Entertainment
Done With Star Trek? Try These Other Gene Roddenberry SF Shows
By Jennifer Asencio
| Published
After the travesty that has been Starfleet Academy, Star Trek fans are abandoning the franchise and looking for something else to watch. The good news is that if you love Gene Roddenberry’s work, you have alternatives.
Beyond two of his greatest creations, Star Trek’s original series and then later The Next Generation, there is a wealth of ideas that weren’t directly part of the Star Trek universe. Two other sci-fi shows were created from his notes and storyboards. His widow, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, known to fans as Lwaxana Troi and Nurse Chapel, helped produce both series.
Earth: Final Conflict Was Intended As A Film, But Became A 1990s TV Series
Earth: Final Conflict was created by Gene Roddenberry following the cancellation of the original series of Star Trek in 1969. Initially titled Battleground: Earth, it was intended to be a film, but the project never materialized, even after studios expressed interest. This was in great part due to Roddenberry’s scheduling conflicts with Star Trek. Although the show never materialized in his lifetime, it was brought to life in 1997, six years after Roddenberry died.
In Earth: Final Conflict, an alien race called the Taelons have come to Earth offering to help humanity with its problems, especially in the medical fields. We are introduced to William Boone, security for an important public announcement that is interrupted by a business tycoon’s assassination.
As more people die around him, Boone reluctantly agrees to become a Protector for the Companions, a human security agent supported by alien biotechnology. Meanwhile, he is also asked to join an underground resistance fighting behind the scenes for human sovereignty against the Taelons.
The series never paints the Taelons as being entirely good or bad. Many Taelons want to help, while others use humanity as a means to an end.
Earth: Final Conflict was a departure from Roddenberry’s usual fare because the aliens were not always as capable of evil acts as humans, and their interference with human life wasn’t always helpful, even when benevolent. It looked at both the immense potential of alien technology while also highlighting the dark side of interaction with more advanced, intelligent extraterrestrials.
Over the course of five seasons, most clearly at the end of the first season, with the death of an important character that received a bad reaction, fans learned not to get attached to characters, as something always seemed to happen to them. This was in part due to behind-the-scenes issues, including contract disputes and conflicts between actors and producers, leading to serious problems and uneven content.
The last season had the greatest change, as the plot and tone shifted away from the Taelons to the arrival of a new alien race, which ran it into the weeds. Roddenberry wasn’t around to elaborate on his notes, and his vision for Earth: Final Conflict could not continue without him.
Andromeda Is Gene Roddenberry’s Other Space Show
Five seasons is a respectable run, and that success led to another of Roddenberry’s creations being posthumously brought to life. It’s called Andromeda.
Set in the sixth millennium, a much more distant future than Star Trek has ever operated in, Andromeda stars Kevin Sorbo, fresh from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. He plays Dylan Hunt, captain of the flagship of the Commonwealth fleet, the Andromeda Ascendant. The ship is run by a sentient AI named Rommie, played by sci-fi legend Lexi Doig.
The Commonwealth, similar to the Federation, has fallen, and Hunt has been asleep for 303 years. When he wakes up, he meets the rest of the main cast, a group of scavengers, led by Earth: Final Conflict actress Lisa Ryder, fighting for survival in the galactic dark age that followed the collapse of the Commonwealth. Over the course of five seasons, we follow along as Dylan Hunt and the crew of the Andromeda fight to restore the Commonwealth.
Like Earth: Final Conflict, Andromeda had its own issues behind the scenes. Mixed-to-negative reviews followed the show throughout its run. An upheaval in production in the middle of the second season led to showrunners changing due to pacing and character issues.
Rather than exploring the potential of a world where “Starfleet” has fallen, the production company, Tribune Entertainment, wanted more episodic content and more focus on the character of Sorbo’s Dylan Hunt character, essentially making it “Hercules in Space.” It wasn’t all bad, though, as each of its five seasons had 22 episodes, and it was nominated for 39 awards.
Gene Roddenberry’s Legacy Endures Despite NuTrek’s Best Efforts To Kill It
Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict highlight the enduring power and legacy of Gene Roddenberry. Even after his death, his original creative works, aside from Star Trek, were still being produced by his surviving family and estate.
While the effects on these older shows might be dated and some of the acting iffy in spots, sci-fi fans can still enjoy these hidden gems. They’re better Roddenberry productions than most of what Paramount churned out in the NuTrek™ era, and they’re both free on Tubi.
