How desperate are you for a new Trek TV series?

How about the future? As far in the future relative to DS9 as DS9 is to TOS?

 

With story arcs!

 

I'm afraid that the days of STAR TREK's dowdy, cerbral image are well and truly over. Time to sex up the television franchise with popcorn sensibilities. If they make it entertaining, exciting and passionate enough, they may even end up calling it STAR TREK: Gets - as in "gets" the ratings! It paints a pretty picture ...

 

Scandal, The Blacklist, NCIS, Homeland, some of the most popular scripted show on TV today. Which of them fit the profile of sexy popcorn? In the top ten, top twenty, which fits?

 

Yeah, the best TV these days is arguably better than it's ever been.

 

Desperate? No. Interested? Maybe?

I wouldn't mind a series that took roads not taken and/or little known periods.

Maybe...
- A Pike era Enterprise series post "The Cage"
- or post TMP series
- or pre TNG era Stargazer series
- or a 25th or 26th century era series

Of course it's so dependent on execution. ENT could have really been something, but it was largely VOY redressed with same-old-same-old. I'd like to get back to space being distant, remote, dangerous and alien.

It could be live-action or it could be animated. But I most hope it would engage me.

 

If there was a new Trek series I'd want it to be a little while after DS9 ended but deal with completely new subject matter.

I'd love it if it were on a premium network with a ten episode season. No filler, just the writers' best script ideas, combining the dedication to theme of a British series with the budget of an American series.

 

I could accept a 10-13 episode season without filler episodes.

I definitely don't want to see any nuTrek.

 

Interquel (a word the Dune fans came up with when Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert started stuffing their own nuDune novels inbetween the originals written by Frank Herbert).

It's a shame there couldn't be some kind of combination of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol and Star Trek's DTI. I suppose some fans would complain about revisiting/not revisiting the past (along with the actors/locations that go with it), but time travel in combination with space travel can be done in many different ways. If this was purely a discussion of a new SF TV series, I'd be delighted if they'd do one based on Anderson's Time Patrol stories.

Given the current state of the world economy and climate, F.M. Busby's Hulzein Saga would be excellent (facist world government, heroic underground rebels, space travel, colony planets, strong and interesting characters, a science fiction universe that actually takes relativity into account when you don't have FTL ships, aliens that don't look remotely human, etc.)... it's great space opera.

I read Space Cadet back in the '70s. It was a good story but it's really dated now, given current politics and what we now know about the other planets in the Solar System. I'm not sure how to adapt it to a Star Trek kind of story without it being a basic Starfleet Academy kind of series.

Only if Marcus finally gets to be with Ivanova! (damn, I cried when he sacrificed himself for her...)

Speak for yourself. There's a hell of a lot of stories yet to be told in the Voyager universe. The problem is that TPTB just didn't do it right.

There's over a decade worth of stories to be told in the period between "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Problem is, the only actors I'd be interested in seeing play in such a series have died.

 

The thing I like about a Pike era series telling stories between "The Cage" and prior to Kirk taking command is that it's such a blank canvas.

"The Cage" is very much bare bones and nails down very little. The only familiar character is Spock and he's not the same as TOS Spock. So there is ten years of evolution there.

Everyone else is largely a blank slate. And since crewman come-and-go and get reassigned I'd say there are really few characters already introduced that need to be kept (at least in the beginning): Pike, Spock, Number One, Boyce.

One can see how what we saw in "The Cage" could be tweaked by looking at Marvel Comics' title from several years ago, Star Trek: Early Voyages. It introduced new characters and tweaked the familiar ones, namely Boyce. I'm not saying copy Marvel, but it suggests a valid approach.

If it were a Stargazer series then I expect to see only a younger Picard and Jack Crusher. I wouldn't want to see even cameos of any of the others just as I wouldn't want to see even cameos of any of the TOS era characters (other than Spock) in a Pike era series.

