If I Ran Star Trek…

Almost all Star Trek from the last 15 years is irredeemably bad. The Kelvin timeline movies are dark, violent, and imbecilic. Admittedly, I did think the first one was kind of fun but hoped that later movies would be smarter and less about combat. Instead, we got Fast & Furious in space. Star Trek Discovery was a prequel no one asked for with a story so cringy and ridiculous, it has been shedding viewers since season one. I won’t bother with Picard, Prodigy and Lower Decks.

Strange New Worlds is the only show that makes an attempt to be true to Star Trek. It is not as dumb, and far less violent and dark. It attempts to restore the aspirational nature of the source material, staying true to Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Yet, it is still just a prequel that tends to treat its audience like idiots, watering down its subject-matter to make more it accessible to all ages.

Instead of just continuing to criticize and tear down what was once a great franchise, I decided to do a quick thought experiment: what if I found a lamp with a genie, and used my first wish to become the executive producer of all Star Trek for Paramount? What if I replaced Alex Kurtzman?

Restore Roddenberry’s Vision

New Star Trek makes seven painful mistakes that has Gene Roddenberry spinning in his grave (Listen to Episode 6 of Loose Headcanon Podcast!). Before any new shows or movies are made, I would lay down these rules:

Do not dumb down Star Trek in a futile attempt to appeal to a broader audience. Star Trek has always been “smart” sci-fi, not action.
Characters must be depicted with authenticity. They are scientists, engineers, and highly trained officers, not millennials doing cosplay.
Depict alien species with respect and dignity; no stereotypes or demeaning caricatures or using “weird” aliens for punchlines.
Star Trek is not about war. It is about team/crew problem-solving. It is about collaboration, understanding, and resolving differences creatively.
Star Trek is aspirational, not a place for deconstruction or to reflect the world as it is today.

These five rules address the critical mistakes new Star Trek has made and continues to make without shame. Star Trek was never intended to inhabit the same space as Star Wars, Marvel’s Avengers, X-Men, or Avatar. It inhabits a special niche and should remain there. We’ve seen what happens when producers try to reposition it into military sci-fi or action genres.

In other words, stop trying to be cool. Be yourself.

Clean up the Canon

Discovery, Picard, Prodigy, and Lower Decks are hereby de-canonized. There is nothing of value in these four shows and should therefore be erased from existence. Call them part of the Kelvin timeline, whatever. The Kelvin timeline movies are in an alternative timeline so it does not need to be de-canonized or even acknowledged.

The last canonical event of the prime timeline is from Star Trek: Nemesis. This movie has problems of its own but ret-conning Data’s death is a bridge too far for me.

Removing the problematic events, character alterations, ridiculous world-breaking technologies and plots, is the only way. The cancer must be removed.

Look to the Future, no more prequels

Star Trek is about the future. For three decades, four TV shows, and nine movies Star Trek always moved forward. Enterprise was the first prequel in the franchise and its performance speaks for itself. After that, nearly all prequels (Picard and apparently Prodigy are the exceptions).

To really move away from the failures of the past decade plus, we need to look to the future. That means the stories should all be sequels not prequels. All of them should take place after the end of the canon TV shows and the last movie, Nemesis.

No more shameless dependence on cameos, fan-service, or re-tellings of classic stories. It is time for new stories.

Let’s start with the first new TV show

Star Trek: Legacy

It only makes sense to launch a new flagship TV show set on the newest variant of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Traditionally shows are named after the ship or station that serves as the setting. Alternatively, there is “Next Generation.” Since there is already a show called “Enterprise” and calling it “Next Next Generation” is silly, naming either after the new class of ship (Sovereign) or something abstract is better. Here, I’ve decided to go with the term “legacy” and to have the show focus on the legacy of the ship, Starfleet, and the United Federation of Planets.

The show could be the next Enterprise, the Enterprise-F. That could be cool but a refitted Sovereign Class Enterprise-E also works, since most of the audience today is likely not that familiar with it.

Pilot episode is the newly refit Enterprise at dry dock, awaiting its new captain. It begins about ten to twenty years after Nemesis and Picard was promoted to admiral. The crew should be entirely new, some experienced from the Dominion War but many are too young to have fought.

