CBS' Star Trek Reboot Signs Hannibal's Bryan Fuller As Showrunner

[JaredJones]

CBS' Star Trek Reboot Signs Hannibal's Bryan Fuller As Showrunner

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1275/1275247.png

The former Star Trek co-producer will return to his roots as the showrunner behind the upcoming series.

Reboots: They're all that us in the TV/Movie blogging biz seem to be writing about these days, aren't they? With everything [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/166362-Lionsgate-Begins-Production-on-Saw-Sequel-Legacy] finding new legs, it's almost impossible to turn anywhere in Hollywood without bumping into a recently dug up corpse, figuratively speaking.

Notable among the massive number of properties being resurrected for a new generation is, of course, Star Trek, which will be beaming its way back into our homes (or rather, our computers, tablets, and smartphones) in January of 2017.

With production on the new series being kickstarted back in November [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.884353-New-Star-Trek-Series-Boldly-Goes-Into-Production], fans of the original Star Trek have been anxiously waiting to find out who would serve as the show's main creative force, be he a diehard Trekkie or another Hollywood hackjob, and fortunately, it appears to be the former.

According to The Hollywood Reporter [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/star-trek-bryan-fuller-set-863233], CBS has found its showrunner in the form of Hannibal creator, Bryan Fuller.

The veteran writer-producer has been tapped to serve as co-creator and showrunner on CBS' Star Trek reboot and will serve alongside Alex Kurtzman, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

CBS' new Star Trek - picked up straight to series to air on CBS' digital platform All Access - hails from prolific producer Kurtzman. The series is a new take on the beloved sci-fi classic, with the premiere slated to air on the network in January 2017 before subsequent episodes air on its digital and VOD platform. Star Trek marks the first original series developed specifically for CBS All Access.

A lifelong Trek fan, Fuller actually got his start as a writer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, penning 22 episodes in total.

"My very first experience of Star Trek is my oldest brother turning off all the lights in the house and flying his model of a D7 Class Klingon Battle Cruiser through the darkened halls. Before seeing a frame of the television series, the Star Trek universe lit my imagination on fire," said Fuller in a statement.

"It is without exaggeration a dream come true to be crafting a brand new iteration of Star Trek with fellow franchise alum Alex Kurtzman and boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before."

In 2006, Fuller was even quoted as saying that he never wanted to be a TV writer but "wanted to be a Star Trek writer," so one would have to imagine that he'll do the series justice here. Regardless, Star Trek the show is already looking a lot more promising [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/165470-Star-Trek-Beyond-Gets-First-Trailer-With-Enterprise-Destroyed#&gid=gallery_5202&pid=1].

Source: The Hollywood Reporter [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/star-trek-bryan-fuller-set-863233]

Permalink

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I guess with Axanar dead we have to lube up for our corporate sponsored desperate cashcow tie-in vaguely Trek related butt fuck.

But hey, Enterprise totally missed the point too and its considered the BEST Trek Tv-Show ever, right?!




...right?!

 

[Zontar]

But hey, Enterprise totally missed the point too and its considered the BEST Trek Tv-Show ever, right?!




...right?!

It's not too bad, he knows how to write decently and his Trek work (which include 22 writing credits for episodes of DS9 and Voyager) and he names DS9 as his favourite, followed by TNG. Despite the infulence form the bad movies the show may have, Fuller's presence will definitely be a positive one that changes me from being cynical to optimistic about it.

 

[Silver Patriot]

With production on the new series being kickstarted back in November [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.884353-New-Star-Trek-Series-Boldly-Goes-Into-Production], fans of the original Star Trek have been anxiously waiting to find out who would serve as the show's main creative force, be he a diehard Trekkie or another Hollywood hackjob, and fortunately, it appears to be the latter.

I think you meant "fortunately, it appears to be the former." Unless you are calling him a hackjob and somehow that's a good thing.

