In what can only be surmised – at best – as failed negotiations with worldwide broadcast partner Netflix, and at worst callous disregard for fans Paramount+ this morning broke the news that Star Trek: Discovery’s fourth season would not be premiering as expected on the global streaming giant at midnight on the 18th of November US pacific time.
Radio silence from Netflix is something I’ve come to expect over the seasons of promoting Discovery, while there was a brief glimmer of hope when a new PR team was brought in based in Sydney – including a lunch and good conversation about what Trekzone was hoping to achieve – that hope was quickly snuffed when emails went unanswered and press screeners went unreceived in my inbox.
As Prodigy launches on Paramount+ here in Australia, as exclusively confirmed by this blog a few months back, we start fresh with another PR team – this time in house at ViacomCBS Australia. And the spider sense I had four years ago when then CBS Television bought Network 10 is starting to come true – Star Trek is coming home.
But why the delay? Why does Australia, with it’s minty new Paramount+ iteration have to wait for Europe to catch up? Is there a lingering “gardening leave” clause in the Netflix contract? Did ViacomCBS take the nuclear option forcing the hand of eviscerating Discovery from the planet outside of North America for a few months? These are questions we’ll never get answers to – but there is one response to all of it…
Australian Star Trek fans will pirate the show.
Either by VPN and paid subscriptions or the more nefarious torrenting methods. They did it with Lower Decks before it arrived at Amazon Prime, they did it with Game of Thrones in record numbers… they will do it again.
In this day and age of internet society, it is intolerable and next-to-impossible to wait for a television show because of a seeming flight of fancy by a corporation. It’s contemptuous and, with just three days to go, it’s pathetic.
In seeking a comment from ViacomCBS Australia, we were referred to the official announcement on the official website. With a note, replying to our direct question of what about the precedent set by Prodigy, of “This comes into play in 2022.”
