It was mentioned in another interview that Tawny Newsome has the script credit for episode 5 and confirmed that it is SAM-focused.

Given the complete failure to produce and release anything for Star Trek in more than a decade on the cinematic side, I can’t think any reasonable senior executive would think now is the time to let Kurtzman go. All the more, the historic chaos in relaunching the television franchise in the early seasons of both TNG and Discovery have demonstrated that it’s just not possible to launch a new overall franchise runner without running major risks.

Kurtzman’s got a reputation as being good to work with from both the studio/streamer and creative side. They don’t have any evidence to show he won’t adjust to new strategic direction.

The question more will be how far will Kurtzman himself be willing to compromise if the Ellisons give high level direction that would take the franchise in a very different direction for television.

What I do see is that some of the perceived failures will definitely lead to restricted opportunities for some of the EPs that have worked for Kurtzman. For example, Osunsami may not be given run of a project again after the S31 movie. Michelle Paradise won’t likely be asked to run another show in the franchise.

There’s a newer TrekMovie piece, just out this afternoon, that cites a new interview with Kurtzman in an industry journal.

It also notes that a large number of of new Paramount senior executives came out for yesterday’s premiere screening.

I’m not sure that it’s entirely accurate that there’s no hints of a renewal for Kurtzman’s and Secret Hideout.

In the recent SFX magazine piece for Starfleet Academy, the Kurtzman quotes hinted vaguely at “Lots more Star Trek TV is in development”.

“There’s quite a few exciting things in the works right now, but I’m not going to say more than that!”

TrekMovie observes that, ‘The SFX article noted Kurtzman was “tight-lipped about future projects,” adding that the interview was done before the announcement that[ Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are developing a new Star Trek film.’

Thinking back to the last 5-year extension, Kurtzman was asked to map out proposal for Star Trek’s television rollout for 5-7 years forward.

Clearly, he was given clearance by the new ownership to pitch stuff towards another extension. Whether there’s any uptake is to be seen.

I just keep coming back to the previous Paramount+ and streaming heads stripping the schedule back to the point that animation was being eliminated and the live action schedule was dominated by Taylor Sheridan.

Now the new owners have a large and prestigious animation studio and Sheridan refused to renew.

Meanwhile WB is fighting back against Skydance’s takeover effort to go with Netflix’s offer.

If I had to guess, Paramount+ will see more new Star Trek animation and live action as complementary to the darker whatever that the creators of Stranger Things will bring.

Kurtzman may get another but shorter extension until the movie franchise gets off the ground, but will be fenced to the 32nd century, animated shows, and shows from the 23rd and 24th century that won’t write new canon.

This seems to be just one more thing in development that hinges on the decisions David Ellison will make about the next decade for the franchise, or at least the next five years.

Now that some of the new things that Ellison had been counting on to anchor Paramount+’s schedule (i.e. anything new from Taylor Sheridan) are complete nonstarters, perhaps there’s some room for some new Trek.

Also, the relationship between Kurtzman and David Ellison goes back to when Kurtzman was a writer and Ellison was a producer on Into Darkness. There’s no sense of negativity between them.

While Ellison hasn’t hesitated to finally cut the JJ Abrams movie contract that failed to meet deliverables, Kurtzman has delivered what CBS and Paramount wanted on television. There’s no reason to believe that they couldn’t come to a meeting of minds but there may be some of Secret Hideout’s long term EPs that might be let go in the process of a shift in direction.

So, one of our GenZ kids has now watched the trailer a couple of times and asked some questions.

They’re not the Discovery fan among our teens, preferring animation generally. (They liked Lower Decks and Prodigy.). So, I had to fill in on the 32nd century.

They’re not entirely convinced about investing in a live action series but might watch the premiere.

Meanwhile, the one who was previously a Discovery fan has just come off a Picard and TNG watch and isn’t sounding interested. The marketing is not intriguing them the way Disco season 5 did.

All to say that I am not sure that Paramount really understands Zs or marketing to them at all.

I found Paramount’s camera operator’s position on the ground looking up led to a lot of weird angles for the exchanges between Celia and the Starfleet Academy cast.

I also found the sound quality poor given it was their host and set up.

All of these issues made it a pain to watch.

Paramount continues to not run these events well.

I’m more suspicious that the old owners canceled all their animation so as to no be in conflict with Skydance’s animation studio which is top quality.

I wish that McMahon hadn’t done that in Lower Decks and had left TNG Parallels as a one-off.

The thing is that the infinitely expanding manifold of temporal multiverses is a thought experiment in physics that doesn’t really have widespread support in physics. It also is inconsistent with how temporal mechanics are applied throughout the rest of the history of the franchise.

What SNW provides in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is articulated even more clearly in Prodigy is closer to modern physics theory and is also the only way to make sense of creative choices that Gene Roddenberry dictates for the TNG Pilot ‘Encounter at Farpoint.’

