2y ago

Trek Central reporting that Star Trek Prodigy has been cancelled and will be removed from Paramount+ in coming days.

twitter.com /TheTrekCentral/status/1672306067445874688

Science Fiction @lemmy.world

twitter.com /TheTrekCentral/status/1672306067445874688

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133 comments

And shit like this is why I'm a data hoarder lol
- Yep. I used to think that I didn't need to download and back up stuff because "I just need to pop on over to Youtube or something and it'll be there!" only to find out the hard way that people delist and take down stuff from places all the time, including major corporations.
  I wish I'd downloaded and backed up some of my favorite stuff back in the day. Whether it's videos, music, games... it's surprising how much crap gets taken down. I never thought that people who insisted on having physical copies were weird (unlike some others) but now I realize even more nowadays that they were right. Especially if they use those physical copies to make their own digital backups.
- The back half of Prodigy season one hasn’t even been released to DVD, just the first 10 episodes.

The removal from the service thing is the most absurd part of these announcements, that was the benefit of VOD, that we could access what we wanted.
Shows have gotten cancelled when they are popular and on a cliff-hanger throughout the last 60 years, but the removal thing is new and a massive decline from the accessibility improvements that were made over the last 15 years.
Fortunately for me, my personal server doesn't have this issue.
- It also makes it impossible for a show to get later word of mouth bumps. Nobody sees it, new users don't even know it exists, and so it has no metrics and no future whatsoever.
  
  That's how Star Trek succeeded after The Original Series, but now there is no physical media comparable to streaming.
  You would think that the content would still be licensed by another streamer like Tubi etc, but then they have to factor their property only being available on a competitor.
  It's never been a better time to selfhost.
- Don't streaming platforms remove canceled shows so they don't have to pay residuals to actors (or whoever is contractually getting them)? I've understood that streaming residuals are pretty shit to begin with
  
  Yep. It's corporate greed, plain and simple, and it's disgusting.
  
  Sometimes. Other times it's a tax write-off apparently.

Confirmed by Deadline, with some added details:
The new season will complete post-production, and the studio will be looking for a new home for Star Trek: Prodigy as season one comes off the service shortly.
The company said that “continues to be invested in growing the Star Trek franchise” with series including Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, movie event Star Trek: Section 31, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which returned for its second season June 15 and has been renewed for a third season, animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, which will return for its fourth season later this year and has also been renewed for a fifth season, the upcoming final season of Star Trek: Discovery as well as Star Trek: Picard.
Update from series writer Aaron J. Waltke:
Obviously, there is not much I can say. Everyone on the cast and crew loves #StarTrekProdigy deeply.
I have noticed some misleading headlines, so all I can do is point to this particular part of the press release.
We are completing season two on schedule and seeking a new home!
Variety's report contains this:
According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, although the show had aired on Nickelodeon in addition to Paramount+, it will not be returning to Nickelodeon either. Those on the show will complete post-production on Season 2 and then CBS Studios will be free to shop it to other outlets.
- For goodness sake. Paramount+ just gained "The spot for all Star Trek films and series" earlier this month. Now, they have to put an asterisk on that statement, "*except Prodigy."
  
  @Nmyownworld @ValueSubtracted What I struggle to understand is how they don't immediately see how this will only undermine subscriber confidence
- So depressing.
  Especially when Paramount+ has very little in the animated originals category.
  More, Paramount has been trying to cover all of the demographics with their consolidated streamer. Compared to most of the others, excepting Disney, they have a decent amount of kids’ content and viewership. So, how shortsighted do they have to be to cut off their one major franchise offering for that demographic?

Canceling it is one thing. Pulling the show down from the service is absolutely abhorrent behavior.
- Fully agree. There is absolutely no reason to do so!
  
  To avoid paying royalties, I imagine. Hollywood accounting is craaaaazy.

Ouch, that must hurt for Kate Mulgrew and the team.
Why would Paramount remove the existing episodes from streaming service though? They have everything else Trek.
- @triktrek Same reason HBO removed Westworld... Saving on residuals. All about that bottom line, amirite? 🙄
  
  Ah so it is just about residuals, I was just speculating on another comment that that might be the reason.
  This fucking sociopathic cutthroat capitalism where literally nothing matters except squeezing more money out of everyone is getting real damn old
  
  And one of the main reasons for the writers going on strike.
- If there's really low viewership, it can cost more to keep it on the platform, as they still have to pay some royalties and stuff for it being there.
  Same reason that Disney is pulling lots of shows from Disney+ and Hulu right now.
  It sucks a lot for those of us who really like it.
  
  Fucking shifting business fiefdoms. This is why I don't trust streaming at all.

I'm very surprised. I thought Prodigy had a strong following. What a strange situation, quickly pulling season one. But I don't understand the ins and outs of streaming contracts.
- Possibly that Paramount+ simply doesn't have the kids' content to support viewership for a single show. Sure, it pulls in Trek fans, but probably isn't grabbing the 4-12 demographic it's aimed at or whatever.

