Anything You Would Improve Upon?

[Volvic]

As with Everything in life, not every aspect of every ST show was perfect. Everyone has a episode, character, or aspect of the Star Trek universe that they simply don't care for.

My question is what you do to improve upon them/it?

Now here's the catch, it can't be anything too major. Nothing that would change the face of Star Trek as we know it. You can't send a hated recurring/regular character into oblivion or kill them off, although one-shot characters are fine. You also can't pretend a godawful episode didn't happen or wipe it from existance, but you can remix it slightly.

The name of the game here is to tweak things a little so they are slightly more palatable in your own opinion.

Here's mine:

General ST stuff: I'd include a few more throw away lines regarding Starfleet campuses, famous scientific institutions on alien worlds. I'd also throw in a quick scene in one of the shows where some character makes mention of the fact that their last posting was on a Starfleet vessel where most of the crew weren't from Earth but from another random federation planet. The character would also talk about how differently the ship and crew operated from what he/she was used to. I'd also give the ship a completely alien name and drop the USS part completely.

My reasoning? It demonstrates and shows, without blowing the budget, that other Federation worlds aren't simply window dressing, they've retained their own culture, contribute to the Federation and makes everything seem a little less Earth-centric.

TNG:Characters:

General TNG: Find other way for the senior staff to spend their off-duty hours together rather than have them play poker all the time. Seriously. With Troi, Data and Geordi in the same room it seems pointless, unless they're cheating in reverse that is. More time spent in Tenforward or even showing them having a few dinner parties could have accomplished this.

Wesley: I wouldn't have made him any less intelligent, but I would have made him a bit quieter and less prone to save the ship every other week. He wouldn't have been an acting ensign until mid season two and until that point he's the token civilian on the ship. There also should have been a few one liners regarding the reaction of other junior officers to his appointment to the bridge duty and his reaction to that.

Riker: As time went on I would have slowly dropped the 'ladies man/manslut' aspect of his personality as, imo, that character template never really worked outside of Kirk. I would have also thrown in a ten second scene where he gazes longingly at Troi/the command chair from afar or looks apprehensive when asked why he's rejecting yet another offer of command.

Worf: I wouldn't change much aside from having him in more episodes that have little to do with Klingon culture, politics, etc, and more to do with his position as chief of security. Have an episode or two where he's investigating a murder or stuck in a fish out of water scenerio.

Troi: Put her in a uniform. Have a few scenes - and they don't have to be long - where she's having to deal with infurated/difficult civilians. Throw in a few short scenes where she's briefing Picard about the cultural and political leanings of an alien race. This is a character that should have been drowing in paperwork from day one. I'd also make sure that she couldn't sense anything outside the room she was occupying and would have included a two minute scene that explains how her empathic sense actually works, so the viewer has an explanation as to why she keeps missing certain things. I'd also make a few casual mentions of her being a Daughter of the Fifth House.

Dr. Crusher: Make her a bit more antagonistic towards Picard and a bit more forthright in her opinions, but nothing that would put her on the same level as Bones or The EMH just enough to give her a bit more omph.

TNG: Episodes:

The Loss: Troi's half-Betazoid. Half-Alien. Plus she was brought up on alien planet. who is to say she even thinks like us? The second she lost her powers she should have either started slowly sliding into sociopathic behaviour or acted like she had aspergers. I think that would have made a lot more people a bit more sympathic to her plight.

The First Duty: Wesley shouldn't have been the one to come clean, he should have been loyal to Locarno right until the end. After a great deal of pressure, Sito, or the other one should have cracked. It just makes for a great 'where-the-hell-did-we-go wrong-scene ' at the end.

Conundrum: I would have taken the McDuff/war aspect out of the story completely and made a nebula or Q responsible for the crew's memory loss. The crew would also have no way to access the computer's database and communications would be down so there's no way of contacting anyone. So essentially no one knows who they are, where they are and why the hell they are on a starship. Let the character drama and confilct unfold. Why just limit yourself to the unusual pairing of Riker and Ro? Or have Data as the bartender for five minutes? The sky's the limit! Let's have two faction's duke it out. It doesn't matter anyway as there's always the big reset button at the end when Bev works out how to restore everyone's memory.

The Game: Drop the 'Riker brings it back from Risa' part and have the Game be something that has mysteriously appears out of nowhere and slowly becomes a major fad throughout the Federation. The episode would take place over several weeks with the game starting out as the B plot and then becoming the A plot by the end of the episode as the diabolical plan of the alien of the week comes to light.

