Mar 22, 2009 08:00 AM
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Yes, there's a movie coming out and Heroes' Bryan Fuller is dying to do a new TV series based on it, but that doesn't mean we'll be seeing a new TV Star Trek anytime soon.
The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd looked into the likelihood of Fuller's TV Trek ambitions bearing fruit, and found that... well, while certain corporate entities may be interested, no-one will admit to anything on the record:
We learned that asking speculative questions about a "Trek" TV show before the movie comes out tends to annoy PR people. We learned new weekly voyages of the Starship Enterprise are a long shot involving a lot of lawyers. And we learned there's a general sense is that, inevitably, "Trek" will return to TV, but not likely without several strong-minded ducks getting into a row.
According to Hibberd, the problem - or, more properly, one of the problems - is that different companies own the rights to Trek in its different incarnations; CBS owns Star Trek as a whole, but isn't actually involved in the JJ Abrams' movie reboot, which is made by (former sister company) Paramount Pictures... even though Paramount made all the Star Trek TV shows from The Next Generation through Enterprise (and Voyager and Enterprise aired on the Paramount-owned UPN). Confusing? Yes, and it involves mergers, acquisitions and CBS now actually being known as CBS Paramount Television, even though it has nothing to do with Paramount Pictures, who are making the movie. As Hibberd puts it,
All parties, by the way, absolutely detest answering questions on this subject, knowing any response they give will spawn headlines and inevitably get them yelled at by somebody.
Perhaps more of a stumbling block may be audience reaction; we're all excited about Star Trek the summer blockbuster movie, but how many people who go and see it would keep tuning in, week after week, to see a smaller, cheaper version of it? And if there was a TV show available for free every week, what would that do to the movie franchise?
Could 'Star Trek' soon return to TV? [THR Live Feed]
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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