Star Trek: Risa Each week the episode begins with an inbound shuttle to a tropical island. A short alien with a large skull (1) yells out, "The shuttle, the shuttle!". Passengers disembark to be greeted by the short alien and a tall Risan in a white suit. Over the course of their stay, each will have their fantasies fulfilled, even if they aren't exactly what they expected them to be. (1) Unnamed species seen in the DS9 episode "Second Sight" (Sorry, but I couldn't resist.)
Man, I really don't get why so many people want to see a "crumbling, bloated, decadent" federation I mean, go watch literally any other scifi-series. A positive spirit is at the core of Star Trek, even JJ abrams got that right. I really don't think you would do Trek a favour by steering it away from it's humanistic, idealistic, utopian roots. Deep Space 9 is as dark as Trek will ever get. Any more, and it becomes any other random scifi-series with a dekadent/corrupt/evil gouvernement... Also: I really don't want the new series to focus on internal politics in the Federation. Go out there! Explore! Strange new worlds and stuff! I mean, I wish for some political stories here and there, where idealistic policy clashes with practical policy, and the conflict is more a spectrum of greys instead of black and white, with no clear solutions, and perhaps our heroes disagreeing on the correct course of action. But don't make Star Trek a bland young adult novel dystopia. Star Trek isn't "the Fall of Rome" (or even Isaac Asimov's Foundation series for that matter), Star Trek is the spirit of exploration, humanism, and social improvement. The sense that we can overcome the problems we currently have, by social and technological advancements. Not being stuck with them forever in the future. And personally, between all the Breaking Bad's and Game of Thrones I think the time is exactly right for a new show with a positive future and a humanistic view on humanity!
That optimistic/positive strand is an important reason why Trek is special. If you eliminate that, why bother with Trek? You might as well write something grim dark like NuBSG.
I'd love to see a stripped-down, back-to-the-basics Star Trek that gets back to the dynamic storytelling of TOS, but with a modern sensibility and aesthetic. I have no idea (certainly no more than anyone else) how things will turn out. Whatever the new series turns out to be, we need to have a reasonable expectation that it won't be exactly like what came before. Different people working in a different creative environment are not going to do the same thing as the writers/producers of the previous Trek series. It genuinely baffles me that so many people on these threads want the old creative people back, I think, because of fear. It is a fear that things will be different, when Trekkies don't realy want what's different. The prevailing (or at least, the most vocal) attitude of these boards is that we don't really want anything new, or rather, by "new" fandom means "more of the same by the same people." We don't really practice what we preach when it comes to celebrating what's new and different.
Interesting way to handle drama in a science fiction show. www.futuretimeline.net/forum/topic/14446-lo-fi-sci-fi-and-future-realism-my-new-favorite-subgenre/
Re: Galactic Empires as the new Middle Earth On the other hand there is the fantastic, and the epic. http://auxiliarymemory.com/2011/06/10/are-galactic-empires-the-new-middle-earth/ On the other hand, scroll down to the Wild West comments by M Harold Page.
A mix between TNG and DS9. It follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew in exploring the galaxy, but with a serialized format. It would be set quite a while after Voyager and would be a soft reboot. The TNG to TNG. Perfect for a new Trek series. I think it should be simple and fun like TOS and TNG, but for a modern audience, and if its successful and as well-loved as those two other series, it can have more unique spin-offs like the long-rumoured Starfleet Academy series or Klingon series or whatever.
New cast, new crew, new ship (No enterprise), set in the early 25th century, maybe borrowing story ideas from STO. It'd be exploration based, with a hint of war related stuff. Maybe have the Federation expanding into the Delta quadrant, and encounter a race that Voyager fortunately missed that are aggressive and overly defensive, but are not outright hostile. It leads to a few phaser fights between the hero ship and the new race, but no outright war. Whether or not war would breakout, like in DS9, towards the middle, I don't know. It's possible they have some kind of uneasy peace and work on joint missions that threaten both the new race and the Federation Alliance. This show would also revisit the dominion, the borg and several other races that we haven't seen since TNG or DS9. Maybe even feature the Xindi. EDIT Maybe even cameos from the existing TNG-era crews.
Further thoughts on X-Files meets Star Trek..... The head of the department is an aging officer, who's career is winding down. Perhaps a bit of an eccentric. He tries to add cheer to the basement office with potted plants. The actor in the office could also be a narrator for the show.
Description of Science Fantasy http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceFantasy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy To a certain extent the first season of Lost might be a model. Other than the bulldozed trees, the fantastic elements tended to be somewhat subtle.
I don't know if anyone else has had this idea, but I'd like to do "Enterprise" properly. I know, this can start a fuss amongst the ST:Enterprise fans out there, but here's my idea. The series would start just at the launch of the original TOS Enterprise commanded by Robert April with Sarah Poole (the future Mrs April) as CMO. I suppose there have been some novels featuring some of those characters, yes? We can add George Kirk, as I believe the novels included him as the XO. Also, In a perfect world, the series would be produced by a Gene Roddenberry type writer/producer with a message. Someone like Aaron Sorkin perhaps. I'd also like to seen some veteran Trek writers involved like Dorothy Fontana, David Gerrold, and later writers like Ron Moore, Ira Behr, Manny Coto, and Morgan Gendel who would also be an excellent show-runner.
I thought I wanted a Star Trek anthology series, like The Outer Limits but I think that was just an excuse to have an episode with Dr Bashir and Garak palling around the cosmos. So my new answer is 'The Adventures of Dr Bashir & Garak: Palling around the Cosmos"
Re: Describe YOUR new spin off series. This was my first concept for Star Trek meets the X-Files. A Star Fleet team travels back to the 1990s to thwart time traveling aliens-who wish to destroy the human race. Actually, I would have at least two different alien arcs. 1. The aliens from the future who are plotting to destroy our species. 2. A second group of aliens who are interested in conquering the Earth. There could be stand alone episodes in which the team investigates something like mothman. Or other mysteries.
Actually, I imagine the second group of aliens being from the present. And stumbled upon by the team looking for the future aliens.
So, the second group of aliens is from 2015, and they travel back to the 1990's to conquer the Earth? And the Starfleet team who traveled from the 23rd/24th century to the 1990's to stop the first group of aliens, instead encounters the second group of aliens from 2015. Just so I understand.
reply to Merry Christmas Actually, I was thinking that the Star Fleet team would encounter both alien groups, but at different times
I'd like to see something at least 150 years or more ADW (after the Dominion War) to avoid continuity issues with the current literature (yes, I care about that) and also to avoid any possible "stunt casting". I'd like to see something more dystopian, perhaps showing the Federation in decline, facing off against a Typhon Pact-like alliance that has pulled away many former Federation members. This makes the Federation more militaristic and also the Prime Directive has been pretty much thrown out as they attempt to seek new allies, thus causing issues of its own.