I am glad that Discovery isn't an anthology series as once rumored. I do like the idea of one but not for the initial return of Trek TV. But if Discovery is popular and they want another series in a few years, I think it would be a good idea. I hadn't thought about it much until today, but how about bringing back past characters for a season each of a serialized story? For example a season of Worf as captain with other characters from TNG/DS9/Voyager appearing at different times or at least making cameos (Admirals Picard and Janeway would be easy to work in for example). Possibly then another season around the same time with appearances from characters from that show but not focused on any one of them. I was thinking the same kind of thing with the NX-01 crew, having them adventuring around after the formation of the Federation. Seeing the Romulan Wars period between the penultimate and final episodes in a 13 episode arc would be cool but the cast has aged too much I guess. Could also just have an new ship and crew followed during that period (assuming Discovery isn't during that time but I doubt it). Just several seasons jumping around the timeline filling in some gaps.
Most welcomed the rumor that it would be an anthology. I still think it's a great idea as it allows the show to keep adapting and morphing rather than sinking or swimming as just one thing. I also think it's highly likely to function as an anthology by virtue of each season being a different story. They just don't want to label it as such for some reason.
Maybe 3 to 6 episode miniseries' as side stories might be interesting, but I don't think they should revisit old characters in a major way. I would rather see deeper explorations of other aspects of the universe that we don't see often or at all, other than just the interstellar rompings of a hero ship and crew.
Note that I wasn't talking about an anthology as the main Trek show on TV, but if it showed to be popular enough, I think it would be fun as a secondary series. You could go out and try all kind of different things for one season.
I guess I am in the minority but I like the idea of an anthology...spend one season n 2193 with the Discovery..then a year with the Discovery A in 2121 and Ensign X is now Captain...then jump to 2210 with the Discovery B etc
Yeah, I'm not feeling it either. It's an interesting format for contained storytelling (like True Detective, for instance), but I don't think it suits Star Trek which is anything but. Also, in my opinion, every Star Trek show so far has only started to be truly good once all the characters were firmly established. It has always been very character-driven, and it's easy to see why when you think about it. They introduce so many new environments, worlds and species that the ship and the crew become the only constants.
In spirit, TOS was very much an anthology type show. The format lent itself to telling just about any kind of a show week-to-week and the continuity from episode to episode was only tertiary at best. (Things like the Organian Peace treaty, or very minor references here and there.) But Trek was never The Twilight Zone or anything like that. I do have to also say that I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of having B and C series on the air. The last thing I want to see is too much Trek out there suffocating the airwaves and causing both the creators and the audiences to burn out. I'm damn glad Discovery only has a 13 episode run per-season, and I hope that does not change. Keep the valve high on creative pressure so that things don't become stale. I don't see an anthology series appealing to many people outside of some hardcore Trekkies. It feels like it would become a means of fan service, and already I can see the budgets for some of these dream stories getting out of hand.
No, thanks. I like the idea of an anthology series because it allows to tell longer stories that wouldn't work for an ongoing series, a besieged outpost during a war for example, a regular series can do an episode about it but it wouldn't work as the premise for the entire series if it's supposed to last for several seasons. But your ideas aren't very good. Captain Worf? An Enterprise season? Filling in gaps? You just want this to be a fan service vehicle.
Hopefully there'll be time for this too, as a fan I would prefer this over a "screw the fans" vehicle. If you don't want to do a Star Trek series that takes in to account established Star Trek, just do a unconnected science fiction series,
They should take previous Trek into account amd there's always room for a bit of fan service (the best example in my opinion are Sarek's and Spock's appearances on TNG). What you should not do is create a series around the idea of doing fan service amd filling in gaps in 50 years of canon isn't going to draw in much of an audience.
My actual ideas weren't meant to necessarily be good. I hadn't given thoughts to what the stories would be so threw out the easy ideas that were available to me immediately. I'm pretty much on the same page with you, I like the idea you threw out. Even with filling in the gaps I didn't mean it as a completist, show everything that ever happened in the S-T universe blah blah. I should have just said they could do stories from any time and that could be interesting because they could tell a lot of different stories due to not being limited to a particular time frame.
Agreed. It'd feel like a repeat of the same mistakes Paramount made in the '90s having TNG, DS9, VOY, the TNG films all on at the same time. Creative juices begin to dry out and it starts feeling stretched and tired. Put all focus on one series and spread everything out. Sometimes (99% of the time), "screw the fans" is the best approach, e. g. TNG, DS9, ST09.
One way around that might be to have entirely separate production teams, including completely separate producers and show-runners. Hell, don't even have them talk to each other, no co-ordination.