Genesis: Keep the WTF de-evolving process but have it happen on a out-of-way, rundown starbase and have the away team arrive on a shuttle craft with the Enterprise a few days behind. The away team should consist of people who couldn't even begin to give some nonsense technobabble explanation for us all - so that immediately takes Data and Crusher out the majority of the episode. Basically, the away team should get cut off from the shuttle within minutes of their arrival and spend the rest of the episode running around like headless chickens, trying not to get killed or eaten, de-evolving all the while. The Enterprise arrives in the nick of time and the only explanation the audience is given into what caused the starbase's crew to de-evolve is a casual mention of an accident in one of the labs. There's also talk of resignations and personnel needing major therapy. Yeah, it's not great but I think a straight up horror story would have been a little bit better as to what we we're given.

Man of The People: Drop the evil ambassador and the stupid aging part and have all the nastiness come from Troi herself. It could be explained that everything she senses gets held on to and squirreled away in somepart of her subconscious. And unfortunately all those emotions -mostly negative since she deals with them a lot in her job - start to come spilling back into her psyche and make her a wee bit evil in the process. This way you've still got an evil Troi episode, but instead of a just another bog standard damsel- in -distress story you've also got a great little villian who has gota lot of stuff on the rest of the crew and won't hesitate to use it against them.

And I'll stop there.

Anyone else want to play?

 

[6079SmithW]

Minor nitpicks regarding Enterprise weapons:

Stick with spatial torpedos. Why did we need "photonic" torpedos? Spatial torpedos were so much cooler and would have fit in with Spock saying the Romulan War was fought with nukes. Those spatial torpedos could have had nuclear warheads fitted on from time to time, like if when Archer wanted to show he was not messing around. I don't mind the phase cannons but I would have liked to see ship-to-ship missle battles like BSG.

Also didn't like phase pistols. They should have stuck with the pulse pistol things like the MACOs carried, except theirs would be red.

 

[Anwar]

I'd have them mention that there are Starfleet Academies on other worlds, not just Earth.

I'd also get them to stop using the Excelsior design so much in TNG and maybe use the Ambassador model some more.

 

[sbk1234]

I'd have Wesley shoved out an airlock!

Nah, just kidding. However, I wouldn't have him on the bridge at a position of importance. I'd put him in engineering where he could be working as part of a team. That would be a reasonable way for him to serve as "acting ensign" and learning from the highly skilled officer.

 

[Admiral Shran]

General Trek stuff

1.) Have non-Human members of Starfleet appear far more often. I'm not saying they should be in the main cast, but having them in the background would have been nice. It would give the Federation, and Starfleet, a less Human-centric feel.

2.) Show some non-Human admirals, especially some Andorians and Tellarites. I can probably count on one hand how many non-Human admirals we've seen - and they are ALL either Vulcans or Bolians.

3.) Have some comments here and there about the governmental structure of the Federation and how Starfleet is organized above the ship-level.

TOS

1.) Arena - Have a few scenes set on the Gorn ship, showing their reaction to the fight between the captains.

TNG

1.) Picard - Just go ahead and make him British.

2.) Data - When he learns a lesson about humanity, have him actually remember it and apply it in later episodes. I mean for crying out loud, by the time of Insurrection he's lived with Humans for thirty years yet doesn't understand the concept of play.

3.) Who Watches the Watchers - Get rid of this line....

Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? NO!

DS9

1.) Have Ezri as a recurring character during the fifth and sixth seasons. That way, when she becomes a main character in season seven, it's not that big of a shock to the viewers.

2.) Paradise - Have some of the colonists choose to leave with Sisko and O'Brien.

3.) Valiant - Have the final scene be less open-ended about how to feel about the Red Squad characters.

VOY

1.) Have more conflict between the Starfleet and Maquis crews. Not full scale mutiny on the part of the Maquis, but scenes like the funeral in Alliances. Show the Maquis disagreeing with Janeway's decisions and Janeway struggling to come to terms with the opinions of non-Starfleet crewmembers.

2.) Jetrel - Don't beat the audience over the head with the allusions to the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. We can get it, even when it's more subtle.

3.) Threshold - Have the final scene be Paris waking up and realizing it was all a dream.

ENT

1.) Have much more serialization in the first two seasons.

2.) Have season four be what the show is from the beginning.

3.) Introduce the Tellarites FAR earlier.

4.) Focus on the growing relationship between Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar and the lead-up to the Romulan War. End the series either with the end of the war or the founding of the Federation a season later.

5.) TATV - Are you sure I can't completely eliminate this one? Please?

