A high-ranking CBS executive hinted at what viewers can expect in the company’s upcoming “Star Trek” reboot, while also explaining why, in today’s market, the project might be a better fit for digital than for broadcast.
Jim Lanzone, CEO of CBS Interactive, discussed the show, which will be carried on the company’s $6 monthly streaming service CBS All Access, during an interview for the podcast “Recode Media with Peter Kafka.”
Said Lanzone: “Sci-fi is not something that has traditionally done really well on broadcast. It’s not impossible, for the future, if somebody figures it out. But historically, a show like ‘Star Trek’ wouldn’t necessarily be a broadcast show, at this point.”
The “Star Trek” project and a spinoff of “The Good Wife” are among the service’s highest-profile offerings.
“The first episodes of both of those shows will debut in broadcast, before the rest of the series move online,” Recode notes. “And once they go digital, they won’t have to play by the FCC’s broadcast rules — i.e., nudity! And cursing!”
Commenting on that freedom, Lanzone said: “The showrunners were like, ‘Oh yeah, we could do that.’ Of course, the response is, ‘As long as it serves the story.’ But yeah!”
After Kafka asked specifically, “Naked aliens, and humans?” Lanzone responded: “Theoretically.”
And when Kafka inquired about the prospect of swearing, Lanzone said: “Whatever future swearing, 300 years in the future, would be.”
I don’t give a damn about swearing or nudity, and if that’s what Paramount thinks it’s going to take to get people to pay $6 a month to watch their new Star Trek show, then those folks have absolutely NO idea about the “meaning” of Star Trek, which is something that we will desperately need in the coming months as our country dissolves around our feet. The folk who did “Enterprise” only got it towards the end of their final season.
To think that adding nudity and swearing makes a show better is certainly not something that make a show better. You would think they would want to allow more people to watch it rather than less people. Good quality writing doesn’t have to have nudity or cursing . An occasional word has meaning. The same word every 5 minutes doesn’t.
Picard got away with “merde” in syndication!