Regardless of how much you and I want to see Star Trek return to the TV, we aren’t the ones who control the latinum.



The big problem is the sticky nature of this IP. Corporate ownership of Star Trek is not under one house: Paramount has film rights and CBS has TV rights. Beyond the potential for legal issues interfering with the creative process, like we saw with production delays on The Hobbit movie, there is one really big problem with this.

CBS is totally killing it right now.

Of the top 50 shows on network television, according to Entertainment Weekly, a whopping 28 of them are on CBS. Of the top 10, six are CBS shows and – if it weren’t for Monday Night Football – the network would have the top three shows period: The Big Bang Theory (19M viewers), NCIS (18M), and NCIS: New Orleans (17M).

We are sure locked on procedurals

The heart of CBS’s current smash success is procedural dramas. In addition to the two NCIS programs mentioned, their top 50 shows include Criminal Minds, Scorpion, Blue Bloods, Hawaii 5-0, The Good Wife, Person of Interest, The Mentalist, CSI, Elementary, and Stalker. Oh and NCIS: LA and a repeat of NCIS: New Orleans. (Moreover, the rest of the top 50 includes a lot of procedurals on other networks.) So telling CBS to gamble on something other than a procedural right now would be like telling Marvel Studios to stop doing super-hero movies. Seriously, if we want Trek back on TV we should be pitching a series where hologram Moriarty travels through time solving crimes with Reg Barclay, sexy alternate universe Hoshi Sato, and a wise-cracking exo-comp.

Now what goes up must eventually come down. Creative success of this kind tends to be cyclical:

the network takes a risk on an untested property and

audiences respond to it because it’s so different so

studio executives repeat that formula ad naseum and

audiences eventually lose interest so

the network takes risks on untested properties and

yadda yadda yadda

The best example of this is what happened in the 1990s with Seinfeld – which shared a lot of cast members with Trek. It was an innovative when it started, but in one of the latter seasons George says, “Nowadays, whenever you turn on the TV all you see are four idiots whining about their dates!”

An interesting theory…

Despite all this procedural nonsense, we must remember that the No. 1 non-football related show on TV is the least football-y thing imaginable: The Big Bang Theory, whose guest stars have included Trek royalty like LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, and of course Wil Wheaton.

The craziest thing in all of this (to me at least) is the painfully obvious opportunity for synergy CBS would have between a new Trek series and The Big Bang Theory. I mean, I don’t like the show, but if want to really promote the new Trek series? Have the BBT gang go to a convention and meet all the new cast. Then have the BBT actors guest star on episodes of the new series. Like Sheldon could show up as a Rogue Q and take the new ship back in time to witness our whole universe in a hot, dense state.

Honestly this would make a gagh-ton more sense than putting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on an episode of Voyager to cross-promote the show with UPN’s wrestling shows.

But given that CBS has not already jumped on this, it seems logical (ahem) to conclude the network will only take risks once it stops dominating the airwaves.

Further complicating matters, the real money in Star Trek is in its merchandising – and it’s unclear what percentage of that CBS might get as a kick-back. UPN could run Enterprise as a loss-leader if the show was still serving as essentially high-quality advertisement for conventions and action figures, but if CBS doesn’t see any of that why should they care?

So if you really want to bring Star Trek back, stop watching CBS. Particularly Big Bang Theory.