Star Trek Next?

[Water Bob]

There's rumor that a new Star Trek show may be developed for TV. This one is supposed to be set in the new timeline of the Abrams movies and feature a crew other than Kirk & Co. and a ship other than Enterprise.

If this is true, I've got an idea for a premise.





The show will be based around a group of Starfleet personnel charged with reuniting the Vulcans and discovering/colonizing a new Vulcan homeworld. Yes, I know that New Vulcan is seen in the recent film, Star Trek - Into Darkness, but this series will tell of the problems that the Vulcans are having on New Vulcan. And, the logical thing to do is find a more suitable world to serve as the new Vulcan homeworld.

This will be the first Trek series to be based on a world--the world of New Vulcan (Yes, DS9 was based on a space station.), but at least half to three-quarter of the episodes will feature the crew of a Starfleet vessel leading the search for the perfect planet.

Some ideas--

The Romulans come with open hands to help their long, lost cousins, but, in reality, they have a secret agenda to keep the Vulcans from ever again becoming a center of power within the Federation/galaxy.

But, the Romulans aren't the only faction to work with clandestine measures. The Vulcans themselves have a sect that is dedicated to restoring the original Vulcan homeworld by manipulating the timeline. Their goal is patriotic, dangerous, and secretive besides being a goal never before achieved by any known species: They only want to change one aspect of the timeline--to prevent the destruction of the Vulcan homeworld--while keeping the remaining aspect of the timeline intact. When discovered, Starfleet will work against them. They will be "gray" bad-guys in that their goal is understood and desireable (if it were Earth that was destroyed, we'd root for them), but what they are doing is so dangerous that the probability is that they will eradicate the current timeline--something nobody wants.

Stories could feature Vulcan expatriots, reuniting with survivors of their homeworld destruction.

Colonization of new worlds, where multi-episode story archs take place, only to find that the world will not work.

Delve deep into Vulcan mysticism, illumanating aspects of Vulcan culture like never before.

A key set will be the Starfleet wing of the Earth embassy on New Vulcan. This will be the homeport of the ship and crew featured in the show.

Several Vulcans aboard the exploration ship, with stories showing exclusive Vulcan away teams.

There may be major plot lines that put the search for a new Vulcan homeworld on the back burner for a while--such as a threat that the entire Federation will unravel as the factions bicker in the wake of the Vulcan homeworld destruction.

I'm sure there's more thought we could put to this.

Your thoughts?
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[sabrinathecat]

They want to go back in time, kill JJAbrams, Orci, and Kurtzman? Are they recruiting? I'd volunteer for that mission!

If you follow this Vulcan route, the ship should be the USS Intrepid (which had an all-vulcan crew, or nearly so, before it met the giant space amoeba). Let there be one human something--weapons officer hot for blood or overly passionate engineer who just loves his engines.
Earth 2, Invasion Earth, and other shows have done the New Homeworld story line before, but never really done it well.

I'd rather see a good show about exploring, seeking out new life in old stale situations, to boldly go where many shows have gone before, but with a new angle and flavoring.
The problem with a mostly vulcan theme is that the pure vulcans are supposed to be logical and not emotional. Even the JJAbrams versions. It would be hard to have drama for every episode when you are dealing with purely logical beings. Most writers are not up to that challenge, and the show would suffer from it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I have a hard time seeing Star Trek being a successful weekly show. The concept is dated and has been done to death (I say this as someone with a pile of DVDs and soundtracks and novels). There hasn't been anything original in Trek in a while. The new movies are okay as popcorn movies and an exercise in nostalgia, but don't stand up to much scrutiny. Human-shaped aliens seem sillier now than they did in the '60's, and the futuristic technology that characterized the original show now falls into one of two categories: things that are clearly impossible, and things that we have right now. So many plot devices and conceits that Trek pioneered are now tropes and have become obvious and tired.

To me, it would need a complete reinvention, not just a timeline redux and an increase in special effects.

That's a very tall order.

