Do Over!: Trek Rebirth

Since Star Trek seems to be doing extremely well at the box office, it's got me wondering if the franchise could produce some more series. I ended up with one general concept of my own, and thought I'd share it:

It takes place on a small Oberth class science ship, outfitted with cutting edge sensors and other science-oriented equipment. It's focused on planetary study (since I'm not so fond of Negative Space Wedgies). I think the ship type makes a lot of room for writing potential:

1. As a science ship, they're naturally going to gravitate towards scientific curiosities and save the day in the manner of a Campbellian hero, like Star Trek tends to be fond of.

2. The ship works with a smaller crew, so a casual manner among them can be more easily justified. There could be friction between Starfleet and civilian crew.

3. If the ship gets caught up in a conflict, you can easily understand it being outgunned and the crew forced to rely on guile to survive, at least until a bigger class of ship arrives to help. It'd be well established they've got better Everything Sensors than average, so they could detect unusual advantages. One of the things that makes it harder for me to take a number of original series episodes seriously was how often the Enterprise, the flagship of the Federation, was outgunned by various alien species. How's the Federation still around?

So, anyone got their own ideas?

Do Over!: Trekkie Mix 'n Match Edition

So, in a few comments or somewhere, I may have mentioned something I thought would be interesting, and I imagine some of my Trek-loving readers can probably help fill in details: The Next Gen crew is my favorite Star Trek crew, but DS9 is my favorite setting. So, what'd happen if you mixed the two together? Replace the Star Fleet portion of DS9's cast with the Next Gen crew: Kira, Quark, Garak, and so forth are still there, but have to mesh with different people. Some thoughts of mine:

Originally, the writers intended for Ro Laran to be on DS9, but because Michelle Forbes wasn't interested, they made Kira. It might be an interesting can of worms to contemplate.

Picard would have an interesting time if he ended up the Emissary, not wanting to violate the Prime Directive. He's already been briefly worshiped as a god, and I don't think he'd enjoy being Space Jesus.

Not sure how Data would fit in: He'd probably do well in Dax's job as a science officer, since his 88 petabytes of memory would give him something comparable to Dax's multiple lifetimes' experience. Of course, Data would be in a very different character role. I suppose he might find some kind of kinship with Odo, since they're both outsiders among organic humanoids.

Deanna's kind of hard to work with because, well, you probably know why. Guess she could do something with Keiko's school and/or serve in a diplomatic capacity.

Wesley'd probably fill out the role of Jake Sisko, only in a more annoying manner. Have a hard time imagining him forming a friendship with Nog, though.

Might need to give thought to Geordi versus Miles for the role of chief engineer. The chief was already in the show, but was also on the Enterprise.

So anyway, begin discussion.

Do Over! Browncoat Edition

Well, it's hard to improve upon a series as solid as Firefly, but given its short but very sweet run, it didn't have much opportunity to jump the shark. This post is likely going to be fairly short, too, since I don't think I can come up with a lot of stuff I'd redo. However, since the show was too good to last, feel free to post what you think would interesting directions for hypothetical episodes to move in.

The Movie: Serenity: My main complaint is that it felt artificial, inflating the crew's importance. Exposing the Reaver origin and spreading the word across the solar system(s) felt kind of like shoving the crew into a typical Hollywood B plot, rather than flow naturally. The characters were handled well enough, and the Operative was a good adversary, but they could have figured out something else to do with them. One angle I think I would have preferred to take would have having him as one of the Hands of Blue going after River, or maybe a rival of some sort for Shepard Book.

And I'm about tapped out already.

Do Over! History Channel Edition

Okay, so the Doctor tells you saving mankind in the distant future entails doing the History Channel right, so he takes you for a spin in the TARDIS and manages to give you absolute control over the network so that you can take out all those crazy shows about alien conspiracies... oh, wait...

All right, I didn't think my premise through. But you've been given the chance to redo the History Channel from the ground up and prevent the network decay we see today. What would you do?

Some of my ideas:

1. Don't get "The Hitler Network" nickname: Yes, WWII was a very important chunk of history and is still fresh in the current generations' collective mind. Yes, it's very well documented. But it's not the whole of history.

2. None of this "Ice Road Truckers" stuff: My first question when I saw that was "What does this have to do with history?" I could maybe understand a one-shot special about the significance of freight in those regions, whatever it may be, but I don't see a series.

