A new Star Trek series should... [forum game]

[RocksW]

"I had a good idea for a forum game" he lied. Its not quite a game, you just fill in your ideas for a new Trek series into the template. If I've done this right it should give a quick summary of what you would like to see in a new series. Here's mine:

A new Star Trek series should:
Be heavily focused on the exploration of space, not about defending the Federation from threats. It should have likable, non generic characters and should make a conscious effort to move the franchise forward (By making a leap forward in time IMO.) It should be optimistic in tone (No "economic crisis in space" shoehorned in...)

I would like to see:
A bright, comfy style for the ship reminiscent of the Enterprise D. I would like a gay main character, preferably the first officer but maybe the captain. A diplomatic relationship with the Borg Collective to show how far we've come since the 'Best of Both Worlds'. (Guinan in "Q Who?" mentioned it could happen some day). I would also like to see faster ships, to get us out of the neighborhood more often, and cloaking Borg, just because


Now you have a go.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

A new Star Trek series should:
Not pander to the fans, nor be milquetoast and inoffensive. It should drop the perfect sterile Roddenberryian humans. Hey, I know people like the "we can evolve" angle, but I'd rather show how that can happen. I'd rather see flawed people striving because it feels more human to me. And better yet, likely more inspiring. I'm not opposed to seeing stories that mirror contemporary issues, as long as its not at Yang/Kohm levels of heavy-handedness.

The crew ought to have personalities that complement and clash with one another. In fact, I'd be glad to see interpersonal friction make a return to Star Trek. The original show wouldn't be what it were if Kirk, Spock, and Bones got along 100 percent perfect.

I would like to see:
A return to the strange, the bizarre. More episodes should feel uneasy, intense (but not in the shakey-cam 'everyone is mad at each other' sort of way). Particularly those episodes where the crew are dealing with something totally out of their league. There should be a palpable feeling of what it's like to wander into the unknown. These people should be capable of making mistakes... and not using their magic Evolved Humanity powers to immediatley recover from it.

I'd rather a new show built its own mythology, only making slight references to what we know of the Trek-iverse. I'd like more science fiction authors brought on board to diversify the stories the new series has to offer. I'd rather not see a stodgy 'Trek is an unchangable formula" approach. A true clean slate, in a manner of speaking.

 

[Dukhat]

Good topic!

A new Star Trek series should:

Completely, completely ride on the coattails of the JJ Abrams movies if it's going to survive being watched by anyone else other than hard-core Trekkies. It should be about Kirk and Spock et. al on the original Enterprise. Reboot, alternate universe, doesn't matter. The newest film has proven that this is what tons of people will pay to see, much less watch for free on TV. The average viewer doesn't know about or care about Picard, Sisko, or Janeway in the 24th century, and they certainly won't care about some new crew. They know and care about Spock.

The attitude should be "Awesome! A new Star Trek series!," not "Oh God, not another Star Trek series."

I would like to see:

The fun we saw with the original series, but also sometimes contrasted with darker undertones. Story arcs, not stand-alone eps. Focus on the characters, not on the planets and aliens of the week that nobody cares about. Have some interpersonal relationships and rivalries (but not the silly Trip/T'Pol crap). A new adversary that's a little more intricate than Klingons or Romulans. And for Christ's sake, no more technobabble.

 

[C.E. Evans]

A new Star Trek series should:
Be fun, exciting, occasionally scary, and not be afraid to be humorous every once in a while. It should also still maintain Roddenberry's "vision," but in the basic sense that it's a future we'd want to live in and is one where race, sex, religion, and creed isn't an issue. It shouldn't look dark and murky, but it shouldn't be overly bright and colorful either. The characters should have memorable personalities and not defined solely by their occupations. Additionally, characters should come and go if the story demands it--including the captain. The stories themselves should be mostly single-episode standalones, with a few multi-episode arcs thrown in here and there. There should also be more bug-eyed, man-eating monsters and some stories that make us go "I didn't know they were going to do that!"

I would like to see:
The 25th-Century and an Enterprise-H. Miniskirts as an optional uniform for female Starfleet personnel. Green, orange, and purple as uniform colors. More aliens working in the background aboard the Enterprise (we don't need to get a good look at them--just different-colored face paint and wigs will do). More interpersonal dynamics between the main characters. Very few stories dealing with the past and more stories dealing with what makes this new era unique from those that came before. A KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach to the technology--no lengthy explanations about how things work, either it does or it doesn't. Very little use of the Klingons and the Borg and more usage of a new villain that ain't no joke to our heroes.

And for the love of all that is holy, no time travel stories!

 

[bullethead]

A new Star Trek series should:
Keep the sense of adventure that makes Trek fun. The characters should be multifaceted and balanced- for every flaw, there is a strength. No hammering the audience with "humanity has evolved" smugness of TNG and VOY. It should also tone down the tech talk and dial up the competence from the protagonists and antagonists. Each episode should be a self contained story, but the character and plot developments of each episode add up over the course of the season.