 

[Water Bob]

If I had my rathers, I'd vote for something new in the old timeline. I'd like to see Pike's crew fleshed out. There was a comic that had a lot of fantastic stories centering around Pike.


But, from what I've read on the net, it's the new timeline that the producers would want to sell--thus, the idea in the OP, with the GIVEN that the show has to be in the new timeline.

I thought about the focus being too narrow, but then, I also thought about Babylon 5 (incredible show) set on a space station, and, of course, Deep Space Nine.
I think the story arch of the show would be Starfleet's efforts in helping the Vulcans, but other stories and story archs could easily come into play. The main characters would be Humans--the crew of the starfleet vessel. Not the Vulcans. There would be just a lot of the Vulcans. We'd learn a lot about the race.

...while escorting supply ships that are much needed on New Vulcan, the crew encounters....

...the ship has arrived at Blah-Blah III for survey and finds...

...while enroute back to New Vulcan, crew members go missing on the ship with no trace...

Lots of idea. The overall story-arch ties the other, single episodes together.


Plus, we return to the Vulcan sect trying to re-engineer the timeline so that Vulcan was never destroyed.

We deal with the various Federation races who are succeeding from the Federation in the aftermather of the disater.

And, the Romulans are moving in the dark, with their skullduggery hands.



Our main set locations are twofold, the Starfleet base on New Vulcan, and the starship assigned to the base.

In addition to the stars of the show (the crew of the vessel), I'd like to have some recurring lower-rank characters, telling stories from the lower decks aboard the starship. In these episodes, the main crew members are rarely seen--usually from afar, or to give orders and then disappear.

And, I agree, the starship could be named Intrepid.

 

[Water Bob]

Human-shaped aliens seem sillier now than they did in the '60's, and the futuristic technology that characterized the original show now falls into one of two categories: things that are clearly impossible, and things that we have right now.

I think that the Trek universe tackled the "humanoid-alien" thing in a TNG episode. Evidently, human stock was used to seed this galaxy. Thus, you get very few real looking aliens and many more humanoid aliens.

As far as tech, I agree. The new show needs to be set in the other timeline or in the future from what we've already seen. We need to see upgraded, futuristic technology. I'm guessing that the helman will be using holographic, reconfigurable controls.

I also think that the stories need to return to the wonderment of science fiction. I think one of the reasons Enterprise failed is becuase there weren't enough stories that said "what if". It was too much of an action series, runnin-an-gunnin.

TOS, TNG, and DS9 had a majority of their shows centered around moral issues or what-if issues, wrapped in a sci-fi wrapper. Kirk came across an alien being that was the Roman god Apollo. Remember the astonishment of Devil in the Dark when it was revealed that the Horta was the last of her race, and the eggs were her babies!

Or, how about TNG's episode, The Measure of a Man, when Picard had to prove that Data was sentient.

Or, that amazing DS9 episode that showed a writer in 1940's earth writing a science fiction tale about a space station called Deep Space Nine. What he wrote was reality for the DS9 crewmembers.

THOSE types of episodes are Trek episodes.

THAT TYPE OF STUFF is what a new series will need.

Sure, the running and gunning is cool. We need some space battles and some fist fights. But, we also need that other stuff--something that the last series, Enterprise, lacked (there were a few episodes that qualify, but not many).



And, we need NEW ideas. We don't need to see the Borg again. We don't need to visit the Mirror Universe again.

We need new ideas, new stories, new Trek.

Don't tell me it's hard to pull off. Anything that is "good" is hard to pull off. But, I know it can be done. I've read too many good Trek novels, short stories, comics and newspaper strips that are fantastic.

It can be done.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think that the Trek universe tackled the "humanoid-alien" thing in a TNG episode. Evidently, human stock was used to seed this galaxy. Thus, you get very few real looking aliens and many more humanoid aliens.

This is true. However, an explanation meant for fans hardly changed the nature of the show in the eyes of non-fans. And frankly, now there have been numerous other films and TV shows where we had aliens as humans in makeup. In the '60's, it was necessitated by cost and technology. Now it isn't. However, the humanity of Trek's aliens is also part of its appeal.

