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Unpopular Ideas for a new show
nrobbiec
Member Posts: 959 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Have you ever had a really unpopular idea for a new show/event series/TV movie etc? Something you'd enjoy watching but basically no other fan would?
I've had one, a political thriller about the Federation Council. For some reason 7/8 year old me actually really enjoyed the Senate stuff in the Phantom Menace and I would kind of dig a Star Trek version of that and diving deeper into the ins and outs of the council and how the Federation is politically held together. Like Lower Decks has shown us a lot more goes on after the 5 minutes the hero ship spends there and then forgets about them.
What are some of yours? How would you bankrupt Paramount on a vanity project?
I've had one, a political thriller about the Federation Council. For some reason 7/8 year old me actually really enjoyed the Senate stuff in the Phantom Menace and I would kind of dig a Star Trek version of that and diving deeper into the ins and outs of the council and how the Federation is politically held together. Like Lower Decks has shown us a lot more goes on after the 5 minutes the hero ship spends there and then forgets about them.
What are some of yours? How would you bankrupt Paramount on a vanity project?
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-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I know you imagine yourself to be Arbiter of All That Is Good, Tasteful, and True, but that's just you.
It certainly feels like it to me, like he's trying to convince his opinion is an objective truth by constantly repeating it.
Also, nobody's saying you can't have your opinion. But must you voice it at every opportunity, derailing conversations repeatedly just to complain about all this newfangled stuff you don't like or understand? God's teeth, you've tossed this into at least three widely separated threads in the past four days! (Possibly more - unlike some folks, I don't go looking through every posted thread for my chance to dump all over someone else's enjoyment.)
Discovery isn't bad, Michael Burnham's writing is bad, Discovery's Klingons are poorly designed, "The Burn" was a really dumb idea, But Discovery itself isn't bad, most of their alien designs are really great and cool looking, Kelpians is a new race that was introduced in Discovery and was widely accepted by the Trek Fandom, Discovery Andorians and to a lesser extension the Aenar are very well designed, Discovery Saurians are an improvement over the ones we have in game, Discovery Tellarites are no longer ugly (Thx ENT for ruining them), also like that Discovery Tellarites are more Boar like than Pigs, since they still keep their porcine features but with a bit of grit added to them.
1. make a Movie Trilogy featuring an unlike cast of characters lead by a unlikable Mary Sue, while killing off fan favorites and have both JJ and Rian direct different parts of the trilogy,
2. Insult and blame the fans for my own failures, also lie and claim that there was no content to pull from despite there being years of content,
3. Make a really good show that draws in the old fans again,
4. Start making poorly written shows that are named after beloved characters like Sisko only to pull a bait and switch and have it be about some new character that nobody gives an f about while also breaking canon,
4 is the idea for an unpopular show, but those steps must be taken in order to make it unpopular.
I could continue with step 5. Which is to double down and announce a new movie trilogy featuring the same Mary Sue that nobody likes and is considered worse than the worse character from the 90s/2000s, despite knowing full well that this "new trilogy" is already D.O.A.
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A Twilight Zone but with the Q Continuum, Q: "You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wonderous land whose boundaries are that of imagination, That's the signpost up ahead-your next stop the Continuum Zone"
Bill Murray but with Kirk as a constant guest in the show "Is Kirk the Father?!"
Breaking Bad but with a Romulan Walter White, a Romulan Jesse, a Romulan Saul Goodman and Gustavo Fring can be an Orion, the Meth is replaced by Romulan Ale,
Quantum Leap but with Captain Jonathan Archer, Oh... Boy.
They were absolute bonkers stuff, written by Alex Kurtzman & Robert Orci, and rank highly as 2 of my favourite episodes from the show.
They also loved to break up tension with humor. Those shows weren't afraid to have fun, even at their own expense.
It would be to make a Federation-based series set in the TOS era (but not on the Enterprise itself) that is true to the original TOS setting but updated for modern production values. Actual soft sci-fi instead of space opera, drama instead of melodrama, actually following up on character and sideplot threads instead of lightly touching on them and dropping them, etc.
