What Does CBS All Access Have to Offer Besides Star Trek? Let's face it, most people are not going to decide whether to pay for online streaming service monthly based only one show. Does CBS All Access have as wide a variety of shows and movies that Netflix, Amazon and Hulu has? I also heard it plays unskippable ads at the beginning of every show, that seems annoying for a service I have to pay for.
What Does CBS All Access Have to Offer Besides Star Trek?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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It has the CBS archive, including all their currently popular comedies. Moonves has also said it will have more original content. But I disagree with your statement that people won't pay for a streaming service for one show. I've paid for Netflix just to watch House of Cards or Daredevil. Then I cancelled when it ended. Plenty of people only subscribe to HBO for Game of Thrones. I will subscribe to CBSAA for Star Trek, and then cancel my subscription between seasons and I'm sure plenty of other people will too.
We cut the cord. For us, CBS All Access gives us access to new episodes of CBS shows we watch, such as The Big Bang Theory, Limitless, Supergirl, Survivor, and Big Brother. It lets us watch them in our own time on the TV, thanks to Chromecast support. For us, Star Trek will just be gravy. And if the service offers an ad free version for a premium, we will jump on it the same way we did for Hulu.
Moonves has said they have plans for four or five original CBSAA shows outside of Star Trek, but I wouldn't hold my breath for anything worth keeping your subscription over.
CBS is the king of making crappy and cliché network garbage like The Big Bang Theory (so much laugh track for something so unfunny), Supergirl, Limitless and Big Brother. At least this show seems to have a chance with Bryan Fuller at the helm and Nicholas Meyer on the writing staff. Unless, CBSAA is treated more like the premium brand it is, I doubt there will be anything to really watch out for.
CBS is the king of making crappy and cliché network garbage like The Big Bang Theory (so much laugh track for something so unfunny), Supergirl, Limitless and Big Brother. At least this show seems to have a chance with Bryan Fuller at the helm and Nicholas Meyer on the writing staff. Unless, CBSAA is treated more like the premium brand it is, I doubt there will be anything to really watch out for.
First off, Supergirl is awesome, and Star Trek will be lucky to have its caliber of production values and visual effects. Second, CBS is also the home of Person of Interest, which has become the smartest and most compelling hard science fiction narrative on network television, and Elementary, one of TV's smartest and best-written procedurals. Of course not every show on a network is going to be equal in quality, so it makes no sense to generalize.
And Meyer isn't strictly on the writing staff, I think. His credit is consulting producer, which this site defines thusly:
So if Bryan Fuller is Captain Picard and Alex Kurtzman is Admiral Nechayev, Meyer would be, ohh, Guinan -- the experienced elder who's along for the ride and advises the captain but isn't part of the command crew.
I look for more in a show than cool CGI and high production value. Namely, good writing, which Supergirl is severely lacking in. If that's where you set your bar for "awesome" TV, then you're missing out.
Secondly, that's only one part of Meyer's job. From the official Star Trek site:
Thirdly, I find it insulting when people compare Alex Kurtzman to Rick Berman or act like he's in a higher position to Fuller. If you honestly think he'll be answering to Kurtzman, you're sorely mistaken. They're both on about the same level, with Fuller having a much more active role in the production of the series.
That's your opinion. But if you don't realize how impressive Person of Interest is, or how rich and sophisticated its writing and characterization are, then you're the one who's missing out. I'm flexible enough to enjoy different shows on different levels, and yes, PoI is a much more sophisticated show than Supergirl. Than most anything else on network television, in fact.
That site may be official in the sense of being licensed by CBS, but it's not actually operated and written by series insiders; rather, it's part of the studio's publicity machinery. So it's a secondhand source at best. And it's made mistakes before, like the way it used to assert that Jeri Taylor's Voyager novels Mosaic and Pathways were canonical long after she'd left the show and they were no longer considered binding.
Reporters are fallible. They make assumptions and they make mistakes. So just because you read something in an article, that doesn't mean it's ever wise to take it as absolute gospel. All news, regardless of its source, should be read skeptically. The actual title of Consulting Producer is a more informative piece of data, because job titles are well-defined in the industry and carry specific responsibilities. If Meyer were going to be in the writers' room on a day-to-day basis, then his credit would be something other than Consulting Producer. A writers' room hierarchy includes executive producers, co-executive producers, supervising producers, producers, co-producers, story editors, and staff writers. "Consulting," by definition, means an advisory position.
