If you are, then me too. I agree with you!
Think We'll Ever See A Trek Series Longer Than 7 seasons?
- Thread starter Knight Templar
- Start date
If you are, then me too. I agree with you!
To me, DS9 and VOY were both direct spinoffs of TNG, whereas TNG was a sequel to TOS. ENT seemed like a prequel to everything.
^ I agree. TNG, DS9, and VOY are different series but their connectivity makes them one meta-series.
P.S.: I'm coining that term. I googled it, and I didn't see "meta-series" previously used in reference to TV or film.
P.S.: I'm coining that term. I googled it, and I didn't see "meta-series" previously used in reference to TV or film.
Let us see. There is the greater Star Trek universe. People in space, the starships, the future, the technology, the moral backdrop, the interaction with aliens.
There the Federation in general, in fact we might be able to see and discover more about the Federation through a show centered upon civilians, than we ever could with one center upon Starfleet.
I agree.
There could be more of a cultural clash among civilians, without the common Starfleet culture being trained into them.
Between the civilians operating the ship, and a civilian scientist who headstrong ways cause conflict.
My uncle works at the Boeing commercial aircraft company. After September 11, 2001 attack company security traded their pistols for sub-machine guns. And there were barricades and heavy machine guns at all the vehicle entrances.
Among our group of intrepid scientists, I'm sure we can have a nice number of Indiana Jones' in the mix. Along side the Albert Einsteins.
In the previous centuries, explorers carried weapons to defend themselves, and their ships mounted cannons.
How is that the slightest way different than Starfleet academy students with phaser training? They're basically the same young people, from the same original population groups.
A couple of students like Fiona Glenanne (from Burn Notice) could be fun.
I do like "LOST" and "Alias" as TV show models to work with.
With "Alias":
Having a main cast to work with is great and you can have lots of rich character building, adventure, excitement, drama.
With "LOST":
Having that large ensemble lets you focus on different situations, write complicated intricate plots, have a diverse set of interesting character interactions.
The problem with having all these great things is that it takes a set of good writers, people who respect internal logic of characters and the universe they are in.
As far as setup, having recurring cast and a large ensemble cast is what Star Trek is all about. They just don't have a consistant set of writers who understand how the Star Trek Universe works or somebody who can keep all the writers in line.
As far as what I like, I do enjoy a larger ensemble cast with a core recurring crew.
Firefly and Babylon 5 being great models to observe.
In Firefly, you always seem to have Mal and Zoe as two important core focuses, the rest of the cast seems to fluctuate as to their importance in each episode.
In Babylon 5, you generally have Sheridan, Ivanova as two important mains, the rest will fluctuate based on how important they are to an episode.
With Star Trek, the ensemble crew is a very important part. Each character getting their own focus is very important. The problem is that the writing staff can't balance who gets how much plot.
With ENT, Archer, Trip, and T'Pol get way too much screen time, the rest of the characters are 2nd tier in terms of development.
In VOY, Janeway, Seven, and the Doctor gets the most character development.
In DS9, it's alot more even with Quark getting the least development out of the principle cast. Even then Quark got more episodes focused on him than somebody like Travis who should be far more important to their respective show.
I think it's all a matter of figuring out the balance.
With "Alias":
Having a main cast to work with is great and you can have lots of rich character building, adventure, excitement, drama.
With "LOST":
Having that large ensemble lets you focus on different situations, write complicated intricate plots, have a diverse set of interesting character interactions.
The problem with having all these great things is that it takes a set of good writers, people who respect internal logic of characters and the universe they are in.
As far as setup, having recurring cast and a large ensemble cast is what Star Trek is all about. They just don't have a consistant set of writers who understand how the Star Trek Universe works or somebody who can keep all the writers in line.
As far as what I like, I do enjoy a larger ensemble cast with a core recurring crew.
Firefly and Babylon 5 being great models to observe.
In Firefly, you always seem to have Mal and Zoe as two important core focuses, the rest of the cast seems to fluctuate as to their importance in each episode.
In Babylon 5, you generally have Sheridan, Ivanova as two important mains, the rest will fluctuate based on how important they are to an episode.
With Star Trek, the ensemble crew is a very important part. Each character getting their own focus is very important. The problem is that the writing staff can't balance who gets how much plot.
With ENT, Archer, Trip, and T'Pol get way too much screen time, the rest of the characters are 2nd tier in terms of development.
In VOY, Janeway, Seven, and the Doctor gets the most character development.
In DS9, it's alot more even with Quark getting the least development out of the principle cast. Even then Quark got more episodes focused on him than somebody like Travis who should be far more important to their respective show.
I think it's all a matter of figuring out the balance.
As far as focusing on Starfleet for a future TV series, it would have to focus on a Starfleet crew to some degree. It would be like 007 series without Bond if you didn't have Starfleet in there, it wouldn't be Star Trek. As far as locale / backdrop, that has proven to be somewhat flexible.
Going by Star Trek History, we have Starships and Starbases as usuable backdrops.
Unless you want to turn Star Trek into some "Law & Order" style franchise with massive spin-offs that focus on different aspects of the "Star Trek" Universe, it's going to be hard to break tradition. Not that it can't be done, but you're going to have to start the initial revival on a Starfleet crew on a somewhat familiar backdrop such as the Starship / Starbase.
Then with different spin-off's you can do different things.
Going by Star Trek History, we have Starships and Starbases as usuable backdrops.
