Seasoning Season 8

[Dukhat]

Well if we're just dreaming, then the entire season 8 should revolve around the Enterprise being permanently stationed at Betazed and the crew given a new year-long mission to conduct Betazoid weddings.

[Arpy]

An episode in which Troi's counseling is the hero. Geordi performs engineering wizardry and Beverly medical wizardry and it's heroic. Well Deanna's turn. Really. Done right.

And how about this. Not 20th/21st century counseling, but 24th. What if she does something along the lines of the "psychologists" from Asimov's Foundation series?

[Minuet]

• I would have liked to see a continuation of the Ensign Sito subplot of "Lower Decks." It would have been nice to see her turn up alive at some point; perhaps she was in prison on Cardassia and made her escape somehow. I know it was the intention of the DS9 writers to continue this and they never did, so TNG would have been a logical place to do it.

• Let's just assume that Generations never happened (thank god). I would like to have seen an episode or arc that properly fleshed out Guinan's past, her exile, and her relationship with the Borg and Q. That would have been something to see, as opposed to the topical dressing we got in the film.

• In continuation of the previous premise, I would have liked to see Data perhaps try the emotion chip, but have it fail and almost cause a cascade failure, a la "The Offspring." Although, the episode should end with Data realizing that he does have a very limited degree of emotive ability anyway (and there are countless examples of this throughout the series)--maybe his positronic brain has formed new connections over the span of his lifetime to the point where he does have some emotions already, even if he thinks he doesn't (he just doesn't have a frame of reference to prove they are emotions). This is a good opportunity for metaphor--the idea that taking shortcuts isn't always the best course of action. Data realizing he's already making progress without resorting to a quick fix would be admirable.

• Speaking of which, Lal's lifeless corpse is still onboard--it would have been nice to see a continuation episode of that. Maybe Data finds another Soong-type expert or associate of Soong's that could help him repair Lal. I don't know, I just liked Lal so much.

• More Ensign Ro. More encounters with her would have been great--obviously now that she is AWOL and full-time Maquis.

• I hesitate to bring back the insects from "Conspiracy," but it was such a bizarre dangling thread that the writers never followed through on. Maybe there would have been a way to make a logical conclusion to it. Maybe they just worshiped the Borg as gods, and wanted to be assimilated? I don't know--that probably doesn't even deserve an episode.

• A proper ending to Worf and Troi.

• I really would have liked to see Picard get promoted to Admiral, or him leaving Starfleet to be an archaeologist, and Riker taking command. Riker had been first officer way too long already, and his refusal to take new commands became comical after a while. And seeing him in, say, Insurrection, still a first officer, is outright absurd.

[MikeS]

The Enterprise should have crash-landed on a strange planet. The survivors end up on a strange island populated by polar bears, a mysterious French lady and a group of natives that don't want the crew there...

[Peacemaker]

Honestly, I would have done Generations about 1/3 of the way through, then done part of the season with the crew without the Enterprise. Do mini arcs with them stationed on other ships or stations. Send Geordi and Data, perhaps, to work on the construction of the E and include Leah Brahms. At this point, change the opening titles as well to look similar to DS9, but with the E in various stages of construction each week. Wind up the season with a finale involving the launch of the E and her first shakedown cruise. Make that one the series finale, leading up to the first movie: First Contact.

[USS Firefly]

That would have been awesome!
It's also a shame that the Ent-D went down in a terrible battle.

[Use of Time]

Definitely bring back the bluegill paratistes from "Conspiracy."

[Nacluv]

Arpy wrote:

---

Seal should have been executed or committed suicide after each of her massive failures. The Romulans killed thousands of their own troops at the end of "Unification" for chrissake!

I would actually like to see her in several episodes of Season 8, either along or taking turns with Tomalak.

[Nacluv]

More Vulcans (eventually one episode which orbits around Spock and the progress of the reunification). Maybe a continuation of Conspiracy where we learn more about the creatures. Of course, at least one or two Worf episodes is obligatory through tradition. Likewise with Q.

And I always wanted TNG to rip off TOS more dstinctly. Such as a mirror universe episode, premature aging (exactly as we saw it in The Deadly Years), Picard or Riker put on trial for either the death or "death" of a crewmember. I'm uncertain if someone would really die and that it's just proven that it was not anyone's fault or if there would exist some kind of vengeance factor and that the person would either fake his death or give his life for the cause. The representatives of judiciary would come onboard the Enterprise and hold the trial there instead.

There are some interesting unused stories from both TOS and TNG that were never used that I like.

