Was George Tekai ever in the running for his own show?

[Mr. Scott]

Howdy!

Around the time of Star Trek VI, there was a rumor going around, with a lot of hopeful people wanted a TV series with George Tekai's Sulu at the Captain. Was there ever any discussions of that? I think Tekai would of likely taken the role, and it would of more or less employed several of the other actors from the old show.

Is it possibly because of Mr. Tekai's sexual orientation?

As an aside, Capt. Sulu was a bit of a jerk as a Captain in the film, the character seemed a bit full of himself, and was a bit short with his subordinates. But that was just me.

Mr. Scott

 

[Dar70]

No. It was George and the fans wishful thinking. The producers of Voyager were aware of the campaign but didnt want to do it.

 

[Vance]

There was never ever a formal pitch made, much less a nix on a show. No writer's bible, nothing, nada. The most that happened was a 'flashback' on Voyager to see if there was interest in going that rough direction, and that went over like a lead brick anyway.

 

[Praetor]

Yeah, I don't think there was ever really a movement in that direction, not enough for it to be shot down even.

As a self-professed Excelsior fan and enthusiast for the idea of Star Trek: Excelsior set circa 2300, I enjoyed 'Flashback' for what it was but I feel like it suffered from something, although I can't quite put my finger on what. I didn't mind the neural parasite angle. I didn't care for the rebuilt Excelsior model, which seemed very small to me compared to the original. If this was an effort to find interest, I think an actual Excelsior show could have done better.

Something about the bridge set of Excelsior kind of felt cheap to me. Maybe it was the lighting? I know part of it was the carpet. Plus having this story take place during Star Trek VI felt forced. It might have been more logical to have placed it as a wholly separate mission, since the ship's actual mission had little to do with the parasite itself. Nostalgia could have been achieved as long as it was still set in the period.

If it makes anyone feel better, (shameless self plug) I did write a bible and outline for a 'Star Trek: Excelsior' pet project spec series when I was a teenager, based in turn on what amounted essentially to picture book style stories of a few pages long each done in notebooks when I was 10ish. As I recall, it took me five 'episodes' to blow up the ship and replace it with the 'Enterprise-B' style Excelsior-A, for no good reason other than 'Generations' had just come out. I had Rand as XO, a very obviously Robin Curtis style Saavik as science officer, a Gorn Helmsman, and an Andorian CMO, all of which I rolled over to the bible and made more interesting characters.

A lot of the research I did on the ship for that bible later went into my still-unfinished Excelsior Technical Manual, although I ended up rewriting almost all of it as I expanded it.

Yes, I was an only child, with no neighbors.

 

[ClayinCA]

Don't worry, Praetor, we've all been there.

 

[JustKate]

^Well...maybe not ALL of us.

 

[Aquehonga]

It would've been cool had there been a Captain Sulu U.S.S. Excelsior show.

Well, at least a limited-episode TV series, or a few TV films a year ala COLUMBO,McCLOUD, & BANACEK would've been great.

I seriously doubt George Takei's homosexuality was an issue at all. Why would it be or should've been?

A gay actor in Hollywood? Gee, how shocking! Would never expect to see that!?

Gay actors are such an oddity in Hollywood

Gimme an effing break!

Talk about a non-issue. PC horsehockey!

But, ignoring the gay tangent, Star Trek:EXCELSIOR would've made for an awesome series.

A great follow-up to TOS Captain Sulu's show would have been.

 

[FalTorPan]

Neither George Takei nor Grace Lee Whitney exactly gave their best performances in the Voyager episode. Even though the flashback sequence was "in Tuvok's mind," I can't imagine that the actors were directed to phone in their performances. Then again, maybe they were; in that case, both actors did so brilliantly.

The Excelsior filming miniature built for the episode did not greatly resemble the model from the features. It's a bit ironic that the movies' Excelsior had those ugly "love handles" glued onto the engineering hull so that the model could be damaged in Star Trek Generations without really damaging the model underneath... only to have the model never be love handle-free again.

The bridge set was overlit and lit very flatly, as was typical in a Trek TV production. That's probably why it looked bad compared to its appearance in the movie.

 

[Myasishchev]

I never did see "Flashback," but I would've watched an Excelsior series.

 

[Aquehonga]

I never did see "Flashback," but I would've watched an Excelsior series.

FLASHBACK was a good episode i.m.o. Enjoyable & married V'GER with TOS.

STAR TREK: Excelsior, whether as a full-22 episode season series, LTD-ep. series ala Sopranos, or as a series of 90 minute-2 hr TV movies, would've been great

That's TPTB for ya.

And their sequel: TPTB&B

 

[nx1701g]

Kim: You mean he falsified his records.

Janeway: It was a very different time, Mr. Kim. Captain Sulu, Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy. The all belonged to a different breed of Starfleet officer. Imagine the era they lived in. The Alpha Quadrant still largely unexplored. Humanity on verge of war with Klingons. Romulans hiding behind every nebula. Even the technology we take for granted was still in its early stages. No plasma weapons, no multiphasic shields. Their ships were half as fast

Kim: No replicators. No holodecks. You know ever since I took Starfleet History at the Academy I always wondered what it would be like to live in those days.

Janeway: Space must have seemed a whole lot bigger back then. It's not surprising they had to bend the rules a little. They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive and a little quicker to pull their phasers. Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today. But I have to admit, I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that.

I wonder how long it would have taken for them to ditch that idea and Excelsior to become TNG lite.

 

[Praetor]

Not long, I'd say.

 

[Therin of Andor]

There was never ever a formal pitch made, much less a nix on a show. No writer's bible, nothing, nada. The most that happened was a 'flashback' on Voyager to see if there was interest in going that rough direction, and that went over like a lead brick anyway.

