"What the New Star Trek Show Needs in Order to Triumph II" Topic

"This month CBS announced plans to launch a new Star Trek TV series in 2017. Few details are known about the show—which will be produced by Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the last two Star Trek films—but that hasn't stopped fans from speculating. Keith DeCandido, who's written or edited dozens of Star Trek books, hopes the new show will emphasize optimism.

"At its best Star Trek has always gone with a message of optimism and hope," DeCandido says in Episode 178 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "It always comes back to erring on the side of getting along, of compassion, of people talking to each other and working out their problems in a civilized manner."

Screenwriter Rafael Jordan credits Star Trek for his interest in science. He likes that the older shows were heavy on scientific jargon—even if much of it was made up—and laments how mindless and action-heavy the franchise has become. He hopes the new series features more problem solving.

"As a science guy I really loved all that stuff," he says. "I hope they try to make it interesting on a scientific level, and don't just make it about jockeying around the galaxy having fun and blowing things up."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

How about some moral clarity? I'm currently re-watching the ST:Voyager series, and it's sorely lacking in the moral compassion/clarity department. In one episode introducing the aliens suffering from the degenerative "phage" disease Voyager ends up rescuing some of its people from a forced labor camp in which inmates are worked to the point of death and then chopped up into parts and sewn onto the aliens…and they don't rescue any other inmates. Not even the ones that helped them!

Another recent one I watched, Voyager beams crew down to a planet run by a dictatorship to get some special mineral for the warp core and the away team gets captured, and Tuvok even gets tortured by the local gestapo. After locals help Voyager rescue their crew from prison, and a side character local dies while saving Captain Janeway, they just leave! Hasta la vista, we got ours, jack!

Gimme some TOS Kirk moral clarity, even in the face of the Prime Directive. You're a dictator brutally oppressng people, and even tortured some of his crew? He's tearing you down. Slavers? You're toast! People dying of a plague? Here's some 25th century medicine!

Keep the writing "simple" with interesting stories that have some sort of closure. The problem with Enterprise was that it had an over-bearing, all encompassing story arc that boiled down to---somebody shot us up and we are going to find them and deal with it…Blah

SBminisguy has hit it dead on with Voyager--no need to go further.

At least DS9 hit quite a few of the "must have" points in a good series--although a non moving space station becomes a bit limited.

I really want a more "science and investigation" series than a space shooter show---the problems of an early x-files, with a dash of Dr. Who devil may care I am doing what is needed sense of moral compass

@random, yep, I like that approach. And such an approach could also do what TOS did -- explore social and political issues and "what-ifs" using SciFi as the backdrop. Even difficult questions, like in "The Conscience of the King," a former dictator with blood on his hands is eventually discovered in an acting troupe. What do you do with a broken-down old madman? A clear reference to the on-going hunt for ex-Nazis in the 1960s, it raises some great moral themes of justice, revenge, redemption and forgiveness.

Sure – go ahead and have the heros "help", just be sure to show the usual results of interfering in other cultures. It almost always turns out badly.

Do 'THE OTHER CAPTAINS', show the complaints against 'Kirk-faction' officers, other problems, other races, a renegade Fed captain 'gone Orion', Marines-I had a idea about StarFleet marines capturing a Klingon D6 penal cruiser. In the battle the Feds had to leave without them. The Marines fought their way back with the help of the freed crew. The Fleet tried to impound the vessel which the Marines wouldn't give up-classic service rivalry dispute. A Hearing awarded the Marines the ship. So you have a bunch of hard-case Marines doing missions.

Or you have some 20th/21st C. meat popsicles trying to adapt to the Federation.

I agree with SBminisguy, that was part of Rodenberry's vision, technology don't solve everything. I would also like to see something a bit more, like revisit some of the original episodes and reflect on today's issues. Here we are almost 50 years later and we still have race issues. What happened to the guys on the planet with black and white faces? Go back there and find out, it has gotten better on earth in the last 50 years but we still have the same issues (some would say in greater focus). I like the technology stuff as well, but what has it done for society? Is there poverty, disease, violent crime? If so, why? I am not looking for a different series, just something more than going from planet to planet blasting things.

I agree with Skippy. I always liked the fictional captains that existed in the Star Fleet Battles universe; Namely Kosnett and Stocker. You could tie in with notable personalities such as the Klingon Ardak Kumerian. How neat would it be to see Kzinti and Gorn and even Hydrans and Lyrans.

Here we are almost 50 years later and we still have race issues.

Yes we do and it not hard to see why either.

If they throw nothing but Social Justice in the viewers faces week in and week out it will tank.

I'm less interested in space soap opera, and more in the just blowing things up end of the spectrum.

Perhaps I was, or will be a Romulan, or Klingon.

And maybe some aliens that look, you know…alien, rather than just people with funny nose bumps and stuff. And really alien cultures -- lets see how well you can relate to a species like the crab-like Prador in Neal Asher's "Polity Universe." The closest I can recall was the "Darmok" episode in STNG where the aliens spoke using cultural references to convey emotions & ideas, like "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."

Gimme that good old Kirk era magic. None of that panty-waisted "happiness and great joy" bs with a damned social worker on the bridge.

I'll tell you what it DOESN'T need:

TIME TRAVEL!!!

The occasional accidental foray into the past (or future) was OK, if cleverly done. But give it a break already!

ENTERPRISE was a pretty good show in my opinion, but having time travel be the overarching plot from the very first episode was a huge error in my opinion.

JJ VERSE??? Let's use time travel to justify (then perversely undermine) its entire existence.

Somewhere along the line, Star Trek became less about exploring "strange new worlds" and more about exploring last Tuesday.

I fear we will get yet another "dark and gritty" show featuring a cast of incompetent sociopaths who are in constant conflict with one another.

> What happened to the guys on the planet with black and white faces?

They killed each other, or one killed the other and then died. Everyone else on the planet was dead. In typical ST fashion they seemed to forget that said race had Interstellar travel…

No time travel. YES! First writer to mention it needs to be shot dead. No magic transporters (or any other magic tech either), at least not without making it clear it can not be used again.

Like skippy0001 ideas!!

Amicalement
Armand

I'll tell you what it DOESN'T need:

TIME TRAVEL!!!

Indeed! Oh, and NO HOLODECKS! Other than the holographic Doctor in Voyager, exploring what it means to be alive/sentient, the Holodeck is just a poor man's time travel machine -- knock it off! If you want to have the characters do a Western, figure out how to do it on an alien planet. Want a murder mystery? Bump off a crewman on the ship and do a real WhoDunnit!