Star Trek: Discovery premiere: CBS goes the Game of Thrones route on screeners
For their upcoming Star Trek: Discovery premiere, CBS is looking to make the show into one of the most secretive TV events out there.
How much so? In an extremely rare move for a new series, Entertainment Weekly confirms that the network is not sending out review screeners to any media outlets. This is something that was done for both the past two seasons of Game of Thrones and also Showtime’s Twin Peaks, but those shows were on premium cable and also had more of a dedicated following. While the Star Trek audience is huge (no one is disputing that), nobody knows just how Discovery is going to look or feel. Other than an impressive cast led by The Walking Dead star Sonequa Martin-Green, the story details have been kept under a heavy lock and key. For CBS, it seems that they think the property of Star Trek is enough to bring in the viewers – but are they right in that assumption?
The first episode of Star Trek: Discovery is going to air on Sunday, September 24 on CBS proper; following that, the second episode will premiere immediately afterwards on the CBS All Access streaming service. That will be the show’s home for the remainder of the season, and that has been the plan from the very beginning. There have certainly been MANY changes and delays from when the show was first announced, but now it’s on the right track and we couldn’t be more excited for it to start airing!
There is another way that we at CarterMatt could look at the Star Trek: Discovery premiere, and it’s a little more conspiratorial: Maybe CBS wants to protect the show from potentially bad reviews? We don’t actually think that this is the case here, though, since they know that Trekkers would probably watch the show regardless, but these fans are expecting a certain level of greatness from this property and it’s a lot to live up to. We view this move more as a case of the network just trying to keep the show from getting leaked in advance and impacting their ratings. It’s also a huge gamble for them, given that to date, the All Access service has mostly been used for either The Good Fight episodes or Big Brother live feeds. They’ve got a lot invested in trying to use this show to drive more viewers to the streaming service and in this day and age where so many people are watching television through other mediums (and on their own schedule) it makes sense for CBS to want to help their streaming service grow with the viewers wants.
One way or another, we’re going to get a chance coming up to see whether or not this show is worth discovery — pun intended.
Do you want to see the Star Trek: Discovery premiere when it airs?
Be sure to share some more of your thoughts on that subject in the comments!