Exploring a darker theme in a future star trek series

[Mars]

Here's an obvious one, how about a Star Trek Series set in the Mirror Universe, the protagonists would be rebels fighting the Terran Empire, yes it would be in the 23rd century. I have a few ideas regarding this. How about some of the Rebels being Khan's men who rebelled against him, they managed to escape in the SS Botany Bay during the Eugenics War, that Eugenics war being fought between the victors of World War II the Americans and the Third Reich for domination of the Globe. Khan Noonan Singh throws his support in favor of the American Imperium. Defeating the Axis Powers and their race of Supermen. Some American Rebels along with some of Khans men escape on the Botany Bay. At a certain point the Botany Bay is rescued by the ISS Enterprise. This is the Mirror Universe Counterpart of the Star Trek XI movie where the Romulan Nero kills Kirk's Father and destroys Vulcan, the Mirror Universe has a different version of this story. The Rebels of the SS Botany Bay take over the ISS Enterprise and Spock joins them, and they begin plotting their revolution to overthrow the Terran Empire.

How does that sound?

 

[Cmdr Ji Qi Ren]

Haven't read all of this, so maybe this has been said before:
How about a far distant future in which the Federation has been destroyed by some war and the heroics of well-known Starfleet officers are only remembered as legends. There are different factions, all trying to rebuild the Federation in their own way and using different variations of the legends as a justification?

 

[Mars]

300 years is far distant to me, it is longer than I shall live. If you want thousands of years, there is always star wars, that is tens of thousands of years old.

 

[BillJ]

Haven't read all of this, so maybe this has been said before:
How about a far distant future in which the Federation has been destroyed by some war and the heroics of well-known Starfleet officers are only remembered as legends. There are different factions, all trying to rebuild the Federation in their own way and using different variations of the legends as a justification?

You should probably go watch Andromeda.

 

[The Castellan]

Haven't read all of this, so maybe this has been said before:
How about a far distant future in which the Federation has been destroyed by some war and the heroics of well-known Starfleet officers are only remembered as legends. There are different factions, all trying to rebuild the Federation in their own way and using different variations of the legends as a justification?

You should probably go watch Andromeda.

Or read tons of Star Wars comics and novels.

 

[Cmdr Ji Qi Ren]

You should probably go watch Andromeda.

Thanks, I'll try that when I'm done re-watching Star Trek

Or read tons of Star Wars comics and novels.

I don't get Star Wars I've watched all of the movies several times and have no idea what is going on in them. I know it's not exactly complex, but somehow ...

 

[Cmdr Ji Qi Ren]

Me too.

When the fans say they want the next series to have "repercussions", what they are really saying is wallowing in emotions. Doing that is not healthy and not good, and I will never see the attraction to it. I'm sure the Star Trek characters dealt with their emotions,such as Picard with his assimliation, we just never saw it. You're not supposed to do that in public anyway. That's for you alone in private.

Grieve, then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move onto the next thing. That's what we saw in Star Trek, and that's how it should be in real life.

I kind of agree with those who are saying that Star Trek is unrealistic in this respect.
But on the other hand... look at some crime series where the investigators crack jokes while standing next to a dead body and it seems to affect them even less than anything affects the characters on Star Trek....... I don't know..... if you're standing right next to the corpse of a person who has been killed at close quarters rather than be blown up by a neat little phaser beam or photon torpedo from hundreds of miles away.... shouldn't that affect you more?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I really can't see the MU working as an ongoing series. Its a one joke thing, and it would wear out its welcome very fast...

...unless they really go for the emotional/political realism angle. Instead of just treating the MU as a sleazy joke, which it devolved into, particularly on DS9, treat it with the seriousness and complexity of Game of Thrones. Hmm, that could work. There's a fantasy angle to the MU that fits in with modern cable show appetites for stuff like True Blood. It's an easy way to justify getting Trek out of the safe-vanilla tone that is going to simply bore the stuffing out of modern cable audiences. They've all gotten used to much redder meat.

But realistically, I'm still going with this as the likeliest option: CBS-Netflix co-production, distribute in America on Netflix, ditto for territories where Netflix has a presence, CBS handles distribution otherwise globally. Don't worry if you don't have Netflix where you are.

Tone is not far off from traditional Trek, maybe a bit more adult and significantly more serialized. More blood, more violent action, a bit racier, but nowhere near Showtime style graphic sex. You should be able to watch the show with your hip grandma. Intelligence/complexity level will hit somewhere between The Walking Dead and Falling Skies. Game of Thrones is wishful thinkng.