One thing I would very much like to see is what TNG did (to a significant extent) and what ENT failed to do: as much as possible stay away from the familiar. And I would suggest that for any new Trek project. Have some familiar elements and a few references, yes, but largely let's see new stuff.

If it were Pike or Stargazer era then I would say no Romulans, because we acknowledge continuity that the Romulans were nowhere to be seen in those periods. Some Klingons, okay, but dial it back from how often TNG did them.

But mostly let's see new things and acknowledge continuity in only the broadest strokes. I know a lot of fans really like call outs and revisits to characters and things previously introduced, but for me I say mostly "No, no, no." Minimal continuity porn---that's what fanfic is for.

 

I feel the same except for the Pike era because it would / should have an inevitable "retro" look, probably not that palatable to newer audiences.

For the "interquel" (thanks!) between TOS and TNG the Romulans could be the mysterious force in the background (Narendra III). The problem I'd see here would be that you'd be in need for a new antagonist race.

My personal choice would be the Ferengi. Feature these in the original TNG premise / concept as warlike and dangerous before they realize that waging war is not necessarily a profitable affair (would create an interesting context for contemporary issues, IMHO).

Bob

 

Those Dune novels (and Enterprise) are good examples of why interquels are a bad idea. The stories are constrained by canon. They bump into canon all the time, and they mutilate it in the process.
The stories told are often boring, because their only purpose is to show how "this and that" in the original work came to be. Sort of like a dramatized history book.

I agree with Warped9. A new series should stay away from the familiar. Voyager-done-right, with the continuity of DS9.

But it's been FIVE years since BSG and I'd watch any space opera at this point to be honest.

 

Agreed!

A Pike era Enterprise series post "The Cage" in old-fashioned TOS style? It would be boring for young audience.

Post TMP series: the second 5-year mission with unfamiliar crew? "Post TMP" is highly connected with TOS-crew, so, the return to the old stuff would be odd decision.

Pre TNG era Stargazer series: would have the same problems as Enterprise had.

Or a 25th or 26th century era series: Yes, please!

No doubt. All we need is high-quality Star Trek continuation.

 

It all depends on execution. If it were live-action you have to tweak the production standards just a bit, but nowhere near as far as what ENT did. If it's animation then it could totally work because the clean design aesthetic would easily lend itself to that medium.

And if the storytelling is solid then people will watch it.

 

Only if it is well enough written to be spoken about alongside at least the best of the old series, and ideally bears comparison to BSG, Game Of Thrones or Breaking Bad.

 

To some extent Star Trek has become its own animal. It has a built in audience if only out of curiosity, at least in the beginning. The key is holding onto a number of those tuning in out of curiosity as well as drawing new viewers. Every new incarnation of Trek drew some previous fans as well as drew new audiences. But after a time the viewership was steadily drifting away.

You don't need to be like nuBSG or GoT other than to have strong writing. And I wouldn't want Trek to be like those others anyway.

It would help to have a totally new creative team from what existed before. A team that understands the essential strengths of what worked before yet can adapt that into a new production. Again this is what I had initially hoped for ENT yet it failed to be realized.

 

Agreed. What's the point of doing "Star Trek" if it's going to be a dystopian nightmare? Kind of insulting to those who created Star Trek.

 

Just to clarify, I only meant in terms of strong writing, or strong dramatic standards.

Watching TNG now, even good TNG, I'm surprised by how far standards of storytelling have come in the last decade or two.

TV these days is better written with higher production standards than it used to be. If Trek can come back, (I emphasise while still being Trek not a distopian horror) and match the high standards of premium TV today, I think it would likely be better than ever before.

 

There is so much cynicism around today that almost any measure of optimism would be welcome. That said I don't want to see any insufferable TNG like Utopian pomposity. Tone it down like they did later and like it was done in TOS.

 

Right, and the reason they didn't do it right is that they approached it as a TNG rehash, falling back on old established tropes instead of creating their own that were unique to the premise.