If You Could Rewrite TNG

[TrickyDickie]

The whole thing was very different at the beginning. It would be interesting if they would pursue something like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FolLXCKtHeTvbkGnJ5dyjmH60KKQb9HE/view

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

Here's what I would probably have done:

1. Focused more on the Troi/Riker relationshiip which was established in EAF. Then, as the series gradually progressed I'd go a little bit more on their respective backgrounds in succeeding episodes/
2. Go into Data's background a bit more and perhaps tell the story of his creator, Dr. Soong.
3. Develop Wesley Crusher's character a lot more fully.
4. Develop Tasha Yar's character and not have killed off.
5. I would have had Troi in the minidress uniform for the first few eps and then would have coimpletely redesigned that blue dress so that ti would have (a) fit her like a glove and (b) that she would have felt more comfortable in.
6. I would have also introduced Guinan either at start or possibly midway through the first season.
7. Have had Colm Meaney's character as the permanent helm officer (with Wesley as the backup).

Thats my tuppence worth.

 

[Twilight Phoenix]

Go into Data's background a bit more and perhaps tell the story of his creator, Dr. Soong.

YES.
I'm definitely so frustrated about all the unanswered questions about Data's background and the story of his birth ! And the unanswered questions about Lore, too - just dismantling him and storing him forever was a very lazy end to give to the sub-plot. I'd have wanted answers about why he turned out so bad and what could be attempted to "fix" him.

 

[Tenacity]

Worf and Troi should have never hooked up. She's Riker's woman.

Riker and Worf are competitive and less than friends. Worf hooks up with Deanna solely because of this.

Just to piss Riker off.

1. Scale back the Riker is soon to be a captain angle. It ruined any chance of that character making sense,

Or, have Riker promoted to captain at the end of the second season and leaves for his first command.

We briefly meet the new first officer in the last scene of the second season, a interaction between Riker and the new first. Then that person is the first officer for seasons three and four. This would have been a female commander, someone like Shelby, definitely different than Riker. At the end of season four she is promoted to captain and leaves for her first command

Then we get a another new first officer at the beginning of seasons five, six episodes into the season after we start to get to know them, they're killed on a away mission.

The next first officer is from a species that the viewers have never seen before, fresh start for the writers. They are the first officer for the remainder of season five and all of season six. At the end of season six they are promoted to captain and leave for their first command

Beginning of season seven we meet first officer number five.

improve Tasha Yar so that Denise Crosby would stay

Yes this, if Tasha was underused (according to Crosby), badly written and uninteresting (to some fans) here's an new idea, write her better. Duh.

better define Deanna Troi's ... and have her wear a uniform from the beginning

Other direction, make Deanna a civilian.

Lose the bridge qualification, in command during Disaster, and her taking the helm during the movies, keep the flowing blue dress (which i love).

We find out in the last season that her tapping herself behind the ear occasionally is how Betazed's masturbate, doing so openly is socially acceptable in the Betazed culture.

I like to think of the Enterprise flying off into the sunset, so to speak

This is something both TOS and TNG got right, and Ent total muffed up.

imagine if the guest cast were all white, would it make any real difference?

Would stop the endless bitching about having a entirely Black guest cast.

This is Star Trek, need more White people.

the technobabble

If used sparingly, the technobabble could have been great, they just wildly over did it.

I like to believe Sela would have worked had she been written properly

Make her less of a petulent child, and more sinister and calculating. She's a half-Human in a Romulan society, have her be a behind the scenes power player, have her surrounded with henchmen..

And lose the big shoulder look with her costume, Crosby looked horrible in that. Give her something more slinky that would play to her slim figure.

the ship has a healthy civilian community of people living and working in space

Definitely more of this, make it half the ship's population. And let's see civilians working in sickbay and the science labs, walking through the corridors. Not just as Ten-forward employees.

Develop Wesley Crusher's character a lot more fully.

Get rid of any aspirations of being a Starfleet officer, Wesley is a teenager on the ship, a big part of our window into the civilian population. Have Wesley be the popular kid, with rotating girlfriends, and who probably knows more about what going on inside the ship than the Starfleet officers.