Setting: 23rd C, Abrams U to the extent we can tell. The way we'd be able to tell is when they bring in movie actors for guest shots. I could see Quinto, Nimoy and Cho agreeing to cameos or short plotlines.

Premise: Starfleet crew, going boldly, nothing fancy there. Not the Enterprise crew but reminiscent of them. No civil war, no corrupt Federation. Plenty of life left in the Starfleeters on patrol concept, particularly if its serialized, something we've really never seen.

 

[Mars]

I really can't see the MU working as an ongoing series. Its a one joke thing, and it would wear out its welcome very fast...

...unless they really go for the emotional/political realism angle. Instead of just treating the MU as a sleazy joke, which it devolved into, particularly on DS9, treat it with the seriousness and complexity of Game of Thrones. Hmm, that could work. There's a fantasy angle to the MU that fits in with modern cable show appetites for stuff like True Blood. It's an easy way to justify getting Trek out of the safe-vanilla tone that is going to simply bore the stuffing out of modern cable audiences. They've all gotten used to much redder meat.

But realistically, I'm still going with this as the likeliest option: CBS-Netflix co-production, distribute in America on Netflix, ditto for territories where Netflix has a presence, CBS handles distribution otherwise globally. Don't worry if you don't have Netflix where you are.

Tone is not far off from traditional Trek, maybe a bit more adult and significantly more serialized. More blood, more violent action, a bit racier, but nowhere near Showtime style graphic sex. You should be able to watch the show with your hip grandma. Intelligence/complexity level will hit somewhere between The Walking Dead and Falling Skies. Game of Thrones is wishful thinkng.

Setting: 23rd C, Abrams U to the extent we can tell. The way we'd be able to tell is when they bring in movie actors for guest shots. I could see Quinto, Nimoy and Cho agreeing to cameos or short plotlines.

Premise: Starfleet crew, going boldly, nothing fancy there. Not the Enterprise crew but reminiscent of them. No civil war, no corrupt Federation. Plenty of life left in the Starfleeters on patrol concept, particularly if its serialized, something we've really never seen.

I prefer science fiction shows that stimulate your mind, not your libido. I don't think it necessary to show blood and gore all the time either, I don't want Star Trek to be an adult show, I want it to stimulate children's imaginations as well. The minute Star Trek strays into R-rated territory, that means were giving up on the Next Generation, it is children who will build the spaceships of tomorrow and go to Mars, please don't send them upstairs.

 

[Mars]

I kind of agree with those who are saying that Star Trek is unrealistic in this respect.
But on the other hand... look at some crime series where the investigators crack jokes while standing next to a dead body and it seems to affect them even less than anything affects the characters on Star Trek....... I don't know..... if you're standing right next to the corpse of a person who has been killed at close quarters rather than be blown up by a neat little phaser beam or photon torpedo from hundreds of miles away.... shouldn't that affect you more?

There's a reason Battlestar Galactica chose bullets rather than blasters the previous show had, they wanted to show the blood and gore.

 

[Cmdr Ji Qi Ren]

[

There's a reason Battlestar Galactica chose bullets rather than blasters the previous show had, they wanted to show the blood and gore.

One more reason to watch BG then. I'll add it to my long "series I ought to watch" list.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

With the Mirror Universe being "evil" it wouldn't work for a full series, as it has no redeeming features. A darker series with more fully realised characters, who go through hell only to come out the other side better for the experience, would be better viewing. I'm not saying make it totally dark and bleak, but make it more "real".

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The next Star Trek series won't be pitched at adults and kids because shows are more narrowly targeted than that. If its animated and on the Cartoon Network, it will be pitched at kids. If Netflix, Showtime or most places like that, it will be for adults.

That doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed by other age groups in either case, but the approach will be very different depending on what outlet it is created for. Like I said, it needs to pass the hip-grandma test, no graphic sex. But it can't come off as namby pamby compared with other well regarded shows. Its peer group is cable, not broadcast.

The MU might be a viable setting if for instance it takes off on the post Mirror Mirror story, which implied Spock and Marlena Moreau were going to stage some kind of uprising or guerrilla campaign. Quinto could be Spock, natch, and Moreau could be recast with a Hispanic actress. That will give us our good guys to root for, and the possibility of movie actor cameos playing their eeeevil selves.

Hmm, I'm starting to like this idea after all...

