There’s unease in the world of Star Trek today as rumors swirl that there’s due to be a major shakeup behind the scenes at CBS. This apparently springs from Paramount film chief Emma Watts wanting to take control of the franchise away from current producer Alex Kurtzman.
The story goes that Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Short Treks and Star Trek: Picard are all cancelled, that Discovery will be wrapped up at the end of season 3 and that Strange New Worlds might undergo a change in production staff.
If true, this would explode the future of Star Trek as we know it and amount to practically killing off the franchise. But you may want to hold off on worrying just yet, as this information comes from *checks notes* uh… an anonymous post on 4chan.
Well, I don’t know how much stock anyone reading this puts on 4Chan, but as a source of information on the future, it’s right up there with tea leaves, tarot cards and inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals (actually, to be fair to haruspicy, it at least foretold the Ides of March). I mean, even 4Chan users seem skeptical, pointing out that:
“I’ll never understand the level of seethe it takes to constantly make up fake news fantasies that it’s getting cancelled again and again, you’ve been posting this shit since STD started and definitely wasn’t getting a second season.”
And:
“The track records of all of these “sources” have been fucking abysmal. A month ago someone was greentexting that Lower Decks didn’t have anything produced other than the trailer, and they were spectacularly wrong.”
Is any of this true? Well, probably not. It’s likely made up by some random person on the internet who has a weird bone to pick with Alex Kurtzman. Everything I’ve seen indicates that Star Trek is doing very well for CBS at the moment, particularly in driving new subscribers to CBS All Access. I mean, if the shows are secretly unmitigated disasters for them, why are they commissioning so many?
That doesn’t necessarily mean I think these series are amazing, however. The first two episodes of Lower Decks were terrible and the prognosis isn’t good for the rest, Discovery has been wildly uneven and Picard felt like it had been rushed through production (though had a lot of good stuff in it). Still, if you don’t like modern Star Trek, then don’t make up stupid stories online. Rather, do the traditional angry Star Trek fan thing and write some embarrassing fan-fiction.