Space may be the final frontier, but the universe of Starfleet will soon be heading to uncharted territory: first-run streaming services. It was announced today, a little under a year away from the 50th anniversary of Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series, that a new show will be boldly going to parent company CBS TV’s subscription streaming service, CBS All Access.
This series, set for a January 2017 launch date, will be the first original program for CBS All Access, which offers subscribers 7,500 episodes of past CBS programs plus access to their local live CBS affiliate for $5.99 per month. The pilot of the show will air on terrestrial CBS, but fans will have to get the streaming service for subsequent episodes. With other streamers like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime all producing their own material these days, and hosting tons and tons more than one network’s worth of programming, a new Star Trek series just might be the thing to spike subscriptions to CBS.
The new Star Trek, with a new crew of characters seeking out new life and new civilizations, is being created and executive produced by Alex Kurtzman, who also co-wrote and co-produced the 2009 reboot movie and its 2013 follow-up, Star Trek Into Darkness. While not involved in next year’s Star Trek Beyond — his former partner Roberto Orci is producing that one — Kurtzman is slated to produce 2019’s untitled Star Trek 4.
Roddenberry created the original Star Trek, which premiered on September 8, 1966. It ran only three seasons, from 1966-1969, but was popular enough to get saved (once) by a write-in campaign, spawn an animated series, a hugely successful film series, and subsequently a handful of other spin-offs set within the same universe. Next year will be peak Trek with the 50th anniversary, and might just be the nostalgia-bump All Access will need gearing up for January 2017.
Are you excited for more Trek on TV? Will you subscribe to the service just to get it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
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Image: CBS/Paramount