The first one is a Q story that was intended to be in Season 5 of TNG. From Memory Alpha:

In "Q Makes Two", Q would have duplicated the Enterprise and the crew according to some uniform characteristic. Brannon Braga recalled, "There was a sense of doom from the moment we started 'Q Makes Two.' I think we broke it three times. René wrote two drafts and it was ultimately abandoned. It's an interesting notion that Q comes on board and Picard's saying people are inherently good and we have managed to get rid of our darker elements in the 24th century and we're better people. Q says, 'So you don't think you have dark components and you think you're better without them, well I'm going to show you a thing or two,' and so he extracts the darker components and puts them into doubles. The clean, good components suffer and so do the darker components and neither functions without the other. We see that dramatically, but for some reason we made it more complex than it needed to be. It's a show that could still work. The image in my mind that we never really got to was the two Enterprises shooting at each other, that's what you want to see."
Jeri Taylor added, "'Q Makes Two' was a debacle and it plunged us into a nightmare of having to get "Man of the People" ready." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)
According to Taylor, the idea of splitting a starship in two would later inspire the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Deadlock". (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages)
The plot also notably resembles the original series episode "The Enemy Within", except with the entire crew duplicated, rather than just the captain.

As a Spock & Sarek fan, I of course would love this idea simply for the sole reason of seeing them on my screen. I do think the plot would need some developments/interpolations though.

A story that D.C. Fontana and Herbert J. Wright pitched, during TNG's first season, would have featured Spock, Sarek, and Romulans. Fontana detailed the specifics of the proposed plot, which had some similarities to the ultimately-produced two-parter "Unification I" and "Unification II"; "We're taking on a mysterious Vulcan visitor who, of course, turns out to be Spock, and his mission is to rescue his father, who has been captured by the Romulans while on an exploratory peace mission. Now he's being held hostage, and they want Spock." Fontana was told that the plot was not granted production approval due to the unlikeliness of obtaining either Mark Lenard as Sarek or Leonard Nimoy as Spock. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 2, p. 87) According to Herb Wright, the reasoning was that Nimoy had "a falling out" with Gene Roddenberry and instead directed Three Men and a Baby. Wright noted of the story, "I thought [bringing Spock back] would have been great first season." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 23, No. 2/3, p. 48)

There are also many TOS stories that could easily be accommodated to TNG. BTW, there should be a "Seasoning Season 4" in the TOS forum.

I especially like this one and I always found this story more suitable for TNG rather than TOS. Especially considering that the conceptual emanations are somewhat cognate with Angel One.

The World of Star Trek revealed a story premise that DeForest Kelley had always wanted to see, featuring himself and Nichelle Nichols, described as "something where the two of us were thrown onto a planet where there was a great racial problem, only reversed. The fact that I am a Southerner and she is black, and that we're trapped on this planet together."
Stephen Kandel described the story as "a show with a very militaristic planet being discovered, and the inhabitants were black. The only one they would talk to was Uhura, and they regarded the others as nothing." (Starlog issue #117, p. 44)
In The World of Star Trek, David Gerrold added a footnote to DeForest Kelley's premise, stating, "As a matter of fact, the idea was one that very definitely had been considered. A script version had even been written. And rewritten. And rewritten. The story involved a planet where blacks were the masters and whites were the slaves, but either the premise was too touchy for television or nobody could quite make it work. The script never reached a form where Roddenberry or Coon wanted to put it into production."
The basis of this episode was probably a story premise in Roddenberry's 1964 proposal Star Trek is..., entitled Kongo, about a planet with the "Ole Plantation days" with reversed roles of blacks and whites.
Stephen Kandel referred to the fact that the story was not given the go-ahead as "unfortunate" and went on to say, "I would love to have done it." (Starlog issue #117, p. 44)

[Nacluv]

I'd also like to see people getting more serious in relationships. Such as Riker and Deanna. I'd also like to see or at least hear something new about Thomas.

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't think it'd be a good idea to have a two parter that demonizes capitalism. Capitalism only fails when the government intercedes on behalf of big corporations to help maintain their monopolies, or when capitalists commit fraud. Ferengi in real life would do really well for a little while then fall flat and lose everything. If anything, it might have been nice to see some cultures that actually benefited from interacting with the ferengi.

Successful capitalism is the art of creating situations where people gain from benefitting you, and that's not the MO of the ferengi we saw in the series at all. Ferengi capitalism is just hegemony of the greedy.

