Things I Do Not Want To See In A New Star Trek Series

[Knight Templar]

To name some off the top of my head. Things I would prefer not to see in the next Trek series or at least see very little of.

1) No Time Travel-At Least Not To Earth

2) No Holographic characters...and no holodeck. Sure you can still have the holodeck and even refer to it in the script. But never actually show it or feature scenes on it. It has become too much of a writers crutch in modern Trek.

3) No androids or robots. And no artificial intelligences either.

4) No aliens of the week. Specifically, don't introduce a new alien race planning to use them for only one episode. I would tell any Trek writer that if they wanted to introduce a new alien race that they had better have at least TWO MORE possible stories for them to appear in the future.

5) No god like aliens.

6) No episodes for laughs. Humor within a story is fine. Just don't deliberately make lighthearted "laughers". Like DS9 featuring Quark wearing a dress.

7) No reset buttons. What happens in the episodes happens in the episodes.

I was hoping to run this list out to ten but that is all I've got now.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think it's absolutely guaranteed we'll see all seven of those in a new Trek series. And some of the best Trek stories ever came from stuff like that (if anything, Trek needs more funny light-hearted stories, not less).

 

[Knight Templar]

I think it's absolutely guaranteed we'll see all seven of those in a new Trek series. And some of the best Trek stories ever came from stuff like that (if anything, Trek needs more funny light-hearted stories, not less).

Nah, I think Star Trek needs to take itself more seriously.

At any rate, many of hte absolutely crappy episodes and Trek ideas used those ideas as well.

 

[BillJ]

No graphic sex, graphic violence or graphic language. I don't need Trek to be HBO-ized, thank you very much.

 

[BillJ]

5) No god like aliens.

This is such a staple of Trek. I love characters like Trelane, Q, Apollo and Armus. They've delivered some of Trek's more thought provoking outings.

 

[-SS-]

It is absolutely impossible for androids and AIs to not exist in the future, unless you come up with some fantastic backstory reason like Dune had, or like Trek did for genetic and cybernetic enhancement. Often in Trek we're only presented with the absolute worst possible outcomes of these kinds of ideas. I think we need to see more of the positive, optimistic sides of them.

It's also pretty unbelievable that in interstellar exploration we don't run into some sort of aliens with intelligence and abilities vastly beyond our own. In fact we'd probably be far more likely to run into them than hundreds of other humanoid species.

Speaking of which, I'd like to see a LOT more non-humanoid alien species that play major roles. Aliens who don't have any analogous body parts to us or are even of comparable size to us.

 

[Nerys Myk]

To name some off the top of my head. Things I would prefer not to see in the next Trek series or at least see very little of.

1) No Time Travel-At Least Not To Earth

2) No Holographic characters...and no holodeck. Sure you can still have the holodeck and even refer to it in the script. But never actually show it or feature scenes on it. It has become too much of a writers crutch in modern Trek.

3) No androids or robots. And no artificial intelligences either.

4) No aliens of the week. Specifically, don't introduce a new alien race planning to use them for only one episode. I would tell any Trek writer that if they wanted to introduce a new alien race that they had better have at least TWO MORE possible stories for them to appear in the future.

5) No god like aliens.

6) No episodes for laughs. Humor within a story is fine. Just don't deliberately make lighthearted "laughers". Like DS9 featuring Quark wearing a dress.

7) No reset buttons. What happens in the episodes happens in the episodes.

I was hoping to run this list out to ten but that is all I've got now.

So in summary, you want Star Trek not to be Star Trek.

 

[R. Star]

I'd agree with the time travel bit. That cliche's been beaten to death.

Holodecks are fine. Holodeck episodes are fine. Just keep the things working already. :P

Not sure what you have against androids and AI's. That's some of the stuff that makes Trek awesome and makes you wonder what exactly "life" is.

Aliens of the week are a pretty much a given on a weekly sci-fi show, with different writers producing each script. All the great bad guys started off as one. Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, and Borg all fell into that category until they appeared in another episode.

