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Saturday, March 06, 2021

Strange New Worlds Wishlist

Strange New Worlds started filming not long ago, so here's my pie-in-the-stars wishlist for the show:

1. Be true to the title. Show us the wonders of the universe, inspired both by Star Trek continuity but also by real-world science. The first episode of For All Mankind season two demonstrated how to do this effectively. Maybe even start with our own solar system, even if it's just the Enterprise picking up some crew from human colonies on Venus or the Moon, Mars, Titan, etc. before the ship embarks on its five-year mission. 

2. Return to the tried-and-true episodic format, the one that gave us classic episodes such as "City on the Edge of Forever," "The Trouble with Tribbles," "The Inner Light," and "Who Watches the Watchers?" If you must include a season arc, make the stakes relatable at a human scale. Let's not save the entire multiverse again, like Star Trek: Discovery, or even just the galaxy, like Star Trek: Picard. How about an arc that saves a work of art, or a relationship, or the soul of just one person? 

3. Hire Bear McCreary to score the show. Failing that, Brian Tyler

4. Hire some real SF writers to contribute verisimilitude and a sense of wonder to the stories. 

5. Build an interesting ensemble cast and develop those characters almost as much as the leads.

6. As with the original series, run still frames of previous episodes over the end credits.

7. Have Captain Pike do some variation of the "Space...the final frontier" intro in the opening titles.

8. Let's have an Andorian, a Tellarite, or an Alpha Centauran in the cast. Or all three, better yet.

9. Have the protagonists lose once in a while, and grow from that experience. 

10. When the series ends, let's have a big series penultimate episode followed by a more introspective epilogue episode in which Pike, knowing his destiny, hands over the keys to Kirk. Then do a Kirk: Year One limited series leading into the events of "Where No Man Has Gone Before."


2 comments:

Stephen Fitzpatrick said...

Your terms are acceptable.

Jeff Shyluk said...

They're going to have to address the sexism of the Pike episode in the original series. At the very least, Number One will need a name.

I don't doubt that the new show will address gender issues, although Trek has often made faltering attempts to do so. No doubt Number One will have an advanced role in all of that, although she will likely retain the hull curvature and nacelle placements accorded to other female co-stars in Trek. Not that I have reason to complain, it should make future Star Trek conventions more interesting.