Things You Wish TOS Had Done

[Brutal Strudel]

Actually, I'm rather glad they did neither. The first kept an air of mystery and the secongd underscored how alone the Enterprise was, how small Starfleet was in the vastness of space. YMMV, of course, and I didn't start this thread for arguing. (Feel free to argue if you wish, of course. )

 

[Therin of Andor]

The Old Mixer said:
There's another one--a recurring Security Chief!

The Pocket novels tried: with Ingrit Thompson, a shared original character.

We got a bit of that in episodes like "Balance of Terror" and "Shore Leave", but they never came back.

In fact, Angela (Barbara Baldavin) did. She was Angela Martine-Tomlinson in "Balance of Terror", Angela Teller in "Shore Leave" (via the actress's insistance to change the character from the non-descript Mary Teller), Angela Baker (barely seen) in "Space Seed", and wrongly called "Lisa" twice by Dr Janice Lester in "Turnabout Intruder".

 

[Warped9]

Besides a little more time for the secondary characters I'd like to have seen a bit more of the Spock and Scotty working relationship. They seemed so at odds with each other in temperament and yet they also seemed to mesh so well in a complimentary manner. I thought it was kinda cool.

 

[McCoy]

A long time ago I read that De Kelley was hoping they'd do a time travel story where he and Uhura ended up back in time during slavery in the US. Or was it a world of reverse slavery i.e. he (being white) would be assumed by the locals to be her slave.

Well, either way, that would have been interesting. But possible too controversial.

 

[Mallory]

That definitely would have been too controversial for the mid to late 60's. At least in a lot parts of the country.

 

[Maurice]

Re the "slave" episode, I recall reading it was an idea for a story that no one could make a usable script from. I mean, that's the dramatic point of such a story? Slavery's bad? Maybe if it was a civil rights analogy it could've worked. But the idea's as on the nose as "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and not even as metaphorical.

 

[Proximity_Phaser]

I wish they had killed off the Organians.

 

[Trekwatcher]

1) A few more Romulan episodes
2) A second look at Sarek
3) A full episode that was really about Uhura

and

4) Not been cancelled after S3

 

[AC84]

Although I too wish there was an episode with an official female starship Captain (special guest star Candice Bergen!). I take solace in the fact that we, in fact, did see a woman technically in command of a starship and that Turnabout Intruder actually contradicted the pilot episode and footage seen of said pilot in The Menagerie.

As for the reoccuring red shirt, we did have David L. Ross.

Yeah, they killed him off, but that didn't stop him from making more appearances.

 

[voggmo]

Delved into Klingon spirituality, in the vein of the Vikings. Or even ventured into a couple Viking oriented stories.

Good point about Scotty & Bones up above Strudel.

A female dominated planet like the movie with Lurch & John Saxon.

An all Asian primitive planet where Sulu plays main part & worshipped as a god or something because he's from space & has to save the planet from a natural disaster, volcanoes, tidal waves or something.

 

[Gagarin]

The USS Enterprise get's struck by some electrical or gravatational disturbance while charting a volitle part of space. It's a ship board show but there's some urgency as each of the supporting characters are in different parts of the ship but are trying to either:
A: Make repairs.
B: Escape from a dying section of the ship with failing life support.
C: Deal with injured crewmen without accesss to sickbay.

Could have done wonders for developing Chekov, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu... Rand had she stayed. Chapel.

(Stolen from Star Trek:Judgement Rites - The Rift stage).

 

[Nerys Myk]

Save the Cheerleader, save the planetoid.

 

[Sisu]

Less William Shatner being William Shatner and more of him being the Kirk of the first season.

 

[Kegek]

More sci-fi writers of the era to write scripts. Robert Ryan as Matt Decker. And most importantly, the Harry Mudd spin-off series.

 

[Zycho32]

As much as I like the characters played by Mr. Ross, you can't mention 'Red-Shirt' without mentioning Mr. Leslie.

 

[Nebusj]

Much as I'm tired of time travel plots, I have to admit, it would've been really fun to have some episode on the Original Series in which we see a Federation Ship Of The Future, as designed and built by circa 1967 cash-starved Matt Jefferies et al. Not just for the amusing ways it would screw up later Trek production, but because I do think it'd be interesting to see how they'd project an indefinite time farther out of their already indefinitely far out projection.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^They probably would have gone with an underwhelmingly-minimalist approach, a la the ion-drive ship that everyone was going gaga over in "Spock's Brain", the conveniently-invisible ship in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", or the spinning lights that passed as an Orion ship in "Journey to Babel".

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Or the glowing ping pong balls that were the Fesarius.

 

[Franklin]

Brutal Strudel said:
Aside from get a good time slot and run five Roddenberry and Coon produced years, of course.

For me, I wish they'd established the friendship between Scott and McCoy mentioned in the writer's guide. They were both hard-drinking, passionate pragmatists a decade or so Kirk's senior. It would have been cool if they hit the flesh pots on Wrigley's together, the one stinking of Oban and Laphroaig, the other of Maker's Mark and Woodford Reserve.

(The old salt Scotty drinking with the green Chekov in "Tribbles" is one of the most charming moments in all of Trek.)

It would've been nice. But I've also wondered if pursuing the friendship would've somehow compromised the Kirk-Spock-McCoy chemistry that developed on screen.

Still, it was nice to finally see Scott and McCoy paired off years later in TVH.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Acutually shown ship to ship battles Federation/Klingon War from Errant of Mercy. Heck they should have done that in the DS9 Federation/Klingon War.