It's a complex problem. In the JJ Abrams movies, alien makeup is generally in the background and played for laughs. I don't know what mix of humans, makeup, and CGI would be appropriate (and affordable) for a TV show.

As far as tech, I agree. The new show needs to be set in the other timeline or in the future from what we've already seen. We need to see upgraded, futuristic technology. I'm guessing that the helman will be using holographic, reconfigurable controls.

That's true. It's a high bar though. The original Trek really captured people's imaginations with its speculative vision of the future. Recapturing them with a new vision that is equally speculative, but also equally gripping (and eerily accurate, in some cases) is a high bar. Roddenberry was a visionary, and it would take another equally special person to revitalize the franchise (no offense, JJ).

Also, there's a question of what out of the existing technology will we as an audience let them get away with. Numerous books have now been written about how warp drive, transportation, replication, etc. are physically impossible. Is the more informed audience of the 21st century still ok with those things? What about the rampant goalpost shifting wherein technological capabilities are redefined as needed for the plot? In the reboot, you can now beam on to moving ships light years away and warp from Earth to Vulcan within minutes, and to Qo'nos within hours. Those kinds of things could mess up a TV series.

I also think that the stories need to return to the wonderment of science fiction. I think one of the reasons Enterprise failed is becuase there weren't enough stories that said "what if". It was too much of an action series, runnin-an-gunnin.

Agreed.

Don't tell me it's hard to pull off.

It's hard to pull off.

Anything that is "good" is hard to pull off. But, I know it can be done. I've read too many good Trek novels, short stories, comics and newspaper strips that are fantastic.

It can be done.

It can be, but I'm not holding my breath. It will require not only a game-changing new personality to provide a creative vision, but also a network who will take it on, and a great deal of behind the scenes wrangling. Then it'll require the same things that every other TV series does: a good team, a lot of hard work, and good timing.

I hope people try, but I think there's a lot more ways it could go wrong than go right.

 

[Guest 85555]

Give the popularit of star wars and other soft science fiction I really don't see humanoid aliens as a problem for Star Trek, if anything they are a strength. I don't know if a new star trek series will have staying power or not. I would certainly watch it, but they would need to do something new and interesting because we already have so much ST material. But I would rather see that new and interesitng thing be in how they deal with characters or with story and show format, not necessarily making more plausible science fiction (to me star trek is escapist, i love Clarke but that isn't the kind of sci-fi I am after when i turn on Star Trek).

 

[Guest 85555]

In terms of tech, i dont think they need to account for warp drives being disproven, they can just come up with explanations for why they are in fact possible if they really need to. What they need to do is account for technologies like the internet and cell phones. If you go back and watch original series or next generation, it is striking how out of date the shows appear, not because they don't align with present scientific theory, but because they haven't built on existing convenience tech people are familiar with.

 

[Umbran]

There's rumor that a new Star Trek show may be developed for TV. This one is supposed to be set in the new timeline of the Abrams movies and feature a crew other than Kirk & Co. and a ship other than Enterprise.

Well, there's always rumors of new Trek shows out there. Michael Dorn is pushing a "Worf some years later" series. Walter Koenig and Tim Russ have crowd funded Star Trek: Renegades.

I don't think I want to see the Abrams timeline move to TV. I'd prefer to see it start and end as an alternate timeline - preferably a loop they close when they're done with the movies after one or two more of them.

 

[Guest 85555]

Well, there's always rumors of new Trek shows out there. Michael Dorn is pushing a "Worf some years later" series. Walter Koenig and Tim Russ have crowd funded Star Trek: Renegades.

I don't think I want to see the Abrams timeline move to TV. I'd prefer to see it start and end as an alternate timeline - preferably a loop they close when they're done with the movies after one or two more of them.

i think a series with worf as captain could be interesting. But i think it always boils down to the chemistry of the crew on the bridge.