To Boldly Not Go: Everything you need to know about the new Star Trek series

It was announced today that Star Trek is coming back to the small screen in 2017. Yes. Finally. A new Star Trek series. That’s exciting news. But wait. What’s the catch?

CBS.

Mothafukas! So much for that shit.

My operatives have obtained the writer’s and director’s guide for this new series including an advance copy of the script. This humble blog is the exclusive source for this information on the internet.

Stay tuned after the script for my parting thoughts…

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SCRIPT: STAR TREK, TELEVISION, UNNAMED SERIES

EXT – INTRO – Deep Space, Kappa Kappa Beta Quadrant

Pan up to reveal the new Federation Ecommerce Class exploration vessel. Dramatic music crescendos as the ship’s identification marker is revealed: CBS-666.

INT – Bridge of the CBS-666

360 degree bullet time shot reveals The Crew at their stations. Something is obviously afoot. They’re all hanging from their consoles and tilting to one side. One crew member is amazingly tilting the other way.

INT – Captain’s Chair

“Dammit, man. On screen while there’s still time.”

INT – Science Station

“Scanner activated, Captain, but there is no signal. Content inoperative. Short range scan is not available. It is as I expected. Our monthly payment has not been processed.”

Scene continues without J.J. Abrams’ inner thoughts, lens flares, plot holes, and camera jiggles.

Captain: “That’s damn peculiar. Options?”

Doctor: “What the hell? Those Celestial Broadcasting Syndicate bastards are extorting us and you’re talking about options? We need to raise the protective thingies. We need to energize weapons. We need to blast them out of the sky!”

Science Officer: “Really, doctor. You must learn to control your emotions. Your craving for reasonably priced entertainment will be your undoing.”

Doctor: “You son of a bitch! I’ll gut you with my Rambo phase pistol.”

Captain (imploringly with impish humor): “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Gentlemen! Easy, now. There are always options.”

Science Officer: “Indeed, Captain. Logic dictates that the greed of one channel should not be greater than the greed of the many.”

Doctor: “What the hell are you even talking about, man? Did you hypo on my tri-ox compound?”

Science Officer: “We are talking about entertainment, doctor. Hardly a life necessity. Our best course of action is to avoid contact.”

Captain: “I agree. We’re out of options. We can’t fight them now, all on our own, out here in the deep recesses of the Uranus Belt. A symbolic act of defiance is all we can manage. But maybe, just maybe, a shred of human decency residue still exists out there. Somewhere. Every revolution begins with one person with an idea. If enough of us band together in resistance, perhaps the Celestial Broadcasting Syndicate can still be stopped.”

INT – Captain’s Chair

The Captain thoughtfully strokes his chin, prompting a copyright infringement claim from the Rodin estate.

Captain: “We have no choice but to continue with our mission. To seek out reasonably priced content with a minimal amount of advertising. The human race must fight and scratch and claw if it wants to survive. Gentlemen, it’s up to us.”

Captain: “Screen off.”

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A new Star Trek series is an exciting thought. But how will they do it? As announced today, CBS plans to premier the series on the CBS television network. Then, all remaining episodes of the series will be exclusively available on a giant shit turd of feces known as CBS All Access.

What is CBS All Access? Basically it’s a channel that offers CBS content and shows for a subscription fee of $6 a month.

What’s so bad about that?

First of all, it’s entertainment. It’s optional. We don’t have to have it. We can live without it. It’s not one of the necessities of life.

The cost of entertainment has outpaced things like the economy and wages. For example, cable television bills have tripled in the last ten years.

Meanwhile something called The Great Unbundling is taking place. In the past I’ve called this our new A La Carte Entertainment future. In the 90s I paid $10/month for a basic cable package of 20 channels. Later packages offered more channels, like 100 or more, for a monthly fee of $50 to $80.

For simplicity, let’s say your cable package averaged $1/month per channel.

Now every service wants $6 to $15 a month. Each. On their own. Netflix. Hulu. NBC. ABC. CBS. HBO. Showtime. You get the idea.

Some sell the prospects of this as a good thing. No more, they say, will you pay for a bundle that includes channels you don’t watch.

The flip side, of course, is that the channels you do want are going to be ten times more expensive than they used to be. This is a little something we call “progress.” And in an industry that has already been growing faster than everything else in sight.

I say, “No.” I’m digging my heels in the sand. I will not pay ten monthly fees to watch ten shows on ten different services. I’m proudly acknowledging the reality that I don’t need their entertainments. There are other options. There’s another way. I will survive without.

Maybe that means I won’t get to enjoy the new Star Trek series. So be it.

I’m turning all that shit off. No more HBO Now. No more iTunes. No more Netflix. And, thank god, I never signed up for Hulu. And, with God as my witness, CBS will never collect a subscription fee from me.

It’s cold dead fingers time.