Horror or best idea for Trek to Continue

[YankeyMCC]

Although I've become a 'convert' to the idea that 'reimagining' of a TV series can be a good thing due to the quality of the new BSG series my first reaction to this idea of 'rebooting the Star Trek Universe' repulsed me. I was a fan of the original BSG but the characters were not on the sentimental pillar Kirk, Spock and McCoy are in my mind and that I think was my source of revulsion. I'm not one to worry over much about continuity across all incarnations of the show. In fact I used to run Star Trek writing games where my rule was we set up a starting point in the Trek universe and let our stories and characters take us where they will regardless of what was happening in the TV shows - of course not with contempt we'd use what we liked and could. So my aversion to this idea is purely sentimental. I did think the involvement of JMS boded well for the idea but I keep thinking - why not take the idea and just create a new show altogether.

But it worked for BSG - worked very well and I like much of what I read in this treatment. I'm not overly impressed with the 'arch' story line (sounds like it was taken from that TNG episode where Picard's old professor find a computer program in DNA) but I like the idea of an overall story arch like JMS had in B5.

http://bztv.typepad.com/newsviews/files/ST2004Reboot.pdf

Still for me it seems we ought to go into the Future of the Star Trek universe, let's keep pushing the envelope instead of going backward. But perhaps that's impractical. In that case the best option to keep Trek alive is perhaps different media, novels of 'gaps' in the stories told in the TV shows and Movies.

PS: Did the new movie idea for a meeting of Kirk, Spock and McCoy come from this treatment??

[Ravenseye]

1. I'd watch it

I don't know about the storyline they have, but I like the overall concept of a reboot. The Star Trek Universe is just so overpopulated these days with too much continuity and lore, and missteps, and other crap.

The series just went pretty consistently downhill through all iterations with occasional minor upticks, only to turn back down even greater.

I think starting fresh with a brand new slate would be a breath of fresh air.

[Orrex]

2. I'm really not thrilled with this proposal, alas

Dramatically, I feel that the Quest for our Intelligent Designers is inherently kind of flaccid. Aside from the obvious and near-pandering overtones of Creationism, the idea of our secret interplanetary progenitors has been done again and again. Heck, it's been done several times already in the "Trek Universe A." What would distinguish the new ID-Trek from the pack?

Also, a Stephen King or Michael Cricton Trek is all but guaranteed to be worse than anything ol' BB ever came up with. Witness the King-written X-Files episode about, gasp, an evil doll! Witness Cricton's Congo or Timeline or Disclosure. Sure, these writers make money, and their writing has led to several very enjoyable films, but the signal:noise ratio isn't great.

For that matter, the "mythology episodes which drove the X-Files series" led directly to the interminable, repetitive, and just plain awful Scully-cancer-Mulder's-Dad-Mulder's-Sister-Aliens-Hybrids-Secret-Pact drivel. The strongest parts of the series, in terms of drama, were the stand-alone episodes with one-shot monsters/villians/mysteries, between which we had to endure the forcible exploration of the bland conspiracy-myth. The proposed Trek might improve on this by pre-writing the mythology, rather than making it up on the fly a la Chris Carter, but it's still a big risk. It all hinges on the strength of the underlying mystery, and if the mystery is "we have to find our de facto gods," then I'll watch reruns of Voyager, thanks.

I have no problem with recasting the sacred Trek Trio--none at all. But I'm not thrilled with the idea of JMS at the helm, because I found pretty much all of B5 to be horrible--the SFX, the cinematography, the story (beloved by its fans, I know), most of the acting, and the characters themselves. Kudos to JMS for his awards, but his presence at the new Trek helm wouldn't improve my optimism for its success.

[YankeyMCC]

3. We have very different tastes I think

:)

I very much liked B5 and would definitely like to see a JMS interpretation of Trek. I do agree that the whole search for our creator theme is perhaps overused and smacks a bit of ID and I would've rather seen a different arc storyline but as long as it provided good fodder for character development and was done well I could live with it. And I do agree about X-Files (perhaps our tastes aren't so different) I had to stop watching after a while as it got - well lets say frustrating. But JMS managed to avoid the traps X-Files fell into in B5 so the 'mythology' eps aren't the problem it's the execution of them and how they are run over the course of the series.

And yes a 'Cricton' story would probably be horrid (King might do a good job) but I read that part of the treatment with a bit more optimism about who they'd pick than just the list they gave - imagine them reaching out to Robinson, or Kress or Swanwick, or Flynn...That's the part that I would truly love to see again, TV SF reaching out to quality SF writers for stories.

[Orrex]

4. Maybe my beef isn't with JMS per se

I just really, really can't stand B5.

It would indeed be very cool to have some "real" SF writers try their hand at Trek, though...

[Cannikin]

5. Bryan Singer is a big trekkie. Wonder what he could do with it.

[htuttle]

6. I don't think it matters if they reboot -- what they need to do is...

...get back to the original point of Star Trek. Star Trek wasn't about the future. It was about NOW, disguised as the future.

TNG was good in part because it often continued to do this (it also had a very strong cast). DS9 sometimes, but far less often, told 'sci-fi parables' in the same way that the earlier ones did. But Voyager all too often fled from commentary about our present day, and as far as I could tell (I didn't watch it that much), Enterprise almost never delved into contemporary issues clothed in futuristic spandex. Or maybe I just couldn't stand Scott Bakula, I don't know...

In any case, I think the relevancy of the earlier Treks is what made the scripts far more compelling and interesting.