What do want to see from a new series

[T'Girl]

Bry_Sinclair wrote:

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A CSI Trek wouldn't work, the level of technology makes it pretty redundant.

no, csi like trek uses technology, but it's the people on csi, the ones doing the investigations, the victims, and the criminals, that are the story, not the technology.

a star trek "csi' would not have to be a crime show, the point is a team investigating a mystery, procuring pieces of knowledge, each member providing a puzzle piece, putting them together in front of the audience each week, and ending the episode with a successful result (or sometimes unsuccessful one).

the original csi and it's spin offs combined have 30 seasons and 700 episodes, there's an old saying bry sinclair, give the audience what they want.

again, it wouldn't have to be about crime.

[Bry_Sinclair]

Jimi_James wrote:

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I'm not asking for a rehashed genre in a Trek style, I'm saying steer clear of it. Doing things that have been done for is not the way to make Trek prosper again.

My apologies, I misread what you had written, though do agree with what you were saying.

T'Girl wrote:

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no, csi like trek uses technology, but it's the people on csi, the ones doing the investigations, the victims, and the criminals, that are the story, not the technology.

With tricorders, super fast computer and highly acurate sensors though, cases wouldn't be much of a challenge (how often has a crime gone unsolved on Trek?). Of course the focus would be on the people, but the technobabble would also play an imporant element.

T'Girl wrote:

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a star trek "csi' would not have to be a crime show, the point is a team investigating a mystery, procuring pieces of knowledge, each member providing a puzzle piece, putting them together in front of the audience each week, and ending the episode with a successful result (or sometimes unsuccessful one).

That is true. The next series could be set on a pure science ship, follow an SCE team, or be based on a planet where a new colony sets down.

T'Girl wrote:

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the original csi and it's spin offs combined have 30 seasons and 700 episodes, there's an old saying bry sinclair, give the audience what they want.

True. I like CSI:NY, but I have always preferred NCIS.

[Temis the Vorta]

A Star Trek "cop show" might work. There are examples of sf/f cop shows all over the place, Grimm for instance. You just take the procedural format and make up new rules for the cops to follow. Grimm is fantasy rules, Star Trek could have sci fi rules.

In fact, Star Trek is supposed to be a cop show in part. TOS had episodes where Starfleet was the cop on the beat, investigating a mental hospital or mining colony where something had gone wrong. You can divide up the TOS episodes into cop show, military show, diplomacy, and personal stores.

Even The Doomday Machine was a cop episode of a sort, because they were carrying out Starfleet's mission to protect the Federation. (And that episode demonstrates how the cop aspect overlaps withnthe military aspect.)

This has little to do with what makes procedurals interesting to their fans, but it's pointless to try to appeal to that audience anyway.

[Mars]

How about the original idea, "Wagon Train to the Stars"?

Lets take "Little House on the Prairie" and find a way to convert it to Star Trek. A family of pioneers settles on a planet, and while they try to build their home they encounter a bunch of science fiction horrors that they need to deal with.

[BillJ]

Mars wrote:

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How about the original idea, "Wagon Train to the Stars"?

Lets take "Little House on the Prairie" and find a way to convert it to Star Trek. A family of pioneers settles on a planet, and while they try to build their home they encounter a bunch of science fiction horrors that they need to deal with.

It's Star Trek. People are interested in space battles and strange new worlds, not being stuck in one place. It's why Deep Space Nine added the Defiant in season three. Because people weren't digging Trek being stationary.

Now a sci-fi Little House on the Prarie isn't a bad idea in and of itself. But it would need to stand on its own outside the Trek universe.

[LtChange]

Mars wrote:

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How about the original idea, "Wagon Train to the Stars"?

Lets take "Little House on the Prairie" and find a way to convert it to Star Trek. A family of pioneers settles on a planet, and while they try to build their home they encounter a bunch of science fiction horrors that they need to deal with.

