December Talking #1

[cosmic_llin]

such_heights said: I know you've had awesome fantasy Star Trek crews before - if you were in charge of bringing back the show for a new 7 year series, what would you like to do with it?

Oooooh, good question! Yup, my dream Star Trek crew is here and I still think it would rock! But more generally... hmm... top of my wishlist are things to do with casting - any Trek series worthy of bearing the name at this point really ought to have at least as many women as men in the cast (and possibly at least one character who was neither male nor female, especially since there's a canonical basis for it, and even more so in the extended canon), wide racial diversity, and at least one queer character whose name is in the main titles - as a bare minimum. Also I'd put more aliens than humans in the main cast, and a less Earth-centric view of Starfleet and the Federation. A non-human captain would be a good place to start with that, I think.

It'd be set on a ship. DS9 is incredible but I'm not sure you could do it again. Things I would borrow from DS9, though - the excellent character development and arc-based plots. I think people expect that much more from sci-fi now than they used to, anyway. I'd like to dig deeper into what it's like to live on a small ship with the same group of people for several years. I'd like things to have consequences, I'd like characters to take their time recovering from things they went through.

I'd also like to steal the epic Bechdel-passiness of Voyager, and the sense of adventure in the unknown. I love love LOVE TNG but sometimes it did feel a little like they were boldly running little errands for the admiralty. The ship in my Trek series would probably not be totally out of reach of the rest of Starfleet, but they also wouldn't often be in a position to get help quickly or come home a lot. Maybe some sort of long-term exploration mission, which could bring them into contact with new allies and adversaries whose issues would lead to interesting storylines.

I'd set it a comfortable amount of time after the end of Voyager (perhaps roughly 15 years or so, so that characters from earlier shows could cameo now and then and be around the right age.) and I'd try to make it not outright contradict at least the more sensible extended universe canon - a lot of people are invested in the continuation books as the story and I'd like for it to fit in, within reason.

Above all, I'd try to keep Star Trek's optimism and hope for the future. I think DS9 did a great job of walking that fine line, telling sometimes quite dark stories but still keeping the overall tone hopeful. A lot of stuff these days seems so grimdark, cynical and pessimistic - Star Trek shouldn't be about that, it should be about imagining a better society, even if it's one that's still far from perfect. So the show would acknowledge the flaws of its characters, of Starfleet and the Federation, but also it should be about trying to figure out how to make the universe a better place.

Comments

[cosmic-llin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sometimes people get a bit funny if you criticise TNG in any way, and while generally I'd defend it to the death, I think they could have gone a little more boldly. And I'm actually working on something at the moment about the Federation secretly being a bit evil...

[thisbluespirit]

From my outsider perspective, I'd agree. But then the only ST I really, really like is Voyager and everyone tells me that's no good, so obviously I am not Proper and Correct in these views. I did, however enjoy the film with the whales, of course, because I think that's obligatory for everyone. ;-)

And these days I don't mind the Federation so much - it is interesting to contemplate how to do a Utopia rather than a dystopia, and not very easy. But things being what they are, it's also easy to find questionable things in it, too, or the way it sometimes was accidentally portrayed, so I'm sure your thingy will be interesting! Also, as I said, if I want to explore the flip-side of the coin, I have my wonderful, tacky and excellent B7 to do that for me.