 

[Frezzato]

I thought he sounded familiar. He did a lot of writing for the show Wonderfalls starring Caroline Dhavernas (Oooooooh Caaaaaanadaaaa), which I still recommend to anyone looking for a hidden gem. It's not quite Better Off Ted, but it's about an underachieving smart girl that's going crazy (sort of, maybe).

You kids might be able to relate.

 

[Hawki]

I guess with Axanar dead we have to lube up for our corporate sponsored desperate cashcow tie-in vaguely Trek related butt fuck.

But hey, Enterprise totally missed the point too and its considered the BEST Trek Tv-Show ever, right?!




...right?!

If anything, Enterprise got "the point" too much, in that it couldn't go five seconds without repeating the Star Trek gospel ad nauseum (humans are awesome, we must keep exploring, vulcans are meanies, humans are awesome, etc.) At least Picard in season 1 of TNG had at least some reason to go down the "humans are awesome" route since it's the 24th century and the Federation has existed since the 22nd, but Enterprise didn't have the same excuse.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Now we get to play the game of "who can ***** more? Anti-movie fans, or anti-CBS fans?"

 

[Remus]

Just so long as his artists lay off the shrooms. That last season of Hannibal was very dragon-through-the-looking-glass.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I wonder how they will do an action t.v show (since Nu/JJ-Trek is an action movie), with the extremely limited budget that comes with doing a t.v series? Could we see a return to more character driven pieces like the series of old? The new Trek fans will rage at how the t.v show is not Star Trek enough, this will undoubtedly create a paradox in the space-time continuum and destroy the human race.

 

[Xyebane]

With production on the new series being kickstarted back in November [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.884353-New-Star-Trek-Series-Boldly-Goes-Into-Production], fans of the original Star Trek have been anxiously waiting to find out who would serve as the show's main creative force, be he a diehard Trekkie or another Hollywood hackjob, and fortunately, it appears to be the latter.

I think you meant "fortunately, it appears to be the former." Unless you are calling him a hackjob and somehow that's a good thing.

I noticed this too, maybe JaredJones just hates StarTrek and this is just schadenfreude?

 

[Rawbeard]

at the moment all I care is that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are not involved. B&B could outstupid even the worst ideas of Gene without breaking a sweat.

 

[Ukomba]

Heaven forbid they make a new series to continue the story. Much better to re-hash/re-write old ground. JJ has shown fans don't like detailed, long standing continuities and much prefer Re-skinning what they already know.

 

[happyninja42]

If anything, Enterprise got "the point" too much, in that it couldn't go five seconds without repeating the Star Trek gospel ad nauseum (humans are awesome, we must keep exploring, vulcans are meanies, humans are awesome, etc.)

How in the hell is that even remotely "Trek Gospel"? Roddenberry went to a lot of trouble to establish all the races as having good/bad qualities. I sure don't recall the vulcan's being "meanies" when he was at the helm. They were in fact, the alien race that got the most development, seeing as Spock was in every episode, and all the other aliens were just episodic walk-ons.

In fact, if that's how Enterprise behaved (which I don't remember, as I stopped watching after about 3 episodes), then that's probably one reason why it died out. Going away from "gospel" so much. That and the writing/acting was utter shit in most cases, if the bit I saw was any indication.

OT: Meh, don't really care. His pedigree on Voyager makes me hesitant to think he's capable of doing anything good. As Voyager was a pile of shit. But hey, he worked on DS9, my personal favorite series of Trek. Of course, he probably worked on the stupid episodes, if his quality of writing was the same on both series.

 

[rgrekejin]

So they got Fuller to run the show?

...

Whelp, guess this show is doomed to be a critical darling that nobody watches.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I never understood the hate some people had for Enterprise. I really enjoyed it on the whole. I thought the cultural friction between the Vulcans and Humans was fine. They are very different, while still having a lot of common ground. That's bound to cause some friction.

I actually liked all the series. Each has their weak and sometimes even bad episodes (I'm looking at you, Threshold) but meh. I guess I'm not as critical about things I enjoy as most.


