star trek

The Walking Dead has a habit of telegraphing its punches when stars secure additional gigs outside of AMC, immediately placing targets on their character’s back. Corey Hawkins’ exit offered a surprising subversion, but stars and producers now weigh in on Sasha’s future, given Sonequa Martin-Green’s new Star Trek: Discovery role.

The big emotional climax of Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t a lightsaber battle or a dogfight in space or even two characters talking. The last scene of 2015’s Star Wars saga revival follows Rey, a young woman from a desert planet, as she finally locates Luke Skywalker, the reclusive former hero of the galactic Rebellion. Without saying a word, Rey approaches Luke, reaches into her bag, and offers the Jedi master his old lightsaber.

Even before pushing back its premiere and losing Bryan Fuller as showrunner, Star Trek: Discovery had a world of work to justify fans signing up for CBS All-Access to watch. CBS naturally sees the new Trek as a flagship attraction, but it seems bosses didn’t think Star Trek: Discovery would have survived broadcast demands anyway.

We still don’t have the clearest picture of what CBS’ Star Trek: Discovery will look like (at least we can watch it without ads!), but it seems we’ll have a whole lot more than the series itself to enjoy, come January. New announcements reveal Discovery will launch tie-in comics and novels, maintaining strict continuity with the series itself.

CBS’ cord-cutting All-Access service was bound to bulk up by the exclusive addition of Star Trek: Discovery, but fans rightly balked at notions that the service would still feature ads atop its monthly $5.99 pricetag. Now, CBS has confirmed an ad-free model, but it’s predictably going to cost you.

The tough thing about using someone else’s ideas to make money is that it’s not entirely legal. This lesson had to be learned the hard way this past weekend by Alec Peters, producer of an independent film titled Prelude to Axanar. The Star Trek fan film drew quite a bit of ire from copyright holders Paramount after a crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo brought this grassroots DIY production over half a million dollars last summer. The promise to make a “studio-quality” film including characters, settings, and other elements from the heavily-licensed Star Trek franchise with no engagement from the relevant studio spelled doom for the Axanar team, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

Early buzz around Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller’s 2017 return to Star Trek for CBS All-Access has seen Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer joining the project’s old-school appeal, and the legacy of Gene Roddenberry will be kept intact as well. The legendary Star Trek creator’s son Rod Roddenberry has now joined the project as producer.

If you ever make it to Sto-Vo-Kor, the Klingon heaven, there's a good chance you'll be chugging lots of Warnog.