Kirk and the Prime Directive.

I think the worst part about TNG is that they never revisited some of the former planets TOS went to, precisely to see what happened to them and perhaps show a different pov on the necessity of the actions taken by TOS. Piece of the Action, etc would have been most interesting.

They also dropped the Preservers/parallel development angle entirely, which could have been good. And instead of aliens using the Paramount period wardrobe (Romans, Nazis, etc) they went to the forehead widget. Ah well.

 

Far more likely there's a degree of discretion given to commanders and he would know if it was his place to give advice or not.

 

"Piece of the Action" was almost a pure comedy. I don't think the more stiff style of TNG would have done a sequel to that episode very well. Either the comedy wouldn't work or they'd play it straight, which would kind of defeat the purpose.

 

Only if they tried to ape it directly (like they did with the Naked Time). We could hope for something rather than in season 1 or 2 something in season 5 or 6 and show the consequences of the changes. They would have probably had a forehead widget and maybe they'd all be wearing yellow/green and blue velour. Don't forget but McCoy left some technology so they'd probably be teetering with some TOS-derived technology.

 

They did do an episode about the ramifications of breaking the Prime Directive, called Too Short a Season. From season one it is one of the best TNG episodes.

 

^^^ I've thought that Admiral Mark Jameson was to have been a James Kirk analog.





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I think, originally, Too Short a Season was suppose to be a sequel to A Private Little War.

 

Star Trek Unlimited #10 Jul 1998 (A piece of reaction) showed just why the show didn't go back to worlds Kirk had visited--it made the TNG Federation look more idiotic than in Kirk's time.

"Think we should at least check up on that planet Kirk messed with over the next 100 years?"
"Nah, what is the worse that can happen?"

For the story have any meaning the Federation would have not done any follow up since Kirk's time and that was ridiculous.

 

Well I never said that there should have been NO contact between 1701 and 1701-D, just to have a show there. Gangster Planet could have been petitioning to join the Federation looking to deliver their 'piece of the action', or even already be a member and the "Kirk incident" a footnote in their history not crucial the story but as background flavor. Hell, I could have seen them blaming Kirk for Yar's jacked up planet.

Still, there could be plenty of reasons to justify minimal contact since, including scarcity of starfleet resources, the distance from the Federation, hostility/antipathy from the natives, etc.

 

Deep Space Nine, a show which was never afraid of a comedy episode, did consider revisiting the planet from "A Piece of the Action," however. It was one of Ron Moore's early concepts for the 30th anniversary tribute that eventually became "Trials and Tribble-ations." But his original concept was that they would return and find that the planet no longer imitated the Chicago mobsters of the 20's, but now imitated Starfleet officers of Kirk's era.

It would have been a good-natured ribbing of both TOS and the Star Trek fanbase. (Remember, Moore is a die-hard TOS fan himself, so I'm sure it would have been good natured and not mean spirited.)

In the end, of course, they decided to go with "Trials and Tribble-ations" and hit upon the idea of actually having the DS9 crew interact with the TOS crew. And while I love that episode and am glad they did it, I would have still like to have seen the original idea come to fruition as well.

 

Which is wierd since Kirk's compromise to get the natives to stop the Mobs wars included a federation starship visiting the planet I believe once a year.

 

Which is par for the course as various details from TOS got lost in TNG.

For example in Where Silence Has Lease Data states "There is no record of any Federation vessel encountering anything remotely like this" despite the fact Captain Kirk encountered just such an area of blackness in The Immunity Syndrome which fits the "old Klingon legend a gigantic black space creature which was said to devour entire vessels" Worf relates perfectly.

It is one of the blunders that make you wonder just how competent the Federation really is.