Earth based Trek show

[anh165]

^I'm thinking of Breaking Bad. Lots of tension. Replace drugs & thugs with space & aliens. Always on the edge of catastrophe.

It's as if all advanced and intelligent species of Alien ever want to do in the Trek universe is to make the Federation/humans life difficult, not exactly a compelling or original concept.

Can't see how familes look forward to gathering together to watch contrived doom and agression in their back yard each week.

Oh wait, this is a TV show for 'real' trek fans, all 1381 of them.

 

[Konata Izumi]

^It would be more for the adult drama demographic yeah.

Paradise wouldn't be paradise if it was dull. It's a bit weird how there seems to be so much difficulty in portraying, the parts of happy lives that are not only interesting to the one experiencing them, but outsiders too as of course that happens all the time IRL. Animu does it, but it's limited to the utopistic 'high school' life genre only and it's almost always bundled with cute/sex appeal. One show had pretty ordinary-looking boys and it got a second season though. I remember the part where they were racing around hallways in some cardboard box or something lol. But why can't it work without always humor or something to oogle at?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Can't see how familes look forward to gathering together to watch contrived doom and agression in their back yard each week.

Families don't watch TV together anymore. TV is now made up of a bunch of different audiences who all expect different things. The CBS audience vs CW vs FX vs HBO, etc. The grownups have their TV in one room and the kids used to have a TV in their bedroom but now they probably use their iPhone etc.

So wherever the show ends up, it needs to suit the audience there. If it's on the CW, that's very different from Showtime and the approach would also be different.

Of all the options, CBS teaming with a streaming service would result in a series most like what we're used to, because then the idea would be to appeal to Trekkies, and/or new fans who iike Abrams' movies, enough to get them to subscribe to that service.

CBS is co-funding Under the Dome (a sci fi premise that would probably not get survival-level ratings on CBS if that were the only place its shown) by selling streaming rights to Amazon. They could do the same with Star Trek, and I'd imagine that could spark a nice little bidding war between Amazon and Netflix, given the power of that brand name.

 

[LtChange]

Well I think it could work. Just imagine Deep Space Nine but instead of a space station we have Earth. We could have a restaurant where there would be meetings between characters, a command center and so on. Also, it could have some permanent space ships attached to the main base, so we could have space based adventures too, as when Defiant or a runabout left the station to go explore ... so I really don't see the problem story wise, it might even bring some new element to the series beside the classical Star Trek themes.

 

[EmoBorg]

While DS9 did rip off Babylon 5 in terms of the space station concept, Why not Star Trek rip off the stargate franchise as well. We could have federation scientists inventing and building an inter galactic gateway that opens a wormhole to other worlds in other galaxies. Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians,Ferengi and Federations member species all use the portal to explore and trade with alien races in other galaxies. The gateway could be located on earth or the moon.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I think many would disagree - Trek at it's heart, good Trek anyway is using "aliens" to hold a mirror up to real world issues. Trek at it's best is stuff like "Let that be your last Battlefield".

One of the worst Trek episodes ever, down there with "The Way To Eden."

"Many" would not agree with you - some hardcore trekkies, but not enough people to keep a tv show on the air.

 

[BillJ]

How good or bad a show like this would be depends entirely on the characters. When DS9 came out people had the same reactions, who wants to see Starfleet Officers stuck on a space station? But the excellent writing and well developed characters made it work.

And the badass starship and a war with lots of ships shooting lots of weapons at each other...

And it still isn't popular outside a narrow band of Trek fans.

 

[Shazam!]

Well I think it could work. Just imagine Deep Space Nine...

Make more DS9 then

 

[BillJ]

Well I think it could work. Just imagine Deep Space Nine but instead of a space station we have Earth. We could have a restaurant where there would be meetings between characters, a command center and so on. Also, it could have some permanent space ships attached to the main base, so we could have space based adventures too, as when Defiant or a runabout left the station to go explore ... so I really don't see the problem story wise, it might even bring some new element to the series beside the classical Star Trek themes.

