The pilot is planned to be broadcast on the CBS network with regular episodes following on "CBS All Access" on demand streaming service in the US. So, I guess the episode lengths could be non standard and variable.

What that means for distribution outside the US remains to be seen. I suppose in the UK, where I am, any of the UK broadcasters or streaming services could pick it up. I guess it will all depend on price as usual.

If the episodes are non standard in length I hope a streaming service picks it up in the UK, otherwise we might get cut versions broadcast, as happened with Ripper Street. For that show full episodes are available on Amazon Prime Video first and then several months later the BBC broadcast a cut version. It's a different situation, I know, but a possibility at this stage.

Anyone know of any precedents for the UK? Does anyone know whether any previous "CBS All Access" shows have been sold in the UK and to which company?

The new Star Trek show is the first original show to be produced by CBS All Access so there are no shows that might have been sold to the UK previously.

Thanks Corwin.

It looks like the business plan is to use the series to drive up subscription numbers for CBS All Access in the US. I can see it working. All it takes for some is one piece of content that is "unmissable"...

I joined the Netflix trial last year to just see Sens8 and I'm still there.

Do people think that maybe CBS's ultimate goal would be to avoid international rights issues altogether and just sell subscriptions to CBS All Access on a global basis?

If the filming on this new Star Trek show is meant to start in September then why have we not any casting done yet?

As it seems leaving it late to cast for a TV show!

Maybe they have but havent released details.

What would people think about the showing bring back older versions of TOS characters or younger TNG characters?

It seems unlikely. There are many US web services that only work if your IP address is recognised as being in the US geographically and I expect this is the same - you wont be allowed to subscribe outside the US (unless you a pay a third party to make your IP address appear to be in the US).

I believe the business logic fundamentally is that they make more money from the sale of various rights to content on various media by selling separately into various regions and markets than by selling them to a single, global market. There are also logistical and technical reasons for staggering releases around the world, though these are less of a problem these days. The time between various releases on different media and in different markets are very much shorter than they were years ago. Mostly because they know more people will download illegally in foreign markets if the delay is too long.

So Duncan_Styles you think they have cast the whole show but are not releasing it to the public?

That's very unusual in modern times if they have done that!

Is the January 2017 air date in the threads title confirmed by CBS or is it just rumoured by journalists?

If there'd been any casting calls I'm certain the entertainment news industry would have spotted them. Too many people would be involved practically to keep this sort of thing a secret for long. And if specific actors had been invited then their agents would be frothing at the mouth to get the news out and promote their client.

Who knows. Anything is possible. Maybe they haven't cast, maybe they have and don't want to release details to prevent all the fans from ripping their choices to bits. Maybe its 100% CGI using voice actors only. Who knows, "Young minds, fresh ideas".

I don't think it's been cast myself and the idea of 100% CGI would be a disaster as well as costing a lot more than it would with real actors or actresses!

I'm expecting there to be an announcement that this show has been moved back from the rumoured January 2017 air date

I don't see an issue with no annoucement in casting yet
It's nearly May and it films in september. So they have four months to put a cast together. Believe it or not, most shows are given a lot less time. Way less than four months.

It maybe possible to rush through the casting in that time by the time filming is meant to start in September which I also believe is quite late to start filming especially if the show will feature quite a bit of CGI with it being Star Trek

Maybe I'm looking on the negative side of these points so far but I will believe it when they have started filming and ready for the January air date!

I wouldn't mind some references (to some TOS cast) or some passing scenes or mentions of younger TNG characters. Maybe someone can reference a young Klingon refugee (Worf) or the discovery of an Android (Data). I wouldn't be too bothered about actually seeing them though.

Besides, I'm still convinced this new ship, and the crew will be time travellers, maybe it's a secret desire of mine, not so secret anymore though. I struggle to see how they're going to fit (potentially) 7 seasons of a new trek show, set between TMP & TNG with old(er) ships and clothing.

A show set on a timeship with our characters having the goal of timeline preservation would (I think) make for a far more entertaining show. It works for Doctor Who, and it's seemingly working for DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Time Travel has already been well established in Trek, and we know there's a Temporal Prime Directive. Should the showrunners take this theme, they can do anything with it.

I have always wondered with Trek why nobody [with the technology] has ever travelled forward in time several hundred years. They're always traveling backwards. Are we suppose to be historians, or explorers?

They probably won't be spending 7 seasons in that time period if it's correct that it's an anthology show with a different setting each season.


There's at least one scene I vaguely recall where a Trek character travels into the far future (not including Kirk in Generations), I think it's Archer in a scene from Enterprise but I'm not 100% sure.

