On Star Trek Day final 12 months, Wrath of Khan author/director Nicholas Meyer formally introduced that his “Ceti Alpha V” challenge exploring the exile of Khan Noonien Singh was lastly taking place, with the shock twist it was being remodeled right into a scripted podcast for Paramount+. Issues have been principally silent relating to Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V since then, however Meyer simply gave a standing replace, alongside along with his hopes {that a} profitable podcast may ultimately lead again to a filmed model of Khan’s story overlaying the span of time between being marooned by Captain Kirk on the finish of “House Seed” in Star Trek: The Unique Collection and his escape in Star Trek II.
Khan audio drama might result in the display screen… however there’s no timetable
Nick Meyer sat down with Larry “Dr. Trek” Nemecek for a particular “open home” celebrating the eighth anniversary of his Portal 47 subscription service. They mentioned numerous points of Meyer’s profession, together with his work on Star Trek II, Star Trek IV and Star Trek VI, and he additionally talked a bit about how Ceti Alpha V would play out. Initially, the challenge was written as a three-part miniseries, with the podcast model widening the scope barely. Making it clear the challenge was nonetheless alive and nicely, Meyers defined:
“It’s now being labored as a radio play: 9 or ten half-hour episodes. I assume the pondering is, whether it is profitable, then we return to creating it one thing on movie.”
Pressed to offer specifics on what sort of manufacturing values could possibly be anticipated for a Star Trek audio drama, and even who can be thought of for casting, Meyer declined to take a position, though he did verify that sure, the challenge was nonetheless on observe. Fastidiously, he cautioned that some behind-the-scenes points needed to be labored out earlier than continuing with casting, in search of musical expertise, and so forth. His protecting phrases to Portal 47 have been:
“It is a present, all I can let you know about it, and I’ve no want to be indiscreet, that has a kitchen crammed with cooks.”
Acknowledging that the sequence has been retooled and that the timetable has slipped, particularly after the dual Hollywood strikes that delayed all the things, Meyer was frank, telling Nemecek:
“No matter timeline we had went out the window some months in the past.”
Official announcement title graphic from Paramount+
Why radio play format is “good”
Though Ceti Alpha V is now being developed as a scripted audio drama podcast, Nick Meyer hesitated to name the challenge a “podcast,” preferring “radio play.” Meyer has a selected fondness for the format going again to when he directed a number of radio performs in his school days. When requested if he felt Ceti Alpha V can be diminished on account of it being a radio play, Meyer was fast to counter that he felt the format was best. On Portal 47, he elaborated:
“I actually love radio performs, and I’ll let you know why I believe they’re cool… I imagine that every one nice inventive media, with one debatable exception, rely for his or her success on one thing that they omit. Work don’t transfer. Music possesses no mental content material. Phrases are simply code on a web page… It’s the imaginary contribution of the viewers… that places this all collectively.”
Calling the work a “radio play” compares the upcoming scripted podcast to the pre-television period of leisure, when tales can be carried out by actors and enhanced by music and audio particular results to make up for the absence of visuals. Followers of audio performances generally consult with it as “theatre of the thoughts,” and it’s this capability of the viewers to fill within the lacking visuals that Meyer desires to make use of:
“Once I’m searching for a film, I’m searching for what I need to omit. Radio is ideal as a result of it’s all of your creativeness. Creativeness is ideal as a result of it doesn’t should be educated.”
Nicholas Meyer saying his Ceti Alpha V challenge on the Star Trek Day 2022 occasion in Los Angeles
The historical past of this challenge goes again to when Nicholas Meyer was introduced in as a consulting producer for the primary season of Star Trek: Discovery. On the Star Trek Day occasion in 2022, he defined how Ceti Alpha V had developed over time:
“Alex Kurtzman made an fascinating suggestion to me. He stated, ‘I ponder what occurred throughout these 15 years’ that Khan was marooned or exiled or transplanted, take your decide, to Ceti Alpha V, which was on the time of flourishing planet. I assumed that was a very cool thought. I wound up writing three one-hour episodes for a Star Trek tv present that for causes past Alex or my management hasn’t been made till now. So it’s going to be a podcast. It’s going to begin life as a podcast. I’ll take these scripts, adapt them, increase them, and as with all writing, get an opportunity to make them higher. So I hope you’ll all tune in for them.”
There have been numerous Star Trek audio productions up to now, however they’ve primarily been completed as audiobooks or have been recordings of reside performances. Final 12 months, Simon and Schuster Audio launched the unique audio drama Star Trek: Picard: No Man’s Land. Ceti Alpha V can be the primary official scripted Star Trek podcast; scripted podcasts are rising, some even attracting high-profile expertise like Batman: The Audio Adventures‘ giant solid that features Brent Spiner.
Throughout Meyer’s time on Portal 47, there was no dialogue relating to how the podcast would match into Star Trek canon. Trek showrunners have lengthy held that any occasion that seems in a TV present or film is taken into account canon, whereas tales from novels and comedian books are usually not. It’s unclear the place formally produced podcasts would fall below that distinction.
Khan’s story in exile has been instructed earlier than, most just lately in IDW’s 2020 comedian e-book mini-series Star Trek: Khan – Ruling in Hell.
The story of Ceti Alpha V has been touched earlier than, however by no means by the person who wrote Star Trek II.
The complete video with Meyer was livestreamed to subscribers of Portal 47, a reside/on-line month-to-month bundle of options spotlighting and internet hosting the usually unheralded backstage creators of Trek from creator/host, speaker and behind-the-scenes archivist Larry Nemecek.
That is one other growing story so keep tuned for the following replace on Ceti Alpha V.
UPDATE: Watch full Meyer interview
The complete interview has now been launched on Nemecek’s Trekland YouTube web page.