53 Reasons Why We Need a New Star Trek TV Series

[Sector 7]

Just posted on AOL News by Kris LoPresto. I thought it was hilarious (and some of it is true):

This weekend on HBO there was a mini Star Trek movie marathon. Anyone else catch that? It was fun to see William Shatner in his Starfleet uniform and I got a chuckle out of the "cutting edge" graphics going on. Watching these movies made me sad. There's nothing like this on television at the moment. Firefly was canceled and when the Battlestar Galactica prequel show, Blood and Chrome, wasn't picked up by SyFy, it became a painful reality that there are no adventures in outer space on the tube. Nothing! That's crazy talk. With George Lucas saying a Star Wars live-action tv show is years away from becoming a reality, one wonders if we will ever see another a spaceship outside of it being taxied by a 747 to Washington, D.C. Here are just a few reasons as to why we need a Star Trek TV show. Paramount executives, please listen up.

1. There are zero space operas on TV at the moment. How is this even possible?

2. We finally have the technology to make Star Trek look cool. No longer will the Klingons have silly-looking pets.

3. Four years is a long time to wait between J.J. Abrams movies.

4. New episodes mean new social ideas to tackle. Gene Roddenberry would enjoy the series taking on new social and political questions of today.

5. Finally a show not about a crime scene or featuring lawyers

6. Finally a Star Trek show about crime scenes and lawyers?

7. Use characters other than Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew. The USS Viper sounds pretty bad ass.

8. This is probably the biggest hurdle the people at CBS (who own Star Trek property) have. They don't want to over saturate the market with Star Trek episodes and ruin their tent-pole film franchise. There is a way for both properties to coexist. Make them completely different stories. Get creative and have the TV show set 500 years in the future or the past. Although, be better than the lackluster Enterprise.

8. Merchandising! Merchandising! Merchandising! There's too much money to be made for this not to happen.

9. NASA named a spaceship after the ship in Star Trek. Think about that! I'm sure NASA nerds would love to help with making the show realistic or as authentic as it possibly can.

10. Episode 59: The crew encounters a planet where magic is real thanks to their green sun.

11. Slutty space aliens.

12. Explore the space of the Federation. Set a show on Earth or Mars or whatever! Just make sure there are transporters involved.

13. Episode 5 could take our heroes to a planet full of zombies.

14. Since J.J. Abrams rebooted Kirk and Spock, have someone else reboot Picard and Riker for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

15. Because Star Wars is officially embarrassing. Star Trek finally has the chance to become hip.

16. If all goes well, maybe someone will finally make that real life USS Enterprise in Las Vegas!

17. At this point there should be an entire channel dedicated to Star Trek. Channel 780 should be all Star Trek, all the time.

18. Star Trek: The Academy Years. 90210 meets Star Trek. BOOM! I just created a new franchise.

19. Space monsters never get old.

20. American Horror Story meets Star Trek: Stardate 4721 the crew of the USS Trinity start to experience strange anomalies as crew members begin to die mysterious deaths. BOOM! Franchise!

21. Cheers: Star Trek. A sitcom takes place in the bar of the Enterprise.

22. Finally have a likeable Vulcan character not named Spock.

23. Bring back Klingons!

24. Tribbles!

25. Vulcan-on-Vulcan sex scene.

26. Turn your phasers to KILL!

27. Episode 23: The crew travels back in time to Mad Men times, thanks to the Holodeck, to solve a murder mystery and learn a valueable lesson. Naturally.

28. A new Data!

29. Episode 56: Responding to a distress esignal the crews of 3 StarFleet ships must come together to solve global warming on an alien planet on the brink!

30. First openly gay Starfleet Captain!

31. Romulan wine drinking games!

32. The return of the magic sliding doors for elevators that no one EVER WAITS FOR!

33. Snakes on the Starship!

34. Episode 18 the USS Enterprise crew encounters vampires. Someone may be infected. All personel are required to head to sick bay where it turns out the ships doctor is the vampire and he's using blood samples to quench his thirst. TWIST!

35. Geordi wears the Google augmented reality glasses instead of my mom's hair clip on his face.

36: The captain gets to say no to Worf again!

37. More Lens Flares!!

38. Episode 97: First Officer Drake gets hooked on space drugs and turns the USS Falcon into a space drug delivery system

39. KAHN!

40. A truly epic Starfleet vs. Klingon battle in high definition.

41. Photon torpedoes!

42. Episode 8: Bottle episode where we learn our fearless Captain is looking for his long lost father.

43: Wormholes!