I would like to see:
An hour long animated show combining 2D animation (for the characters and locations) and CGI (for the ships) set on a ship exploring the frontier. The ship has a MACO like team aboard to handle the situations Security can't and any commando missions the ship might have to do. Uniforms that look like the Jupiter Station uniforms from ST:O, while the MACOs get the Halo ODST style armor from ST:O. The Tholians and Orions would be good recurring antagonists to keep the main antagonists from being over used. A few Klingon and Romulan appearances, but not to the degree they showed up in TNG or DS9. More aliens, humanoid and non-humanoid. Well done romances between characters.

Things to avoid: time travel, Risa episodes, bad comedy, and bad science.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

A new Star Trek series should:

...make CBS execs salivate like Pavlov's dogs to think of the amazing ratings it will get, and how much it will boost their careers.

Which is the one and only "correct" answer to the question.

Beyond that, it's impossible to make a sensible guess at what the show style, premise or content should be, until we know where it will air. CBS? CW? Showtime? Maybe sold off to TNT, FX or the Cartoon Network?

Each of those would require a very different approach, assuming there's any approach that could work. CBS for example - I think that one's a flat-out impossibility. CW would be the next least likely but the others are plausible.

Terra Nova's shaky ratings is making it less likely (as though it were ever likely) that any space opera would appear on broadcast. The one way space opera might have worked is if the eye candy aspect can lock in a big audience and justify a big budget. Looks like that experiment is failing and I don't see an alternate approach that is viable.

 

[bullethead]

A new Star Trek series should:

...make CBS execs salivate like Pavlov's dogs to think of the amazing ratings it will get, and how much it will boost their careers.

Which is the one and only "correct" answer to the question.

Aww, you're no fun

 

[xortex]

Creative objective POV directing. Is that too much to ask. We've had 20 years of the Berman's static, subtle, subdued, safe, surefooted direction. Did somebody say exciting. Oh and Patrick Stewart who was all those things and more, and hideaosly clever kids writing cartoony Klingons.


What I'd like to see: A proper Prequil to Enterprise (like anybody is gonna remember ENT). Our first foray out of the galaxy and thrust into the middle of chaos.

 

[LtChange]

A new Star Trek series should:
Be set after the destruction of Romulus in the prime universe, should be shipped based. Should be serialized with a main plot, but episodes should be stand alone/2-3 episode arcs, something like Enterprise season 4

I would like to see:
Cameos from TNG/DS9/VOY, main plot shouldn't be about war, more like some huge conspiracy, coming threat, would love to see a modern more hard visual direction like BSG, but don't do crazy visuals just to get audience, do real character drama like Lost did, and feel free for flashbacks or non main story/main character episodes, give us a deep understanding of characters past (proper flashbacks, not just words) and all the characters of the ship (Lower Decks episodes, several per season) .

I would be crazy for a modern Star Trek series, if you just think how much film making technology moved forward already since Enterprise, we could get some really crazy style on this new show, think about what Universe, Sanctuary or BSG achieved with lower budgets than an average Enterprise episode ...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

A new Star Trek series should:

Have cool spaceships, and stuff.

I would like to see:

Zoe Saldana's tits.

 

[xortex]

A new Star Trek series should:

Have cool spaceships, and stuff.

I would like to see:

Zoe Saldana's tits.

That plus what I said.

JJ is about as visionary as a mouse in a snake cage.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I would think a mouse in a snake cage would need to be pretty damn visionary, by mouse standards.

Why am I replying to you?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

A new Star Trek series should:

...make CBS execs salivate like Pavlov's dogs to think of the amazing ratings it will get, and how much it will boost their careers.

Which is the one and only "correct" answer to the question.

Aww, you're no fun

Okay fine!

A new Star Trek series should:

...reboot DS9's ending so that the Dominion wins the war and then the series is Star Trek: Resistance that delves into the near-futile efforts of the fractured remnants of Starfleet to survive and turn the tide of battle to eventual victory!!!

It will never happen but it's "fun!"

 

[Kegg]

A new Star Trek series should:
Well, as leery as I was of much of JMS's Star Trek pitch, I at least like the idea of a Star Trek series that brings on science fiction writers to pen an episode or two. That was an approach that largely worked on the original show (with classics like "Amok Time" and "The Doomsday Machine" being penned by Theodore Sturgeon and Norman Spinrad, to say nothing of a certain much contested Ellison script), and it's something I'd like to see a new Trek series do as well.

That's all I got, I guess. It's not something that's absolutely necessary, of course, I loved the Next Generaiton and Deep Space Nine and they got by fine with their cadre of staff writers. But it'd be an approach worth revisiting.

I would like to see:
Top level production values. Producing a really exotic space opera is a bit costly. When looking at shows other than Star Trek, we've seen programs that eschew aliens and planet settings (Battlestar Galactica), benefited from being a puppet demo reel as a cost saver (Farscape), go to Canadian forests a little too much (Stargate) or... don't look terribly great (Andromeda, Babylon 5). Just from a visual standpoint Star Trek was often a leader for sci-fi shows. I want vividly weird aliens, impossible alien landscapes, the works.