What I really want is details about the setting. Is it going to be it's own thing? Is it going to be in the rebooted Star Trek universe? What time line? Personally I hope it's going to do it's own thing and not be TOS era. I actually think I'd like to see the next step forwards, taking place after all the current series.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

What's with massive companies and kickstarting stuff now? Star Trek is one of the biggest science fiction franchises of all time, it doesn't need kickstarter for anything official.

 

[Hawki]

If anything, Enterprise got "the point" too much, in that it couldn't go five seconds without repeating the Star Trek gospel ad nauseum (humans are awesome, we must keep exploring, vulcans are meanies, humans are awesome, etc.)

How in the hell is that even remotely "Trek Gospel"? Roddenberry went to a lot of trouble to establish all the races as having good/bad qualities. I sure don't recall the vulcan's being "meanies" when he was at the helm. They were in fact, the alien race that got the most development, seeing as Spock was in every episode, and all the other aliens were just episodic walk-ons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECUrlnXCqk

Specifically, it's making fun of Enterprise. Archer goes on about the vulcans so much in addition to "humans are awesome" that you could swear it was part of the gospel. Which wouldn't be so bad in my mind if poor T'Pol didn't get the butt of his angst most of the time.

That said, vulcans aside, I'd say that Enterprise did embrace gospel to the point of its detriment. Star Trek, at its core, I'd say has two themes - "betterment," (as in, self-improvement, improvement of society through technology and integration, etc.) and "exploration." You can do a work without those themes, just as you can tell a Star Wars story without the Force or Jedi being involved, but still, those are the de facto themes. Problem is, "betterment" stops being interesting when you reach "perfection." It's why season 1 of TNG is so abysmal in areas, and it can be summed up in the very first episode, with Picard speachifying about how humans have overcome the darker side of their nature, that "what (Shakespeare character) said with irony, I say with conviction," etc. Q states "you can't seriously believe that" and mate, I'm asking the same thing. Now imagine that applied to Enterprise and Captain Archer. Instantly there's problems, because at least in TNG, there's Patrick Stewart giving the performance, and there's far more of a basis for the "humans are awesome" meme. Enterprise, on the other hand, takes place before the Federation, before humans have made Earth a paradise, so not only do Archer's words ring hollow, but they're in the mist of him being a jerk to T'Pol the entire time as well. And this lasts at least two seasons.

In fact, if that's how Enterprise behaved (which I don't remember, as I stopped watching after about 3 episodes), then that's probably one reason why it died out. Going away from "gospel" so much. That and the writing/acting was utter shit in most cases, if the bit I saw was any indication.

Thing about Gene Rodenberry is that he's practically the George Lucas of the Star Trek universe. He may be the one who sparked the idea and 'essence' of the setting, but with Rodenberry, we got things like the Motion Picture, season 1 of TNG, and resistance to ideas such as The Undiscovered Country (the military presence). It bears motion that after TMP, and after he was kicked upstairs, we get what's widely regarded as the strongest Star Trek movie of the lot. It also bears mention that Deep Space 9, usually considered among the best of the Star Trek series, is about as far away as Rodenberry's ideas as you can get (e.g. the Dominion War Rick Berman, for instance, often championed Rodenberyy's ideals, but as part of that, you have elements of Voyager (lack of continuity), and Nemesis, which basically sunk the franchise.

 

[JaredJones]

With production on the new series being kickstarted back in November [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.884353-New-Star-Trek-Series-Boldly-Goes-Into-Production], fans of the original Star Trek have been anxiously waiting to find out who would serve as the show's main creative force, be he a diehard Trekkie or another Hollywood hackjob, and fortunately, it appears to be the latter.

I think you meant "fortunately, it appears to be the former." Unless you are calling him a hackjob and somehow that's a good thing.

I noticed this too, maybe JaredJones just hates StarTrek and this is just schadenfreude?

Nah, I just suck at self-editing sometimes.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'm sure this Fuller guy will be great, but why are we calling it a "Reboot" now?