That's more a reason that I think this will become a time travel show, based on a time ship rather than a show set in a specific era.


You're right, Archer is taken into the future, but he was brought there. What I meant is that nobody (with the means) has ever chosen to venture into the future themselves. Couldn't Kirk have hypothetically flown the other way around the sun and traveled several hundred years into the future, instead of the past? Couldn't the Enterprise-E (upon leaving First Contact) have jumped ahead a few extra years?

People either go into the past, or return to their own time. Never the future.

That's one of the the many problems with time travel. Go far into the past and step on a butterfly, you will probably have changed things, even just a tiny bit, in the present. Travel into the future, and you are in just a possible future, where no one stepped on a butterfly and things are quite different. It's one of the reasons why it is said that if you are not shocked by the implications of quantum theory, then you really haven't understood it properly!

So you all want to copy Legends Of Tomorrow for this new Star Trek show?

Sounds like a good plan!

Think of it as a similar theme, but with more depth. Legends of Tomorrow jumps the timeline each episode. This new Trek series has the ability to jump to an era per season. Each season would present new challenges, new antagonists, new allies, new experiences, new characters etc, all with enough time to actually tell a story.

I can tell you haven't watched Legends Of Tomorrow as it doesn't jump timelines in the show as it jumps to periods in time like you are suggesting that this new Star Trek show would do!

Although I can see the point that it could jump to a lot of eras in the future so it would give it more option and the space aspect but then Legends Of Tomorrow has done that with going to 2046 in one episode and space in another one!

I don't associate Star Trek with Time Travel and it would seem to me that Star Trek is trying not to be Star Trek in this new show!

Actually I do watch Legends. Check the topic of it on here - I've posted quite a bit, and it does jump timelines, such as when they went to a future where Diggle was dead and his Son was the Arrow. That was a different timeline, Rip even stated as much.


Star Trek is about exploring and a utopian federation, at least that was it's initial intention. Each show is different in it's own way. We've had two that have been exploring (TOS & TNG) one about a station and a war (DS9) and another about a journey home (VOY). ENT is about our venture into the stars, some timeline stuff, and then the formation of the Federation.

We know, for a fact that the show (at least the first series) will be set between TMP & TNG. I don't believe a show set in that era can survive for a prolonged length of time. We either need to be setting a show in the future, or we need to be jumping around time. The only other option (which we know isn't happening) is a TV reboot.

It's only a rumour at the moment, one with no basis other than inspiration is being taken from TUC possibly.

I love stories that involve time travel when they're well done, but I think in the context of TV shows it can be over-used. When the rules of time travel permit the altering of historical events it can be a great, dramatic subject as a one-off story as "our heroes" work to correct or prevent a change to the timeline. But if it's in a series, and time travel becomes relatively "easy", the drama can be lost and internal plot logic falls apart. Any unwanted event, like the death of a major character, can be undone too easily by going back in time and preventing it from happening. Shows often "get around" the problem by concocting "rules" about "fixed events" or "not changing anything that affects your own personal timeline". Or the time travelers being unaffected by a changed timeline just because they're time travelers. But to me the logic is still flawed. For me only Doctor Who "gets round" that problem (by being so imaginative and fun that I forgive the logic flaw).

In the Star Trek universe I think time travel as a plot device is already over-used and I wouldn't be happy for an entire series to be based on a time ship, "righting things that once went wrong".

It might be interesting if there's a one-off time travel event that, say, kicks off the show, or happens at, say, the end of the first season and moves us from the lost era to the post (but still "near") TNG/DS9/Voyager era. Even so, it would be difficult to explain how the protagonists couldn't easily return to their original era, given what's already happened in the Star Trek universe.

[Edit]
Hmm. On the other hand maybe they couldn't return because "history records" that their ship went missing and was never seen again, so returning would change the timeline. OK, I'd be "up" for that as a one-off time travel event!

I agree with the above from GDK. I can't see how an entire show with time travel as a constant theme would work. asides from continuity errors cropping up it would be so overused time travel itself would lose its intrigue. a few one-offs episodes here and there would be great. just cant see an entir show based on it working.
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on another random note I've thought of something else i'd like to see in this show. only a little thing but i'd like to see the return of the captains voiceover in the intro credits. only TOS and TNG had it and then they stopped doing it. obviously they can re-jig the words- just as long as it ends with "WHERE NO HUMAN HAS GONE BEFORE"... And then an image of the ship jumping to warp.
that wud be AWESOME!!