Entertainment
Star Trek Fans Vote Overwhelmingly To Batgirl Starfleet Academy
By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Paramount has announced that Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will be cancelled after airing its second season sometime next year. That’s welcome news, but for most Trekkies, it doesn’t go far enough.
The problem with this announcement is that Paramount still plans to air the show’s second season. They completed filming it several months ago, and since they’ve already got the footage, you can see why they might think it makes sense to dump whatever they’ve got online, as long as they’ve got it.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though. There is another path. Paramount could Batgirl Starfleet Academy.
Batgirling – The act of a studio permanently shelving a completed or near-completed film or series because it is deemed unreleasable, choosing instead to claim a financial loss through a tax write-off rather than risk public exposure or reputational damage.
The Batgirl Precedent
In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery made an unusual decision: it canceled an upcoming Batgirl movie after filming had already wrapped and the film had entered post-production. The superhero outing, starring Leslie Grace and featuring Michael Keaton’s return as Batman, had a reported budget of around $90 million and was originally planned for release on HBO Max.
Instead of finishing and releasing the movie, the studio chose to shelve it and treat the production cost as a financial loss. This allowed Warner Bros. Discovery to reduce its taxable income through a write-down, a legal accounting strategy tied to its post-merger restructuring. Batgirl has never been released and never will be.
Why Batgirling Starfleet Academy Makes Sense
Starfleet Academy has the lowest viewer rating of almost anything on television. According to some reports, the show performed 20% worse than even Paramount’s most pessimistic projections predicted. It didn’t just fail; it tainted the brand in a way Star Trek may not recover from.
In that context, why would any for-profit company want to release more of it? There’s basically no value in releasing it, because no one will watch it. Meanwhile, there’s huge potential value in not releasing it, because doing so protects your brand from further reputational harm.
Most importantly, fans don’t want it. We asked Trekkies on X if they’d like to see Starfleet Academy’s second season released. Nearly 85% of respondents voted for Batgirling it.
There’s currently a petition running on Change.org asking Paramount to Batgirl Starfleet Academy season 2. If you’re part of that 85%, consider signing it to send Paramount a message. Maybe it’s time Star Trek fans were heard.
Entertainment
HBO's Harry Potter Series Will Definitely Fail For One Big Reason, And It's Not J.K. Rowling Or Snape
By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated
Harry Potter is coming back. If it were in POG form, everyone might be more excited. Warner Bros. dropped the first trailer for the upcoming HBO Max series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which has touched off a fresh round of debates over whether or not the series should be boycotted due to J.K. Rowling’s beliefs and who even wanted this series in the first place.
Here’s the trailer…
No matter how you feel about the Boy Who Lived or the rich and famous author who created the most poorly designed sport in literature, it might be some solace to know Warner Bros. is going to fail spectacularly, and it has nothing to do with anyone’s opinions. It’s about money. A lot of money. So much in fact, that it’s impossible enough people will watch the new streaming series to break even, and don’t even think of turning a profit.
The Most Expensive Entertainment Project In History
The 2001 adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone made a billion dollars on a budget of $125 million. By way of comparison, the HBO Max series has an estimated budget of $100 million. Per episode.
That’s before the marketing blitz that you won’t be able to get away from, even if you close your eyes while sitting in your tiny room underneath the stairwell. To put this in perspective, Warner Bros. is spending more money on the upcoming streaming series than any studio has ever spent on a single piece of entertainment. Series, movie, The Eras Tour, Dinotopia, doesn’t matter, nothing will come close to the sheer amount of money Warner Bros is setting on fire.
If you watch the initial trailer, it feels like a version of the movie fell out of an alternate universe. Everything looks similar to the original film, but it’s slightly off.
The cast looks like their movie counterparts. The one very notable exception is Snape, who’s also the single worst character in the series to race swap if you worry about things such as why everyone’s suspicious of him for no real reason, or why James Potter bullies him. It’s a baffling choice in a trailer full of baffling choices.
Yer A Remake Harry!
To its credit, the trailer does attempt to answer the question as to why the series is being made. With a single season covering each of the books, finally, the little details that Potterheads have obsessed over for generations will get to leave the page. From the large changes, Headless Nick’s birthday party, to the smaller, calm changes of the later novels, a book-accurate adaptation could only be done as a series.