And in the Federation due to replicators there's no scarcity of resources, so no need for wheeling and dealing, if anything the ferengi are only able to retain a capitalistic society by creating artificial shortages. (The same way the diamond industry keeps diamonds pricey).

For TNG season 8 I definitely would have had a more definite resolution to the Romulan arc, which had a recurring storying in the vein of Sins of the Father/Reunion/Redemption.

[Danlav05]

Peacemaker wrote:

---

Honestly, I would have done Generations about 1/3 of the way through, then done part of the season with the crew without the Enterprise. Do mini arcs with them stationed on other ships or stations. Send Geordi and Data, perhaps, to work on the construction of the E and include Leah Brahms. At this point, change the opening titles as well to look similar to DS9, but with the E in various stages of construction each week. Wind up the season with a finale involving the launch of the E and her first shakedown cruise. Make that one the series finale, leading up to the first movie: First Contact.

This would have been epic! I like the ideas of Picard and Riker finally being promoted, as well as a full-blown DS9 crossover. TBH that was a bit of a wasted opprtunity, but it's been done in the comics.

[Arpy]

For the Mirror Universe lovers...great cover.

[GalaxyX]

Minuet wrote:

---

• I would have liked to see a continuation of the Ensign Sito subplot of "Lower Decks." It would have been nice to see her turn up alive at some point; perhaps she was in prison on Cardassia and made her escape somehow. I know it was the intention of the DS9 writers to continue this and they never did, so TNG would have been a logical place to do it.

• Let's just assume that Generations never happened (thank god). I would like to have seen an episode or arc that properly fleshed out Guinan's past, her exile, and her relationship with the Borg and Q. That would have been something to see, as opposed to the topical dressing we got in the film.

• In continuation of the previous premise, I would have liked to see Data perhaps try the emotion chip, but have it fail and almost cause a cascade failure, a la "The Offspring." Although, the episode should end with Data realizing that he does have a very limited degree of emotive ability anyway (and there are countless examples of this throughout the series)--maybe his positronic brain has formed new connections over the span of his lifetime to the point where he does have some emotions already, even if he thinks he doesn't (he just doesn't have a frame of reference to prove they are emotions). This is a good opportunity for metaphor--the idea that taking shortcuts isn't always the best course of action. Data realizing he's already making progress without resorting to a quick fix would be admirable.

• Speaking of which, Lal's lifeless corpse is still onboard--it would have been nice to see a continuation episode of that. Maybe Data finds another Soong-type expert or associate of Soong's that could help him repair Lal. I don't know, I just liked Lal so much.

• More Ensign Ro. More encounters with her would have been great--obviously now that she is AWOL and full-time Maquis.

• I hesitate to bring back the insects from "Conspiracy," but it was such a bizarre dangling thread that the writers never followed through on. Maybe there would have been a way to make a logical conclusion to it. Maybe they just worshiped the Borg as gods, and wanted to be assimilated? I don't know--that probably doesn't even deserve an episode.

• A proper ending to Worf and Troi.

• I really would have liked to see Picard get promoted to Admiral, or him leaving Starfleet to be an archaeologist, and Riker taking command. Riker had been first officer way too long already, and his refusal to take new commands became comical after a while. And seeing him in, say, Insurrection, still a first officer, is outright absurd.

Some really good ideas here! I'd have loved a season 8 based on some of this stuff.

[Bry_Sinclair]

They could have used S8 to build on former recurring/guest characters, giving them more to do and bigger back stories, then near the end of the season had several of the main characters leave to pursue new careers and opportunities, whilst the newbies take over their positions.

Picard remains onboard whilst Riker finally gets his command. Data would then be promoted to Commander and becomes Number One. He would be replaced at Ops by Sam Lavelle.

Worf is requested on DS9 to help with the Klingon problem in the region, so he and Deanna (who would be newly married) would depart to help out with the situation. They would both be replaced with new characters (a female Security Chief and a male Counsellor).

Geordi goes with Riker to serve as his XO and is replaced by a new female Chief Engineer. Though I liked her, I would love to see Crusher depart as well and replaced by Doctor Selar, but dropping all but two characters may be a little too much.

If they wanted to, they could also resume the full-time position of Chief Conn Officer with one of the many extras who have filled the post; I'd like to see Sariel Rager back on the Bridge. Also if they really wanted to they could introduce a new Science Officer, seeing as how Data would no longer be covering the duties of Ops/Science.

TNG could then continue onwards, in the new format and they could forget all about VOY, whilst keeping DS9 looking at the darker side of the Trekverse.