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I would have taken the McDuff/war aspect out of the story completely and made a nebula or Q responsible for the crew's memory loss. The crew would also have no way to access the computer's database and communications would be down so there's no way of contacting anyone. So essentially no one knows who they are, where they are and why the hell they are on a starship. Let the character drama and confilct unfold. Why just limit yourself to the unusual pairing of Riker and Ro? Or have Data as the bartender for five minutes? The sky's the limit! Let's have two faction's duke it out. It doesn't matter anyway as there's always the big reset button at the end when Bev works out how to restore everyone's memory.

I disagree. People attach themselves top the love triangle, and it's all good. But I like this episode because, after show after show after show of character development, they almost forgot that Trek is supposed to be an action show that you can escape to for an hour, maybe with a morality tale for a while. So fin ally having a war, an opponent, some phasers, some campiy fighting, was a welcome, refreshing change from all the heavy drama.

 

[Cheapjack]

Spend about three trillion on CGI characters, and have EVERY alien, even Spock, reimagined, to show what they would really look like. Not just exactly the same as us with pointy ears or bobbly foreheads and noses, ears and mouths the same distance apart as ours are. Would put Westmore out of a job, though.

 

[Anwar]

3.) Who Watches the Watchers - Get rid of this line....

Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? NO!

I disagree, Trek was making a hard statement on its views of religion and it shouldn't be watered down to appease the general audience.

 

[C.E. Evans]

- Miniskirt uniforms surviving past the first season of TNG and continuing into DS9 and VOY.

- More bug-eyed, man-eating aliens in TNG.

- Making the Dominion War shorter and more to the point in DS9.

- Not stranding the Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, but rather simply have the ship be assigned to a distant backwater sector of the Federation where they're far from Earth, but not entirely cut off from Starfleet.

- Setting ENT at the start of the 22nd-Century and having fewer "Federation-era" elements. No Temporal Cold War either.

- Ditched the clone angle in Nemesis and simply have Shinzon as a young Romulan commander bent on destroying Picard.

- Firmly established that they don't use physical money in the Federation, but rather a credit-based currency system that is worthless outside of the Federation.

- Establishing Starfleet as a multipurpose deep-space agency in TNG and leaving it at that.

 

[Volvic]

I disagree. People attach themselves top the love triangle, and it's all good. But I like this episode because, after show after show after show of character development, they almost forgot that Trek is supposed to be an action show that you can escape to for an hour, maybe with a morality tale for a while. So fin ally having a war, an opponent, some phasers, some campiy fighting, was a welcome, refreshing change from all the heavy drama.

I dunno. One of ST biggest weaknesses was that the character development, for most of the time, never really amounted to anything. If you'd kept Worf in charge, given him some followers you could have set the stage for a nice little mutiny with lots of snarling, arguing and phasers. My main problem with the McDuff storyline is nobody questioned the situation they were in sooner. The Enterprise looks more like a cruiseliner than an actual warship, there is also children running around the ship and potted plants in the corridors. Nobody questioned this. Not only that the episode has Troi standing two feet away from McDuff and she's unable to tell he's fibbing to them. *shrugs* it's all good, I'm nitpicking.

 

[Pauln6]

I would have a core of perhaps 30 alien races and expand them instead of using aliens of the week. Restrict the Federation members to about a dozen core worlds and have most of the others as allies rather than full members, which gives you more of a chance of exploring the cultures without them being so homogenous and nice. Keep a tighter grip on the level of tech so it doesn't run away, forcing the stories to be over-convoluted in order to overcome the tech. More politics within and outside the Federation (more shades of B5). If they must use 'all-powerful' aliens at all, use something more like the Shadows, whose hand could be felt but rarely overtly.

Above all, 50% of the cast should be women (even if not played by actresses - alien women don't need to be feminine).

 

[Finn]

Many of those ideas are bad

 

[Cheapjack]

Bug eyed monsters?

Isn't that a bit 1950's??

I thought we were supposed to get on their wavelength and see their point of view?

 

[The Wormhole]

I'd also throw in a quick scene in one of the shows where some character makes mention of the fact that their last posting was on a Starfleet vessel where most of the crew weren't from Earth but from another random federation planet. The character would also talk about how differently the ship and crew operated from what he/she was used to. I'd also give the ship a completely alien name and drop the USS part completely.

You mean like the T'Kumbra. Okay, that had USS in its name, but otherwise, if fits everything you said, all Vulcan crew, with a Vulcan name. USS is standard for all Starfleet ships, and I see no reason why that should change.

 

[Finn]

Okay, now I'm on my laptop so I can quote certain posts.

