Star Trek on TV ... What would be best?

[LtChange]

Okay, so I just re watched Enterprise and after that great season 4 I begun to think ... What would be the best course for TV series. So here are my thoughst:

Diversity: we need real diversity, not just another random TV series. After the success of Lost, and Battlestar Galactica, we could have a Star Trek series that learn from this. So I would do a Star Trek series and parallel Star Trek Direct to DVD projects, shown as TV movies later on.

Star Trek Series: 3 ideas pops in my mind:

1: set it on a star base, a planet. It would be set in the future of the Prime Universe, but not too distant future, and the planet would be justified by having some kind of an anomaly which makes possible traveling between a few galaxies. So, we could have a standard planet crew, but a big chance for a lot of recurring characters, also we could have the possibility to see lot of federation ships and allied ships as well. It would be maybe a little more like DS9 but we a bigger choice to develop. Stories could evolve around planetary episodes, and star ship travel as well, the star ship sets could be built like the Narada set on the new movie, so that with little change a different camera angle could seem like another ship or section of the ship. Setting it about 20-30 years in the future of the Prime universe would mean guest cameos from TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

2: A new series set in the Abramverse, but deep in the future, about the same period as the above mentioned idea, so we could get a totally different angle of the 24th/25th century, but could still interact with familiar characters. maybe some actors would return to a Star Trek TV series from the modern Star Trek series. This could be a ship based series.

3: Far future, prime universe, where transport technology would be at hand of the Federation for extremely long distance travel. Maybe we could have a setup that this future was prepared (like we never found out the enemies from Fight or Flight or Silent Enemy, but could be tied to DS9's wormhole aliens, or any other bigger mysteries left open by earlier Star Trek series, or you even might thigh together different mysteries). This TV series could have the biggest creative freedom, but could also be harder to do, not having elements to connect to earlier TV series. But TNG has survived so if done right this could too ...

Direct To DVD (blu-ray ) movies could be made 2-3 a year, and could use the established lore:
- Enterprise movies: the first Romulan War before the Federation was born, the Second Romulan War, bigger stories around the same period of time. What happened to the crew: did they remained together, did Malcolm get a ship, frak: it's sci-fi, bring back Tucker, explain with some paradox, I don't care we could have great stories.
- TNG era movies: everything from USS Titan, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, post Romulan destruction, everything you want could be done. cast could be put together from different series (janeway is admiral, Picard is the president of the UFP, Data commands a ship, or make your own idea)
- Enterprise B-C era stories: they could work as stand alone Direct to DVD movies, we knew about a few big stories from this period of time, but they would have enough creative freedom. Just imagine if we culd get the 23rd century Enterpise-C version of Yesterday's Enterprise, we could see Tasha in the 23rd century ...
- Abramverse universe stories, any age, JJ approved stories, maybe parallel stories with the mai movie one, I'm sure there would be a few actors who would make a cameo in TV movies. They would be fun
- Mirror mirror universe ... you know what I mean.

The basic idea would be to keep this Direct to DVD movies fresh and interesting. If we get a huge success with the TNG era crew, don't stick there, make another movie from the Enterpise B era, and come back to the TNG era movies 2-3 movies later ... Maybe we could get one huge story every year with the TNG crew, on with the Enterpise crew and a third on random ...

Star Trek is cool again, we could really use a TV or Direct to DVD tie in to this coolness. Don't get us waiting 10 years for another series

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think what would be "best" for another Trek series is something that has appealing characters, interesting stories, and doesn't get lost in its own mythos or take itself so seriously that it forgets to be fun occasionally. Which timeframe (or universe) it's set in, those are just details that can be worked out later.

Just IMO, anyway.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The way to get Trek back on TV:

1. Figure Out Where It Belongs. This is the harder part of the equation compared with content. It's owned by CBS, which is unfortunate, because CBS is not at all interested in genre shows that appeal to cult audiences (and all sci fi sits under that definition nowadays). CBS itself is the most successful network by far, airing one police procedural after another. Why distract your company from a successful strategy for something that's hard to make money off of?

CBS could make Trek and license it to another network - NBC or Fox would be a more natural home for it, with more compatible audiences, and in NBC's case, greater desperation to find anything that works - but that seems to have fallen out of favor nowadays as networks are responding to financial pressure by preferring to air their own shows.

So look at parent company Viacom's TV outlets and pick the best of a bad bunch: Spike is the only one that even remotely fits.

2. Capitalize on Trek XI's Success. In the unlikely event that anyone at Viacom deigns to try Trek on TV again, don't handicap its already sketchy chances of success by being even remotely confusing or off-putting to the audience. The natural audience for the show will be the movie audience, so tie the content in to the movies - same universe, same time period, with (young) Kirk, Spock or both showing up as guest stars in the premiere. Time the launch of the series to a movie premiere. Structure the series so that it is a Starfleet crew, going boldly, combo of episodic and serialized structure. Pray a lot.