Unless you want to turn Star Trek into some "Law & Order" style franchise with massive spin-offs that focus on different aspects of the "Star Trek" Universe, it's going to be hard to break tradition. Not that it can't be done, but you're going to have to start the initial revival on a Starfleet crew on a somewhat familiar backdrop such as the Starship / Starbase.
Then with different spin-off's you can do different things.
Yes, but instead they would run by "not-Starfleet." Look at DS9, much of the cast was "not-Starfleet." DS9 wasn't a Starfleet space station, it was a Bajorian civilian facility. There were entire episodes where there wasn't a single Starfleet character in sight.
House of Quark (one of my favs) had Starfleet in the background only. They played no significant part.
There could always be a "Firefly-type" series that focuses on a civilian freighter that sometimes takes on jobs that aren't always on the up-and-up and may require them to fight their way out of situations that occasionally turn south on them. In that sense, Starfleet could be depicted as not the enemy, per se, but something the crew would like to avoid dealing with whenever possible.
Yes, but instead they would run by "not-Starfleet." Look at DS9, much of the cast was "not-Starfleet." DS9 wasn't a Starfleet space station, it was a Bajorian civilian facility. There were entire episodes where there wasn't a single Starfleet character in sight.
House of Quark (one of my favs) had Starfleet in the background only. They played no significant part.
That's true, but there was Starfleet there, they were managing the station. And a majority of the episodes has Starfleet in it. Having a few random episodes with no Starfleet focus is good for getting past the back to back episodes of Starfleet focus. And yes the Bajorans outnumber Starfleet on DS9. But that's just show backdrop. If you look at the senior staff, how many non-starfleet was there compared to actual starfleet.
Starfleet:
Ben Sisko
Dax
O'Brien
Bashir
Non-Starfleet:
Kira
Odo
Quark
Jake (He's a odd duck, he's the son of Ben and a civilian)
Main cast is principly Starfleet, and they generally focus around Starfleet issues.
At that point, using a civilian PMC or civilian equivalent of Starfleet would be preferable.
Running a freightor without weapons or very limited weapons wouldn't make as good of a base setup. Firefly worked well in that their usual solution was to run, hide, or evade attacks while airborne. While that is all well and good, if they were a PMC group with enough firepower, they could have interesting space battles.
Who said that all civilian freighters are unarmed? If they sometimes dealt with the black market, their ship could be equipped with disruptors, photon torpedoes, and even some stuff they'd don't want Starfleet to look too closely at. But even without a black market, it's also possible that civilian ships have to be licensed to carry armaments too, especially if they operate in regions far from the protection of Starfleet. In such a case, they'd probably just be equipped with standard phasers (in ENT, the civilian freighter Horizon was armed with plasma cannons).
Give it to the CW.
10 seasons straight away.
10 seasons straight away.
CW network.
They let Smallville run 10 seasons.
Supernatural is heading for 10 seasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_CW_Television_Network
CW network was formed from the merging of UPN + WB networks.
UPN being the network that VOY ran on. It makes sense.
Hopefully with Arrow doing well, genre specific shows will make a comeback.
Afterall, when Enterprise wasn't "Premised" yet, I believe there were 2 main camps for us Fanbois/girlz:
"Captain Sulu"
or
"Starfleet Academy".
(Then, of course it became a Prequel and we wanted S4 out of the gate ending with The Romulan War)
So, A "Starfleet Academy" Series would be right up CW's Alley. (And with Arrow's lack of Shame, we no longer need to fear No Flights, No Fights)
"Captain Sulu"
or
"Starfleet Academy".
(Then, of course it became a Prequel and we wanted S4 out of the gate ending with The Romulan War)
So, A "Starfleet Academy" Series would be right up CW's Alley. (And with Arrow's lack of Shame, we no longer need to fear No Flights, No Fights)
lol, being an Australian, I have no idea what that is...
The Teen/Twenty-something Angst Network
Vampire Diaries
Gossip Girl
Beverly Hills 90210 Revival
Smallville
???
The CW has no better or worse cancellation rate than any other network. They axe plenty of stuff. When something hits, they hang onto it for eons, precisely because what they'd replace it with would probably flop. But other networks do that, too, hence CSI and L&O running for 20 season or however long.
The CW has no better or worse cancellation rate than any other network. They axe plenty of stuff. When something hits, they hang onto it for eons, precisely because what they'd replace it with would probably flop. But other networks do that, too, hence CSI and L&O running for 20 season or however long.
That's not aimed at my post is it? I only listed the kinds of Teen or 20-something Angst shows they air, as a Foreign poster posted they weren't familiar with CW
Never said nothing about cancellations
TNG's ratings were good enough to let the show go on for a few more seasons. But they were making less money on the show the longer it went on with syndication paying less and all the actor salaries were going up.
Doing those mediocre TNG movies seemed like a bright idea at the time. But in hindsight TNG probably could have gone on a little longer, the later spinoffs never reach those kind of high ratings ever again. Paramount probably were scratching their heads at why the later shows didn't catch on as much.
The writers really streched themselves too thin with TNG S7, DS9 S2, VOY preproduction, and Generations. All those things suffered for it during that era.
Doing those mediocre TNG movies seemed like a bright idea at the time. But in hindsight TNG probably could have gone on a little longer, the later spinoffs never reach those kind of high ratings ever again. Paramount probably were scratching their heads at why the later shows didn't catch on as much.
The writers really streched themselves too thin with TNG S7, DS9 S2, VOY preproduction, and Generations. All those things suffered for it during that era.
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