Godlike aliens are alright if used responsibly and in moderation. Q just coming in to screw with the crew gets redundant. Some of the best episodes involve Q or some other powerful alien. No more giant floating heads though. Those things give me the creeps.

Humor epsodes are perfectly fine. Quark in drag was a bit redundant to say the least, but an episode like "In the Cards" can be hilarious while still contributing to the overall story arc.

I'll concede the point on reset buttons. It happens far too often in Trek. This is usually associated with time travel though.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

1) No Time Travel-At Least Not To Earth

I don't mind time travel too much, so long as they don't try and make a major long-running plot about it (you know, something stupid like a temporal cold war).

2) No Holographic characters...and no holodeck. Sure you can still have the holodeck and even refer to it in the script. But never actually show it or feature scenes on it. It has become too much of a writers crutch in modern Trek.

Totally agree on the holographic characters, its essentially the computer core and makes them very dull. As for the holodeck, I like seeing the crew unwind--though a wider array of stranger and more unique programmes would be interesting.

3) No androids or robots. And no artificial intelligences either.

Agree. It's been done already.

4) No aliens of the week. Specifically, don't introduce a new alien race planning to use them for only one episode. I would tell any Trek writer that if they wanted to introduce a new alien race that they had better have at least TWO MORE possible stories for them to appear in the future.

I like this idea. It annoys me when interesting aliens never reappear.

5) No god like aliens.

Agree. It's boring. Also how god-like can they be if their outwitted by a gang of humans.

6) No episodes for laughs. Humor within a story is fine. Just don't deliberately make lighthearted "laughers". Like DS9 featuring Quark wearing a dress.

So long as humour is done well and fits in with the overall tone, I don't mind. Though I do agree that using something weak and then milking it is just a bad show.

7) No reset buttons. What happens in the episodes happens in the episodes.

If this is about upholding continuity then I'm all for it, it's something that should be stuck too throughout.

 

[Cyke101]

6) No episodes for laughs. Humor within a story is fine. Just don't deliberately make lighthearted "laughers". Like DS9 featuring Quark wearing a dress.

Two of my favorite episodes of all time are "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Take Me Out to the Holosuite." The latter, while not contributing to the arc, was still set within that arc and provided a nice breather to an overall grim n' gritty season.

Contrast that with some of the worst of forced humor. I cringe whenever Voyager used treknobabble puns and entendres. "B'lanna is slightly annoyed? We better go to Red Alert!" or "If I have anymore of Neelix's cooking, I'm gonna have a Warp Core BREACH! GET IT?!" *cue canned laughter*

 

[FreddyE]

To name some off the top of my head. Things I would prefer not to see in the next Trek series or at least see very little of.

1) No Time Travel-At Least Not To Earth

2) No Holographic characters...and no holodeck. Sure you can still have the holodeck and even refer to it in the script. But never actually show it or feature scenes on it. It has become too much of a writers crutch in modern Trek.

3) No androids or robots. And no artificial intelligences either.

4) No aliens of the week. Specifically, don't introduce a new alien race planning to use them for only one episode. I would tell any Trek writer that if they wanted to introduce a new alien race that they had better have at least TWO MORE possible stories for them to appear in the future.

5) No god like aliens.

6) No episodes for laughs. Humor within a story is fine. Just don't deliberately make lighthearted "laughers". Like DS9 featuring Quark wearing a dress.

7) No reset buttons. What happens in the episodes happens in the episodes.

I was hoping to run this list out to ten but that is all I've got now.

For me that would be like Pizza without cheese, sorry ;-)

 

[Mr Silver]

I don't want to see any gay or lesbian characters, bisexuals are fine as long as they are women and I don't want to see another female captain. (relax, I'm joking!)

...but seriously,

I'd like to see less throwaway episodes.