Though Warner Bros is making it the largest entertainment project since the Romans erected the Colosseum, the first trailer can’t quite shake the nagging feeling that it’s destined to fail. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is going to be seen by millions and millions of people around the world, but at a total price tag approaching $4 billion, it seems impossible for it to become a financial success, which, as we all know, is sadly the only type of success that matters to studios.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is coming to HBO Max around Christmas 2026.
Entertainment
The Last NCIS Has One Fatal Flaw
By Robert Scucci
| Published
NCIS is one of those ride-or-die franchises you’ll have a shaky relationship with for the rest of your life if you started watching at a certain age. I remember sitting with my parents watching the flagship series when it first came out, and over the years I’ve kept tabs on its many spinoffs. Now that NCIS: Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Hawai’i have run their course, and the one-off Tony & Ziva miniseries totally screwed the pooch, we’re back to just the flagship series and its prequel, NCIS: Origins.
Honestly, I’m okay with this. The original series still has its charm despite its many personnel changes, and NCIS: Origins allows for some great retconning and callbacks that are obvious enough for diehard fans, but not so granular that newcomers can’t jump in without doing homework. It’s a perfect show if you’re a fan of the franchise, and the best thing that’s been put out in years.
However, there’s one big problem that NCIS: Origins runs into, and it’s something unavoidable: there’s no suspense. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of thrills in the heat of the moment when the drama gets dialed up. There are also surprisingly strong action sequences for a series that belongs to a franchise that’s basically a procedural soap opera for boomers who just want to tune into their stories week after week.
One Specific Kind Of Suspense Is Missing
On an episode-to-episode basis, there are plenty of reasons to keep tuning into NCIS: Origins. We get to learn about the early days of Special Agent in Charge Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and how he cut his teeth working for NIS before it became the agency and franchise we all know and love. We see how his 91 rules came to be. We get more backstory on Special Agent Mike Franks, the best character in the series (and it’s not even close), and Kyle Schmid is a dead ringer for the older, somehow more cynical Franks from the original series (Muse Watson).
Even better, comic relief comes in the form of Randy Randolf (Caleb Foote), who, if it weren’t for Franks, would be the standout character. We also get the best kind of wise-cracking forensic nerd banter from Woody (Bobby Moynihan) and Philip (Ely Henry). I could go on, but the point is, NCIS: Origins is a beyond solid series, sans one thing.
There’s no real suspense.
Yes, people get hurt, and dangerous leads get chased, but that’s not the kind of suspense I’m talking about.
The kind of suspense the show is missing, which is par for the course when it comes to prequels, is the kind it could never have in the first place. The show stars Austin Stowell as a young and hungry Gibbs, but it’s still narrated by Mark Harmon. More importantly, we know Gibbs rises through the ranks and then has a 20-year tenure on NCIS. In other words, any time Gibbs finds himself in danger in NCIS: Origins, we know without a sliver of doubt that he’s going to be just fine.
The same can be said for Franks, and the rest of the gang to a certain degree. While I’m speculating here, I think we can guess Lala’s (Mariel Molino) fate as well. She’s never mentioned in the flagship series, yet she’s a constant presence in NCIS: Origins, the series that tells Gibbs’ entire backstory leading up to NCIS. I could be grasping at straws, but I have reason to believe something terrible happens to her that’s too painful to bring up later. The series has done an excellent job retconning the original series, so it’s surprising that they’d come up with a character who could have easily been one of the dozens of agents mentioned in the main series but never actually seen on screen or seen in passing.
In other words, as much as I like her character, I’m not going to get too attached because she’ll probably meet a tragic end at some point.
Fortunately, We Don’t Need This Kind Of Suspense
Thankfully, NCIS: Origins is worth tuning into week after week, not for the suspense, which we’ve established doesn’t exist here for obvious reasons, but because it’s an excellent character study of one of cable’s most iconic, coffee-chugging curmudgeons. We’re currently watching Gibbs’ second marriage, which has yet to fall apart, and I can’t wait to see how that whole thing dissolves, along with his (checks notes) third and fourth marriages.
Lack of pure, adrenaline-pumping thrills aside, showrunners Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North know what they’re doing with the lore. NCIS: Origins remains a great watch for old-timers and newcomers alike. But if you’re like me and find yourself asking your wife, “Do you think he’s going to make it?” for the thousandth time in an attempt to be funny (she doesn’t find it funny), you’ll be pleased to know that Gibbs does, in fact, make it out alive, and then goes on to star in another 435 episodes.
NCIS: Origins is streaming on Paramount+
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Star Trek Fans Vote Overwhelmingly To Batgirl Starfleet Academy