I would not buy that. If you really want to set it on a planet, give us some outpost on another galaxy, like maybe they found a wormhole to the Large or Small Magellanic Clouds, or maybe the Andromeda Galaxy, and they make a permanent outpost(city) on a planet there. Give the outpost two-three star ships that they can use to explore the new territories. What would give us this situation: first of all this shouldn't be a BIG departure from the Milky Way because they could anytime come back and have adventures/missions on familiar territories, but also they could have a strange new world to explore, and some different settings relatively to the other series. It is a mixed concept of DS9 and Voyager, as they would have permanent settlement to go to, but also star ships for exploration. The sets should be constructed in a way so that with a little change they could look like the bridge for two different ships or observatory for two different ship. I hope you get the idea. The settings might seam similar to SG:A but that would be far fetched as saying Firefly is like Star Trek because it is set on a star ship, so I think the idea would work ...

[Drago-Kazov]

No more sanctimonious nonsense like the Neutral Zone.

[Temis the Vorta]

A whole planet to explore is not being "stuck in one place," not if it's actually presented as a realistically complex planet instead of these weird single-climate worlds that are all desert, all ice, etc.

All of non-sf/f fiction is stuck on one planet called Earth. That never seemed to be a problem for authors in writing fiction based on the real world and creating more worthwhile stories than a single person could hope to read and watch in a lifetime.

The main issue would be aesthetic and visual - would audiences miss seeing starship sets and starships in the vastness of space?

[Greg Cox]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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A whole planet to explore is not being "stuck in one place," not if it's actually presented as a realistically complex planet instead of these weird single-climate worlds that are all desert, all ice, etc.

All of non-sf/f fiction is stuck on one planet called Earth. That never seemed to be a problem for authors in writing fiction based on the real world and creating more worthwhile stories than a single person could hope to read and watch in a lifetime.

Plus, plenty of authors have been able to get entire series out a single planet: Barsoom, Arrakis, Pern, etc.

[Ian Keldon]

Delsaber wrote:

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Federation post-apocalypse. It's all got to fall apart sooner or later... I'd like to see what the Alpha Quadrant will be like after everything has gone to hell, and how it'll be put back together again.

Sort of like Andromeda...

What I want is a post DW series showcasing the Federation struggling to put itself back together, facing resource problems, political questions stemming from some of the more "grey" things it had to do to win (such as lying to the Romulans).

I'd highlight the differences between the "core worlds" (the "saints in Paradise", to put it as Sisko did), and the border/colony worlds and how those differences complicated matters. Just to keep it interesting, I'd even throw in the Typhon Pact from the books.

On the production side, I'd like Manny Coto as showrunner, and the Reeves-Stevenses as head writers. They had Enterprise going in the right direction, and could have gotten it to 7 seasons if Les Moonives hadn't dropped the hammer on it.

[Delsaber]

^ Pretty much exactly like Andromeda, yeah. Actually, if I remember correctly, didn't Roddenberry's original notes put Andromeda in the Star Trek universe? So if you think about it, going with this idea would simply be excising the Tribune demons and Kevin Sorbo...

The only changes I would make to that old premise would be to eliminate the "frozen in time" nonsense. The rest could still work: the Federation has fallen and/or splintered, the Alpha Quadrant is a mess, a new crew dreaming of something better drags an old starship named Enterprise out of mothballs...

The hope and optimism here could take the form of restoration, rather than simply putting us in a utopia and asking no questions about it.

[Jimi_James]

The Star Trek post-apocalypse could be interesting, though I think it would receive criticism from many for not being 'Trek Enough' because it runs the risk of being too dark. In many ways, that seems to be what the novels are sort of going for to some degree, though at least not as extreme as actually having to rebuild the Federation after an actual collapse. Still, many of the themes of rebuilding after the Borg attack in the Destiny books, crossover with themes that would likely be explored in a Star trek version of Andromeda.

For those that like that idea though, you should check this out: http://www.st-minutiae.com/misc/restoration/index.html

[Ian Keldon]

Delsaber wrote:

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^ Pretty much exactly like Andromeda, yeah. Actually, if I remember correctly, didn't Roddenberry's original notes put Andromeda in the Star Trek universe?

That's the rumor, but Andromeda as aired turned out to be a pastiche of several GR concepts including the lead character from the old Planet Earth/Genesis II.