Really, it doesn't quite fit to expect Meyer to be an integral member of the writing staff. He's a novelist and screenwriter, sure, but has very little TV-writing experience. Given the hierarchical nature of the modern writers' room system, someone with as little TV experience as he has would probably have to start out at a very low rung like staff writer, but it makes no sense to give that post to an elder statesman like Meyer, when the system is designed to be a talent farm for future showrunners, working their way up through the hierarchy and gaining experience along the way. Meyer's too old for that. And he has more experience to offer as a director than a TV writer. Really, I would've expected his role to be more along the lines of a producing director, a type of producer that many shows have these days -- a director who's permanently attached to a show and regularly oversees its directing and execution rather than coming and going on a freelance basis. Not directing every episode, but providing a consistent directorial vision to guide other directors and coordinate with the production staff.
I don't know where you're getting that impression, or why you'd think it's insulting. Kurtzman and his fellow executive Heather Kadin are currently producing four different television series -- Sleepy Hollow, Hawaii Five-O, Scorpion, and Limitless. He is also directing the reboot of The Mummy and developing a Universal Monsters cinematic-universe franchise. I'm not comparing him to Rick Berman; that's a completely inappropriate analogy, since Berman didn't produce anything but Star Trek and thus was able to devote his full attention to it. I'm comparing Kurtzman to producers like J.J. Abrams or Greg Berlanti -- executives who have reached the point where they produce multiple series at once and simply don't have the time to be the hands-on showrunner of any single one. Kurtzman is in a higher position because he owns the production company, but Fuller is the one who'll be making the day-to-day decisions, just as each of Kurtzman's other four series has its own showrunner making the day-to-day decisions. That's why I likened Fuller to the captain and Kurtzman to the admiral. The captain's the one who commands the ship and works directly with the crew. The admiral oversees multiple captains, giving them their marching orders and receiving their reports, but leaving the actual execution in their hands. There's no insult involved -- simply an understanding of how the industry works and the roles different people play in it.
If any prior executive in Trek comes closest to Kurtzman's role, maybe it's Herb Solow, who oversaw the creation of Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, and several other less successful drama projects for Desilu, and who hired Gene Roddenberry, Bruce Geller, and other showrunners to produce those shows. Would you consider it an "insult" to Gene Roddenberry to acknowledge that he just ran the show instead of the larger studio?
I haven't seen Person of Interest, so I have nothing to comment here, but that's one show of many. CBS has a lot more crappy shows than it has decent ones.
Sorry, but no. The official Star Trek site would not get something like that wrong, even if they're technically not run by series insiders. Also, are you saying he can't have more than one title? He's a consulting producer and writer. Read any official report, it says the same thing. I can link numerous sites such as here, here and here that all say the same thing, as well as that original report I posted from the official site. Just as Fuller is the creator, showrunner and executive producer (much larger part in this show's development than Kurtzman's one executive producer credit), Meyer is consulting producer and writer on this series.
It's insulting because you act like he's some up-and-coming writer who's lucky enough to be getting the chance to work under the great Alex Kurtzman.
In terms of television work, they're about equal, with Fuller having more experience and longevity as well as enjoying much bigger critical success of the two. While Fuller has less credits as a whole, that's probably because Kurtzman is like J. J. Abrams who just attaches his name to a bunch of these projects and has little say in any as a whole with the exception of a few like Hawaii Five-O and Sleepy Hollow.
I'm not sure if you noticed, but Fuller's production company, Living Dead Guy Productions, is working on this too, as well as Kurtzman's, Roddenberry's and CBS Television Studios. Again, there can be more than one name here.
Just because one name is announced before another, doesn't mean the person announced first has a larger part. When you look at the credits, there's no doubt Fuller will not only have a larger part in the development, but will also have a higher standing than Kurtzman, who has only one credit as executive producer and has said absolutely nothing about this series apart from that one time when Fuller was officially announced as coming aboard.
I do think you're being biased here.
I refer you to Sturgeon's Law.
They spoke imprecisely, is all. A consultant who contributes occasional scripts could be considered part of the "writing staff" in a sense, but that's not the same as actually being in the writers' room.
I'm saying that a consulting producer or producing director role makes more sense for someone of his age and experience than a writers'-room position would. He's a film director, screenwriter, and novelist. He's not someone who's risen through the writer-producer system and would have a natural place in that hierarchy. I'm not saying he won't be able to contribute scripts to the show, but mainly he's there as an advisor.
And most of them are probably just repeating what they read on other reports. This early in the process, you can't really read too much into any of the slim fragments of information we have. There are so few facts revealed that it leaves plenty of room for people -- reporters as much as readers -- to project their own assumptions into the gaps. Not to mention that, this early on, a lot is probably in flux and subject to change. It's best not to rush to judgment about anything. We'll know more when we know more.
