Paul Giamatti Joins Starfleet Academy

A Star Trek fan gets to live the dream of starring on a Star Trek series. Little known actor Paul Giamatti (Billions, The Holdovers, John Adams, Sideways, and more) has joined the cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy in a recurring role as the big bad of season 1. Exactly what the villain role will be is unknown. He is joining Holly Hunter who was announced as chancelor of the Academy.

“Sometimes you’re lucky enough to discover that one of the greatest actors alive is also a huge Star Trek fan, and meeting Paul was one of those miraculous moments for us. The sheer delight with which he dove in on Starfleet Academy is only surpassed by the gratitude we feel about him joining our incredible cast,” shared co-showrunners and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau in a joint statement.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Complete Series Up for Pre-Order

The home video release if Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is now available for pre-order. In additional a complete series set will be released. Both are set for release on August 27, 2024. The season five set can be pre-ordered on Amazon in limited edition Steelbook ($47), regular blu-ray ($39), and dvd ($34). The complete series set is also available for pre-order in blu-ray ($63) and dvd ($67).

As for what special features will on the home video release, here you go:

• Audio Commentary (Exclusive to Home Entertainment)
• Deleted Scene (Exclusive to Home Entertainment)
• Being Michael Burnham (Exclusive to Home Entertainment)
• Character Development (Exclusive to Home Entertainment)
• Gag Reel (Exclusive to Home Entertainment)
• Star Trek: Discovery™: The Voyage of Season 5
• A Team Effort
• Discovery’s Creative Force

Paramount, Skydance Merger Talks End

Star Trek TV's best chance of continuing has ended as the merger talks between Paramount and Skydance ended without a deal. The deal ended essentially because of concerns over shareholder lawsuits and payout not being big enough.

Without getting into the weeds, despite only owning around 10% of Paramount stock, heiress Shari Redstone's National Amusements owns something like 77% of controlling stock in the company making her effectively the sole owner of Paramount which is why she has been able to force a sell of the company and ultimately decide who will get control of the company.

A Sony/Apollo potentially buyout remains on the table but at a value far less than the initial $26 billion bid as the Paramount books and current stock value doesn't make it worth that much to purchase. This scenario would definitely end Star Trek for the foreseeable future. By US law, a foreign company cannot own CBS so it would have to be sold as part of the purchase. While selling that, might as well sell all the other networks. Paramount+ would probably just be shut down in favor of licensing out content or merging it with Playstation Plus whose budget for new content is effectively $0. As for storied Paramount Studios, just look at what happened after the studio 21st Century Fox was sold to Disney which was to merge their library into Disney+ and shuttered everything related to the studio. Star Trek is too valuable to sell but simultaneously too expensive to produce new content for so they would just let it glide along on existing content.

Other potentials buyers have entered the ring. Producer Steven Paul (Baby Geniuses franchise) has put together a group of investors to just buy the National Amusement stake in the company therefore shifting control from Redstone to those investors. It would also eliminate concerns of investor lawsuits. Amount being offered is unknown.

Another potential buyer of National Amusements is Edgar Bronfman Jr, who once ran Universal Studios. However he is being backed by Bain Capital. If Bain has decision making control of the company, their history is to destroy companies, mining them for parts while burying them in debt. So yeah, not exactly a good sign for Star Trek's future. Amount being offer is also unknown.

Basically to sum up, Paramount remains for sell, the best suitor was rejected and what remains are big question marks for both the future of the company and for Star Trek. 

Star Trek: Prodigy Season Two Release Set for July 1st

It has been confirmed that Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 will come to Netflix on July 1st. All 20 episodes of the season will be released at once making for great summer binge watching. The series was inexplicably cancelled by Paramount despite contractual obligations to complete the season with Netflix deciding to pay for streaming rights to the series. It remains unclear if Netflix has the ability to renew the series for a season 3 but if the ratings are there I am sure it can be sorted out. Season 1 is already available on Netflix to get caught up on an actually good all ages show. Starts slow but worth sticking it out for.