I think that I can almost enjoy how much people are getting bent out of shape by this on other social media. (I confess to scanning a few of the comments under that TrekMovie article.)

Dropping in belatedly to say that my partner and I felt this was an improvement over the season premiere, and we felt it got things back on track.

It’s interesting that they believe that they have leverage — and that it just might be the case.

Ellison suffered a setback that should not be underestimated when Taylor Sheridan unequivocally rebuffed Paramount’s offer to renew his first look contract. He has been Paramount+’s biggest content producer but flatly rejected a renewal, despite extensive personal courting by David Ellison and one of his senior people brought over from Skydance.

So, it’s not obvious that the kind of creatives that Ellison wants to work with will actually be willing to sign on with him. The Hagemans are significant creators in animation and Skydance’s animation studio is a major part of its business. They really are in a position to insist that on Prodigy renewal as part of any deal.

Yah, I was more ready to let go of new Star Trek by the time Enterprise was canceled — but that show finally felt like it was all coming together in season four so it was frustrating that it didn’t get a full run.

The miasma of sadness I feel knowing that the SFA and SNW sets have been ripped down in Toronto and Mississauga is making it hard for me to really get excited and embrace the marketing for SNW season four.

I know I will be watching with my spouse and engaging here, but it’s very really not a great feeling given I was around for TOS’ cancellation, TAS’ cancellation, Enterprise’s cancellation and now the closing of this era.

The Commitments.

Wow, that’s a lot of negativity towards both fancasting and idols. But I appreciate your laying out your perspective.

This fancasting was done with humorous intent, as one can tell by the original post text that I have included as well as the Chanel visor (since cdrama ‘traffic stars’ are known for being global brand ambassadors of high fashion houses).

So the joke is falling flat with you. The question is “Why?”

Star Trek fans always propose their ideas for new characters in the franchise and even for recasts. It’s nothing new. It’s done in the spirit of fun.

And it’s never taken particularly seriously by those who make casting decisions or we would have seen very different actors cast in all of the shows and movies over the past 50+ years of the continuing franchise. Especially, as many or most of the actors fancast are not any more skilled than idol actors — while on the other hand, the most recent Star Trek shows, that have consistently cast actors with good foundations and craft, have experienced the most fan negativity about casting.

What’s different about fancasting popularity idol ‘traffic stars’ from China vs the usual fancasting of A or B list American actors?

What I found different, and amusing, is that it’s a fancasting crossover from two very different entertainment contexts. It’s challenging assumptions with popular faces, known to the younger cdrama audience.

What’s also amusing to me is that it implicitly pokes fun at Star Trek’s baked-in tendency to cast at least some of the roles on the basis of physical attractiveness, despite its aspirational nature — and recognizes that there has been fan blowback when diversity in looks and body types are included.

I’m absolutely with you that Star Trek needs to be more inclusive of Asian actors, and generally inclusive of more non US actors to really have global reach.

The US-centric mindset of those at senior levels in charge of the franchise since Roddenberry, as well as the embedded American Exceptionalism, is a principal reason it’s cinematic features aren’t capable of making adequate profit margins.

Anime, kdramas and now cdramas, all are rising in global popularity, especially among GenZ and among young women. That’s a global trend affecting the audience that Star Trek needs to share in to survive. What’s the problem with considering what the franchise would need to do to compete with these?

Yes, there are other serious actors in Chinese film and television, as well as other Asian countries. And hopefully as the young audience that is interested in cdramas matures, they may broaden their horizons and take in productions that are more focused on quality than personal beauty.

However, it’s also true that very few, even among those who graduate from China’s top theatre and performing arts programs go directly into serious roles. Very few have the resources to create their own independent production companies. Most are contracted by agencies, with their careers managed by them — with enormous financial penalties if they seek to become independent or move agencies. Most are in their 30s before they can break into more serious film and television roles.

Let’s face it, Star Trek has historically put the most seasoned actors, with theatrical credits, in the Captain chair but the rest of the ensemble has typically been a mix of with less experienced actors included. Many legacy roles were cast with actors of an equivalent skill level to idols.

It’s very welcome to have an Asian actor of Michelle Yeoh’s calibre in a captain’s chair, but Sulu and Kim, in 60 years of the franchise, should not remain the only East Asian main ensemble characters. More, future casting of characters with Japanese, Korean or Chinese biographies should consider hiring actors who are from those countries rather than exclusively Americans with that heritage.

All to say, it’s an interesting discussion. Appreciate the engagement.

If you aren’t aware that there is a certain amount of directed compositing in many CGI engines for vfx and game design, I don’t know what to say.

Using generated render to rough up an idea can be part of the process.

Pursuit of Jade reportedly cost the equivalent of $100 million for 40 episodes and certainly looks like it.

S-tier cdramas are quite well funded now. I just watched the current day 2025 science fiction thriller Mobius on Netflix. It was at the production level of any American or European show.

The creator is a professional vfx artist who was playing, and has included a watermark for that reason.

Yes, AI is part of their toolkit, but these were not just a case of asking a gen AI tool fabricate something.