44: An HBO Star Trek series with a similar tone to Game of Thrones, but in space! Lots of blood, sex and talking.

45: An entire series set on the sick bay of a Starship where they must treat unsual space illnesses. Think House but in space!

46. A sweet new opening title sequence featuring, "Space, the final frontier..."

47. New catchphrases! Picard had, "Make it so." Spock had "Live Long and Prosper." McCoy had,
"Damn it, Jim!" It's time for a new one!

48. Strange new worlds would look cool on my TV. Just sayin'.

49. Before there was the United Federation of Planets, there was something else. I want to see that on TV.

50. NBC could really use the ratings (even though CBS owns the rights to Star Trek, it's common practice for a show to be owned by one network and air on a different one)

51. New weapons! There has to be something better than a phaser to battle alien scum at this point.

52. We can finally know what happens to all the poop on Starships! Seriously, where does it all go? Do they beam it somewhere? Some shit filled planet or into a sun so it burns up on contact?
53. Because there are a million fan fiction stories to tell on television. No other franchise has a more loyal fan base than Star Trek. It's time to reward these fans with their stories on the small screen.

Some of my work is even mentioned in the list. Yours may be, too!

Comments? Criticisms? This could be fun!

[anh165]

Another spin-off series will just dilute what Trek should be about.

There are too many characters in the Canon universe, too many of them inoffensive and bland, quoting cheesy lines in unimaginative/cliched events and situations to fill the gaps in the trek time line.

Would be better if people grew some balls and made a new Sci fi show from scratch, but then again modern business driven producers dont want to take risks, and settle for exploiting old ideas and stories.

[Satyrquaze]

8. This is probably the biggest hurdle the people at CBS (who own Star Trek property) have. They don't want to over saturate the market with Star Trek episodes and ruin their tent-pole film franchise. There is a way for both properties to coexist. Make them completely different stories. Get creative and have the TV show set 500 years in the future or the past. Although, be better than the lackluster Enterprise.

I realize it's a joke list, but I just have to point out that 500 years in the past from the first Star Trek film would be rougly 1758. Not sure how someone would sell a Star Trek franchise show set in the mid-18th century.

Unless we're talking about the immortal Flint and his adventures (IN SPPPAAAAAAAAACE) after he dropped his Leonardo Da Vinci identity.

[T'Girl]

Sector 7 wrote:

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Gene Roddenberry would enjoy the series taking on new social and political questions of today.

Gene Roddenberry would "have" enjoy the series taking on new social and political questions of today.

If only he hadn't been secretly murdered by the government!!!

Satyrquaze wrote:

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I realize it's a joke list, but I just have to point out that 500 years in the past from the first Star Trek film would be rougly 1758. Not sure how someone would sell a Star Trek franchise show set in the mid-18th century.

Hello, Horatio Hornblower is space. It was part of Roddenberry's original pitch for the series.

[Bry_Sinclair]

Sector 7 wrote:

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30. First openly gay Starfleet Captain!

Whilst I am totally in favour of a gay Captain I really don't expect the PTB to do it. A gay character would be nice though. First Officer, maybe. I understand there aren't many qualifications.

One thing about this statement does puzzle me though. The whole 'openly gay' thing. Was there a closeted Captain at some point?

[xortex]

And just one thing that kills them all - personalities. Moonves has to try to get out of his own way which can be very difficult if you think you are everything, and since there's no way through him, someone must try to get around him. And not some slick JJ disciple with nothin'. A personality with vision will save Trek but so far he doesn't exist. At least not to good old les with his blinders on. People get what they deserve. Excusivity cuts both ways.

[Temis the Vorta]

CBS isn't making the movies and #6 should be grounds for expulsion from Trekdom (turn in your communicator badge immediately!!!) but I kinda like the USS Viper idea...

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It ran out of steam after item 7 - you could boil this down to about 10 good ones.

Numbers 5 and 6 were particularly good.

[MacLeod]

Well I can think of at least two shows that will be on TV this year that will feature a spaceship (of some sort).

Red Dwarf and Doctor Who, true both of those are British shows. If Red Dwarf returns to a format similar to previous seasons, many episodes will be set onboard the ship

[TiberiusMaximus]

He spelled Khan wrong.

Just sayin'.

[Gary7]

There's only really one good reason why we need another Star Trek series:

Because there are plenty of fans just waiting for one, sufficient to produce ample viewer turnout.

[Anji]

Cute list.

But we need a new Star Trek series to critique our culture and make us examine what we have become. And that will force us to become something better.

Roddenberry took a lot heat for Next Gen being so "politically correct." I remember hearing his speak at a con back in the 80s.

