Star Trek is over again a united franchise, thanks to some corporate wrangling. The announcement that Viacom and CBS take agreed to re-merge isn't just important from a business standpoint, it's tremendously exciting for longtime Star Trek fans, as the franchise has struggled to regain its footing in pop culture since its motion picture and goggle box rights were split over a decade agone.

Even prior to the merger, Star Trek has been on the rebound on the small screen. Star Trek: Discovery has proved a huge striking for CBS All Admission in America - and for Netflix internationally - and the hype for Star Trek: Picard reached a fever pitch with the unveiling of its San Diego Comic-Con trailer featuring the return of severalTNG andVoyager stalwarts. At the same time, the J.J. Abrams-produced Star Expedition films appear to have flamed out with the well-reviewed just little-seen Star Trek Across.

Many fans may take causeless that the differences between Star Trek in film and television over the last decade was simply a creative selection, putting the meat and potatoes Kirk and Spock adventures in the big-budget movies, while letting shows like Discovery and Picard delve into the more than nuanced, socially relevant territory the franchise excels in. But that'due south not the case; Star Trek has been unfortunately bifurcated for most of the 21st century, leading to a franchise that often feels like it lacks cohesion and an overall vision. That's all about to modify with the CBS/Viacom merger.

Simply before we go into what this all means for the future of the final frontier, let's accept a wait at how Star Trek got into such a mess in the first place.

How The Star Expedition Rights Split (& How That Changed Movies & TV)

In 2006, CBS and Viacom became two carve up corporate entities, ostensibly a fashion for the surging Viacom to thrive without the burden of having to drag the flailing CBS network with them. That corporate divorce was harder on Star Trek than near franchises; it was already in dire straits with the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise the year prior and the box role disaster of Star Trek: Nemesis just a few years earlier. CBS inherited the rights to Star Trek - both by and future serial - on television, while Viacom'southward Paramount Pictures retained the rights to make and distribute the films. Star Trek has basically been operating with i arm tied backside its dorsum ever since.

When J.J. Abrams rebooted the film series in 2009, he was eager to capitalize on that film'south success by producing a television spinoff. CBS, even so, was non interested in helping a corporate rival strengthen their property, so they declined to work with Abrams. The stories of pettiness between the ii camps are not rare, with in that location being a tentative agreement that each side would essentially stay off the other's turf. For example, when CBS finally got around to producing Star Expedition: Discovery, information technology was set a decade earlier The Original Serial events, with no overlapping characters or ships. When the Enterprise did show upwards, it looked slightly dissimilar than it had been shown before, with Captain Pike in the command chair instead of Captain Kirk. One of the first indications that relations between Viacom and CBS could be thawing was the prominent inclusion of not only Spock, but the Enterprise and her coiffure in Star Expedition: Discovery'southward second season.

Star Trek Being Reunited Is Not The Viacom Merger'south Goal

Ironically, by 2018 the fortunes of CBS and Viacom had more or less reversed. CBS is now the most-watched network on American television, and All Access has exceeded expectations not just with Star Expedition: Discovery, just other successful series like The Good Fight and The Twilight Zone. Meanwhile, Viacom's one time-dominant cable television portfolio is much weaker in the streaming historic period, while Paramount'south merely electric current successful film franchise is Mission: Impossible, which hinges entirely on the wellness and continued interest of its 57-year old star, Tom Cruise.

That doesn't necessarily mean CBS is riding loftier at the moment. Les Moonves, CBS'southward longtime chairman and CEO, was removed from his position after it was revealed he had a long history of sexual assault allegations. One of the network's biggest hits, Bull, was striking with like issues, as star Michael Weatherly has been accused of acting inappropriately toward Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum Eliza Dushku. And while at that place's still an ongoing battle over the culture at CBS, the merger with Viacom is the sort of unqualified expert news the visitor has been drastic for.

The Best Of Both Worlds - The Time to come Of Star Trek

So what does all this corporate maneuvering mean for Star Trek? Short term, information technology'due south notwithstanding unclear. CBS All Access' plans for the franchise on the modest screen volition almost certainly remain unchanged; Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks volition go along as planned. The bigger question mark is what becomes of the moving picture franchise. While 2016'due south Star Expedition Across was perhaps the best of the 3 Chris Pine-led alternating universe movies, it was marketed poorly and became a box office disappointment. Afterwards several fake starts - and an extended flirtation with Quentin Tarantino - it seems as if the reboot films are indeed over.

That's probable a positive for CBS. They can start from scratch now, not having to serve the continuity and plot points of the Kelvin timeline. In many ways, this massively opens upward the possibilities for what a Star Trek moving picture could wait similar in the future. Alex Kurtzman, who oversees all of CBS's Star Expedition projects, would likely want to expand on his stable of series in whatever jump to theaters. There's no guarantee that Kurtzman would be the caput of any future Star Trek picture plans, but he certainly has the resume for information technology: before he oversaw CBS's Star Trek backdrop, he was a author and producer on the Abrams'Trek films.

Tying the picture show franchise to what'due south been happening on the pocket-size screen could potentially solve one of CBS's current Star Trek dilemmas, though information technology'due south admittedly a happy one; afterwards Discovery'due south 2nd season, fans are salivating for more than of Anson Mountain's Christopher State highway, as well every bit his Enterprise crew of Number I (Rebecca Romijn) and Spock (Ethan Peck). Pike's overwhelming popularity seems to have defenseless CBS off guard; the grapheme will feature in a few Brusque Treks afterward in 2019, but tin can no longer show up in Discovery due to that show's time jump at the cease of its second flavour. If a series set up on the Enterprise isn't in the offing, a film starring Mount's Pike would be an like shooting fish in a barrel way to make everyone happy.

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It'due south hard to overstate how huge of a moment this is for Star Trek . At the height of the franchise's popularity in the mid-90s, the films and television shows fed each other in deeply rewarding ways; when Worf shows up at the beginning of Star Trek: Beginning Contact piloting the USS Defiant, it meant more to fans because they knew of that ship's significance on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When Admiral Katherine Janeway appears briefly in Star Expedition: Nemesis to give Helm Picard his orders, it feels like a nice lilliputian nod for fans of Star Trek: Voyager. It's essentially what Marvel does at present with their films - the interconnected nature of all these very dissimilar stories makes the earth of Star Trek feel that much grander in scope. The possibilities are over again endless for the hereafter of Star Trek, and that feels similar a victory for anybody.

Next: Star Trek: The Essential Next Generation Episodes To Picket Before Picard

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Dusty Stowe (587 Articles Published)

Dusty Stowe has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016. A native of Yorktown, Virginia, he moved to Los Angeles in 2010 to pursue a career in the entertainment manufacture. He currently writes lists, features, and news articles roofing movies, comics, and television. He is a devoted fan of Doctor Who, DC Comics, and whatsoever David Lynch deems u.s. worthy of viewing. Star Trek: The Next Generation lit upwardly his 5 twelvemonth-old encephalon like a firework, ensuring he'd be a progressive nerd for the rest of his life. His current focuses are on covering the Arrowverse, Star Trek: Discovery, and the DC Cinematic Universe. He is besides a trained audio engineer with a degree from the Los Angeles Film School, and manages multiple corporate social media accounts. He really, really wants a new Green Lantern movie. You can talk to him virtually football, politics, and his weird nerd takes on Twitter @dustystowe.

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