Formats like direct to DVD and download don't seem likely because Paramount would object mightily. They're spending a lot of money and effort to burnish the Trek brand, bringing it up from joke status to prime pop culture status again. Direct to DVD and downloads would cast it back down into joke-land again. Those formats are for franchises that don't have the audience to pull of summer tentpole success, and even if they could make money, they would damage the brand image overall. That's not good brand management.

There might be a successful approach to direct to DVD, modeled after Disney - they launch big budget movies and then follow up with more cheaply made direct to DVD stories revolving around the same characters - but that's for the kids' market, where DVD purchase is a far more important factor, and frankly the kiddies aren't going to bitch their heads off if Belle's Magical World looks crappy compared with Beauty and the Beast. Somehow I doubt the Star Trek audience will ignore poor SFX/acting/writing compared with the big budget summer films.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

I totally agree with Temis the Morta on Direct-to-video (DVD & Blu-ray) projects, and the tv channel (audience) thoughts.
This has been discussed in some detail.
Read the poll/thread in Future of Trek called What Channel should a new Trek series be on?

The next small screen Trek probably will not continue "Enterprise" but there may be a cameo or three.

This thread title is a little misleading.
What would be best for CBS Television is to make money off it if they can with the least risk from bad Nielsen ratings.
What would be best for fans is a new series starting within 2-3 years following on Trek XII cinema release by 3-6 months.

 

[Ra'min]

i think i would like to see star trek miniseries.

Shorts series like 10-15 episodes each.

The advantage is that this could allow to explore more varied periods and context.

For instance, i don't think they could make a klingon POV seven-years series. Few people would follow 182 episodes featuring a klingon bird-of-prey and its crew. But 15 episodes, why not ?

A few ideas :
* A klingon POV series set shortly before ST VI.
* A series featuring the exploration of inside the Dyson sphere appearing in TNG "relics" - what a frustrating episode, they made a hugely important discovery, and we see nothing of it - by Federation and guest explorers. With its technology, the Dyson sphere is an important piece of real estate
* A series featuring spock's unification movement on Romulus, set during dominion war to Nemesis (i hate nemesis!) time.
* A series about rebuilding and reoganizing the cardassian union ( ideas here)
* Vash in the gamma quadrant. Ds9 was a bit frustrating, they did very little exploring of the gamma quadrant. The writers said, through vash's mouth, that the gamma quadrant has civilisations dating back from millions of years. But we never saw them !
* The romulan war. Could pick a bunch of characters from ENT. Perharps to be filmed form Romulan POV.

And so on. Miniseries could be more diverse than "a new czaptain and a new crew on a new starship exploring a new corner of the galaxy'

But this is unlikely to happen : it would be too costly (sets, CGI, props)
And a series set on a planet would requieres so much sets and CGI. For a starship, you just need a command bridge, a crew quarter, a sickbay, a mess all, engineering and a couple of other rooms.

 

[Dukhat]

I think what would be "best" for another Trek series is something that has appealing characters, interesting stories, and doesn't get lost in its own mythos or take itself so seriously that it forgets to be fun occasionally. Which timeframe (or universe) it's set in, those are just details that can be worked out later.

Just IMO, anyway.

You know what's funny? There's already a Trek-related production going on that is just as you described it above: Star Trek Phase II. If Paramount got smart, they could just give Cawley a shitload of money for budget and professional actors, and give him legitimate rights to produce his episodes on television.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Paramount doesn't have the rights to produce a Star Trek TV series. That belongs to CBS. They're doing gangbusters with police procedurals, sitcoms and reality TV - they are the most successful of the networks.

How are you going to convince them to take the money they could spend on another slam-dunk police procedural and risk it on a Star Trek series, regardless of who is making it? The reason that CBS is the most successful network is that they make hard-nosed business decisions aimed at maximizing profits. Star Trek on TV is going to look like a risk, regardless of the details.

 

[Dukhat]

Paramount doesn't have the rights to produce a Star Trek TV series. That belongs to CBS. They're doing gangbusters with police procedurals, sitcoms and reality TV - they are the most successful of the networks.

How are you going to convince them to take the money they could spend on another slam-dunk police procedural and risk it on a Star Trek series, regardless of who is making it? The reason that CBS is the most successful network is that they make hard-nosed business decisions aimed at maximizing profits. Star Trek on TV is going to look like a risk, regardless of the details.

Then I'm curious as to why CBS doesn't just sell the rights to someone else. If they truly have no interest in making a new Trek series, why can't they hand the reins over to someone who does? (Keeping in mind that I know zero about TV production...)

 

[AviTrek]

Because why sell something that you may want to make later? Why sell something to a competitor that they will use to compete against your procedurals?