3. Dump the woo. No aliens, no endless specials about mythology. I remember some special on angels with some woman commenting on how conflicting the lore on angels was. So's the lore on werewolves. That's because they're fictional and not subject to historical science. Leave the mythology to how it affects the real world, i.e. who got inspired to do what atrocity.

4. Make specials on how historians actually do stuff. History is a science, and more science education in the media would be appreciated. Too many woos out there seem to think that just having something in print makes it true.

5. Keep some of the geek stuff: I'm talking about some of the specials they had on the history of sci-fi and "Superheroes Unmasked." They put the entertainment in historical context, so we could see how life imitated art and vice-versa. There is, of course, a limit.

6. Do some shows on other parts of the world. Mostly I see stuff that's America- and Euro-centric. I'd like to see some shows on the history of other regions, and sometimes deeper into their past than their cool parts. From some shows I've seen, you'd think Japan sprang into existence sometime in the Edo period. I could also use some enlightenment in the area of Africa's history, too.

Do Over! Jedi Edition

You've got a time machine, and you've taken George Lucas hostage. What would you do differently with the Star Wars Trilogies?

Here are some of my initial thoughts:

1. At least have Luke mention Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru once or twice after their deaths. With all the stuff blowing up and lightsaber fights, I can understand being distracted from it, like I was before a little scene in Robot Chicken, but it would be nice to see Luke bring it up at least once in the movies.

2. Dump the whole "Storm Troopers are clones of Boba Fett's 'father'" thing in Episode 2. (And get a better title by the way.) The Fett man was cool because of the Decemberween gift effect: He was cool because we didn't know the man under the mask. His mysterious past was whatever our imaginations could stretch it to be. Or even just assumed to be cooler than anything we really could imagine. Just have the storm troopers be clones of some nameless mercenary, or even just engineered from scratch.

3. Just for one of the elephants in the room: Get a better actor for Anakin. When the "romance" started, I was absolutely convinced Anakin was just playing her like a fiddle to create some kind of false "troubled but cute" image to pull Padme's heart strings. Turns out the actor wasn't acting like a bad actor.

4. Seriously trim down on the Ewoks.

5. For the prequel trilogy in general: Get George to make it very shortly after the original, and make sure he's still balanced by other directors, writers, editors and such. He was a cool guy, but getting protection from editors didn't help.

Do Over! Trekkie Edition

Well, it's a new year, which means you'll be filling out checks incorrectly. Also an excuse for people to start stuff over. But in this case, you'll be starting over something from decades ago: You're Gene Roddenberry, the pilot's been approved, and you've got a bigger budget than you originally expected: How'd you do Star Trek differently?

I've got a few ideas:

The Original Series:

1. Nerf the transporters. In this contrived setup, I've eliminated the original reason they existed: Budget. If Star Trek had more money, they would have done shuttle landings. Here's how I'd have the nerfed transporters work, if at all: It's primarily an emergency system. Repeated use on living things eventually leads to transporter psychosis like Barclay was worried about during bouts of hypochondria.

2. Rubber foreheads for the Klingons. The retcon just didn't sit well with me. Oh, and sort things out with the Trills ahead of time while we're at it.

3. Make a map in advance: Keep distances consistent, so you don't have the Enterprise jumping from one side of the galaxy to another in a manner that later embarrasses a certain Skipper, I mean female captain.

4. Episodes to kill: Spock's Brain and And the Children Shall Lead. Never happened. Really.

5. Episode to keep absolutely unaltered: The City at the Edge of Forever.

6. Fewer super-powered godlike aliens. Yeah, Kirk can talk his way past them. I don't watch Star Trek to see the crew flail helplessly for most of the episode.

7. Make Phase Two.

The Next Generation:

1. Keep the Borg insectine: The body snatching critters from that one episode that went gory were originally intended to be related to the Borg. Cyborg bugs would be cool.

2. Make the Ferengi proceed directly to comedic adversaries. They just didn't work out as real villains.

3. Take down the idealistic preachery down a few notches.

Deep Space Nine:

1. On the last episode, stick in the following scenes: Morn talks, Captain Boday makes an appearance, and Chief O'Brien discovers what a self-sealing stem bolt does.

I'll think of more, later.