Are Trekkies the Key to CBS’s Future?

For decades, Star Trek has transported fans to the far corners of the universe: from Aldebaran, where the Enterprise crew harvested mud leeches, to the Sigma Draconis system, where they recovered Spock’s stolen brain. Now the franchise is voyaging to a perilous sector rife with the most terrifying enemies it’s ever faced: streaming video.

This fall, CBS Corp. is rolling out the first new Trek series in more than a decade. Unlike the five series preceding it, Star Trek: Discovery won’t be on traditional TV. The pilot aired on the network on Sept. 24, but subsequent episodes can be viewed only on CBS All Access, a streaming app that costs $5.99 a month. Discovery is set in a time of galactic war, and it arrives at a similarly fraught moment in TV. After years of denying the threat from Silicon Valley, media conglomerates are now, with varying levels of urgency, trying to figure out how to survive in the era of Netflix and YouTube.