Kinda defeats the purpose of putting it on Earth to begin with: to keep costs down.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

How good or bad a show like this would be depends entirely on the characters. When DS9 came out people had the same reactions, who wants to see Starfleet Officers stuck on a space station? But the excellent writing and well developed characters made it work.

And the badass starship and a war with lots of ships shooting lots of weapons at each other...

And it still isn't popular outside a narrow band of Trek fans.

Yep.

It's pointless to come up with idea for shows and movies that would never actually be made because of the fact that the studio is in business to turn a profit. The more something looks like DS9 or the other later Trek shows the less likely it is to be considered.

 

[Nerys Myk]

There is very little SciFi on TV these days.
TV stations seem reluctant to invest in CGI heavy shows that are expensive to produce.

In that climate, I think a more Earth based focus would work well and lower production costs.

What I'm thinking of is a sort of a Federation "West Wing" but with 2 focuses - the Office of the President and Starfleet Command.

We might occasionally see some space based stuff - some incident or battle that kicks off a new storyline or shows the result of another.

The President Office stuff would mostly focus on diplomacy and the Starfleet command thread on operational matters.

Stories would sometimes cross over and intersect, but not always.

Characters though would interact - head of Starfleet briefing the President etc

There would be alien Ambassadors, political campaigns, interaction with media, maybe even a bit of family life of some of the character touched on.

Events on the frontier would often drive the story though we might not see those events.

Not sure about timeframe - maybe between Undiscovered Country and TNG as that seems like an intriguing time line. Relations with the Klingons still being fragile - the Federation still helping to restore Qo'noS (maybe at the expense of existing Federation members), why the Romulans cut off contact with other species (prior to TNG:Neutral Zone), terrorist groups etc etc

I think a series similar to that could
a)be pretty good
b)shed some light on parts of the Star Trek universe we've only ever glimpsed
c) have a realistic chance of being commissioned in today's TV climate

Thoughts?
​

What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?

 

[theARE]

What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?

It's a big universe - they didnt do much Star Trek-ing in DS9 either and that was by far the superior series

 

[BillJ]

What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?

It's a big universe - they didnt do much Star Trek-ing in DS9 either and that was by far the superior series

Ah, gotta love the righteous indignation many DS9 fans bring to the conversation when others don't find their show the "far superior series".

And they did quite a bit of exploration, which was why they set them right next to a doorway to a vast unexplored section of the galaxy.

 

[anh165]

What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?

It's a big universe - they didnt do much Star Trek-ing in DS9 either and that was by far the superior series

Very insidious of you.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?

It's a big universe - they didnt do much Star Trek-ing in DS9 either and that was by far the superior series

Ah, gotta love the righteous indignation many DS9 fans bring to the conversation when others don't find their show the "far superior series".

And they did quite a bit of exploration, which was why they set them right next to a doorway to a vast unexplored section of the galaxy.

What he said.

 

[dansigal]

[/LEFT][/QUOTE]What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?[/QUOTE]

This is a silly argument. Star Trek has become more than a literal interpretation of its name, its a brand. Are you also prepared to argue that Star Trek IV and Star Trek First Contact weren't real Star Trek movies because they took place almost entirely on Earth?

 

[anh165]

What a silly question.

 

[BillJ]

This is a silly argument. Star Trek has become more than a literal interpretation of its name, its a brand. Are you also prepared to argue that Star Trek IV and Star Trek First Contact weren't real Star Trek movies because they took place almost entirely on Earth?

Having an episode take place on Earth here and there is far different than setting the show on Earth.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

What part of the phrase "Star Trek" do you not understand?

This is a silly argument.

It's anything but. It is inconvenient, however, for folks who want to attach the name to one narrowly-targeted fannish hobby horse or another.

 

[BillJ]

I simply want a show about big heroes encountering weird shit and for it to be fun.