hey-day of Star Trek. 

Also there is the corporate consideration, all art has to co-operate and work with and around business to thrive in the 21st century. 

If the global availability of new and old Star Trek brings a broader audience, and possibly even a bigger new converted fanbase then the decision to go with Netflix could cement a brighter future for Star Trek in it’s next 50 year journey.

How are you feeling about the arrival of Star Trek via Netflix for 2017? Good, bad, indifferent?

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Trekollections IV: SKY's the Limit

The early 1990's were my Trek proving ground. My knowledge of the subject was growing and the franchise was about to move into what I consider its golden era. Everything was good...

Except I was going to miss every moment of it because we didn't have SKY and that was where season four of The Next Generation was due to premiere in the UK. The year was 1992 and the countdown to Family was on.

Now I'll rewind back slightly to Trekollections III at this point - I slipped in the mention of a saviour there and it's only fair to bring this in now. As you will remember I'd talked about the Christmas Day watching The Motion Picture and having turkey fritters for dinner. What had happened was that Dad had been made redundant and was searching for work at the time. Co-incidence had it that one day he was out gardening and started talking to the guy who lived directly behind us through the slatted wooden fence.

Over the next few weeks and months we came to know this man very well. George was ex-RAF and one of the nicest people I have ever known, bar none. He too was looking for a new job which led to many collaborations with my parents but George also had SKY. Now in the early 1990's in the UK that was a big thing and somehow the conversation one day turned to me being given the chance to go and watch some  if I wanted to. Now I jumped at the chance - but it would need to be weekdays around 5pm and could I video something say once a day...?

Personal library photo

At the cost of a bit of house-sitting and gardening i could now watch new Star Trek whenever I could. George would be quite a big influence on my life at this point and significantly, about 15 years later but we'll talk about that in due course. Being a writer himself when schedule permitted i was able to spend some time with our neighbour helping me develop a few essential planning skills which I used for a fair few years while I was focused more on novel writing. I believe we worked on a The Next Generation story on a few occasions and got a fair distance into the planning. Sadly time was against me and I never sat down to flesh it out properly.

While a lot of my friends and peers were getting into Blur, Oasis, Suede and other indie Britpop bands that were beginning to rear their head, I was turning away from the music scene and digging firmly into the sci-fi camp. My foray into the world of music would be put on hold for a long time. In fact it would only be the last 15 years or so that I have really started to hone my tastes!

Luckily for me George was very reasonable and at the cost of a VHS cassette I was soon receiving batches of The Next Generation on its first run through on SKY One. I didn't manage to see every episode during the run but I did get to see a good 70% of seasons four and five. My viewing of season six was a bit hit and miss but I had better luck when SKY cycled back round from Encounter at Farpoint before they embarked on the first showing of the seventh season in 1994. Actually this reminds me that my first encounter with these later seasons was Unification in it's movie-length format and for more on that one I would refer you to a previous blog piece on that two-parter.

Anyway, my recollections of this first run on SKY is of some grainy VHS quality episodes, particularly, Reunion, Future Imperfect and The Loss. Many of them were taken out of sequence so what I saw when is a bit of a blur but I do know that in the following season I managed Darmok and Cause and Effect at least. Why I missed a good chunk of the sixth season is hard to recall but what I can tell you is that SKY held back the first part of Descent which was the season cliffhanger to air with the final year. 


Now around this time I started to get TV Zone magazine from the local newspaper shop. The first issue I bought was number 52 (right). It was a must have if only for the brilliant episode guides for the seventh year of The Next Generation and the second season of Deep Space Nine. Magazines were a key way to keep up to date with any goings on in the Trek universe. TV Zone and Starburst in Copelands newsagents were a monthly revelation and I found out a great deal about the last days of The Next Generation through their pages. I also managed to find the odd copy of the now sadly defunct Starlog mag. Again while doing some loft rummaging and reminiscing I located the issue in which readers were asked to vote for their favourite 25 The Next Generation episodes. 

