Why the Prime Universe makes sense for new Trek series

[garoo1980]

I think for me seeing so many people rubbish the prime universe and big up NuTrek on this very forum is sad because who else is gonna stand up for the Trek we grew up with?

I don't think anybody is "rubbishing" classic Trek. It's perfectly possibly to enjoy both the Original Recipe and any new versions. You don't have to choose sides, and liking the reboot doesn't mean disrespecting or rejecting the previous version.

(It's weird. In general, people often seem to think that liking a remake means dissing the previous version. I still remember a very heated on-line debate pitting the two different movie versions of TRUE GRIT against each other. The notion that maybe, just maybe both versions might have their merits and be worth watching never even seemed to cross anyone's mind. Sigh.)

Also, on a pragmatic level, those of us who grew up on TOS or whatever, are no longer the prime target demographic. That's just a fact of life. TREK's future depends on attracting new and younger viewers, not just us old-timers.

I was right on the edge when TNG came out. They used to show TOS on endless reruns and then slowly started slipping in a season of TNG in there, then back to TOS. My brother loved TOS and couldn't stand TNG so I was a little torn. But sure enough after a bit I grew to love both. It's the same show

Has anyone ever done a poll of fans to see which they like? I wonder how many people like *all* ST, vs how many like DS9 but not Voyager or something? It would be interesting to see the break down

 

[Takeru]

Not really true though since CBS based their decision to do a new show on streaming of the old shows which were Prime Universe.

Huh? That doesn't tell us anything, there's no televised non-prime universe content so far, of course it was prime universe trek that justified a new project, what else?

"100% of the Star Trek tv audience watched prime universe content" is a without a doubt a factually correct statement but in the absence of choice it's also meaningless.

 

[Rahul]

Apparently John Constantine from the cancelled series Constantine made a guest appereance in an episode of Arrow, on another television channel no less. Maybe the Flash will travel to the universe Supergirl takes place in.

Producers seem to realise connecting existing properties is a smart move, to bring fans of old stuff to check out the new stuff.

The smart thing would be to set the new Star Trek series in an ambigous continuity, where an old Picard or Quark can show up. And when they visit Earth, there's a portrait of Quinto and Pine as Kirk and Spock being displayed at Starfleet Academy.

 

[Kemaiku]

The new series will be entirely that, new. Even set in the JJverse it will set itself on a separate ship with an entirely new crew. Little or no mention of events will crop up about either continuity most likely but the aethestic of the show will be as modern as possible.

Probably taking as many cues from the new movies as they can, while trying to make the look of the ship unique enough to give it it's own identity.

But it will be a series fit for todays audience, with all the appearance and writing that needs to work, which PrimeTrek failed at utterly, usually dragging far behind what it should have,

 

[xortex]

Trek needs more complexity. Even Firefly had more complexity. Earth should still be a utopia though and the aliens should be truly alien as in Humanoids should all be alternate Humans. Klingons should be a lost or displaced branch of Humanity. They could still be nazi like and the Romulans should be our enemies as well living on a new Vulcan.

 

[Mudd]

Producers seem to realise connecting existing properties is a smart move, to bring fans of old stuff to check out the new stuff.

They can connect this to the existing property called Star Trek, which has had two successful movies that young people paid to see in the last six years.

The smart thing would be to set the new Star Trek series in an ambigous continuity, where an old Picard or Quark can show up. And when they visit Earth, there's a portrait of Quinto and Pine as Kirk and Spock being displayed at Starfleet Academy.

That requires setting it after the oldTrek shows of the 1980s and 1990s.

God no. Every time they do something interesting or clever they'll get tons of hate messages for contradicting something from DS9 episode 53.

The hate for nuTrek has nothing to do in the universe in, but the style that it's presented. It might be the action or the OMGBIGENTERPRISE or whatever. The only substantive difference between the two is the lack of Vulcan, which really means fuck all to us because it never really mattered in the Prime Universe. It was the setting of what, 5 episodes total?

Plop it down in the Prime Universe and the same people will hate it. The writing is going to be same regardless of which planet is gone. The design is going to be modern. What's the point of going back to Prime if everything is different anyway?

The look - the fee - the style of the Prime Universe is what's dead. That's never coming back. That era of production went out with Enterprise.

The new fans CBS is trying to attract don't give two shits anyway.

Exactly so. Preach it, Toad!

 

[Mr Awe]

Based on all previous experience with Star Trek on television, we can say a few things with confidence.

• A show set in the prime universe will be too weighed down by canon for writers to be creative
• A prime universe show would be somehow old fashioned/out of date.
• A prime universe show would require knowledge of previous trek.
• A prime universe show will have to explain in depth what happened to galactic politics after the events leading up to the 2380s.
• Fans will be really pedantic about canon in the Prime Universe, and producers will care about this a great deal.
• Starting fresh will bring in more viewers.

