CBS is certainly living up to their word when they said they were all-in on Star Trek. On top of numerous other projects (most excitingly being the upcoming ‘Return of Picard’ show), we might be getting a series about iconic villain Khan from the writer/director of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
Until today, all we knew about this was it’d be called Ceti Alpha V, a reference to the planet that Khan was left on after his appearance in The Original Series episode “Space Seed.” His escape from that planet led to the events of The Wrath of Khan, so we can probably assume that this series takes places at some point in between TOS and the film and reveals what him and his crew were doing on the planet.
Now, thanks to an interview with Midnight’s Edge, Meyer has revealed more about what the show will consist of, saying:
“I was commissioned to write a 3-hour or 3-night event, and that’s what I did. It’s called Ceti Alpha V and I don’t know the current status. It’s been up in the air. Partially, there was a lot of confusion between CBS, and there were big upheavals at CBS and while they sort of didn’t know who was in charge, they also didn’t know what they were going to do with Ceti Alpha V. I’m not exactly sure what’s happened, I haven’t heard from them in some time.”
Well, I guess the CBS Star Trek team does have a lot on their plate at the moment, but it sounds a little bit rude to commission a guy to write a miniseries and then never call him back to check how it’s going. And, even more annoyingly, it’s apparently pretty awesome.
“It’s very good. It’s a terrific trilogy. I think one of the things that happened is they’re not sure that a trilogy is long enough to warrant the cost of doing it. Maybe it should be something longer, or … I don’t know the details of their thinking, because I haven’t heard them.”
Now, there is a glimmer of hope for the show actually coming out, as it was included on a leaked list of trademark filings from CBS earlier this year. Another from that list, Star Trek: Lower Decks, a Red Dwarf-like animated comedy about life away from the bridge, is currently in development. If they really weren’t going to do anything with Ceti Alpha V, then why would they have included it on the list?
Then again, the math just might not add up on this for CBS. After all, the original plan for Star Trek: Discovery was for it to be an anthology show that would continually reinvent itself every season. Faced with the prospect of endless set and costume redesigns, the studio balked and asked for a more traditional ongoing show (which caused Bryan Fuller to leave the project). Perhaps they consider Ceti Alpha V simply too expensive to warrant a three episode miniseries.
Regardless, the network’s hungry for content to keep subscribers to CBS All Access happy, so if there’s a dry spot in their schedules, I suspect we may see this moved into production. It’d also be nice for Meyer to be given the chance to redeem the character after what he considered to be his sloppy treatment in Into Darkness. And hey, I’m always up for more *deep breath* KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist).