star trek lower decks netflix – Trekking with Dennis

Okay ViacomCBS, let’s talk “priorities”

Yesterday, Star Trek: Lower Decks had its digital “red carpet” event, officially kicking off the show’s first season. The first episode, Second Contact, will debut tomorrow – but only if you’re lucky enough to live in the United States or Canada.

Having written about this topic previously, and with my excitement for the show building, I wasn’t going to revisit the issue of the show’s international release. However, something I read this morning really pushed my buttons, and it has to do with one single word: “priority”.

I do not in any way blame anyone who worked behind-the-scenes or in the voice cast of Lower Decks for what’s happened. In many ways, the stupid decision to only broadcast the show in North America hurts them too, tainting their work with a moronic business decision. But unfortunately this article was prompted by a comment from Lower Decks’ creator Mike McMahan, who said that it’s “a priority” that fans outside the US and Canada will get to see the series. The full conversation, for context, can be found on TrekCore by following this link (warning: leads to an external website).

So let’s talk priorities.

Lower Decks will be the first Star Trek project since the 1990s to not get a near-simultaneous release in the UK. Even Enterprise managed to do that in 2001, and as I’ve said repeatedly, in 2020 with the internet and online fan communities being such a big deal, companies can no longer get away with splitting up their biggest releases by geography. If ViacomCBS couldn’t get the paperwork for Lower Decks signed in time to guarantee its international broadcast, then the only way the company could demonstrate to its international fans that we’re just as much of a priority would have been to delay the series until everyone could share it and watch it together.

That would have sent a very clear message: Star Trek is for everyone, and ViacomCBS wants everyone to be able to watch it at the same time. It would have been a sensible business decision, generating double the excitement and hype for the show online – the buzz around Lower Decks has been muted at best, and at worst tainted by questions surrounding its international release. Every tweet, every post, every article that they publish online receives dozens of such comments and queries, detracting from the message ViacomCBS wants to put out.

It’s incredibly galling to hear that ViacomCBS considers its international fans to be “a priority” when everything they’ve done regarding Lower Decks’ broadcast categorically demonstrates that it’s not true. Saying they consider us “a priority” is a lie. If they did, Lower Decks would either be coming out for everyone tomorrow, or would have been delayed until it could.

There are clearly very difficult negotiations and discussions going on at high levels of the company trying to secure some kind of overseas broadcast. And I understand that these things are complicated. It’s arguable that, depending on circumstances, the failure to secure international broadcast rights isn’t wholly ViacomCBS’ fault. They can make the case that it’s out of their control; something in the hands of these intransigent international broadcasters. But you know what categorically is within ViacomCBS’ control? The decision to go ahead and broadcast the show in the United States and Canada. Doing so is their decision, and thus choosing to split up the show and not allow its international fans to see it is entirely ViacomCBS’ decision.

And it’s a bad decision. Not just because of the message it sends to Star Trek’s millions of fans who live in the rest of the world, but because the international broadcast will lead to widespread piracy of the new show, undermining ViacomCBS’ own position in the aforementioned negotiations. Not only is the show and its brand now damaged in the eyes of many viewers by not being broadcast at the same time in the rest of the world, but it’s also going to be heavily pirated. Many of Star Trek’s biggest fans won’t wait because they don’t want to miss out. In fact, if there’s no legal and lawful way to access the show, piracy is literally the only option. ViacomCBS, by failing to provide access to the show internationally, is essentially condoning piracy of its own series and undermining any efforts which may be underway to see the show receive an international broadcast.

Even if it were announced now, today, that Lower Decks will receive an international release imminently, the hype and buildup that the show should have received has already been damaged; its brand soiled by the unnecessary delay of any such news coming out. Many fans outside of the US and Canada will have stopped paying attention on the expectation that the series isn’t something they’ll be able to enjoy and wouldn’t even hear any hypothetical announcement.

It’s also not, as some may suggest, wholly the fault of coronavirus. While production and release schedules have doubtless been affected – Lower Decks was originally planned to premiere after Discovery’s third season, for example – I again restate what I said a moment ago: it is still wholly within ViacomCBS’ control when to broadcast the show in the United States. The pandemic may have forced changes, but if the international rights for Lower Decks had not been secured, it is still entirely ViacomCBS’ decision to go ahead and broadcast it to half its fanbase – or less – regardless. Coronavirus and its associated issues is a factor, but that is not the whole story, and to lay the blame there is little more than a distraction from the real heart of the matter – Star Trek fans outside of the United States are not any kind of “priority” to ViacomCBS.

Lower Decks is the most unique Star Trek project in a generation. It’s a crossover with the kind of animated comedy shows that are popular with a far wider audience than Star Trek’s typical niche, and thus it’s a show which had the potential to bring in legions of new fans – including new fans in other parts of the world. But how can that happen with the show segregated by geography? How are those potential new fans supposed to get on board and be excited about a series that they can’t even watch?

At the very least, ViacomCBS owes its international fans transparency. It doesn’t just upset me that Lower Decks isn’t going to be broadcast here, it upsets me that there’s been no word at all from the company. They leave it to Mike McMahan, and it’s not his job. There’s been nothing official at all from anyone higher up involved in the production of Star Trek, just a gaping void and an absence of any news. The briefest of statements would have been adequate – something like “we understand fans are anxious and we want to reassure you that negotiations are ongoing.” They could even provide a tentative estimate, such as Lower Decks receiving an international broadcast “before the end of 2020.” It wouldn’t be good enough, but it would at least be an acknowledgement that fans outside the US and Canada exist.

Far from being “a priority”, ViacomCBS has completely ignored its overseas fans. Not only have they done so by not securing the broadcast rights for the show before premiering it in the United States, but by failing to tell us anything. Star Trek’s official website and social media channels are all gearing up for Lower Decks’ premiere, yet there hasn’t been any acknowledgement of this problem. The social media managers ignore comments and messages asking about the international release date, and we’re left with the inescapable realisation that ViacomCBS simply does not care. Calling that “a priority” when it’s patently nothing of the sort is really just insulting.

I feel sorry for Mike McMahan and the rest of the cast and crew of Lower Decks. This isn’t their fault, yet they’re left picking up the pieces. To McMahan’s credit, he has at least acknowledged that there’s a problem, which ViacomCBS has wholly failed to do. And I appreciate that he at least gives lip service to Star Trek’s international fanbase. This article was prompted by his comment, as I find the use of the word “priority” to be a complete joke, but it isn’t his fault at all; ViacomCBS have put him in an awkward position through their own ineptitude and lack of care.

The launch of Lower Decks should be a moment where Star Trek fans from all over the world could come together and celebrate a new addition to the franchise we all love. Instead, it’s ruined by ViacomCBS choosing to prioritise one group of fans over another. They have deliberately chosen to release the show without securing its international broadcast rights, clearly demonstrating that Star Trek’s overseas fans do not matter to them in the slightest. It’s clear where their real “priorities” lie.

The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Lower Decks – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Is Star Trek: Lower Decks even getting an international release next month?

Mon 20.07.20Sun 20.11.22Dennis

ViacomCBS surprised me at the beginning of the month by announcing that Star Trek: Lower Decks will premiere on the 6th of August. Since then we’ve also had a trailer for the new series, and if you read the piece I wrote looking at the the trailer, you’ll know I think it looks like a show with great potential. In fact it isn’t unfair to say that Lower Decks is the series I’m most looking forward to at the moment.

In the 1990s, during Star Trek’s “golden age” when The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager were carrying the flag for the franchise, it didn’t really matter that here in the UK and in other countries, episodes and seasons of the various Star Trek shows would be broadcast months or even years after they debuted on American television. The web was in its infancy, and with most people not online, spoilers were hard to come by. Online fan communities, social media groups, YouTube channels, and even websites like this one didn’t exist. There were fan clubs, of course, as there always had been, but we weren’t as connected as we are today. Because of all that, Star Trek could get away with splitting up its releases.

In 2020 that just isn’t acceptable any more to huge numbers of fans. It was absolutely awful for Disney to release The Mandalorian in the USA months ahead of the international rollout of Disney+. And what was the consequence of that decision? The show became the most heavily-pirated of 2019 across most of the world, in the areas where Disney+ wasn’t available. Refusing to delay the series – one of the new platform’s flagships – cost the company money and reputational damage in the long run.

*The Mandalorian* was heavily pirated in regions where Disney+ wasn’t available.

It felt as though Disney didn’t care about Star Wars’ international fans – a fanbase that numbers in at least the tens of millions – by denying them access to the first ever live-action Star Wars television series. And it feels as though ViacomCBS similarly places no value on Star Trek’s international fans too, as Lower Decks currently has no international premiere scheduled.

This is completely stupid.

As I’ve said before, Star Trek’s international fanbase must be at least equal in size, if not larger, than the number of American fans. Yet ViacomCBS consistently shows us how little we matter. The official Star Trek online shop offers a large number of items, but most of them will only ship to addresses in North America. In the run-up to Star Trek: Picard’s launch late last year I wanted to get a t-shirt of the show’s poster. Did Star Trek offer one to international fans? Of course not. I did eventually track one down – from an unlicensed printer here in the UK – as you may recall if you read my review of Picard’s premiere. But that’s beside the point – why is ViacomCBS gating off its merchandise? It’s free advertising; in fact it isn’t even free, fans like me are literally willing to pay money to wear a shirt or buy a poster advertising Star Trek. Why wouldn’t any company want to take advantage of that?

ViacomCBS has even gone so far as to block YouTube videos and parts of its website to international fans. Not shipping merchandise overseas may seem like an oversight – though that’s still a piss-poor excuse – but actively blocking the Picard trailer outside the US when it first premiered was a conscious choice. Why would ViacomCBS shoot itself in the foot so many times when it comes to marketing its shows internationally? Do they want international fans to give up on Star Trek? It’s bad enough that in order to watch both Discovery and Picard we need to subscribe to two different platforms, but some of these decisions are just blatantly disrespectful.

This screen greeted many Star Trek fans who wanted to watch the *Picard* trailer on the official CBS and Amazon Prime YouTube channels.

Then there’s Short Treks. Though the episodes are now finally available internationally as a blu-ray set, why were they never broadcast or made available to stream? The whole point of Short Treks was to keep the Star Trek brand alive in the minds of fans and the wider audience in between seasons of the main shows. In that sense, it’s half-story, half-advertising. Yet the episodes didn’t make their way here. That’s despite the fact that two episodes of Short Treks in particular were very important: Runaway introduced a character who would have a big role toward the end of Discovery’s second season, but most egregiously Children of Mars was a prologue leading into the events of Picard. For some inexplicable reason it wasn’t shown outside of the US before Picard premiered. If you read my review of it you’ll know I was underwhelmed, but this was our first look at the Star Trek universe in the 24th Century in eighteen years. Many fans, myself included, were incredibly excited to see Star Trek move beyond Nemesis, yet ViacomCBS didn’t care enough to make the story available here.

In the weeks leading up to Children of Mars, I was continually checking in with Star Trek and various unofficial sources to find out where and how I’d be able to watch. But ViacomCBS didn’t even bother to say that the episode wouldn’t be available internationally. Even on the day Remembrance (Picard’s premiere) was made available to stream, I was still half-hoping that Children of Mars would be too. But it wasn’t.

*Children of Mars* was supposed to be a prologue to *Picard*… yet it was never shown to international fans.

ViacomCBS are going out of their way to create another division in the Star Trek fan community: between fans in North America who can watch everything, buy all the merchandise, etc. and fans in the rest of the world who can’t. At least until now the main episodes of the shows were available, but it seems like Lower Decks may not be. Just looking at this from a business perspective, how is that any way to make a successful and profitable entertainment product? And as fans, being made to feel like we’re unimportant and that Star Trek isn’t interested in us is not going to end well – it risks building up resentment and upsetting people.

Lower Decks premieres in seventeen days’ time, but fans outside North America still don’t know how, when, or where we’ll be able to see it. The series should have never been announced without its international broadcast rights secured, and if it’s the case the negotiations are still going on behind the scenes with companies like Netflix, this needs to be concluded ASAP! Some fans may need to reactivate lapsed subscriptions – or pick up a wholly new subscription, as I did in 2017 for Discovery. For people on lower incomes in particular, knowing which platform to subscribe to to see the show is very important. And I don’t give any credence to the idea that ViacomCBS is somehow saving the international broadcast details to reveal at a later date – like this week’s upcoming panel at Comic-Con@Home. Leaving it to the last minute on purpose would be idiotic.

If it’s the case that, for whatever reason, the series isn’t going to be broadcast internationally in August, fans have a right to know. As it is, many of us are holding our breath waiting for news, and the very least ViacomCBS could do is disappoint us now and get it out of the way instead of stringing us along providing no news.

The trailer for Lower Decks looked like so much fun, and I really believe that the show could be a success, both in North America and internationally. But in order to be a success it needs to be available for fans and a wider audience to watch, and so far that doesn’t seem to be happening. I think it would be a huge mistake to delay the international release too, as all of the momentum and excitement behind it will dissipate before people in the rest of the world get a chance to tune in.

ViacomCBS: please sort this out. Whether it’s going to be Netflix, Amazon, another streaming service, or a regular broadcast television channel, pick someone to be the international broadcaster, sign the papers, and get the word out before you lose the opportunity to show off Lower Decks to legions of potential new Star Trek fans. Your international fanbase is here waiting too, but we’re beginning to run out of patience.