'Star Trek' Reboot: How Bryan Fuller's Cult TV Resumé Will Help Him
Star Trek is boldly going into the streaming realm in 2017 with a strong captain at the helm. CBS’s announcement that they’ve recruited Bryan Fuller to pilot the franchise’s long-awaited return to episodic television has inspired a largely delighted response amongst Trekkies, assuaging at least some of their fears about the revival’s creative direction. It helps, of course, that Fuller has plenty of history exploring that final frontier: the writer/producer got his start in Starfleet, serving aboard the crew of the much-liked Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the less-liked Star Trek: Voyager. Since then, he’s gone on to oversee some of the most beloved (if short-lived) cult series of the still-young 21st century, from Dead Like Me to the just-concluded Hannibal. And now that he’s returning to Trek, he’ll bring that wealth of experience with him. Here are some of his trademarks that we hope become a part of Star Trek.
Start With an Unlikely Premise, and Run With It (Dead Like Me)
It’s a general rule of television that your hero is supposed to survive until the very end of the run…or, at least, the series finale. Dead Like Me, on the other hand, opens with its central character, Georgia (Ellen Muth) dying in a freak accident, after which she joins the ranks of the grim reapers, leading souls to whatever lies beyond. It’s an eye-catching narrative hook that makes you ready and eager to see what happens next. (Although Fuller didn’t have that much say over what happened next: he parted ways with the series after five episodes.) A new Star Trek series is going to have to begin with a similarly addictive premise, especially if CBS expects viewers to sign up en masse for its streaming site. (As previously reported, the series premiere will air on CBS, but subsequent episodes will only be available via CBS All Access.) And the franchise has already tried such approaches as flinging a spaceship across the galaxy (Voyager), jumping backwards in time (Enterprise), or creating a parallel pocket universe (J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek movies). We gotta believe that Fuller has an unexpected, utterly unique idea up his sleeve to set this new series in motion.
Dysfunction Breeds Drama and Comedy (Wonderfalls)
Back in the day, Gene Roddenberry’s hard-and-fast rule for Star Trek was that, centuries from now, mankind will have evolved beyond our petty conflicts and disagreements with each other. That’s an admirable ideal to aspire to, but boy is it a big obstacle for storytelling. Over the decades, other writers and producers have found ways around the “no conflict” rule; as former franchise shepherd, Rick Berman, previously told us, Deep Space Nine (Fuller’s first writing job in the biz) was specifically set on a space station where various alien and human races would mingle and mix, creating dramatic friction. That’s much more interesting than the “one big happy family” who served about The Next Generation’s Enterprise. On Wonderfalls, Fuller created the entertainingly dysfunctional Tyler family whose various eccentricities — which range from seeing animal figurines come to life to being perpetually on-edge — ping pong off each other to generate conflict and comedy. Here’s hoping that the crew of the yet-to-be-named starship is staffed with a few big personalities who are closer to Jaye, Sharon and Karen than Wesley, Tuvok and Riker.
Casting Really Matters (Pushing Daisies)
This is an obvious rule, but it’s also a great way to remind everyone that Pushing Daisies is among the most perfectly cast series in recent memory. There wasn’t a single weak link in the entire seven-person ensemble, and Fuller gave each of them an opportunity to shine. While the tone of a Star Trek series is often set by its captain, the relationships amongst the crew is what viewers keep coming back for. And even though this hasn’t been confirmed, chances are good that Fuller will be given the opportunity to create a new cast of characters, instead of following the Abrams model of slotting younger actors into established roles. So instead of finding the right actor to play Kirk, he just has to find the right actor, period. Naturally, we wouldn’t object if that right actor happened to be Lee Pace…or Chi McBride…or Ellen Greene.
Honor the Original (Mockingbird Lane)
With a franchise that’s heading into its fifth decade, the urge to reboot Star Trek from the ground up is probably very strong — but Fuller knows firsthand that you can only push a well-known property so far. His one-off pilot, Mockingbird Lane, was intended to bring the ‘60s monster sitcom The Munsters kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but both the network — and audiences, during its single airing on Oct. 26, 2012 — soundly rejected Fuller’s grittier, less fanciful re-imagining. Truth be told, Mockingbird Lane is an underrated pilot that had a lot of potential to be a great series. But it definitely ain’t The Munsters.
Don’t Be Afraid of a Little Blood (Hannibal)
Over the course of its three-season run, Hannibal regularly pushed the Standards and Practices-licked envelope for network TV violence. While the bloodletting was shocking, it was never cheap or gratuitous. After all, when you’re show is named for a cannibalistic serial killer, things are gonna have to get a little messy. Up until now, the Star Trek universe has largely been a bloodless place, and while we’re not advocating that Fuller suddenly start tossing severed limbs around in zero-gravity, working in the streaming space might allow him more leeway in terms of violence and/or sexuality. Marvel has already ventured into more mature territory with their Netflix series, Daredevil and Jessica Jones. That’s a frontier that a new Star Trek can and should explore.
Star Trek will premiere in 2017 on CBS/CBS All Access