On an aesthetic level, seamless warp at all speeds again instead of the Star Wars "jump to lightspeed" style and unrealistic heavy use of impulse drive, long-knap soft velvet uniform tunics and minis that look comfortable (like the idea was in TOS but the velour their budget required was unable to deliver) instead of thick, stiff, uncomfortable looking things more in line with the "uptight '80s" unisex fashion which are the norm in Trek nowadays, and a lot of the other things they wanted to do back in 1966 but couldn't for various reasons.
Alternatively (or better yet, in addition to the above), a Romulan series set in the TOS era. Romulan society had recently fallen into a fascist-like state, rife with corruption, rampant favoritism, and other nastiness. It was originally a melding of the Roman transition from a republic to empire and Germany during WWII (the episode was an adaption of The Enemy Below, a WWII movie pitting a US destroyer and a German U-boat in a long running battle), a setting that offered an incredible potential for all kinds of stories.
Assuming that the old system was not perfect either, and the hiding of the forehead ridges under helmets and almost all of the higher officers being Southerners certainly does hint at an inequality problem, the coup could have been driven by a group whipping up resentment among the seemingly more numerous but less favored Northerners eventually resulting in the Romulan equivalent of Kristallnacht.
The heroes of the series could be elements of the old guard similar to Mark Lenard's character (though probably younger protégés of them) walking the razor's edge of trying to satisfy the letter of usually wrongful, dishonorable orders while subverting the evil spirit of them into something more honorable.
Such a series would have all of the intense Game of Thrones style complexity and conflict that CBS apparently wanted (and could not pull off) in DSC, but also have a positive goal for the heroes instead of them just being another faction in a backstabbing, power grabbing free-for-all.
If focused tightly enough on the heroes it would be a best-of-both-worlds situation were the traditional fans would get the traditional Trek morals and ideals (even if it ultimately proved futile as shown by the Romulan government in TNG) and at the same time have the evening-soap level of complexity and strife that 'Thrones and the like have (however, they would have to be very careful to avoid melodrama or it would turn into a real prime-time soap) for the heroes to secretly struggle against.
Why not have a female captain in the TOS era series, It could change the context of the Body Swap episode involving Kirk.
It would be a good idea, though it probably would not change the intended context as such. Roddenberry talked about what the episode was about in panels and articles (people just loved to ask about that inconsistency with the ideals of the rest of the series), and it is not what a lot of people thought it was (though it was written to point out the problems women in the workplace face in the real world of course). More like it would reinforce what Roddenberry was trying to do in the first place.
The Federation did not have a lot of really big capital ships like the Constitution class, and a clique of (possibly misogynistic) admirals were making sure those most coveted commands went to their own (apparently always male) protégés. That meant that female officers were pretty much relegated to support, auxiliary, and the smaller combat ships like destroyers, light cruisers, and such.
The problem was that NBC insisted that they tone down military references (they were afraid of a backlash because of the antiwar protests at the time) for the "good guy's" ships in the series which is why they rarely speak of ship classes/roles like cruiser, destroyer, and the big baddie "battleship" (and extra big no-no since it has the word "battle" in it) except when referring to Klingon ships, and so a weird compromise was made where they referred to capital ships with a capital letter in the scripts and the actors were supposed to inflect that it was different from the uncapitalized version. Capital ships where Starships while all the others were referred to as either "starship" or "spaceship".
When Janice Lester said to Kirk "women are not admitted to your world of Starship captains" it actually meant "...not admitted to your world of capital ship captains...". Also, on the Enterprise's dedication plaque instead of an actual class name it just had the filler "Starship class" on it since they figured no one would bother to try and actually read it, and some of the production people started thinking it was the class name, so it worked on that level too.
Either way, women were only blocked from commanding the top ships and the admiralty was playing down that fact. Ideally, torpedoing that bit of corruption would have been something they could explore in a fourth or fifth season episode had the series not been pulled prematurely. A TOS series with a female captain could (among other things) examine that problem in detail (hopefully without being preachy about it).
I'd watch this. With one caveat. No disruptors allowed.
Here's my idea of something Star Trek which no one else would probably watch.
Jake Sisko as a middle-aged media empire mogul who becomes completely obsessed with the idea of proving Section 31 actually exists. He hires two investigative journalists who answer only to him personally. These two journalists travel all throughout the Federation looking for clues. They become popular enough that Section 31 dares not take direct action against them. But Section 31 sends out teams to discredit them and/or ruin their reputation.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Would be hard to pull off without Will Smith especially since his awful wife ruined his career.