Paramount dumping $500 million a year into Yellowstone and 1923 but they cut the two Emmy winning Trek shows that cost a literal fraction of the price.

Not enjoying this new trend of removing content. Hopefully will be available to purchase.
- anyone that torrented it still has a copy 😜
  
  I try to support the content I love. Not commenting on others actions but I do not sail the high seas. But I do think that modern content ownership is grey and we are going to be getting into issues where content is not available anywhere legally.

I get cancelling it but why remove it?
- I guess to stop paying creators
  
  💯
  This is part of why the WGA is on strike
  
  This. It's the new trend in streaming: Get better ROI for funding new content instead of paying residuals on your back catalog. The market is heading in a direction where subscribers won't just stick around forever if you're not constantly feeding them something new. So it makes more sense to put the money there instead.
  "Max" has already dropped a lot of original content for this exact reason. And you can expect to continue seeing this trend across the streaming industry.
  Remember the ongoing writers' strike? The pittance that they get paid in residuals from streaming is one of their main complaints. So you can expect the practice to accelerate after the strike is over.
  The content will be shopped around to other platforms. You can probably expect some of it to end up on freemium/advertisement-based streaming services. The rest will just go into the proverbial vault.
  
  Yeah this seems likely; they've supposedly cancelled the show as part of a content write-down (a bit like Discovery-Warner did, dumping shows, writing them off in their financial statments and not broadcasting them). It sounds like the shows makers have the rights to shop it around, and given season 2 is nearly complete it'll probably end up somewhere. Seems doubtful there would be a season 3 though.
  
  Can someone please ELI5 this? If it's streamed on another service (which apparently it will), then wouldn't the creators have to be paid too? How does this all relate?
- They are trying to find a new distributor for the second season, presumably the first would be packaged with that deal.
  
  You'd think removing it would come after finding a new distributor, but I guess they don't want to give any possible advantage to a competitor.
  This anti-competitive crap is rotting the whole industry.

code for "Prodigy is about to become super hot on pirate sites"

ugh, this destroys a lot of the appeal of Paramount+ for me. the only reason i have a subscription is that it's the one-stop-shop for all things star trek, but i guess not anymore.
They're also really boosting the appeal of piracy (not that i would ever recommend somebody reading this post commit piracy) because that's the only way to reliably enjoy the things you would otherwise be paying to rent.

This is incredibly disappointing. I look just as much forward to seeing this on Thursdays as I do other Treks. What a loss.

I'm bummed. I found the first few episodes of Prodigy rocky but it wound up being a solid first season in a franchise where a rocky first season is the norm.
I don't have kids but if I ever did I could see myself wanting to watch Prodigy with them. I hope another studio picks it back up.

Boooo! I quite enjoyed Prodigy, and I really hope it finds a new home.
- They don't have to pay residuals if they pull the content. This is one of the main issues that caused the current writer's strike.

Oh man that really sucks. I really enjoyed prodigy, it was doing something different (but good different!).
Had been looking forward to watching it with my son when he was sold enough… I really hope they find a new home so we get more than just one season.

Oh man. I never got around to watching it!
- You should watch it before it’s pulled. Only the first 10 episodes are available on physical media.
  At 20 x 22 minutes, it’s not a lot of time, but we’ll worth it.
- It's really good.
- Usenet and Yorrentst 😎
- I saw the trailer and figured it was a kids show and never watched.
  
  It's aimed at kids but is still a great Trek show.
  
  It absolutely is a kid's show but once you get past the first few episodes and ESPECIALLY the second half of the season, it's utterly Star Trek and pulls off a better season arc than any of the other modern Treks. ^{Plus Janeway jokes about turning into a salamander.}
  
  It is a kids' show, but surprisingly deep and thoughtful for one. Characters are well realized and the plotting is tight. Plus it's absolutely gorgeous to look at.
  I'm exposed to a lot of kids' media by virtue of, you know, having kids, and this show is top shelf. And my young kids actually liked it and would sit down to watch it, which is something they wouldn't do with other Trek.
  
  It is targeted at kids, that's why I never checked it out either.
  
  It's actually a decent Trek show, and had Kate Mulgrew as Janeway for bonus points. Way better Trek than Discovery and Picard, at least.

This is the first I've heard about Star Trek Prodigy
- The promotion hasn’t been what it could and the merchandising came very, very late.

Blah. I hate this.

Wow, this sucks. I didn't get around to finishing season one yet but really enjoyed what I have seen so far. It's refreshing to see Star Trek deviate and try something new, and I felt like Prodigy was really hitting the mark there.
I hope season two finds a home quickly and we're not stuck waiting forever.
- The lack of completions were one of the things that hurt the show.