He created almost perfect characters because believed that people minicked what they saw on television. He said that Next Gen was not what we are "but what we should become."

Now if we could only do that.

[T'Girl]

20. American Horror Story meets Star Trek.
Interesting episode idea, but not for a series.

25. Vulcan-on-Vulcan sex scene.
Lesbian Vulcan-on-Vulcan sex scene, it's only logical.

38. Episode 97: First Officer Drake gets hooked on space drugs ...
This too might make for a interesting episode, drug use inside Starfleet, and the Federation was never well looked into. Is it a problem? How do they deal with it?

44: An HBO Star Trek series with a similar tone to Game of Thrones ...
Icky, no, go away, stupid idea.

45: An entire series set on the sick bay of a Starship where they must treat unsual space illnesses. Think House but in space!
While I never got into House, I loved CSI (Vegas). A Star Trek show that de-emphisizes "the command crew" and features a team of investigators working a problem or mystery every week. It wouldn't have to be medical, but it could be.

Doctor House didn't run the hospital he worked in. Nightshift Grissom (CSI) didn't run the Las Vegas Police Department. Team leader Gibbs doesn't run NCIS, they aren't the "people upstairs."

Bry_Sinclair wrote:

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One thing about this statement does puzzle me though. The whole 'openly gay' thing. Was there a closeted Captain at some point?

There has been some conjecture (some by me) that the reason we don't see gays in Star Trek is because they are in some way being "suppressed" by the Federation's overall society. Think America sixty years ago. So having a Captain who make the decision to be openly gay would be one way of introducing gays into the Star Trek world.

The story line could mirror the historical gay coming out that actually occurred in our society, but set in the Star Trek universe, a on going B-story, or C-story that is one aspect of the series, but not the only subject of the series.

The Captain could meet with acceptance from some, but rejection, resistance and condemnation from other in Starfleet and the Federation on general. And even those aboard his (her) own ship.

This would be an alternative to suddenly showing gays and saying oh yeah "they" were alway here, and alway accepted.

The Federation is all inclusive, please don't ask too many questions.

[lisa]

Anji wrote:

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Cute list.

But we need a new Star Trek series to critique our culture and make us examine what we have become. And that will force us to become something better.

Roddenberry took a lot heat for Next Gen being so "politically correct." I remember hearing his speak at a con back in the 80s.

He created almost perfect characters because believed that people minicked what they saw on television. He said that Next Gen was not what we are "but what we should become."

Now if we could only do that.

So eloquently said....

Love it.

I may be in the minority here, I know people keep giving ideas for a new way to do a Trek series, but I would like to see another show about the bridge crew on the enterprise! Maybe its because I never got to watch a series on TV when it was new (I was 12 when Enterprise came out and I didn't have a TV till I was 17!) but I would love to fall in love with a new Captain! Get to know a new crew! maybe they could explore a whole new part of space or it could be set a hundred years after Next Gen... Whatever it is I think they should stay with the tried and true formula.

[Bry_Sinclair]

T'Girl wrote:

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38. Episode 97: First Officer Drake gets hooked on space drugs ...
This too might make for a interesting episode, drug use inside Starfleet, and the Federation was never well looked into. Is it a problem? How do they deal with it?

It was touched on in "Valiant". Tim Watters seemed to have a problem with some kind of stimulants, though it was never really looked at. Especially in post-DW era, I can see a whole lot of problems like this cropping up, mixed with survivors guilt and a big helping of PTSD. Would definately make for some interesting character development

T'Girl wrote:

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There has been some conjecture (some by me) that the reason we don't see gays in Star Trek is because they are in some way being "suppressed" by the Federation's overall society. Think America sixty years ago. So having a Captain who make the decision to be openly gay would be one way of introducing gays into the Star Trek world.

The story line could mirror the historical gay coming out that actually occurred in our society, but set in the Star Trek universe, a on going B-story, or C-story that is one aspect of the series, but not the only subject of the series.

The Captain could meet with acceptance from some, but rejection, resistance and condemnation from other in Starfleet and the Federation on general. And even those aboard his (her) own ship.

This would be an alternative to suddenly showing gays and saying oh yeah "they" were alway here, and alway accepted.

The Federation is all inclusive, please don't ask too many questions.

The time to make a statement about a gay character on Trek passed long ago. When one is included, it shouldn't be used to define the character (it shouldn't appear in any press releases, etc), but just be one small facet of who they are. So that when he/she has a same sex partner, it is done so in a non-hyped manner. Its just a person engaging in a healthy, happy relationship.