How About A New Series Starring The Transporter Chief?

[Aike]

Here´s the idea:

We´ve never seen a show where the main charcter is the transporter chief on-board a Starfleet vessal.
Some great and fresh stories are:

The Transporter Pad
Bascially, a story how the transporter works filled with technobabble, great geeky characters like the transporter chief and the junior transporter chief. A gift to the true fans of Trek tech.

To Beam Or Not To Beam
The transporter chief wants to be promoted, but the captain says "No". The chief decides to have a beam-in (a sit-in in the future). Exciting moral dilemma, classic Trek. Will the Klingon ambassador have to wait or will he be on time for the meeting?

The Transporter Chief´s Day.
This is like the episode Data´s Day. We see what happens on a daily shift. This episode is like a reality TV show where you can follow him on the Internet after the actual show has finished.

Dilemma
The transporter chief falls in love with the cleaning lady. But since he´s a geek he´s scared shitless. Will the chief find true love or will he return to his main hobby: beam spotting (train spotting in the 24th century)?

Think about it. So much to beam up and down. There are almost infinite possibilities.

This series will be a ratings bonanza, because it will feature everything that made Trek great: tech, moral dilemmas, technobabble, great geeky characters. And finally, it will be very cheap since there will only be one set -- the transporter room.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

You forgot to tell us what century it will be set in, or to explain the "post-Dominion War" political setup in mind-numbing detail.

[Kelso]

^

I refuse to read a new series idea that doesn't include the word "transphasic."

[Aike]

Dennis wrote:

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You forgot to tell us what century it will be set in, or to explain the "post-Dominion War" political setup in mind-numbing detail.

It will be set in the late 24th century. The Dominion has turned into the Chinese of the future: a nation exporting cheap technology to the Federation.

The Federation Council thinks that the Jem´Hadar factories are dumping the prices because they use slave labor. So there will be exciting stories about the trade deficit like:

The Transporter Chief Goes To Paris
The chief decides to try to stop all trade between the Dominion and the Federation and is elected to council. After a three-day filibuster, he realises that his true calling in life is working in the transporter room.

[jefferiestubes8]

Aike wrote:

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This series will be a ratings bonanza

Aike wrote:

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the main charcter is the transporter chief on-board a Starfleet vessal.

No it won't.
Star Trek and scifi shows get much lower ratings than CSI. Period.


Your ideas may work for scenes within a fan film. I'm sorry I cannot see even story arcs in a Trek series 6 with even your series idea.

it will be very cheap since there will only be one set -- the transporter room.

Even if only one set and the rest being green screen, there would have to be loads of visual effects = not cheap.

[junxon]

this is undoubtably an award-winning premise.

also how about a show filmed from the point of view of the back of neelix's legs -think of the potential drama:
neelix drops a pan of scalding water on legs goes to hospital, treated by a nurse bearing an uncanny resemblance to kes, everyone starts to cry.
-not that the backs of his legs would see much of that

[Aike]

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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No it won't.
Star Trek and scifi shows get much lower ratings than CSI. Period.

That´s why the chief will do a CSI crossover. He will beam up the team by mistake. The senior citizens watching CBS won´t notice and will stick around.

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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Your ideas may work for scenes within a fan film. I'm sorry I cannot see even story arcs in a Trek series 6 with even your series idea.

Well, there could be plenty of story arcs, but story arcs aren´t popular with the folks watching CBS. They want easy and fun instead of complex and boring.

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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Even if only one set and the rest being green screen, there would have to be loads of visual effects = not cheap.

There won´t be any effects except the beaming effect. CBS can always reuse it from one of the older shows. This idea is cost effective -- a Trek for the new decade.

[RegFan]

How many episodes could really be written for this series? The transporter chief's job is simply to operate the transporter. Of course, he could be one of the main characters in a different kind of series.

[Dukhat]

RegFan wrote:

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How many episodes could really be written for this series? The transporter chief's job is simply to operate the transporter. Of course, he could be one of the main characters in a different kind of series.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think Aike isn't being serious about this.

[T'Girl]

Kelso wrote:

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... include the word "transphasic."

TPTB have been saying for years that we would be getting a gay character on the show.

Ummm, that's what you ment by "transphasic" right?

[jamestkirkfan]

Please tell me you're joking we fans wouldn't want that kind of Trek series

[Aike]

^Well, CBS loves this idea.

[Canadave]

You could always have an episode where the transporter needs to be repaired within 40 minutes, or people die—meaning we get to watch the repairs play out... in real time.

[Yalana Cotu]

I'm loving it already!

Can the junior transporter chief be a whizkid, just like Wesley Crusher, (to be played, alternately by the Jonas Brothers) except even more intensely obnoxiously perfect. But, his secret obsession would be transphasicly punking every authority figure the burnt out, drug sodden, hack writers can come up with? Maybe he can beam the captains pants out into deep space, so that it looks like he's wearing a mini dress.


...Wait a minute, didn't someone already do that to Picard?

[Shatnertage]

The OP is right--this is a rich lode of dramatic material. All you really need is a room, a guy, and some technobabble. This is the idea that will undoubtedly return Star Trek to network television.

Once it's safely into season 5 and people are eager for more, I propose a spin-off: Star Trek: Holodeck Repair Guy. This is a little more ambitious. There will be two sets, the holodeck itself and the guy's quarters. In a typical episode, he's sleeping late when he gets the call that the holodeck is on the fritz. He goes down, sees what's wrong, and fixes it.

The money part is that in fixing the holodeck, he gets access to all of the programs people have been running. So if the chief engineer runs a fantasy simulation of himself and an engine designer (for example), he knows all about it; he can peep at the deepest hidden fantasies of everyone on board. As you can imagine, he becomes a quite wealthy and influential member of the crew.

The catch is that, to keep things under budget and FCC-compliant, you won't actually show any of these depraved fantasies on the show--you'll just have the HRG watching them on a small monitor, and conveying their impact through his reactions to them.

I'm hoping that Rainn Wilson will be available for the lead.