The promotion of Sulu to captain of Excelsior was a "lost scene" for ST II, bait to coerce Takei to sign for ST II. He was the last regular to sign, holding out for whatever he could get, and of course the scene was then infamously filmed but dropped. Vonda McIntyre did include the scene in the novelization, and held to it in subsequent mentions of Sulu's rank in her novelizations of STs III and IV. (Mentions of his promotion were more recently removed from an omnibus edition collecting these novelizations.)

Groups of fans, and then Takei himself, began talking about possibilities for a "Captain Sulu" TV series, or series of telemovies. But only at conventions and media interviews. By post-ST VI, Takei's own version of its dream cast would include heartthrob Christian Slater (continuing his cameo from that movie) and "a handsome young Starfleet graduate named Jean-Luc Picard. Who has hair!" All great fodder for cheering convention audiences, but never a serious pitch.

Other litmus tests for the premise of a "Captain Sulu" series included three original-to-audio productions from Simon & Schuster Audioworks, a DC Comics mini-series, "The Tabukan Syndrome", and two Pocket novels: the dire "The Fearful Summons" by Denny Martin Flinn (screenwriter of ST VI), and the surprisingly low-selling title from Peter David, "The Captain's Daughter" (which used the Demora Sulu connection from "Generations"). Had any of these caught media attention as had previous "event" ST tie-ins, maybe they would have helped rally support.

By the way, when Doohan and Koenig replaced Nimoy and Kelley in "Generations", the Demora Sulu introductory scene concerned Chekov's daughter, not Sulu's.

I often joke that Grace Lee Whitney's unusually stilted performance in "Flashback" was because George kept whispering in her ear, "This is it! This is the pilot for our new TV show, starring us!"

I find myself wondering what was happening on the VOY set that week? The director was getting some very wooden performances from numerous people and, of course, the script was riddled with continuity errors which could have been caught by actually running ST VI before going to a final script edit.

 

[Praetor]

There was never ever a formal pitch made, much less a nix on a show. No writer's bible, nothing, nada. The most that happened was a 'flashback' on Voyager to see if there was interest in going that rough direction, and that went over like a lead brick anyway.

The promotion of Sulu to captain of Excelsior was a "lost scene" for ST II, bait to coerce Takei to sign for ST II. He was the last regular to sign, holding out for whatever he could get, and of course the scene was then infamously filmed but dropped. Vonda McIntyre did include the scene in the novelization, and held to it in subsequent mentions of Sulu's rank in her novelizations of STs III and IV. (Mentions of his promotion were more recently removed from an omnibus edition collecting these novelizations.)

Groups of fans, and then Takei himself, began talking about possibilities for a "Captain Sulu" TV series, or series of telemovies. But only at conventions and media interviews. By post-ST VI, Takei's own version of its dream cast would include heartthrob Christian Slater (continuing his cameo from that movie) and "a handsome young Starfleet graduate named Jean-Luc Picard. Who has hair!" All great fodder for cheering convention audiences, but never a serious pitch.

Other litmus tests for the premise of a "Captain Sulu" series included three original-to-audio productions from Simon & Schuster Audioworks, a DC Comics mini-series, "The Tabukan Syndrome", and two Pocket novels: the dire "The Fearful Summons" by Denny Martin Flinn (screenwriter of ST VI), and the surprisingly low-selling title from Peter David, "The Captain's Daughter" (which used the Demora Sulu connection from "Generations"). Had any of these caught media attention as had previous "event" ST tie-ins, maybe they would have helped rally support.

Wow, Therin, I didn't know a lot of that early info. Do you happen to know just how early Takei was pimping the Sulu series, before TNG even?

I actually have several issues of 'The Tabukan Syndrome' and quite enjoyed it. I had heard bad things about both those novels and stayed away.

By the way, when Doohan and Koenig replaced Nimoy and Kelley in "Generations", the Demora Sulu introductory scene concerned Chekov's daughter, not Sulu's.

I didn't know that either. I bet her mother would have been Irina Gallulin. Having her be Chekov's kid would have been even more of a jab to how old Kirk was, considering he was the youngest of the senior staff.

I often joke that Grace Lee Whitney's unusually stilted performance in "Flashback" was because George kept whispering in her ear, "This is it! This is the pilot for our new TV show, starring us!"

I find myself wondering what was happening on the VOY set that week? The director was getting some very wooden performances from numerous people and, of course, the script was riddled with continuity errors which could have been caught by actually running ST VI before going to a final script edit.

I've always wondered that myself. That episode was enjoyable, but those performances were just... bad. From everyone. And that script had a lot of holes.

 

[RandyS]

There was never ever a formal pitch made, much less a nix on a show. No writer's bible, nothing, nada. The most that happened was a 'flashback' on Voyager to see if there was interest in going that rough direction, and that went over like a lead brick anyway.

Well, it would have helped if Flashback had been actually about Sulu and the EXCELSIOR, but it wasn't. It was about Tuvok, which is fine when you think about it, since a series is supposed to focus on it's stars, rather than guest characters anyway.

A proper EXCELSIOR episode might have worked, but that's not what we got, nor was it the intent.

 

[Praetor]

It might have been more interesting had 'Flashback' actually been told as a flashback to Tuvok's days on the ship (and still relevant to Tuvok in some way) rather than trying to shoehorn Janeway's ability to interact in the weird 'memory world' they tried to portray.

 

[miraclefan]

I remember the fan communaty talking about a Sulu series right before VOYAGER ended. At the time I really did not care, just because I felt that they shuld just let trek die at that point. then I discoverd ENTERPRISE and then I came back in to the fold.