Production drama with impossible deadlines sees new Star Trek: Discovery launch inevitably postponed by months from January to May 2017.

It was inevitable and now the wholly unrealistic launch date of January 2017 of the latest new Star Trek: Discovery has finally been pushed out by months to May 2017.

After CBS and executive producer Bryan Fuller a few months ago announced mind-boggling production dates - saying that filming would start in September - this month - on Star Trek Discovery, it quickly became obvious that the unrealistic deadlines would never be met.

Without any proper Discovery ship designs - let alone actual ship and bridge sets construction (and up in Toronto, Canada where it would be filmed) - with no confirmed cast, with no female lead, with only 3 episodes' actual scripts, artistic issues like the shockingly bad new ship demo that producers suddenly said is not the final version and is being redesigned, and with no established editing and special effects departments, the insane Star Trek: Discovery announcements about when it would do what, started to feel like Hlaudi Motsoeneng's hot air SABC proclamations.

Also remember that Star Trek: Discovery isn't Bryan Fuller's only project - like Hlaudi Motsoeneng constantly darting off to Venda, Durban and Cape Town - Bryan Fuller is also furiously working on other shows like American Gods with divided attention.

With actual filming that had to start now in Toronto while basically very little else exists, CBS and the production company had no choice but to pull the plug on the already chaotic behind-the-scenes production madness to announce a postponement.

And chaotic behind the scenes at Star Trek: Discovery it surely is, although CBS is keeping a lid on what is really going on.

TV's business is also - very importantly - almost more than anything else it is a scheduling business (once again: Hlaudi Motsoeneng's SABC3's local content order is a flopsies because the forced scheduling caused a washout).

CBS plans and schedules better than the SABC. So when it sat down and planned Star Trek: Discovery to start shooting in September and then broadcast a first episode in early January, it did that, working on mapped out production schedules.

So clearly day-to-day deadlines and production deadlines went very wrong and now CBS and the TV show had to backtrack.

It's a big problem, since CBS wanted to use Star Trek: Discovery to launch and relaunch its CBS All Access video-on-demand (VOD) service in America, with Star Trek: Discovery that is being distributed in the rest of the world on Netflix.

Instead of starting in January 2017 as fakely and unrealistically promised, Star Trek: Discovery has now been pushed out by 5 months to May 2017.

Earlier this month, producers already started the process of tempering and trying to adjust down the expectations of the show - which means that they knew they would have a crap product given the production deadlines.

In fact, Star Trek: Discovery might still be - but hopefully won't - be bad, since the producers seemed to hint that the budget isn't as big to fully realise the vision of what Star Trek viewers expect the show to be.

It seems as if producers want Star Trek viewers to tone down their expectations and rather expect a Star Trek: Discovery that's close to the trash-bad Star Trek: Enterprise than the smoother high brow Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: DS9.

Star Trek: Discovery executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Fuller now say in a statement the show must be delayed by months to mid-2017 "to achieve a vision we can all be proud of".

"Bringing Star Trek back to television carries a responsibility and mission: to connect fans and newcomers alike to the series that has fed our imaginations since childhood."

"We aim to dream big and deliver, and that means making sure the demands of physical and post-production for a show that takes place entirely in space, and the need to meet an air date, don't result in compromised quality," they say in a statement.

The producers reveal that they misjudged what it would take to ramp up the production machine on the new iteration of the science fiction series that will have a 13 episode first season and suddenly got to a point where they realised it's not possible to film Star Trek: Discovery starting in September.

The actual filming of Star Trek: Discovery will now only start in November - two months later.

"Before heading into production, we evaluated these realities with our partners at CBS and they agreed: Star Trek deserves the very best, and these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of".

CBS TV Studios president David Stapf says in the same statement announcing the Star Trek: Discovery postponement: "They are building a new, very ambitious Star Trek world for television, and everyone involved supports their vision for the best timing to bring to life what we all love on the page".

Bryan Fuller named showrunner and co-creator of the new Star Trek TV series; will help with 'returning Star Trek to its roots'.