CBS has no loyalty to Star Trek. It doesn't care what a few hardcore fans want. Its perfectly happy to sit on Star Trek until the time is right to make money from it. Just because a few fans want to see Star Trek on TV is not enough reason to make it.

 

[Dukhat]

Because why sell something that you may want to make later? Why sell something to a competitor that they will use to compete against your procedurals?

CBS has no loyalty to Star Trek. It doesn't care what a few hardcore fans want. Its perfectly happy to sit on Star Trek until the time is right to make money from it. Just because a few fans want to see Star Trek on TV is not enough reason to make it.

But according to Temis, the time will never be right to make money from it, because they have no interest whatsoever in producing such an expensive show when they can make cop shows and reality TV for basically the rest of their lives. So what you're really saying is that Star Trek will never return to television, EVER.

 

[AviTrek]

Because why sell something that you may want to make later? Why sell something to a competitor that they will use to compete against your procedurals?

CBS has no loyalty to Star Trek. It doesn't care what a few hardcore fans want. Its perfectly happy to sit on Star Trek until the time is right to make money from it. Just because a few fans want to see Star Trek on TV is not enough reason to make it.

But according to Temis, the time will never be right to make money from it, because they have no interest whatsoever in producing such an expensive show when they can make cop shows and reality TV for basically the rest of their lives. So what you're really saying is that Star Trek will never return to television, EVER.

No, right now CBS makes a ton of money from procedurals. But the tv business works in cycles. At some point the people watching procedurals will become bored with what CBS is airing and look for other shows. Or maybe CW gives up on its young girl demographic and goes for a larger male audience. Or maybe pay-per-view tv takes off and niche Sci Fi is a big seller. No one knows how the television market will evolve in the next ten years. All we know is that right now Star Trek does not fit into CBS's corporate strategy.

 

[T'Cal]

i think i would like to see star trek miniseries.

Shorts series like 10-15 episodes each.

The advantage is that this could allow to explore more varied periods and context.

For instance, i don't think they could make a klingon POV seven-years series. Few people would follow 182 episodes featuring a klingon bird-of-prey and its crew. But 15 episodes, why not ?

A few ideas :
* A klingon POV series set shortly before ST VI.
* A series featuring the exploration of inside the Dyson sphere appearing in TNG "relics" - what a frustrating episode, they made a hugely important discovery, and we see nothing of it - by Federation and guest explorers. With its technology, the Dyson sphere is an important piece of real estate
* A series featuring spock's unification movement on Romulus, set during dominion war to Nemesis (i hate nemesis!) time.
* A series about rebuilding and reoganizing the cardassian union ( ideas here)
* Vash in the gamma quadrant. Ds9 was a bit frustrating, they did very little exploring of the gamma quadrant. The writers said, through vash's mouth, that the gamma quadrant has civilisations dating back from millions of years. But we never saw them !
* The romulan war. Could pick a bunch of characters from ENT. Perharps to be filmed form Romulan POV.

And so on. Miniseries could be more diverse than "a new czaptain and a new crew on a new starship exploring a new corner of the galaxy'

But this is unlikely to happen : it would be too costly (sets, CGI, props)
And a series set on a planet would requieres so much sets and CGI. For a starship, you just need a command bridge, a crew quarter, a sickbay, a mess all, engineering and a couple of other rooms.

Outstanding ideas! I've been hung up on the miniseries approach for awhile imagining them to be every night for a week with a two hour Monday episode, one hour for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and a two hour Friday episode. In my dream world, after they are first aired, they are rerun in various timeslots for a few weeks. Then, six months later, they are released on video just as the next miniseries is aired. I like you twists even better, especially having them last twice as long and with a different storyline each time. Excellent all around.

If CBS won't do this, I'd be open to an animated series based in the late 24th century with one or two regulars from TNG/DS9/VOY plus some new characters. Having just seen a Youtube video of Spiner impersonating Stewart at a convention, I have faith that he could voice animated versions of Picard, Data, and any of his siblings. I also like the idea of an animated anthology in which shows take place in various eras, on various planets, ships, or stations, and from various POVs.

 

[Herbert1]

It doesn't look like CBS Studios is going to complete the Star Trek web-based animated series Star Trek: Final Frontier.

The future of a Star Trek series on television is anyone's guess at this point. Perhaps Bad Robot/JJ Abrams might pitch a television series. But any knew Star Trek television series on television would need a new show runner. I wish that Ira Steven Behr or Ronald D Moore would be showrunners for a new Star Trek television series.

There's also the question of where CBS Studios would want to recoup the cost of the episode during their first run or if they could recoup the cost of production in syndication.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

costs of production - recouped

There's also the question of where CBS Studios would want to recoup the cost of the episode during their first run or if they could recoup the cost of production in syndication.

Here is one idea:
next Trek series pilot in cinemas as double feature from Paramount?

Digital projection cinema theaters and one-night or limited-engagements can draw audiences. Niche audiences.