@Coliver
I don't follow the TV biz closely. What exactly does this mean? Is it no more Prodigy for sure, or is it being shopped around for someone to maybe continue it?
- In many cases like this they end up selling rights to one of the growing ad-supported streaming services, which means I personally will never watch. I had just started watching Prodigy in the gap between Picard and SNW. I think companies are being shortsighted in cutting back their catalogs in this way since it encourages people like me to cancel subscriptions between the initial broadcast of new seasons of the more popular series rather than stick around for something of perhaps secondary interest.
  
  It also means that after a while people figure out the pattern of "new show, cancelled, new show, cancelled, repeat" and stop caring about originals. Like Netflix.
  
  Maybe it's to sell it to a streamer more kid-friendly than Paramount+? I may be too naïve.

@Coliver Well crud, I thought it was doing pretty well and that they had said it was renewed.

removing it completely is a bit extreme
- They ended up removing it earlier than they planned because so many people were rushing to watch it before it was removed.
  
  lmaooooo
  
  I guess they were concerned about all the views reducing the value of the tax write-off.
  So, instead of SNW in the top of the Nielsen streaming numbers for this week (as they surely hoped), in a month from now we’ll see the figures for this week with Prodigy in the Nielsen top ten like 1923 and Picard.
  I wonder what investors and the IRS will make of that…

Was it that poorly received? I thought it was great for a kid show.
- @chronicledmonocle
  @Coliver
  It was a great kid's show AND great star trek.
  It was well received.
  there is no good reason for doing this.
  
  Exactly, Prodigy was a surprise gem and is at the bottom of the list of current Star Trek shows that should've been canceled.
  Discovery is an awful, manic, canon-wrecking mess and needs to go.
  Strange New Worlds inherits most of that awfulness, is incredibly overrated, and also needs to go.
  Picard was shaky but the final season finally delivered, thank the gods.
  Lower Decks is well-written, nuanced, a good citizen of canon, and just wonderful.
  Prodigy is well-written, nuanced, a good citizen of canon, and just wonderful.
  But the popular narrative is all over the place. People hate Discovery but love Strange New Worlds despite them being almost identical. People love Lower Decks and are tepid about Prodigy despite them having a very similar tone.
  At least most people seem to agree on Picard now.
- Had a kid that loved it and he generally refuses to watch any trek show. Cutting off that audience is going to cost them in the long run but I don't think the owners of the IP have a long term vision
- Nickelodeon didn’t get as much linear audience as they’d hoped, but Nickelodeon is doing poorly overall since 2020.
  On Paramount+, it was popular but didn’t have as high a completion stat as it should.
  Too many fans watched and episode or two and then bailed because it starts out looking more like other franchises that kids and families unfamiliar with Star Trek would find initially appealing. Within a very few episodes it really brings you into a very Star Trek experience, but too large a proportion of viewers didn’t give it the chance it deserves.
  Also, Paramount’s promotion and timing of merchandise releases was incredibly weak. The algorithm didn’t promote the show to kids. The toys came out a year after the show premiered. The full year break between short seasons lost audience etc.

Itunes has all of S1 for 9.99 today. I'm buying in support of the show.

it's already a thing for several shows. The worst off are game shows that aren't as popular. or series that only had a couple of seasons. Capitalism and it's continuous churn of removing and adding new is going to put us in a new dark ages.
It's happening with everything. A friend of mine got a bike secondhand that only came with a digital manual. He didn't get the manual when he got his bike, so he had to go on the site to get it. Except the site had deleted the page his big was on, and the manual for it. It wasn't on the way back machine either. Luckily he found a similar model ok the way back machine but this is going to continue to happen.
So many things are going to be lost because they aren't printed and then they're deleted and no one is backing them up. All those news papers from local towns that we're using to piece together certain events in history just won't exist in 50 to 70 years because they were 100% digital and are now gone.
It's really upsetting and no one is doing anything about it. At least not at every level, sure there are efforts, but not in every small town.

Awww nooo! Not murf! I loved that little dude.
This is a shame, but maybe it means more money available to make star trek legacy? Also Kate Mulgrew is now free and can play a part in that series. Probably wishful thinking.

Never even heard of it
- You're on a star trek only website and haven't heard of prodigy?
- It's because it wasn't targeted at you. Branded as a Nickelodeon show, it's intended audience was children

Wasn't exactly my favorite in season 1. Was kinda excited to see where season 2 went but I'm not really too upset.
What I'm hoping this does is clear the way for a Legacy spinoff Matalas teased with the Picard finale
- That didn’t work for the fans who cheered when TAS got canceled in the early 70s.
  Hoping the cancellation of one Trek show will get you the one you personally want is never great thing for the health of the franchise.
  
  Nah. Right now they need to cull the weak shows so the strong can survive. Not saying it's great what they're doing, but Prodigy and Discovery are definitely the weak shows of the current gen. Focus the franchise on what works, and allow room for good ideas to flourish instead of strangling them in the cradle because a lesser show is hogging resources.
  Paramount is in a tough spot financially and if they need to cancel the underperformers so good Trek can survive, I'm ok.
  Also, just saying, if TAS wasn't cancelled we might not have gotten TNG. Not sure your example is working in your favor.

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