 

[Mars]

The next Star Trek series won't be pitched at adults and kids because shows are more narrowly targeted than that. If its animated and on the Cartoon Network, it will be pitched at kids. If Netflix, Showtime or most places like that, it will be for adults.

That doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed by other age groups in either case, but the approach will be very different depending on what outlet it is created for. Like I said, it needs to pass the hip-grandma test, no graphic sex. But it can't come off as namby pamby compared with other well regarded shows. Its peer group is cable, not broadcast.

The MU might be a viable setting if for instance it takes off on the post Mirror Mirror story, which implied Spock and Marlena Moreau were going to stage some kind of uprising or guerrilla campaign. Quinto could be Spock, natch, and Moreau could be recast with a Hispanic actress. That will give us our good guys to root for, and the possibility of movie actor cameos playing their eeeevil selves.

Hmm, I'm starting to like this idea after all...

My problem is that would make it a straight prequel set in the Pre JJ Abrams timeline, where we know the outcome is the Terran Empire getting conquered by the Klingons and Cardassians. Not something to look forward to at the end of a series. We know for a fact that in the original Mirror Universe timeline, Spock becomes Emperor, makes democratic reforms and then the Republic he creates gets conquered by the Klingons and Cardassians, and Spock is killed in the process. That means there is no Spock around to try to save Romulus, the Star explodes anyway, but no black hole is created, thus no means for Nero to travel back in time, so thus Mirror Universe Nero doesn't show up in the Mirror Universe's 23rd century to change the mirror Universe's timeline. Vulcan is not destroyed in the Mirror Universe, but if the JJ Abrams timeline is followed in the other timeline then things have changes sufficiently such that the ISS Enterprise might not necessarily be visited by the new Captain Kirk of the New Enterprise. Perhaps Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, and Uhura are simply beamed into space in the JJ Abrams Universe because his Enterprise is elsewhere at the time. As Far as bearded Spock is concerned those crewmembers have just vanished in an unexplained transporter accident due to the ion storm. Since the Captain is gone, Spock takes command of the ISS Enterprise, but he is unaware of the Tantalus device which remains in Kirks quarters.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

We don't know the outcome of anything in the Abrams timeline because it's a new reality we've never explored before. That was the point of creating the new timeline, so that nothing is a foregone conclusion.

A live action series is almost certainly going to be set in the Abrams timeline if for no other reason than to take advantage of actors like Quinto and Cho who would be likely to do TV cameos and give the show a PR boost. Even if that's the only way in which the universe is IDed, it will be enough.

CBS is not going to ignore the advantage if doing movie actor cameos. A new series will have a hard enough time as it is being a success, given the niche audience/big budget problem that all space opera series face. They'll need to try every trick in the book to make it succeed.

 

[T'Girl]

if for no other reason than to take advantage of actors like Quinto and Cho

The producers could still place the show in the original universe, in the TOS era (or a few decades after) and still have Quinto and Cho make appearances.

Because if they wanted to have appearances by the characters of Spock or Sulu, they would have to get actors other than Nimoy or Takei.

Why would the setting have to be the alternate universe to get those two actors? Just hire them.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If Quinto and Cho show up, the audience will assume it's in the Abrams universe. Ditto for the production design which if course would be more akin to Abrams than the original, for the same reason as the movies - the old style would look hokey and weird to modern audiences unless updated.

The writers will probably not tip us off via anything but circumstantial evidence like that. Even the presence or absence of Vulcan wouldn't tell us anything, since the new colony may look like the original, and be given the same name. The writers would have to go out of their way to make clear which universe the show is in, and odds are they won't bother since I doubt most of the audience understands or cares that we've jumped realities.

So, getting back to the original point, there's no reason to worry that the future is somehow preordained. Just like with the movies, the TV writers aren't going to allow themselves to be limited by that, not if the majority if the audience doesn't care (how many of the potential audience even remembers details from TOS? how many have seen TOS? I wouldn't place any bets on either.)

The only people who will notice that "hey that's not how its supposed to go!" because for instance, a human character reveals that they know Vulcans and Romulans are related, are a minority of the potential audience and we have an easy out for such concerns - its in the Abrams U, problem solved.

And lastly, odds are very good that a new series would involve Abrams and/or Kurtzman and Orci, since they have the credibility of reviving Star Trek as a money making brand. That will count a lot to CBS even if CBS wasn't involved in the movies. Why would they suddenly jump universes when they have one that's putting butts in seats?