Yes, and that is not the least bit inconsistent with anything I've said. A consulting producer is not part of the writers' room. That doesn't mean he can't write for the show, but it means he's not part of the core group that's sitting together in the room and breaking scripts on a daily basis. I mean, the guy's 70 years old. I doubt that he'd want to put himself through that intense daily grind. He'll advise Fuller and the staff, he'll contribute scripts from time to time, but he won't be in the room every day.
That is a bizarre distortion. You're trying to project emotion and value judgment onto this when all I'm doing is analyzing it objectively and trying to provide more information on the subject. There is nothing demeaning about being in a consulting-producer role. It's often an emeritus position, a role that goes to a veteran whose experience and knowledge is valuable to the showrunner and the staff. It's hardly an inferior position. If you don't like the analogy of Guinan to Picard, how about Merlin to King Arthur? He didn't sit at the Round Table, but he was a trusted and valued advisor. Nothing wrong with being Merlin.
And I'm not saying Alex Kurtzman is "great." This is not about moral worth or talent. In fact, I agree with you entirely that Bryan Fuller is a better writer than Alex Kurtzman. But it's simply an objective fact that Kurtzman is an executive who is responsible for many different shows that each have their own showrunners. Kurtzman's attention for the next couple of years will be focused primarily on directing The Mummy, because directing a movie is more than a full-time job. And he's going to have to divide what little time and attention he has left among five or six different shows, including Star Trek. He's going to have very, very little time or attention to devote to Star Trek specifically, which is why he hired Fuller to run it for him. You're reading me entirely backwards. I'm not saying that Kurtzman will have more influence over the series than Fuller -- just the opposite. Kurtzman is nominally the boss, but like any executive in his position, he has to delegate the bulk of the work to his showrunners.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You seem to have this bizarre notion that this is some kind of competition of personal worth, but that's got nothing to do with it. I'm merely talking about their respective job responsibilities. That's not a pissing contest. I'm not saying anyone is "better" than anyone else. That's childish and silly. I'm just clarifying the respective responsibilities of the different staffers based on what we know.
Of course I know that. Every show these days has a bunch of different producers. But each set of producers has its own distinct role to play in the production. Kurtzman and Kadin are supervisory, Rod Roddenberry's probably just a consultant and business partner, CBS provides the actual production facilities, and Fuller is in charge of the creative process. Obviously Fuller is the head guy when it comes to the writing and development of the show. I never said otherwise.
The problem is Person of Interest is its just one show and almost every network is going to have one prestige show
CBS also has a ton of garbage programming , bad comedies like Big Bang theory and a lot of bad reality TV shows.
There is the biggest drawback for CBS All Access, it doesn't anywhere near the variety other streaming sites like Netflix has. It just has content from one mainstream network, which means it doesn't have any movies, it doesn't any edgy cable programs and it likely doesn't have any good kid shows if you want to entertain your children for a while, its mainly just a bunch of middle of the road, playing it safe it shows. Maybe if this service had some Showtime content on it, it might be worth it, but it doesn't and they couldn't make a deal with someone to put some movies on that service?
Fr me, I might just wait till the entire season is on CBS All Access, get it for a month and then ditch it, because I see nothing that is worth having it for more then a month. Frankly I hope because I live in Canada, they will sell the Canadian rights to Netflix, but I think CBS All Access is available in Canada, so I may be out of luck there.
I have also seen some user reviews and they have not been kind to this service, saying unsubscribing is tougher then it should be and that the service has technical issues, not to mention the same couple of ads play before each show and they often don't have all the episodes for the shows on the service. Frankly it will take more then Star Trek to make this service passable in today's market place, they need to deal these issues and get a lot more content to be competitive.
I'm pretty annoyed CBS decided to link the fate of the Star Trek TV franchise with a streaming service that seems to be plagued with problems, I wonder why they just didn't put it on Hulu instead, it has a better chance of being a Netflix killer then CBS All Access, most of the other networks put their shows there. I have a feeling this show may fail simply because it is on a bad streaming service and it would have thrived on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon.
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You guys keep talking about how "bad" these shows are, but in point fact The Big Bang Theory is the number one show on television, with a weekly live +7 audience of around 20 million people. Big Brother wins its timeslot nearly every week during the summer. NCIS is the top scripted drama. Whether YOU personally like them or think they are bad, many MANY other people disagree and watch every week, which, for those 20 million viewers of TBBT, means that CBS All Access is an attractive service to watch these shows. TBBT does not stream anywhere else, such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, so CBS All Access is the only game in town. So for those millions and millions of people CBS is an attractive service.
Christopher: I gave up on POI after about half of the first season because it was overly episodic. Did it get more serialized?