Oddly it's conducted before the seventh season and with half of season six still to run so whether any of those would have made the list we will never know. Anyway, the magazines gave some brilliant tit-bits of info and pictures of what was coming. You have to remember that this was in the days before something called the "internet" (you may have heard of it) so finding out information was a much more challenging hobby! I seem to recall reading my first bits of character detail and plot synopsis for Deep Space Nine's pilot there. At the time I didn't quite get what it was all about and thought it was going to be another show featuring a crew on a space ship in a completely different sector of space. Indeed, this would come true to some degree in season three of the series with the introduction of the Defiant. 

VHS was the format to get hold of new Star Trek back in the day and as with "Unification" it was the way that I managed my first viewing of Deep Space Nine's pilot episode in 1993. Rented from the local (and recently closed-down) Blockbuster Video shop it was my treat while mum and dad went out for the evening. Different was an understatement and I wasn't totally prepared for such a drastic departure from the Star Trek world we came to know and love in the hands of Kirk and Picard. It was rough, tough and gritty and really placed Roddenberry's vision on the edge of the final frontier. While Encounter at Farpoint had gripped me from the start of The Next Generation this was a much more tepid introduction and it would take time for me to appreciate how good this show was. During the first year I was even contemplating turning it off on occasion because it didn't seem to be going anywhere. While I had rented that first volume, it would again be down to the kindness of our neighbour, George and the Powers That Be at SKY who would provide me with the chance to see the remaining 18 episodes of that inaugural season and unlike The Next Generation it would be one episode per week on a Sunday night. 

When all this was going on I managed to gain a StarTrek ally in the form of Steven Bond. How we were introduced is now lost in the annals of history. What I can say is that we both went to the same school and were heavy StarTrek addicts. We would swap magazines and information regularly as well as VHS cassettes of the latest The Next Generation releases. Later it would move across to Deep Space Nine and Voyager episodes as while I was more of a fan of Sisko and crew, "Bondy" preferred the charms of Captain Janeway and the Delta Quadrant.

Neither of us had bought that many of the VHS releases upto this point with any dedication. The only ones I had at home were volumes bought by grandparents (which amassed to half of The Next Generation season) one along with the one video I had bought after much searching; Relics. To this day it is still the only Trek episode I have ever watched twice in one day. It was, to bring us nicely full circle in this blog, one of the episodes I caught on that first run through of seasons four through six on SKY. It is also one of the few episodes that I can still watch again and again and again and never get bored. This was also the first volume Bondy borrowed and it would continue with the majority of the final year meaning that when it did come round on SKY I only had a few to catch. When season one of Deep Space Nine had run its course this was exactly what happened. This was to be the final year of first-run The Next Generation and I had to wait until my birthday in 1994 to see the finale. Thanks to my VHS partnership with Bondy I'd managed to see the best of the last season; Parallels, The Pegasus, Genesis and Preemptive Strike still stand out from their first viewing and in the next few weeks I'm going to be going through them again, in order, for the first time since the mid-1990's.


Let's pause there for a second and take a breath - Deep Space Nine. That's the second reference here and it's about time I come clean that of all the Trek incarnations it's without any doubt my favourite. In fact probably for the opposite reasons that I should like Star Trek. It had conflict, it was darker, more unsettled and each week built on the last. There were repercussions from actions and the format didn't get the magic reset that plagued many an Original Series or The Next Generation episode. There is so much I'll come to talk about with this series but if truth be told in its first season I almost reached for the off button on more than one occasion.


In 1993/94 it was a huge shock to go from the comfort of The Next Generation to the frontier outpost of Deep Space Nine. The pilot was and still is my favourite of all the series inceptions but after that it was decidedly mixed. Q was just wrong for the series; we didn't need Lwaxana showing up, there was no action considering the promise from Emissary of what could be coming. It was very, very talky; nothing seemed to be happening and the characters were a bit, well, poor. Episodes such as The Storyteller, If Wishes Were Horses and Move Along Home didn't help the case for the defence but it seems as though Deep Space Nine managed to get a lot of its problems sorted in those first 20 hours. To this day I'm glad I persevered as otherwise my love of Star Trek may well have died with the end of The Next Generation in 1994.