 

[xortex]

Not for nothing Temis, but that's a great idea for a story or even series arc, but not with the Federation or it seems to much like Andromeda with Captain Hunt bringing the Alliance back from the brink or whatever, but if it were the Vulcans say that were subjugated and the Federation or one ship had to turn the tides of war only to find the situation reversed once it did and revenge or even genocide ensued sort of like DS9 maquis war but where once opposing sides, the Cardassians, Bajorans have to fight side by side or better yet in an alternate reality where the Dominion wins, like if Hitler had won the war sort of scenario.

 

[ColeMercury]

A new Star Trek series should:
Reintroduce the basic concept of Star Trek on television to television. That means it can't be another variation-on-the-theme like the last three series have been: it has to get back to the core concept of Star Trek, i.e. exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilisations, boldly going where no man/one/human has gone before. That means it's about one ship out on the unexplored frontier. There are none of the trappings of Star Trek which are so familiar from the existing series, like starbases or Federation colonies or familiar aliens like Klingons or Cardassians or Bajorans. It's a new part of the galaxy and they're exploring it, and they'll encounter their own new recurring allies and villains. The show should also capitalise on JJ Abrams' movies by being set after them, as a continuation in the same timeline; if possible, it should carry over characters from the movies as well. The show's structure should also strike a balance between episodes being standalone and being serialised -- think Stargate SG-1 in that respect.

I would like to see:
Star Trek: Excelsior, starring John Cho as Captain Sulu. Set approximately a decade after the final Abrams movie, to provide some decent breathing room (but released only a year later, to level up Cho's age with his character's age). Also included in the main cast would be the Abramsverse versions of characters we've seen in the prime timeline, including Janice Rand (communications officer), Saavik (science officer; is explicitly half-Romulan) and Torias Dax (helmsman; in this timeline he doesn't die early). And Pauley Perrette as an Andorian. And an animatronic main character, like Pilot from Farscape. Uniforms which are mostly a muted dark colour with brighter departmental stripes -- miniskirts are optional for the female crew and worn by about half of them (like how Uhura wore one in movies II-VI), but no one wears a frickin' catsuit. More extensive use of prosthetics and so on for alien species -- more weird skin tones, more weird facial features, etc., for every alien planet they visit.

 

[Brainsucker]

A new Star Trek series should:

I think the era is not important. You can go to any era, but if the presentation of Star Trek is still as before, it will be... "JUST" Star Trek.

The New Film, even that it use the old era still give us a new experience of an old franchise. It give Star Trek a new face. Something that different than the usual classical science fiction bubble. A new adventure, interesting characters, and the feel of... oh that stupid but cocky Kirk win the day again today.

(well, Kirk is not stupid, but his cocky and funny character give me different feeling than Shatner's Kirk and I love it)

I would like to see:

Any Star Trek is ok, as long as it is good

 

[Temis the Vorta]

it has to get back to the core concept of Star Trek, i.e. exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilisations, boldly going where no man/one/human has gone before.

That's in the voice-over but the funny thing is, the voice-over is lying to us. Just examine what the TOS stories are actually about, and most of the good ones are not about exploration at all. They're about Kirk & the gang going on missions for the benefit of the Federation that involving policing Federation outposts, fighting enemies, engaging in diplomatic and spy missions (very Cold War inspired), plus the sorts of stories any show would do, about the characters' personal lives or threats to the crew and ship.

We got a chance to see what exploration is like, minus the Federation to give it purpose, in the first two seasons of ENT, and it was a big, fat bore. Who wants to see the same old planets of the week populated by the same old funny forehead aliens? Not me, certainly not when I know that there are far more interesting stories they could be doing instead.

But get back to what TOS was actually about - with exploration just being one element among many and certainly not the most important - and you could have a great series that would work very well today.

 

[The Dominion]

it has to get back to the core concept of Star Trek, i.e. exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilisations, boldly going where no man/one/human has gone before.

Not necessarily, it needs to do something new for itself first and foremost.

We already had four shows that were directly based around that, and a lot of concepts got exhausted. That can always be the core, but I think of all the post TNG series, DS9 had the spinoff execution done the best, since it built off of things established in the core series, and added whole new depth to it. On the other hand, Voyager had a strong means of doing the same thing, but it abandoned its premise and copied TNG again. So did Enterprise.

 

[xortex]

Yea, it has to be about something specific. DS9 was a riff on 'The Price' of TNG. Zeroing in on TOS is hopeless. You might as well try to improve the Mona Lisa. Yea, it's always going to be generic space opera but it's got to have a purposeful premise. Vgr should have been a different dimension alt reality kinda thing. In fact I think it was. and ENT really wasted potental by not being different and taking risks. Well Berman's iron reign of subtlety is finally over and now we have the son of a suit spoiled brat little lord fontelroy and his sadistic keystone cops cohorts. That ship has sailed. It's over and out.