Is Star Trek: Discovery Doomed Before It Starts?

 Star Trek: Discovery is premiering this Sunday (09/24) and I am pumped. I have been a huge Star Trek fan for as long as I can remember. From Kirk to Janeway, and mostly Picard in between, I have watch them all over and over. For the record, I’ve seen Enterprise, as well. But Scott Bacula’s eyebrows have fostered an irrational fear deep in my soul. The point is that I love Star Trek, and I don’t care who knows it. And it has been too long since an intrepid crew has graced the airwaves.

The new show stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Lt. Commander Michael Burnham and Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou. Together with their crew, they travel the galaxy aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou as they wage a deadly cold war with the Klingons ten years before the events of the original series. This all sounds great and has the makings of an epic Sci-Fi television show that is sure to make me weep with joy like a little girl. But, there’s just one problem…

The show is behind pay wall.

The show takes place in the original universe with TNG, and apart from the new ‘splodey Chris Pine action movie one. This means that it’s a show that is probably more aimed at your dad, and less at you. Do you know what your dad hates more than paying extra money? Paying $5-10 a month for an app he will use exactly four times within that time-span. And that is assuming that Star Trek: Discovery is enough to entice your dad into figuring out how to get it to show up on his television screen in the first place. Hell, maybe he’ll get you to do it. Who knows? My point is that it is one heck of a gamble to put a show that you want people to watch, on an app that nobody wants to pay for. Especially, when the average age of your viewership is fifty-nine years old.

Or maybe they want to introduce a new type of show to a new generation. But that doesn’t make sense either. Millennials are notoriously adverse to paying more than they have to for anything. An most importantly: We’re all broke, guys. I, personally, am on my parents Netflix and have a friend’s HBO password. I can’t just shell out money for things I want. My car payment sees to that.

So, we have a highly anticipated show that is set to be released twelve years after its predecessor, but it’s on an app that is not particularly enticing to any demographic the show is made for. And the folks at CBS are just kind of hoping it works out… This sounds very much like Star Trek: Discovery is going to be dead on arrival, no matter how exciting and compelling it turns out to be. Of course, I’m not a marketing genius, so what the hell do I know? God, I hope I’m wrong.