Bryan Fuller will be the co-creator and showrunner of the new Star Trek TV series that will start in January 2017.

The veteran writer and producer who used to used to write 22 episodes for Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Star Trek: Voyager will serve as the executive producer alongside Alex Kurtzman.

"My very first experience of Star Trek is my oldest brother turning off all the lights in the house and flying his model of a D7 Class Klingon Battle Cruiser through the darkened halls," says Bryan Fuller in a statement.

"Before seeing a frame of the television series, the Star Trek universe lit my imagination on fire. It is without exaggeration a dream come true to be crafting a brand new iteration of Star Trek with fellow franchise alum Alex Kurtzman and boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before".

"Bringing Star Trek back to television means returning it to its roots, and for years those roots flourished under Bryan's devoted care," says Alex Kurtzman about Bryan Fuller.

"His encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek canon is surpassed only by his love for Gene Roddenberry's optimistic future, a vision that continues to guide us as we explore strange new worlds".

"For the past 50 years Star Trek has been a groundbreaking franchise that not only changed the landscape of television, but made a significant impact on pop culture," says David Stapf, president of CBS Television Studios.

"When we began discussions about the series returning to television, we immediately knew that Bryan Fuller would be the ideal person to work alongside Alex Kurtzman to create a fresh and authentic take on this classic and timeless series".

"Bryan is not only an extremely gifted writer, but a genuine fan of Star Trek. Having someone at the helm with his gravitas who also understands and appreciates the significance of the franchise and the worldwide fan base was essential to us".

The 50th anniversary of the Gene Roddenberry's science fiction series is coming in September this year and has seen several different series and movies over the past five decades.

CBS Television Studios will produce the new Star Trek series that will be streamed on CBS' subscription video-on- demand (SVOD) service CBS All Access, but it will be sold internationally concurrently by CBS Studios International.

That means that South African viewers will most likely see the new Star Trek iteration on M-Net or M-Net Edge (DStv 102) on MultiChoice's DStv, or on the Naspers' SVOD service, ShowMax,or Netflix early in 2017.

The new Star Trek TV series is however not related to the upcoming new Star Trek film, Star Trek Beyond, that will be distributed by Paramount Pictures and which is already being panned by fans.

With the 50th Star Trek anniversary, its also possible that one of the two planned pop-up channels from M-Net Movies for MultiChoice's DStv that's being worked on, could be a Star Trek channel showing all the films and the episodes of the various TV series.

Star Trek: The Next Generation for instance was remastered in high definition (HD) and its 7 seasons haven't yet been seen on television in South Africa in its restored glory.

BREAKING. Hannibal on The Sony Channel on DStv cancelled after 3 seasons, drama series will come to an end in August with no 4th season.

Hannibal on The Sony Channel (DStv 127) on DStv has been cancelled and the current 3rd season finishing in August in America will be its last.

The low-rated and gruesome drama series from Bryan Fuller was based on Hannibal Lecter, the psychiatrist turned serial killer from Thomas Harris' best-selling novels.

Hannibal was co-commissioned by Sony Pictures Television Networks and France's Gaumont International Television and distributed on Sony Television's worldwide TV channels.

Hannibal with Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy will however not see a 4th season on the NBC network in America as its viewership kept plunging and with the drama burning off the episodes of the current 13-episode third season during the American summer when viewers tune out.

The 3rd season of Hannibal which began showing in America two weeks ago has not yet started on the Sony Channel on DStv.

According to The Hollywood Reporter there was an apparent rights issue behind-the-scenes which together with the low ratings spelled the death-knell for Hannibal.

Bryan Fuller wanted to introduce the character of Clarice Starling in Hannibal's possible 4th season but the rights were unavailable.

"NBC has allowed us to craft a television series that no other broadcast network would have dared, and kept us on the air for three seasons despite Cancellation Bear Chow ratings and images that would have shredded the eyeballs of lesser Standards & Practices enforcers," says Bryan Fuller in a statement.

"We thank Gaumont and everyone involved in the show for their tireless efforts that have made Hannibal an incredible experience," says NBC in a statement.