Sadly on VHS the long-awaited finale of that show was a bit of a disappointment because after such great coverage of the entire series, All Good Things... was presented in its edited two-part format, missing some great little scenes to account for the restricted running time and addition of title and end credits. Later a feature-length version was released coupled with the Journey's End documentary and trailers for all seven feature films in a limited run but with my budget it was too late. I would have to wait a few months for SKY to show the finale as part of its Sunday run to enjoy such gems as Old Q and references to Leah Brahms marrying Geordi. Minor they may seem, but it was shocking to see them cut and the last The Next Generation ever presented in its hacked format. However as Picard proclaimed that "The sky's the limit." I already knew there was more to come. The main reason that The Next Generation had finished after seven fantastic years was so that the crew could move to the big screen. We were going to get our first Trek film since 1991. Star Trek Generations was on the way.

While I'd been avidly following The Next Generation through its swansong season I had inadvertently taken my eye off the Deep Space Nine ball as it had in turn passed into its second year in parallel. I'd kept a track of the episodes that were coming - there was a three-parter to kick off the season, an episode set in the past - but that was about all that interested me. When SKY started to run these episodes I dropped myself in front of the screen and prepared for more of the same as the previous year. I was surprised to find that the step up in quality that had been evident in Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets had been maintained and there was even the hint of an ongoing storylines around the Prophets, Bajor and something else... It was a much improved season all round and the second half of the year really emphasised that Deep Space Nine had a future and being different to the concluding The Next Generation was essential to that.

So here we are; it's coming to the end of 1994. I'd been a big fan of The Next Generation particularly in its later years when my love of Star Trek really took hold. How was I going to remain a fan with only Deep Space Nine to maintain my interest? It was nowhere near as good as Picard's Enterprise and there's no way it ever could be...Could it?!

The True Story: Star Trek

True, probably. The full story? No.

Thanks to the wonders of SKY On Demand I caught up with this Channel 5 special last night (13th May 2013). Originally aired on the Discovery Channel earlier this year (January 5th 2013) and clearly positioned at a time when interest in the franchise is beyond its peak, The True Story offered us a chance to see what made Star Trek a reality back in the 1960's. Hyped up as a "Documentary (that) reveals how the original Star Trek series almost didn't take off..." (UK Daily Express headline) I should've realised the error of my ways before settling in for an hour.

While BBC 2 decided to show a repeat of The Star Trek Story on Saturday night (11th May 2013) at least this was a new(ish) programme. The problem was that unless you've lived under a rock for the last 50 years the story of Star Trek's conception is hardly mind-blowing since it's been out in the open for decades: pilot one failed, got recommissioned for pilot two, Roddenberry got to keep Spock and had to lose everyone else, there you go, all done in two lines.

Discovery Channel

There of course had to be more to it than that considering we had a full hour (minus adverts) to fill here - and there was with mixed results. Retelling the story through the use of actors, the history of Star Trek's creation focuses on Herb Solow and Roddenberry with the occasional swerve to feature Matt Jeffries and Bob Justman. Jeffries ultimately should be credited with the look of the series while Justman kept the ball in play.

What I was perhaps aware of, but not THAT aware of was how little Roddenberry began with , how little he seemed in control and that the bulk of what we saw on the screen was created by others (the obvious example being the USS Enterprise herself). Roddenberry had a lot of self-belief and that's evident here - mistresses (all bar two female guest cast apparently), publicity campaigns, standing with the fans to help save the series - The True Story stands Gene out as a hero who loved the attention just as much as he loved the series he created. Indeed he preferred "creator" to "producer". 

Quite an amazing journey considering he pitched the show from a piece of A4 and was not the greatest orator yet managed to convince Herb Solow to help him get not just one but two pilots commissioned. Solow is quick to point out that he had to give Gene a lot of help to pitch to NBC and that it's not Roddenberry who deserves the credit overall. Sadly we can't get the other side to this story since Roddenberry died in 1991. 