The Game: Drop the 'Riker brings it back from Risa' part and have the Game be something that has mysteriously appears out of nowhere and slowly becomes a major fad throughout the Federation. The episode would take place over several weeks with the game starting out as the B plot and then becoming the A plot by the end of the episode as the diabolical plan of the alien of the week comes to light.

The concept sounds good, but the game itself would seem corny. In the universe where the writers did that, we would be mocking that arc for years like we do with Voyager's Threshold or TNG's Masks.

Conundrum: I would have taken the McDuff/war aspect out of the story completely and made a nebula or Q responsible for the crew's memory loss. The crew would also have no way to access the computer's database and communications would be down so there's no way of contacting anyone. So essentially no one knows who they are, where they are and why the hell they are on a starship. Let the character drama and confilct unfold. Why just limit yourself to the unusual pairing of Riker and Ro? Or have Data as the bartender for five minutes? The sky's the limit! Let's have two faction's duke it out. It doesn't matter anyway as there's always the big reset button at the end when Bev works out how to restore everyone's memory.

So you are suggesting an episode where the crew is walking around wondering who there are, with no climax and no pressing issues, just the Enterprise sitting just outside a nebula. Also, that alien delbriately made sure the crew still had the knowledge to run the ship. If it was a nebula that did it, they probably wouldn't know to run the ship and god forbid we suddenly find the containment field going down.

Boring....boom!

Worf: I wouldn't change much aside from having him in more episodes that have little to do with Klingon culture, politics, etc, and more to do with his position as chief of security. Have an episode or two where he's investigating a murder or stuck in a fish out of water scenerio.

The Drumhead and Paralells

But yeah, there should have been a bit more of those.

2.) Show some non-Human admirals, especially some Andorians and Tellarites. I can probably count on one hand how many non-Human admirals we've seen - and they are ALL either Vulcans or Bolians.

See the end of Star Trek IV. But yeah, we don't see them often.

- Setting ENT at the start of the 22nd-Century and having fewer "Federation-era" elements. No Temporal Cold War either.

What do you mean by "Federation-era" elements? Pretty much everything we see in the early 22nd century would be part of the Federation by Kirk or Picard's time, Outside of the technology, it should be allright.

Making the Dominion War shorter and more to the point in DS9.

It would have made a Federation victory less realistic, since the Dominion was much more powerful.

- Not stranding the Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, but rather simply have the ship be assigned to a distant backwater sector of the Federation where they're far from Earth, but not entirely cut off from Starfleet.

That would like having Cheers not being set in a bar.

 

[C.E. Evans]

- Setting ENT at the start of the 22nd-Century and having fewer "Federation-era" elements.

What do you mean by "Federation-era" elements?

Exactly what I said.

No "phase" pistols. No "photonic" torpedoes. No Starfleet (period!). No transporters (at all!). No Ferengi. No Borg. I would set it earlier in time--about fifty years--and have alien contacts be few and far between. The Andorians would probably be the big bad guys in the series.

Pretty much everything we see in the early 22nd century would be part of the Federation by Kirk or Picard's time, Outside of the technology, it should be allright.

See above.

Making the Dominion War shorter and more to the point in DS9.

It would have made a Federation victory less realistic, since the Dominion was much more powerful.

Not at all. If you really look at the Dominion War itself, the actual war only took two years--seasons six and seven. Everything prior to that was one dragged out prelude, including a brief war with the Klingons that was by its own admission a distraction from the real threat.

- Not stranding the Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, but rather simply have the ship be assigned to a distant backwater sector of the Federation where they're far from Earth, but not entirely cut off from Starfleet.

That would like having Cheers not being set in a bar.

Nope. It would still be about a ship very far from Earth and encountering new civilizations during the course of its mission. But they can still periodically go to a starbase for shore leave and sometimes visit a Federation colony here and there. Kind of like how a certain famous 23rd-Century starship did during its mission...

 

[Volvic]

Okay, now I'm on my laptop so I can quote certain posts.

The Game: Drop the 'Riker brings it back from Risa' part and have the Game be something that has mysteriously appears out of nowhere and slowly becomes a major fad throughout the Federation. The episode would take place over several weeks with the game starting out as the B plot and then becoming the A plot by the end of the episode as the diabolical plan of the alien of the week comes to light.

The concept sounds good, but the game itself would seem corny. In the universe where the writers did that, we would be mocking that arc for years like we do with Voyager's Threshold or TNG's Masks.

*shrugs* The Game was a pretty corny episode anyway with a lot of plot holes throughout it, imo. If the threat was a bit more gradual (in the context of the episode) then it's more plausible that when some overworked junior officer looks up from their monitor they don't go "WTF?" and wonder why everybody is wandering about with headsets on having orgasams. And okay then, it doesn't have be a major fad throughout the Federation but maybe a known one.

