10. A Large Budget
Unless youre making a show set in roughly modern times (or youve set up production in a nation with a really great exchange rate), making science fiction anything is expensive. CGI and sets cost a lot of money, never mind costumes, props, and cast salaries. Even animation isnt immune to this making new stuff costs money, especially if its CGI. Unfortunately for CBS, theyll have to live with a large production budget for the next Trek series. Why? Because more money means you can do more things and do them well. In an age of HD TVs, everything needs to look as realistic or nice as possible; otherwise people will complain about how bad the show looks. So how much would CBS have to spend per episode for the show to look convincing? At least $2 million, judging by statements about Stargate Universe a show that had fantastic sets and good CGI. What about going all green-screen? It probably wouldnt help while not building physical set would save some time and money, making the sets digitally just shifts the costs to the visual effects house. Televised space opera is pretty big gamble but with a franchise like Star Trek, spending big money is worth it for the opportunity for big ling term returns.