At least they ensured that, while he might have been a handful to work with, Roddenberry's vision was noted and spoken of. His all-consuming passion helped bring the series about and that's something that should never be forgotten no matter what "bad press" may exist in regards to some of his other questionable activities away from the limelight of Star Trek. 

digitaltrends.com

There were two massive chunks I was surprised were omitted from the documentary and as a casual viewer these would probably have bee  appreciated. From a fan perspective it's two massive gaping holes that should not be there. Firstly, there's no mention of the situation Roddenberry found himself in for the third season following Star Trek's revival and how Fred Freiberger took on the running of the show. Secondly, the transition to the big screen completely jumps over the reaction to Star Wars as well as the fact that the franchise had originally been planned for a small screen comeback with Star Trek: Phase II rather than a multi-million dollar movie. Both factors were key in the history of the programme but neither was covered even in a passing, throwaway comment. The birth of the conventions and the renaming of NASA's space shuttle as Enterprise meanwhile are ticked off as you would expect with the former getting nowhere near the appreciation it warrants as a subject. I thought perhaps another 30 minutes to an hour on this show might have added more depth and detail particularly in this area.

astrobio.net

Luckily the programme is saved by the diversions into the real world by some of its contributors namely Andre Bormanis who acted as science advisor to the later generations of the franchise as well as contributions from CERN in Switzerland in regards to anti-matter. It adds weight to the story and shows that Star Trek and Roddenberry had always attempted to keep an eye on reality and that whatever was featured was truly possible. Warp speed could indeed happen and transporters are even now being tested in the smallest ways to get particles to mimic each other. 

There were also examples cited of 3D printers replicating body parts in fine detail, the work of IT experts in the field of android development which all backed up that science and Star Trek were truly linked and influenced each other. The only scary thing is when the scientists involved in these experiments work out how long it would take to beam a human from one point to another...put it this way you'd be long dead and dust before it got halfway through the process. What I would also add is that while these diversions were great and added another layer to the mythos, were they really necessary and did they help tell the true story? I would argue no. In fact they removed time that could have been dedicated to the story and maybe some bits we hadn't heard before from one or two more people associated with the series.

Discovery Channel

OK, so The True Story wasn't that bad and at least it managed to retell an oft-told tale in a new way with live-action "reconstruction". The shame was the shocking limit of actual Star Trek footage and first-hand accounts. The only original cast member to provide any insight into Roddenberry is Leonard Nimoy while fandom get Gene's son, Rod along with Bjo and John Trimble - again. It's  real shame that there's not more diversity in the first hand accounts because, frankly, we've heard it all before from these familiar faces. Not only that but we're only treated to clips from The Cage, Plato's Stepchildren and The Motion Picture to fill out the onscreen story and this really was a let down. Is that all the producers were allowed? While there are some glaring omissions, we're still reminded of Jeffrey Hunter's decision to quit before Where No Man Has Gone Before filmed. Two episodes and some clips from the first movie though is pitiful - and additionally they even managed to use the promotional poster from pre-pre-release with the conceptual Enterprise in relation to the latter (below right). 

You could see that the effort was there and this was a valiant attempt to retell and retread some old paths with a twist but ultimately it was a bit of a letdown. Ideal timing on the TV thanks to the release of Star Trek Into Darkness but more relevant footage and interviews would have been appreciated. In fact there were no clips post-The Motion Picture which really missed out on some opportunities to talk about the first six movies and the way in which the TV series developed. The only real lip service the 79 episodes got was from the interracial kiss from the third season's Plato's Stepchildren. Another tragedy was the referencing to the 1974 Voyager probe - which was not the same one which was featured in the first movie. Whoever did the research for this show didn't do it that precisely and for a moment when it got mentioned I was scratching my head trying to work out what had gone on.

While a bit of a let down, new fans who have just sat through 133 minutes of JJ Abrams' re-imagining will probably find this of interest. Those people of a more discerning ilk and a greater knowledge of the series might wish to avoid it it they spot it in the schedules in months to come. I would suggest that you seek out either William Shatner's The Captains or Rod Roddenberry's Trek Nation if you're looking for something with considerable more meat on the bone. While they offer little into the actual history of the show, their insight and anecdotal nature provide much more detail into the world of the franchise in front of and behind the screen. This on the other hand is akin to skim-reading the back cover of an autobiography - and one chapter of it at the most.