Conundrum: I would have taken the McDuff/war aspect out of the story completely and made a nebula or Q responsible for the crew's memory loss. The crew would also have no way to access the computer's database and communications would be down so there's no way of contacting anyone. So essentially no one knows who they are, where they are and why the hell they are on a starship. Let the character drama and confilct unfold. Why just limit yourself to the unusual pairing of Riker and Ro? Or have Data as the bartender for five minutes? The sky's the limit! Let's have two faction's duke it out. It doesn't matter anyway as there's always the big reset button at the end when Bev works out how to restore everyone's memory.

So you are suggesting an episode where the crew is walking around wondering who there are, with no climax and no pressing issues, just the Enterprise sitting just outside a nebula. Also, that alien delbriately made sure the crew still had the knowledge to run the ship. If it was a nebula that did it, they probably wouldn't know to run the ship and god forbid we suddenly find the containment field going down.

Boring....boom!

I didn't say the crew should lose their set skills. I also suggested Q as the cause of the memory loss and I'm sure he could throw a few things their way, not that he would really need to. Given the very different personalities amongst the senior staff - and they do- I imagine that a lot of pressing issues would be show up from within the form of some sick character conflict. Basically there's an opportunity to throw characters, usual friendships and alliances up in the air and let them land where they may. Let's have a mutiny, let's have two best friends hate each other. And if internal character conflict isn't good enough on it's own, then bring in an alien vessel for them to deal with, let them stumble upon a civil war on an alien world. Anything goes.

My problem with the McDuff/war angle is that from what I remember, McDuff's race and the other guys were about one hundred years behind the Federation in terms of technology. How the hell did he manage to screw them up so badly in the first place? *shrugs* hell, it's all subjective anyway.

 

[Focus Abbey]

Seriously, one of my biggest pet peeves? The collar on the crimson uniforms from Post-TMP / Pre-TNG. I'm confused by the black piping that suddenly appears at the throat like it was glued on as an afterthought. It's especially noticeable in TNG flashbacks, when the undershirt was absent. The piping should extend around the collar. Is that too petty?

 

[Finn]

To C.E. Evans Fair enough, though the Enterprise did seem to stay close to the Core worlds often (visiting Earth once, and Vulcan on one occassion, and Starbase 12 seemed to be pretty far inside Federation Space. All that while boldly going where no man have gone before for five years.

To Volvic, for the conundrum thing, I was more thinking about your suggestion that a nebula caused it. Q would be a better option.

 

[T'Girl]

TOS

1.) Given that TOS established that a lot of aliens look just like humans, have the majority of the officers and crew be aliens, minimal make-up and single line in one script and shazam a multiple species crew.

2.) Increase the strangeness factor on the Vulcans, Amok Time did a fair job of this, give Stonn two existing wives with T'Pring wanting to be the third, They live 250 years and have sex every 7 years, the average family has 25 children, the reason they send them into the desert on the kas-wan is because they want most of them to die.

3.) Set it farther in the future than the 23rd century, more room for back story.

TNG

1.) Worf, same as the Vulcans. Rub our noses in just how different Klingons are. Federation diversity doesn't just mean human progressive liberalism.

2.) Dump the technobabble, the show isn't about tech, but what tech there is is consistant and make sense.

3.) Farpoint, when Picard fires the aft torpedoes to conceal the saucer separation, he "accidentally" kills Q. Permanently.

DS9

1)Make it so Sisko doesn't only dates/marry black women or aliens who are black women. Fix this (screwing mirror-Dax doesn't count.).

VOY

1.) Kes isn't a psychic -slash- super being, Keep her on the show, she and 7 of 9 become best friends and she is 7's guide to be less borg, more human. Not the doctor and 7.

ENT

1.) Archer was in over his head and out of his depth, we all got that. Have the rest of the crew realize this and comment on it.

2.) Have the whole "expanse" arc run only five or six episodes.

3.) Mention the Romulans or something that is the Romulans every second or third episode, something short and a little vague. A unknown race is out there, a ship disappears, a rumor, a alien casually passes another clue. Build up to the Romulan war, even if we never see the war because the series is cancelled.

4.) One of Archer's on going assignment is to find out about this mysterious "Federation." The Federation has been around for hundreds or thousands of years, the Vulans have long been apart of it, the humans are secretly being evaluated for membership. That one reason T'Pol is on the ship. Archer and Trip are correct, she is actual spying on them.

5.) Can we make the mirror universe arc a three part episode.