Troi ... coimpletely redesigned that blue dress so that ti would have (a) fit her like a glove and (b) that she would have felt more comfortable in.

What do you see as wrong in the blue dress's design?

 

[Marynator]

I am pretty sure I read sometime that Marina found her blue dress very uncomfortable to wear. I would really hate to subject our poor actress to that for her entire run on the show!

I feel Deanna should be a lieutenant commander or commander. I very much liked how she had a higher rank than many of her colleagues and would have opportunities to lead.

 

[Tenacity]

sorry to hear marina had a problem with it.

i've always wanted one, i got the hips for it, if not (unfortunately) the chest.

 

[Uhura's Song]

TNG is my favorite show so I would not mess with much. Patchy at first.

1. Troi in uniform. This has always bugged me.
2. Troi more as bridge officer than Ship's counselor. Two are not mutually exclusive, but aftet Tasha died, all the women were in caregiver roles.
3. More Tasha stuff from the start so Denise stays.

Data dying in Nemesis did NOT bug me. The whistling at the end made me think it was only a matter of time till he was back in some fashion. But killing Tripp in Enterprise did. I know I am in the minority.

 

[HugeLobes]

I am pretty sure I read sometime that Marina found her blue dress very uncomfortable to wear. I would really hate to subject our poor actress to that for her entire run on the show!

Honestly, how uncomfortable could it have been? As uncomfortable as putting on Klingon makeup whenever you're on screen?

I feel Deanna should be a lieutenant commander or commander. I very much liked how she had a higher rank than many of her colleagues and would have opportunities to lead.

I have to disagree with this. One of my least favourite Trek moments is Deanna getting that promotion in Thine Own Self. If you'll remember, she went through this holodeck simulation where she had to send Geordi to his death in order to save the ship.

Firstly, the whole thing is ridiculous since Riker straight up tells her what to do, and there's no real reason not to do it since it's not like she's actually killing Geordi.

More importantly, I think it's important to balance the show with characters who couldn't make those decisions. Deanna's supposed strengths are her empathy and ability to care. There's an argument for her ability to send people on risky assignments, but I think it would have been more interesting for her to admit that such command decisions were not for her, that she'd be too torn up after making them. If you give her a true command role, she'd just fade into the background and become exactly like other characters.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It would have been more interesting if she woke up in the holodeck, not knowing it was the holodeck, and thought she was actually telling him to give his life. Then she find out it's a simulation afterwards. The situation she'd face would be different than the one she'd previously simulated so that she would suspect nothing.

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

[QUOTEWhat do you see as wrong in the blue dress's design?[/QUOTE] Don't see anything wrong in the design. In fact, it's my own personal favourite outfit of Deanna's for me. Marina looked great in it especially at the start of season 4

 

[Herbert]

No counselor position on the ship. Sirtis would remain but in a different role
No "Wesley Boy Genius." The character would remain but would be different
Sequel to Conspiracy
More exploration episodes like we see on the original series. More new planets. More new mysteries, etc
Less Q
No L'waxana ,or at the very least, less of her.
From a previous thread discussion, in the episode where Will's transporter double shows up, I would have W Riker finally be promoted to captain and leave the enterprise. Frakes would remain in the role of Tom Riker. That would open up all sorts of interesting possibilities.
More non-human crew. Some of which are in prominent roles and not just background characters.
And a personal pet peeve, I would NOT destroy the Promellian Battle Cruiser at the end of Booby Trap. There would have been other ways to warn ships from falling into the same trap and still devise a way to retrieve this irreplaceable artifact. Picard goes on and on about this ship and what it means to him and then he matter-of-factly orders its destruction without considering any other options.

 

[Klaa2]

To show proper fairness, following the threads on how fans would rewrite VOY and then DS9 I thought I'd do the same for The Next Generation as well.

How would you have done the first Trek TV show in twenty years? What characters would you have on the next legendary ship to be called Enterprise, or would it even be the Enterprise?

Be creative and have some fun with it!

