Would a Starfleet Medical type show work?

[Aldo]

I remember back when Voyager was on (or just premiering) Cinescape (yeah remember them!?) proposed this concept that I found interesting.

Essentially it would take place on Earth (or in a space station type setting) and basically be "ER in Space. Their reasoning for such an idea was that the Starship crew exploring space was played out and that the franchise would have to adopt different premises if it was to survive (how right they were).

I think I would have enjoyed any series that tried something new within the confines of Trek, even if the premise itself was overdone (really, another medical show? Those were done to death in the 90s).

Unfortunately it seemed to be Berman's belief that a Star Trek show had to be about a Starship crew exploring space...how else to explain Enterprise, which was just that.

 

[JB2005]

I dunno...I think we've been too oversaturated with medical shows, and the Hook "In Space" always seems a bit gimicky to me...

Personally I like the concept people have put across before of a Star Trek West Wing, as it's an area that isn't explored in the series, and though you'd get the parallels with that show, it might seem like less of a gimick?

 

[T'Girl]

Patient comes in, there's a quick scan, followed by a single injection
with a hypo-spray, and the patient leaves after less than sixty seconds.

Not exactly all that exciting.

 

[JB2005]

It could be a House esque show, with unknown alien diseases (you're suffering from an ancient earth disease known as "boogie woogie fever")

 

[BlobVanDam]

I dunno...I think we've been too oversaturated with medical shows, and the Hook "In Space" always seems a bit gimicky to me...

This was my first thought. While it may be a new focus for Trek, it would bring it closer to the thousand other medical shows on television.

 

[SchwEnt]

^^^ Mercy Point

 

[Stoek]

Honestly I think it might be a bit too narrowcast. However if you did something akin to SCE but with a medical focus it could work.

 

[JB2005]

^ Why not just do SCE =p

 

[Captaindemotion]

^^^ Mercy Point

Yes, that's what I thought of too. And it didn't run for very long, did it?

I think a Trek medical show would be too sci-fi to appeal to the Grey's Anatomy/ ER crowd and would have too little action to appeal to the sci-fi crowd. Far too niche, I'm afraid.

 

[indolover]

House in space? Why not?

 

[indolover]

By the by, Star Trek IS about exploration. Enterprise flopped due to poor management, similar to Voyager. The concept was not that bad. At least, IMO if Voyager had been managed/produced better it could have been as highly acclaimed as TNG or DS9.

 

[Aldo]

By the by, Star Trek IS about exploration. Enterprise flopped due to poor management, similar to Voyager. The concept was not that bad. At least, IMO if Voyager had been managed/produced better it could have been as highly acclaimed as TNG or DS9.

No. Star Trek is about the exploration of the human condition. They just set it against a space exploration back drop to make it more interesting to audiences.

 

[BillJ]

Their reasoning for such an idea was that the Starship crew exploring space was played out and that the franchise would have to adopt different premises if it was to survive (how right they were).

Which is why the back-to-basics film did $400 million dollars in business.

 

[Aldo]

Their reasoning for such an idea was that the Starship crew exploring space was played out and that the franchise would have to adopt different premises if it was to survive (how right they were).

Which is why the back-to-basics film did $400 million dollars in business.

Yes well apples and oranges. I'm talking about a weekly series not a major motion picture.

 

[BillJ]

Honestly I've never understood this compulsion to shoehorn Star Trek into other genre's? The reason it works is because the starship format gives you the freedom to tell any kind of story.

A Starfleet Medical show would be nothing but ER with comm badges.

Premise has never been an issue... execution is another matter.

 

[JarodRussell]

Would be fun, why not? Though maybe not like House or ER. Why not have some sort of medical investigation unit that travels around the galaxy trying to stop interstellar pandemics (I think that's the most dangerous thing about regular space travel, since immune systems would have to fight viruses and bacteria and whatnot from entirely different planets!). Then also throw biological and chemical weapons in it. They search for them, they try to destroy them, and every now and then it gives them the opportunity to show Starfleet in action taking the bad guys out.

 

[Bishop76]

Nope, wouldn't work.

 

[Mysterion]

Medically oriented science can be good - look at James White's series of Sector General stories and novels. Would it work as a Trek series? Maybe in print, not too sure for tee-vee.

 

[Shazam!]

The only Star Trek show that would work is one about a crew on a spaceship fighting aliens and landing on daft planets.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ I think the novel point made by Mysterion is right. There have been some good Trek novels departing from the usual formula. KRAD's Articles of the Federation, a sort of Star Trek West Wing and a Samuel T. Cogley murder mystery 'The Case of the Colonist's Corpse' come to mind. But despite the excellence of the former, it wasn't a great seller and a sequel wasn't commissioned. Nor has TCOTCC got a sequel IIRC.

And bear in mind that Trek novels are appealing to an already small portion of the Trek fandom and smaller still when set against audiences in general. I think a Trek medical show would fare equally poorly on tv.