Star Trek Next

Just about everyone I know believes Star Trek: Enterprise was the weakest of the Trek television shows. I don't know that I could conclusively argue one way or another, but Voyager strikes me as the weakest of the two. Both series had excellent episodes, but neither can compare with The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine (my clear favorite). Regardless of which incarnation was worse than the other, one thing is clear to this Trek fan: the franchise took a serious dive after DS9. And so I pose to my AoD colleagues and readers, if we have any, the task of reinvigorating the Star Trek franchise via a new television series. I don't know about anyone else, but I really miss good Star Trek. My idea follows.

Remember the The Next Generation episode, Lower Decks? Rather than follow the regular crew, the episode focused on the lives of four junior officers. This has to be one of my favorite Star Trek episodes of all time. There was something refreshing about a new perspective of a familiar landscape. Were someone to hand the future of the franchise over to me, I'd put together an entire series based on this concept. Each episode would follow the lives of four or five Next Generation era crew members as they go about their duties, get taken to task by superior officers, deal with various ship crises, and so forth. At first glance, I know this doesn't sound very exciting. Wait, there's more! I'd have the writers begin the creative process by outlining a traditional "shuttle craft in trouble," "confrontation with the Romulans," "rescue the doomed colony" storyline. From there, the writers would write the main plot, focusing on the junior officers, so that the viewers see the events unfold from a non-traditional perspective. One of the junior officers would be in Engineering, for example. We'd see the Chief Engineer, but always in the background. Viewers would hear the Chief Engineer talking with the Bridge about the impending core breach, but the action would center on our junior officer. In essence, I'd take traditional Trek and invert the filming process. To date, every series foregrounds the command staff and backgrounds everyone else. I'd foreground junior officers and background the command staff.

Taking this non-traditional approach to Trek does few things. First, it forces writers out of their comfort zone. Most fans complain that the Trek franchise has grown a bit stale--this breathes a bit of fresh air into the process. It also requires a new look at the production process. Can you imagine the challenge of shooting a scene that focuses one of the main characters so that the viewers can also see the Captain (who we never see behind the scenes or in a non-command capacity), communicating with threatening aliens? Second, a series written from this perspective would be affordable. With the focus on secondary characters (relatively unknown actors, perhaps?), we'd see far less of the action directly. We'd see some of it, of course, but far less. A more affordable program could be marketed to a non-major network (hello, SciFi!). As UPN recently merged with WB, I doubt the Star Trek franchise would find a home there. Viacom/Paramount/CBS/Whoever (major reorganizing has gone on within Viacom/Paramount/CBS recently--I'm not sure who retains the rights to ST) could go back to the syndication model, which seemed to work for TNG and DS9.

So, there's my idea. It's not so much a radical revisioning of the ST franchise, but a reconceptualization or refocusing.