I would

• cut right down on the use of the holodeck
• have a two-part crossover episode with the Yuuzhan Vong fighting the Borg & trying to destroy the Enterprise
• abolish Guinan, or else, put her in uniform
• give Loaxana Troi some of Q’s plots
• have a disturbance located in the Enterprise that would bend space, so that the crew could see each other but not be in contact.
• have an episode on a planet that was a scientific research centre - perhaps an offshoot of the one previously used by Carol Marcus for the terraforming experiment ? A few hours after receiving messages that all was well, Enterprise’s sensors would sense nothing. An away team would be lost. A message sent by a second, better-equipped away team would be cut off by static. A third team would find only withered plant life. A member of the third team would be left in the open during a very sudden dust storm. The rest of the team would look for him, in vain. Slowly it would begin to dawn on them, that the storms on the planet turned sentient life into what looked like withered plants. Cue drama.
• like an episode about the origins of the Borg.
• change the designs of the uniforms in TNG.
• keep TNG a sci-fi series, uncontaminated by historical re-enactment, holonovels, Leonardo, Al Capone, WW2, etc.

 

[borgboy]

Mini skirt uniform more widely unisex as an option and stays. Troi wears in most of the time - stays in uniform while she's working. Riker and Worf occasionally wear a kilt version.
Wesley stays off the bridge and instead has a science lab.
Geordie is gay and does slightly better with men than he did women. Has successful long term long distance relationship with recurring character in later seasons.
More Troi/Riker relationship development. No Troi/Worf. Troi and Riker marry in the series finale.

 

[Herbert]

I think an interesting idea would be to write a series with a definite goal and ending in mind. Limit it to say three seasons, maybe two. I think of it like a (extended) mini series based off of a book. You have a definite finish and the whole series is building up to that finish.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

After “Redemption ii” I’d have had Data be promoted to captain of the Sutherland (seriously, Data didn’t get one promotion in 15 years. He was the Harry Kim of TNG) and have a whole “galactica” “Pegasus” thing going on with two hero ships each week (or bounce between them alternate weeks).

Also, after “gambit ii” I’d have written it so that Riker is arrested and sent to the same prison as Tom Paris, which would have been a backdoor pilot for a spinoff entitled “Riker and Paris in chains” set entirely in the penal colony in New Zealand.

Just kidding I’d have given Riker the Enterprise and made Picard an admiral - taking on the role of Nechayev and made the cardassian treaty and DMZ negotiations the primary story of the later seasons.

*And* I’d have done a proper DS9 crossover episode. Like the one they did in one of the very early DS9 comics. It was awesome.

 

[thribs]

I would have shown more ships. I know they couldn't back then but with today's tech, we could see some other fed ships that weren't the Excelsior or a modified Galaxy Class.
Also, i would have had Spock visit the Enterprise.

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

"Mini skirt uniform more widely unisex as an option and stays. Troi wears in most of the time - stays in uniform while she's working. Riker and Worf occasionally wear a kilt version."

Definately agreed. Also, have more male members of the crew wearing this as well. Not too sure about Riker in a kilt-version but Worf could deffinately have carried that off.

"Wesley stays off the bridge and instead has a science lab."
Yes, An interesting idea considering that he ended up doing such a task in season 2.

"More Troi/Riker relationship development. No Troi/Worf. Troi and Riker marry in the series finale."

Without question. It simply made a lot more sense seeing as Riker and Troi have a history at the start of the series and yes, that would have been a really great way of ending the series for those two.

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

I would have shown more ships. I know they couldn't back then but with today's tech, we coukld see some other fed ships that weren't the Excelsior or a modified Galaxy Class.
Also, i would have had Spock visit the Enterprise.

I would have shown more ships. I know they couldn't back then but with today's tech, we coukld see some other fed ships that weren't the Excelsior or a modified Galaxy Class.
Also, i would have had Spock visit the Enterprise.

 

[thribs]

I would have all the females wear sexy clothing.

 

[borgboy]

Continuing my thoughts, since I'd end the series with Troi and Riker marrying, let Picard and Beverly be the ones that marry in Nemesis.