We’re going to need to differ on Ronald D. Moore.

I wish Trek fans would stop calling for him to helm the franchise when we have not seen adequate evidence that he can carry through to make the kind of Trek that represents IDIC for future.

What I am seeing from him is a pattern of starting great new shows but not having as great ideas about following through long multi season arcs.

The Battlestar Galactica reboot was riveting for the first two seasons and then spiralled to a disappointing conclusion.

For All Mankind spun out in seasons two and three with an Oedipal storyline about a kid who becomes obsessed with his foster mother and wreaks havoc. Not to mention that all the heroic women characters in from season one had to be shown to deeply flawed by season three in a very male-perspective way.

For All Mankind isn’t as bad in terms of having a cisgender-male viewpoint writing women leads as say the Sheridan show Lioness, but it’s not succeeding as a show women see themselves in.

I’m not sure I can agree on the camera work. This show has come a long way from the JJ Abrams directorial tricks embraced by Discovery and other shows of this production era.

I actually thought that Producing Director Osunsamni was restraining himself noticeably in his use of whipping cameras as compared to his directing style in previous shows.

Kurtzman set a directorial mandate for the show in the opening episodes with longer pans and more close ups on the characters. He even commissioned special amorphic lenses that enable close ups within the large sets. Jonathan Frakes mentioned that the directional norms for SFA are quite different and that he enjoyed the opportunity on his episode to rely more on shots where he closed in on the characters.

For this episode, the choice of using a shifting drone view for a remote news audience made sense in the context of an otherwise static scene of Nus’ theatrical show trial.

I always thought that the insistence on every Paramount+ show having 10 episode seasons — which was mandated by the executives in charge of streaming when the ViacomCBS merger happened — was weird.

Other streamers are not that rigid and vary season structures depending on what the show is. While 12 episode seasons are rare, I can’t see the streamer that merges HBO Max and Paramount+ being quite so rigid.

The newly merged conglomerate has a myriad of practical decisions to make in merging Paramount and WBDiscovery. It will take time for all of the parameters of their streaming model to be fully established and implemented but we can expect some significant rethinking.

One of the things that stands out - pun intended - about Starfleet Academy, is that the directors and production crew aren’t trying to hide the differences in height.

Holly Hunter isn’t afraid to let it be seen that she doesn’t even come up to Sandro’s shoulder.

Unlike Patrick Stewart who seemed to want more orange boxes deployed to minimize his height difference in Picard than has even been necessary in the constraints of old standard definition in TNG, the actors are comfortable being different in height and the directing style is working with it.

I’m hoping we’ll get more later.

The Imzadi bond between Tarima and Caleb is an order of magnitude stronger than Troi and Riker’s. Likely more.

I’m willing to go with a head cannon for now that Caleb has to have some native psychic abilities, if latent, that sparked the attraction and connection even with Tarima’s inhibitor in place.

“Lanthanites are a fun ride” says co-showrunner Noga Landau.

Of course, Nahla Ake has extended family even if she told Nus that she didn’t know her Lanthanite father well.

Will we see Pelia? Other Lanthanites?

Do we have a Lwaxana Troi type character incoming in season two?

I’m feeling the same way.

This is the most coherently plotted live action Trek of the current era. The showrunners and writers room knew what they wanted and laid down all the pieces to get there.

I’m going to say that while Anisha’s punch of Brakka’s (as they say in comics) most punchable face seemed logical and a necessary catharsis, I don’t like that Ake stooped to that herself, however understandable the motivation.

I still feel, based on how much difference an extra two episodes per season makes to a low budget show like The Ark, that SFA would be stronger and better able to serve its large cast with 12 episode seasons.

I hope we get more on SAM’s development and integration of her two memories in season two.

Likewise, there definitely feels that there’s unfinished business between Anisha and Ake. I am going with Anisha being resigned to accept who her son has become but unsure of her own future.

Time passed. It wasn’t instant.

I assumed that the Starfleet ships were prepositioned near the barrier/wall ready to cross. We were shown in the previous episode that there were old remnants of Borg Transwarp conduits in the region.

Reno could have messaged Vance even if full holographic communications weren’t available.

The episode makes clear that hours had passed while the Reno and the cadets on Athena were repairing the ship and working out the solution, then another 30 minutes to get to the star system at a limping warp speed and more to find Brakka.

I’m trying to find a way to reconcile some of Rod Roddenberry’s recent social media statements with the positives in interviews with from Kurtzman and Osunsamni.

Rod Roddenberry has not critiqued Secret Hideout but has talked about how there is potential for more positive Star Trek that fulfills his father’s concept of modeling a utopian society.

So, clearly Roddenberry Entertainment is pressing for some strategic influence in future shows.

That said, it makes one wonder how much strategic direction for darker peak television may have come from the highest levels at CBS and Paramount…

SFA definitely bobs up in rank on Thursday/Friday/Saturday and falls off the rest of the week, but the interest shown on Amazon Channels is consistent across many countries, and not just in the United States.

Paramount will have the hard and detailed viewership data to make decisions — not just US-based brigading on social media aggregators.