After a difficult week for the entire Star Trek fan community, we finally got some good news. Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 is going to be available outside of North America after all.
This isn’t “total victory,” as there are still too many countries and territories where the season won’t be available – particularly in Asia and Africa. The series is not returning to Netflix. But in regions where Paramount+ exists – Australia, Scandinavia, and Latin America – the decision to withhold the new season from fans has been reversed. This was the easy bit – that particular decision was so stupidly arbitrary that it didn’t make sense to begin with.
Here in the UK, as well as elsewhere in Western Europe, the new season will go to Pluto TV – described as a “free streaming television service.” I’ll have to look up Pluto TV and how it works as I’m not familiar with it at all. In the UK, Germany, France, Russia, South Korea and “additional select countries” (whatever that might mean) Season 4 episodes will be available to purchase digitally on “participating platforms.” Could that mean Amazon Video, among others? Watch this space, I guess.
Reversing the Netflix decision was never going to happen, not after contracts had been torn up and significant sums of money had changed hands. But this is a victory for Star Trek fans – and for fans of any franchise, series, film, or video game across the entertainment industry. It demonstrates the power of fans coming together, and how these kinds of pressure campaigns and reactions can and do have an impact even on the biggest corporations.
At the end of the day, ViacomCBS saw the backlash as a problem and a threat to their current and future profits. That’s the power that we – all of us – have as consumers and as fans. Because we all pulled together and expressed our collective anger, outrage, and frustration, the corporation had no choice but to sit up and take notice. Especially when the value of their shares began to fall.
A couple of days ago on Twitter, some anonymous nobody told me to stop “crying” about the Discovery decision because it “wouldn’t change anything.” That person was wrong. On an individual level, none of us have the power to stand up to big corporations; that’s true. But en masse, when fans pull together we can do anything. Star Trek’s history is testament to that.
In 1967-68, a letter-writing campaign orchestrated by Star Trek superfan Bjo Trimble literally saved The Original Series from cancellation at the end of Season 2. The fact that the show got a third season at all was all down to Trekkies. And later, in the 1970s, pressure from fans to bring Star Trek back led to The Animated Series and later The Motion Picture – the film which kicked off Star Trek’s renaissance going into the 1980s.
Following the cancellation of Enterprise in 2005, the fact that the franchise remained popular was a key factor in 2009’s reboot film getting the green light – something which ultimately led to Discovery, Picard, and the rest of modern Star Trek. At every stage of the franchise’s history, fan-led campaigns and the response from fans has been absolutely critical to keeping Star Trek going and reinvigorating the franchise. So it has proved again with Discovery Season 4.
This victory is imperfect. There are still too many Trekkies across the world who can’t access the series – and the rollout of Paramount+ is still plagued with the same problems it was yesterday. For fans in regions where Season 4 still won’t be arriving, this victory may not mean much at all. But it does give us hope for the future.
ViacomCBS appeared to have forgotten about Star Trek’s international fans. But we reminded them that we’re still here, and that we still want to support the franchise and, albeit reluctantly in some cases, the corporation that owns and manages it. North American Trekkies were allies in that fight – as were many of the cast and crew of Discovery itself, applying pressure in public through their statements.
We can’t look at this as the end of the affair. Trekkies in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and other parts of the world still won’t be able to watch Discovery Season 4, and there are too many regions without a planned rollout of Paramount+. We mustn’t forget that, and we have to keep pressure on ViacomCBS to ensure that they deliver for every Trekkie, not just those in the wealthy west.
I feel optimistic today. Not only because Discovery Season 4 is coming here in 48 hours’ time, but because ViacomCBS recognised how badly they screwed up. Rather than doubling-down and continuing to ignore the response from fans, the corporation did something to mitigate the problem, no doubt at a significant financial cost. It won’t have been free to disrupt Pluto TV’s schedule with mere hours to spare, after all! I’d been worried about Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds in light of the Discovery Season 4 debacle, but perhaps ViacomCBS has now learned how bad of a decision it was to try to cleave the fanbase in two. Maybe that means those shows are safe – that we will be able to watch Picard Season 2 together in February, no matter where we live.
So it’s time to investigate the mysterious Pluto TV and see how that works! Apparently Discovery Season 4 is being broadcast there at a scheduled time – 9pm local time – so I guess it works like a television channel rather than a streaming service. I don’t mind that, and if it’s possible to purchase the season or individual episodes for on-demand streaming I don’t mind doing that too. Whatever hoops we have to jump through it’ll be worth it to watch Discovery together.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 4, Episodes 1-2 will be available to watch on Pluto TV in the UK, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland on Friday the 26th of November 2021. The episodes will also stream on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the service is available, and will be available to purchase digitally in the UK and “additional select countries.” The Star Trek franchise is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 