You can also say with confidence that if there was enough time separating the new series from the end of Voyager, none of the above is true.

Although, personally, I'd be fine either way, Prime or not. I just want good stories.

Mr Awe

 

[xortex]

A reimagined prime universe story. But a prequel. There's plenty of timeline for another prequel done right avoiding Enterprise completely though.

 

[IndyMac]

The hate for nuTrek has nothing to do in the universe in, but the style that it's presented. It might be the action or the OMGBIGENTERPRISE or whatever. The only substantive difference between the two is the lack of Vulcan, which really means fuck all to us because it never really mattered in the Prime Universe. It was the setting of what, 5 episodes total?

Plop it down in the Prime Universe and the same people will hate it. The writing is going to be same regardless of which planet is gone. The design is going to be modern. What's the point of going back to Prime if everything is different anyway?

The look - the feel - the style of the Prime Universe is what's dead. That's never coming back. That era of production went out with Enterprise.

The new fans CBS is trying to attract don't give two shits anyway.

It's not like it hasn't already changed numerous times. All of these had different look, feel, style to others.

Star Trek: TOS
Star Trek: TMP
Star Trek: II - VI
Star Trek: TNG, DS9, Voyager, VII - X
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: XI, XII, XIII?

That's at least 6 different look, feel, styles to Star Trek. There have already been 5 "prime" styles.

 

[Greg Cox]

Apparently John Constantine from the cancelled series Constantine made a guest appereance in an episode of Arrow, on another television channel no less. Maybe the Flash will travel to the universe Supergirl takes place in.

Producers seem to realise connecting existing properties is a smart move, to bring fans of old stuff to check out the new stuff.

On the other hand, you don't see SUPERGIRL trying to connect with SMALLVILLE or LOIS & CLARK or even the recent MAN OF STEEL movie, aside from drawing on the same source material . . ..

 

[Belz...]

Star Trek stands to benefit from the same sort of cross-pollination currently enjoyed by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Universe and Star Wars Universe. I think it would be really nice to have cast members from previous Trek series guest star for an episode or two. And in order to have this, the new series has to be set in the Prime Universe.

Wrong. Star Trek may stand to benefit from keeping the series and movies in different universes. That says nothing about using the Prime universe. There's a reason why they rebooted.

 

[AviTrek]

The fanwank desire for canon porn is one of the reasons ENT struggled initially and why CBS will want to avoid the Prime Universe. The mission of the show is to tell compelling stories, not to explore a timeline in a fictional universe that hasn't been explored. A new show could exist during the same time period as TNG/TOS and work, but fans will be complaining why the crew isn't interacting with the Enterprise. Enterprise was originally pitched as a prequel to be more accessible to fans that hadn't watched Star Trek before, not to explain the founding of the federation and the origins of technology seen on later shows.

Given that any overlap with the prime universe will just cause fans to complain about the lack of connection, it's better for everyone to just avoid it and let the show exist on its own.

 

[Mudd]

The fanwank desire for canon porn is one of the reasons ENT struggled initially and why CBS will want to avoid the Prime Universe. The mission of the show is to tell compelling stories, not to explore a timeline in a fictional universe that hasn't been explored.

Exactamundo!

 

[Greg Cox]

The fanwank desire for canon porn is one of the reasons ENT struggled initially and why CBS will want to avoid the Prime Universe. The mission of the show is to tell compelling stories, not to explore a timeline in a fictional universe that hasn't been explored. A new show could exist during the same time period as TNG/TOS and work, but fans will be complaining why the crew isn't interacting with the Enterprise. Enterprise was originally pitched as a prequel to be more accessible to fans that hadn't watched Star Trek before, not to explain the founding of the federation and the origins of technology seen on later shows.

Given that any overlap with the prime universe will just cause fans to complain about the lack of connection, it's better for everyone to just avoid it and let the show exist on its own.

Good point. It might be better to just yank the "canon" Band-Aid off all at once rather than suffer an endless string of nitpicks . . ..

 

[drt]

Plus, the "Prime Universe as a single continuity" only exists because we pretend it does. During the TNG-VOY era they only paid lip service to TOS and discounted TAS entirely, not to mention the countless times they contradicted their own production. Any future production set in the "Prime Universe" is going to do the exact same thing, ignore or discount the previous productions as they need in order for the new stories to work, which will just drive fanboys crazy - might as well just try something completely new.

 

[Mudd]

Yep.

 

[Ometiklan]

which will just drive fanboys crazy

(rant ahead)

I think this is the only relevant portion of what you or Dennis are saying: only the hardcore "fanboys" care overmuch about canon. Regular fans care about canon in that we liked the past episodes, the characters, and the universe (i.e. the setting) and would dislike it if it was "thrown out".

I don't think we have a problem if, for purposes of a new story, a writer changes or gets small things wrong. What we would object to is purposefully jettisoning key elements of a beloved character's history or personality - and I would consider the Federation to be a key character. But given almost almost any new setting likely to be chosen in the Prime universe (e.g. 5 or 10 or 50 years post-DS9/VOY) there will be little need to directly reference past events, and will provide new characters and events and missions to follow.