When Roddenberry dictated that TNG would set World War III in the mid 21st century he also dictated that TNG and TOS are in the same timeline. That’s only possible if the franchise goes with the robust River of Time version of the physics that SNW and Prodigy articulated.

That is, there can be major forks or branchings at critical events but the smaller perturbations do not in themselves create new timelines. A Mirror Universe or Kelvin universe can be created but they are limited in number and not infinitely dividing at each and every minor decision point.

Instead, as long as key major events happen and they happen in the same order, then a timeline is preserved. Otherwise, our heros’ actions in saving the continuity WOULD NOT MATTER in any number of episodes and movies because the timeline where they fail would also exist.

So, as long as Cochrane’s ship gets to demonstrate the warp drive at the right moment such that First Contact occurs, then the Prime Timeline is preserved. There are not two parallel ones with and without the Enterprise crew onboard with him or one where the Borg were successful in stopping human contact with Vulcans.

Likewise, there isn’t a TOS version of the timeline where World War III took place at the end of the 20th century after the 1990s Eugenics War. Instead, that event has shifted back and forth in time as the Romulans have attempted to impede human development with temporal incursions and Federation temporal agents have worked to counter them.

I’ve done it through DDG on my phone. Still get weird thumbnail.

When I can get on desktop, I can try again but it really makes me wonder about CBR.

Even with the now corrected link, it still wants to show the image from the ad.

I stripped the tracking code from the end but the other image won’t clear.

Corrected it. I initially seemed to have picked up the ad instead of the actual interview.

I’m not sure why anyone ever thought it would be?

Other than the naysayers who were looking not to like it and had to be ‘shown otherwise.’

Even Prodigy ended up an ‘all ages’ show.

Not saying you’re one of them, it’s unfortunate that the new shows seem to have to push against negative labels and narratives that are brigaded before the first casting announcements.

In this case, despite the idea of an Academy show kicking around since the 1970s, it was fairly clear that no senior network/streamer executive were ever going greenlight it until someone came up with a concept that was more than a college soap in the Star Trek universe.

What I didn’t expect was for the other perennial ‘failed to make it to pilot’ franchise idea of a hospital show also got rolled into it. That’s one that Roddenberry first tried to spin off with M’Benga in the second season of TOS.

I’m finally getting back to this.

Had a work push and then a virus. I really find I have even less attention for listening and podcasts when I’m ill.

One thing that I’ve figured out is that the audio quality varies widely depending on the service one is getting podcasts from or the delivery app.

The base recording is excellent and the sound effects are there. Some of the players have so much noise that you’d never realize that.

In any event, I tried out different players and found that Cassidy’s delivery was much less mumbly on better audio players regardless of being on the same device.

Something to consider when getting podcasts even through open source players.

We can disagree on that.

I will never love TMP but I will never claim it’s not Star Trek.

I agree. These folks have no perspective or are dishonest with themselves.

I can acknowledge that it can be jarring, and it can take time to accept a major visual design update.

I felt that in 1979 as I sat in the theatre watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

I had no heads up whatsoever that the Klingon design had changed. I was completely confused in the opening scenes with the Klingons. I couldn’t figure out what species they were.

But I got over it. Quickly.

I still think TMP is disappointing, long boring movie that rehashes the Nomad plot from TOS. The Klingon redesign wasn’t its problem though.

It seems more that Larry Ellison is giving his adult children amounts of money to invest to learn how to run businesses.

Amounts that for most others would be an inheritance in themselves are less than a year’s interest on Larry’s overall fortune.

David and his sister both started out with a certain amount.

His sister’s firm got into financial difficulties so Larry appointed a co head and hasn’t invested more.

David made his investment in creating Skydance profitable and so his father is investing more.

It’s a better solution than Trump taking his cut of the inheritance and bankrupting it, and then getting full control and bankrupting again.

That’s not to say even so that Larry isn’t taking advantage of the CBS part of the purchase to reshape its news to his own vision.

Celia’s hair for the panel suggests they’re evolving Uhura’s style in season five towards the one in TOS.

Which is interesting because Celia really wanted to avoid wigs and keep a natural hairstyle.

I’m wondering what kind of hair Jess will have for Chappel in the final season.

There are a bunch of the perennial brigading naysayers on other platforms already venting that this young Klingon is too skinny/lanky.

Seems that they never saw Tony Todd as Kurn or considered that TALL is an important Klingon physical characteristic.

This comes across as gatekeeping…

— from the perspective of someone who’s been watching Trek since the 1960s and has seen the same old ‘ahem, not Trek, it’s stealing from …’ chestnuts since TAS was announced, I am alway surprised how little older fans recognize that Trek has ALWAYS adapted other media (movies, television, radio plays, Shakespeare!) into its episodes.

Sigh.