The youngest of the crew are tired of hearing about the legendary crews of Enterprise past. They wish to add their own chapter to the history of the ship and Starfleet, “cleaning up” after the previous generation as they describe it, mainly the Dominion War the messy peace and failed outreaches into the Gamma and Delta Quadrants.

This should be an all new cast and the pilot episode should be one of few with a link to prior events. One alternative is to start the show with one legacy character. For example, Admiral Janeway congratulates Naomi Wildman on her commission as ensign on the U.S.S. Enterprise.

The pilot is about the crew’s animus towards the celebrities of past great ships, including Wildman who is still a celebrity along with the rest of the Voyager crew. The pilot could be her demonstrating her value based on her experience on the Voyager and observing how they did it (from child’s point of view)

Legacy would be the flagship show and follow the new Enterprise. This is a needed component of the franchise that has been missing for decades. It shall be missing no longer.

Star Trek: Defiant

Years after the end of the Dominion War and the disappearance of Captain Benjamin Sisko, his son Jake works as a preeminent journalist in the Federation, covering the post-war reconstruction and restoration of peace in the Alpha Quadrant.

Jake is contacted by Ezra Dax about an internal investigation of the death of Romulan Senator Vreenak. A Romulan official claims to have evidence the Federation assassinated him to get the Romulan Empire to join the war, with the act done by the command of Captain Sisko (from the DS9 episode Pale Moonlight). Neither Jake nor Ezra believe it but they manage to get themselves assigned to the ship with the Federation/Romulan investigation team. In the background, Jake notices the Defiant at dry dock as it gets ready to be dusted off and start a new tour of duty.

Among the team is a young Federation officer eager to clear the Federation. They discover circumstantial evidence pointing to the Federation and that it could have been Jake’s father. The young Federation officer desperately tries to persuade the Romulans not to publicly accuse Sisko, the Federation, and start a new war. Jake is torn between his journalistic ethics and integrity and the fear of having his father’s legacy tainted.

Pilot Episode ends with the Romulan investigator deciding to withhold the evidence to prevent another war, but intends to use it as a hook. Either that or Romulan Empire decides to use it as leverage, or perhaps some already knew. In any event, it should not result in a new war. Star Trek should not be about war… most of the time.

Afterward, Ezra Dax explains that Defiant is going out on a long mission to patrol the war torn areas where Starfleet has been unable to patrol due to lack of ships. Jake wants to write his magnum opus about the war, while the young Federation officer desires to restore the Federation’s good name.

Whether it is through the wormhole or on the other side, Jake privately believes he will find his father to ask him if he did it.

This involves two legacy characters but I would suggest recasting rather than trying to get the old cast to fill the roles. There is nothing wrong with recasting if the originals cannot or do not want to do it. The rest of the cast would be new faces, veterans of the war, all trying to heal from their own experiences while observing the old battlefields. Think Senator McCain returning to Vietnam.

This one would have primarily humanitarian missions, preventing disasters and crises due to aftermath of war with some military situations there as well.

Other Shows

A Star Trek parody show is actually a great idea but needs to be executed a little better than Lower Decks. Unfortunately, Orville is already in this space along with Lower Decks.

The tragic misuse of legacy characters in Picard makes that approach nearly untouchable, so I would try with great effort to build up new characters, a new generation, and a whole new set of stories and ideas for a new era, a post-war era. Perhaps the Federation is straying from its principles after fighting a tough war.

A show about returning to the Delta Quadrants or exploring the Gamma Quadrant could be interesting. If Defiant story is to stay in Alpha Quadrant you could have other show about an exploration mission into the other quadrants and visit the Dominion, Borg, and other races found in DS9 and Voyager, plus some new ones.

Starfleet Academy, is another idea I had where a legacy character gives a lecture about some aspect of the mission, ethics, etc., and one of the cadets flashes forward to when he uses that knowledge or wisdom to overcome a new problem in the post-war era.

Mixing in climate or planetary crises is also a great idea.

In the end, I understand none of these ideas are likely to happen in any form. Until the current producers behind Star Trek are all fired and Paramount manages to find smart Trekkies who desperately want to recapture the lost magic, this is all just a nice little fantasy.

But it is okay to hope. We all should dream of a better future… or just better TV.