There's Some Star Trek Infighting Going On...

With this year being the 50th anniversary of the television show Star Trek, CBS was hoping to introduce the franchise back to television to help celebrate this fact.  Unfortunately, it looks like the soonest that we'll be able to see this new series won't be until January of next year.  Why, you might be asking, are they waiting until next year?  The devil's in the details...

When CBS and Paramount split back in 2006, the one property that they couldn't seem to agree on was Star Trek.  Paramount claimed that it was a movie franchise, while CBS claimed that it was a television series.  Well, they are both right.  Star Trek may have started out on television, but it's movies have been a big draw for fans as well.  So Paramount retained the rights to the movie side of the franchise, and CBS retained the television side of the franchise.  Here's the little rub for CBS and it's new television show that's in production:  under the agreement between the two companies, CBS can't release their new show for a full six months after the premier of the movie Star Trek Beyond.  Since that movie doesn't come out until July 22 of this year, the earliest that CBS will be allowed to air their new television show would be January 22, 2017.

This also seems to allude to the fact that these two properties will definitely be set in different time periods.  Heck, they might be taking place in alternate realities all together, so each can do their own thing and tell their own stories without having to worry about stepping on the others toes.  The one thing that I'm sure of is that the Star Trek brand has been having a tough year.  With the news that the movie has had some writing problems, and the release date having been moved up from it's original date, the ongoing law suit that CBS and Paramount are having with the fan film Axanar, and now this release date for the television series having to miss the 50th anniversary of the franchise all together, things could be going better for Star Trek.  As long as both the movie and the television show perform well for fans, then I don't think it will be much of an issue.  But right now, things look to be in disarray.  Let's hope they pull through all of this and come out on top.