So if you think about it, going with this idea would simply be excising the Tribune demons and Kevin Sorbo...

Kevin actually can be a good actor when given good material. His performance in the earlier seasons (which were more serious in tone and more intellectually "weighty") was a lot better than his later season performace.

The only changes I would make to that old premise would be to eliminate the "frozen in time" nonsense. The rest could still work: the Federation has fallen and/or splintered, the Alpha Quadrant is a mess, a new crew dreaming of something better drags an old starship named Enterprise out of mothballs...

I'm of two minds about that. On the one hand I'd like to agree, but having a surviving Federation officer as the "lead" makes more story sense than some random collection of people for whom the Federation is a half-forgotten fairy tale suddenly becoming nation builders.

[Ian Keldon]

Jimi_James wrote:

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The Star Trek post-apocalypse could be interesting, though I think it would receive criticism from many for not being 'Trek Enough' because it runs the risk of being too dark. In many ways, that seems to be what the novels are sort of going for to some degree, though at least not as extreme as actually having to rebuild the Federation after an actual collapse. Still, many of the themes of rebuilding after the Borg attack in the Destiny books, crossover with themes that would likely be explored in a Star trek version of Andromeda.

For those that like that idea though, you should check this out: http://www.st-minutiae.com/misc/restoration/index.html

Interesting...

There was also a proposal for an animated series (possibly web-based) that featured similar themes.

[Vito Corleone]

I have 2 ideas for this one...

Idea #1...

Bring the JJ-Verse crew to Television after a good run of movies. Make the series like TOS in it's writing style and tone but, with modern FX. Re-use the excellent music from TOS, if possible. The short skirts on the female members of the crew are a must. Women in the Military like to look pretty too... Sometimes...

Idea #2...

- New ship and crew in the 24th Century Prime Universe, sometime after the Dominion War. Ship's mission is patrol through the still devastated Alpha/Beta Quadrants, assisting with rebuilding efforts and maintaining galactic order. It could bring back that 'Old West in space' kind of field that made TOS awesome.

- I'm not opposed to an alien captain but, it has to be someone that a TV audience can relate to and understand. Vulcans, Trill, Bajorans and Betazoids would probably work best.

- If the captain is Vulcan, I'd like to see him be comfortable with admitting that he has emotions but just doesn't express them in public since Vulcans consider that bad form. However, the audience can still see him enjoy them in private. (Examples include wearing colorful civilian clothes and/or enjoying music in his quarters while off duty.) Or, we can see this Vulcan Captain 'bring down the shields' and spend his off-hours trying to relieve the stress that's brought on by having to 'play the Good Vulcan' while on duty. We've never actually seen a Vulcan do that before. Anything Spock did doesn't necessarily set up any kind of precedent because he's not fully Vulcan.

- The ship doesn't have to be a new design. Re-using one of the ship designs from TNG/DS9/VOY would cut down on the show's development costs and help the audience be more comfortable with the new show right from the start. That might prove crucial since the setting is a galaxy recovering from war's devastation and filled with conspiracy and intrigue. That's not your typical rosy 'let's see what kind of mysteries we can uncover in the Great Unknown' type of setting you expect from Star Trek.

- If an old design is used, I prefer the Galaxy Class. The in-universe explanation can be "Starfleet needed a vessel that's both tactically capable and made for exploration, to help keep people motivated and 'waving the flag', so to speak." The actual reason is just because I want to see a Galaxy Class starship on TV again. Feel free to make whatever kind of interior/technological upgrades you need WITHOUT GOING CRAZY (i.e. faster engines, better computers, et al.), just make sure the hull shape is largely unchanged from the Enterprise-D and/or U.S.S. Venture.

- I'm partial to the name 'Invicta' for the ship because it's the Latin word for 'Undefeated.' Considering how part of this ship's mission is to bring good will and improve morale wherever it goes in the Federation, a name like that could prove beneficial.



Whatever is done though, PLEASE keep the technobabble to a minimum. Just because I, as a Trek fan, can understand it all rather easily doesn't mean that everyone else can.