Though I would most like to see a Prime universe series, what I want most is a high-quality series. If Prime isn't chosen, I could make due with a third universe (fourth if we are counting the "Mirror" universe) provided there is an explicit (and maybe re-occuring) crossover to the Prime.

One other thought about Enterprise. I don't think being "beholden" to continuity was a problem at all for the show. In fact, when they really tried it (season 4) it worked amazingly: 'Here is what the Vulcans were like before we saw them in TOS.' 'Here is what the Andorians were like.' 'Here is what Earth was like before the Federation.'

When they tried to do something totally new (just off exploring/adventuring) with no continuity issues (season 3) it worked pretty good (some bad writing aside).

When they tried to be a prequel but only approached it in name only is where they ran into problems: a ship that is basically looks/functions the same as all later starships, identically functioning tech with slightly antiquated names, meeting the same aliens we are to first contact later only without names (Borg, Ferengi), and running into the Romulans who don't really act like Romulans. These weakened the premise of the show, made it feel like a watered down version of what had come before, or made the characters simply look dumb.

The problem is not with following continuity to the letter or doing a hard swerve to specifically not reference it (while still using the name Star Trek), the problem comes with bad show premise, not following through with your premise, bad writing, etc. Voyager had the same problem. The ship always worked well, the Star Fleet and Maquis crew got a long fine, etc. etc. Not following through with the premise and not caring about your characters or their arcs were Voyager's problems. (Ron Moore's multi-part interview about his experiences with Next Gen and DS9 highlighted Voyager's problems when he said they asked him to write a Klingon episode for B'lanna but when he asked them what their plans were for the character, they didn't have any. Nuff said.)

 

[Magellan]

God no. Every time they do something interesting or clever they'll get tons of hate messages for contradicting something from DS9 episode 53.

And if they are worried about hate mail for contradicting prime canon, you think they are going to get less hate mail for ignoring that DS9 exists at all and only working off of the Abrams films? C'mon, if they were worried about appeasing the hardcore fans they would set it in the prime universe.

I agree with the original poster with shared universes being in vogue now, it makes less sense than ever to jettison decades of world building. If Marvel can make a dozen movies and 4 TV series set in the same universe it doesn't sound like Trek can't do it. It's not as if being in the prime universe would somehow alienate fans of the abrams movies. As long as the show features a modern aesthetic style, casual fans of the movies who tune in probably wont even notice that it isn't the same universe.

Another option is always go back to the 22nd century. That way our new show will exist in both timelines.

 

[Paradise City]

Enterprise's failure had nothing to do with it being set in the Prime Universe. 0%

In fact, a TOS prequel is a very fertile ground to do alot of high quality TV with a lot of very rich storytelling opportunities. It was the one thing going for it.

Enterprise failed because there was extreme Trek fatigue. Voyager had been running concurrently with DS9, DS9 ran concurrently with TNG with a bunch of mixed quality TNG feature films buzzing around in the background. They then tagged on Enterprise on the back of that Trek overload and expected it to work. It wouldn't have mattered how good Enterprise was, it was going to struggle.

Of course it didn't help that they didn't call it "Star Trek" in some misguided act of avante gardism thus confusing the trek die hards that might have preservered in lieu of a mass audience.

The captain was miscast and a strong captain is needed to gel the show together. If you don't have that you are condemned to struggle and Bakula was too stiff for being the kind proto-Kirk frontiersman you might expect for the role.

And the writers where the loosely same circle carried over on their TNG credentials. You need to purge your creative staff after awhile .

I think some episodes where excellent and creative. But the days where two or three strong episodes can carry a season are gone. You have to be high quality and engaging right along the way to survive and it was no surprise that Enterprise was axed at the dawn of this new reality in TV.

But Enterprise's failure wasn't that it was set in the prime universe.

===

And now the bad news for prime universe people. The bad news for the prime universe people, is that the prime universe is now very crowded.

They've done the TOS movies.

They've done TOS a 100 years later and a prequel a 100 years back.

They've done Star Trek West Wing/cop show with DS9.

They've done Star Trek "Lost in Space" with Voyager.

It's bloody crowded. I think they could do a good Star Trek: Section 34 as a kind of Bourne Identity in Space if they put their mind to it. But for them it's gonna be too risky to do something like that and somewhat amusingly you could argue it isn't trek.

But with the success of BSG, and the opportunity that follows from a clean slate, they're either going to reimagine it (hopefully) or give it the JJ-esque showbiz touch. The odds of them situating it in prime is virtually zero and I can see why despite my own fondness for prime.

 

[T'Girl]

Every time they do something interesting or clever they'll get tons of hate messages for contradicting something from DS9 episode 53.

In other words, those people are watching the show.