Christopher: I gave up on POI after about half of the first season because it was overly episodic. Did it get more serialized?
The Big Bang theory is also widely syndicated, so it is not nearly exclusive as it should be to sell this service, its also not a very complex or continuity driven series that really help sell a streaming service. Is there any real reason to go back and watch the older episodes, if you have seen before and know the jokes? At least watching old episodes of Game of Thrones can remind you of important plot points or just have some really cool character moments in it. Plus I heard they don't even have all the episodes of the Big Bang Theory on All Access, that is pretty lame.
A good streaming service should have several things worth watching, not one or two shows and CBS All Access doesn't have the variety of content needed to compete in the streaming service market place, Star Trek or the Big Bang Theory will not change that, the whole service needs a top to bottom revamp and CBS has to start teaming up with other companies to beef up their content library on that site.
I really enjoyed Supergirl's first season, so that would be one additional series I would watch on CBS All Access. However, I would only subscribe to CBS All Access if they offer an advertisement-free tier like Hulu now does. Otherwise, I would just buy a season pass on Amazon or VUDU if available like I did with Supergirl's first season.
"Lucky" may be right. FWIW CBS has yet to renew Supergirl for Season 2 and there are rumors going around that it's because they are considering slashing the budget and moving it to CW. This could make sense if they are tying it to the "Arrow-verse" longterm, but I'm not sure how well it bodes for Star Trek that CBS' first real attempt at Sci-Fi/Fantasy in a long time could end that way. Maybe they'll replace it with yet another multi-camera/laughtrack sitcom or police procedural.
It's largely irrelevant to Star Trek because Star Trek is going to CBSAA while Supergirl was on CBS. If Star Trek was going to air on CBS then the ratings and challenges of Supergirl would be a good indication of the problems it would have. But CBS chose All Access for Star Trek because it knows how hard it is for a sci fi show to succeed on CBS, so it gave Star Trek a better environment with a higher chance of success.
That's because most people are drooling idiots, see: the Transformers franchise and how much money it's made.
If you're offended by that, sorrynotsorry, that's just how it is.
CBS doesn't care about Shalashaska's opinion or measure of quality. It cares about total viewers and total revenue those viewers can generate. If 5 viewers subscribe to CBSAA because of TBBT and NCIS while Shalashaska doesn't subscribe as opposed to only Shalashaska subscribing, the executive that made the programming decisions is congratulated and gets a bonus.
CBS is a business and revenue/profits are what matters to it. If you're offended by that, sorrynotsorry, that's just how it is. And it's why Les Moonves is running a $26b company and Shalashaska is complaining about programming choices on an internet message board.
I was talking to OP as a fan of television, not to Les Moonves as a businessman.
Unlucky.
Oh, man, did it ever. I gave up on it after a few episodes too, but then came back in and got hooked. It's definitely a slow burn for the first year or two there, but that's good in a way, because it was important to establish the status quo the characters thought they were working with before they came to realize the real hidden ramifications of it all. It's definitely worth binge-watching. And the early episodes set up characters and story threads that do add up to something more over time, particularly in the flashbacks.
Again: Person of Interest is very, very much a hard science fiction show about the rise of the surveillance state, strong artificial intelligence, and the technological Singularity. It just happens to look like a crime procedural/spy thriller on the surface, and admittedly it kept the SF elements simmering in the background for the first couple of seasons, so a lot of people tend to write it off without taking a closer look.
I think the rumors about the Supergirl CW move are probably misinterpretations of the suggestion that the show may move production to Vancouver, as Fringe did in season 2. There's no reason that would require a network change; people are just jumping to that conclusion because the Arrowverse shows are shot in Vancouver.
And the fact that CBS is negotiating, trying to find a way to keep the show going despite the fact that they lost money on it, is a good sign that they want to keep it around. If they really didn't want it, they would've cancelled it by now. People tend to assume that network decisions are capricious and arbitrary, that they cancel shows out of malice or neglect, but this is a business, not a hobby. Their decisions are based on profit and loss rather than like and dislike, and if a show doesn't turn enough profit, they can't afford to keep making it no matter how much they may love it. So if they want to keep a show that's losing money, they'll try to figure out a way to make it less expensively. That doesn't mean they're trying to kill the show -- it means they're trying to save it.
Anyway, there's no reason to assume that Supergirl's ratings issues would apply to Star Trek. For one thing, it'll be on a subscription service rather than commercial broadcast TV, so the whole revenue stream is different and there's not really a basis for a direct comparison. Besides, we already know that the new Trek series will be shot in Toronto, so it's going to have lower production overhead than Supergirl's first season to begin with.
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