 

[Captain Crow]

They need to get rid of all the space ships. Every Star Trek TV series and movie seems to have the bloody things and I'm sick to death of seeing them.

 

[Knight Templar]

Some people above have claimed that I basically ruled out the "majority of Star Trek episodes". Someone suggested "75%".

But lets be reasonable. Look at them objectively and you can see that the MAJORITY of Star Trek episodes were simply not very good anyway. Out of what 700 hours plus of aired Star Trek, in my opinion, about 100 episodes across the franchises were "great"with another 200 or so "above average". That leaves more than half either average, below average or just plain sucky.

If eliminating lots of things that have become "Trek cliches" helps Trek become a much better product overall, then I think it is worth considering.

 

[BillJ]

If eliminating lots of things that have become "Trek cliches" helps Trek become a much better product overall, then I think it is worth considering.

But is it really Trek if you eliminate so much of what made it Trek to begin with?

But lets be reasonable. Look at them objectively and you can see that the MAJORITY of Star Trek episodes were simply not very good anyway. Out of what 700 hours plus of aired Star Trek, in my opinion, about 100 episodes across the franchises were "great"with another 200 or so "above average". That leaves more than half either average, below average or just plain sucky.

I think the one-third rule holds true to this day. One-third of Trek was good, one-third was average and one-third was poor and the third that was poor was still better than most anything else that was on TV at the time.

 

[Knight Templar]

If eliminating lots of things that have become "Trek cliches" helps Trek become a much better product overall, then I think it is worth considering.

But is it really Trek if you eliminate so much of what made it Trek to begin with?

I'm talking about the basis for episodes.

It is still Star Trek because you keep the fundamental structure of the Star Trek universe and its constants. Federation, Starfleet, Enterprise, legacy races (Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons, Romulans) Prime Directive and so forth.

 

[BillJ]

If eliminating lots of things that have become "Trek cliches" helps Trek become a much better product overall, then I think it is worth considering.

But is it really Trek if you eliminate so much of what made it Trek to begin with?

I'm talking about the basis for episodes.

It is still Star Trek because you keep the fundamental structure of the Star Trek universe and its constants. Federation, Starfleet, Enterprise, legacy races (Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons, Romulans) Prime Directive and so forth.

But pretty much everything you suggest sucks the fun out of Trek. You'd be left with a dry political drama whose different factions merely has shit glued to their faces.

If Trek comes back, I want it all to come back.

EDIT: What is the point for banning AI? We are currently headed in that direction, sci-fi without it would be laughed off the screen. AI will likely be even more prominent in a Trek series going forward.

 

[Knight Templar]

But is it really Trek if you eliminate so much of what made it Trek to begin with?

I'm talking about the basis for episodes.

It is still Star Trek because you keep the fundamental structure of the Star Trek universe and its constants. Federation, Starfleet, Enterprise, legacy races (Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons, Romulans) Prime Directive and so forth.

But pretty much everything you suggest sucks the fun out of Trek. You'd be left with a dry political drama whose different factions merely has shit glued to their faces.

If Trek comes back, I want it all to come back.

EDIT: What is the point for banning AI? We are currently headed in that direction, sci-fi without it would be laughed off the screen. AI will likely be even more prominent in a Trek series going forward.

You can have artificial intelligences just like having holodecks. Just don't show them or feature them in any way whatsoever.

And technology can be banned. Just like genetic engineering people in Star Trek has been banned. Just like the Japanese banned firearms for centuries because how they disrupted their society.

 

[Balrog]

Yeah, that list in the OP stinks. It's not that I would or wouldn't want to see those things in a Trek episode. I'd just like to see them done WELL.

One thing I don't want to see them employ is the "technobabble that ends up saving their asses" plot device/excuse.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

One thing I don't want to see them employ is the "technobabble that ends up saving their asses" plot device/excuse.

So very true.

Another thing I could live without in the next series is female officers not in uniform (or at least balance it out and have a hot guy in a low cut, spandex bodysuit).