When it comes to the new “Star Trek” series, CBS sure wants Trekkies to know they want to deliver the best new “Star Trek” show they can. Just recently, the network announced that Bryan Fuller was taken on as the new show runner. And now it looks like they've upped the ante even more by recruiting simply the best “Star Trek” movie writer there ever was: Nicholas Meyer, director of “Wrath of Khan” and, arguably, savior of the franchise, has been recruited on to the new show as a writer and producer.
When Meyer brought “Wrath of Khan” to the screen, many were not too hopeful that another “Star Trek” movie would be of interest to anyone outside of fans of the original series who were in it for nostalgia. But Meyer redeemed the franchise by, literally, giving new life of Spock and Kirk that revived the franchise for many new movies and series to follow. Not many non-Trekkies know that Meyer actually rewrote the “Khan” screenplay, although his writing for that film was uncredited.
Meyer was also the co-writer for other top “Star Trek” movies like “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” which he also directed. He is indeed a legend, right up there with “Star Trek” creator, Gene Rodenberry, when it comes to the USS Enterprise and its crew.
CBS clearly wants to make the new series, which will debut on air in January 2017 before it becomes an exclusive to the network's streaming service, CBS All Access, worth the extra pennies.
“Nicholas Meyer chased Kirk and Khan ‘round the Mutara Nebula and ‘round Genesis’ flames, he saved the whales with the Enterprise and its crew, and waged war and peace between Klingons and the Federation. We are thrilled to announce that one of Star Trek’s greatest storytellers will be boldly returning as Nicholas Meyer beams aboard the new Trek writing staff,” says Fuller in a statement.
Although Trekkies are hotly anticipating what Meyer will inject back into “Star Trek” again after so many years, no one is more eager to see him back on the team than Meyer himself.
In an interview with Collider, the writer/director said he used to read J.J. Abrams (director of the rebooted “Star Trek” movies) bedtime stories. And while he wouldn't outright say he disapproved of the new direction the characters have gone in, he did say that he always considered “Star Trek” as a bottle where different vintages could be poured into to give a different flavor – but he would never change the bottle.
Here's hoping we'll get that old familiar “Star Trek” flavor from the new CBS series when it debuts next year.
