Redo Star Trek: TNG so it makes sense (or at least is less stupid)

Cafe Society
21

I’ve watched a lot of episodes randomly, but have started on a Netflix run through all of them in order. I’m not on Season 1, and my change is to have Picard actually do something. The writers of TOS knew that Kirk was in command, and even when Spock theoretically was smarter about something, Kirk would make the intuitive leap to solve the problem. Good character, good writing. On TNG, everyone but Picard solves the problems, and half the time Picard says this solution is unacceptable, and then it happens anyway with no consequences. Example - the 2nd or 3rd show where Wesley is under sentence of death for breaking a window with a baseball or something. Picard says they can’t just beam him up - and that is basically what happens. It is like the writers wrote themselves into a corner every damn episode. In TOS, I think the Alternative Factor, that loser in the first season with the antimatter universe, had the problem of Kirk not doing anything, but none others that I remember.

Oh, and I’d dump the Ferengi immediately. Knowing the joke they became, having them built up as the new Klingons was absurd, and they were a joke even in the first show.

To repeat a comment I’ve made before, I also wouldn’t make them be so smug.

22

Either the ship is a small city with schools and firemen, etc or it’s not. The show is either about the mayor of enterprislandia, or an exploration starship facing the continuing threat of genocide at the hands of the universe’s evil doers.
Pick one and then get rid of all the children/families.

23

I think the holodeck has a place in the show. One, it’s true that the crew needs recreation; life on a starship would get very tedious. But two, it has scientific value: even today when we want to test something we run a computer simulation. This is what we should have seen more of.

24

I think the Holodeck would have been fine if it had been limited to projecting non-corporeal holograms. That’d still be a pretty darn useful room but would limit the ability of the writers to spend a whole episode bumming around 1920’s Earth for no real reason, and explains why more weaponry wasn’t built on holodeck technology.

And I like the “Barclay becomes addicted to the holodeck” episode, too, which could still happen with non-corporeal illusions.

Some limit on transporters would be good, too, although I’m not exactly sure what that would be. If the show was written honestly, transporter technology could have solved almost every fix they found themselves in almost immediately.

I’d rewrite Data so that he doesn’t have any particular affinity of or desire to understand human emotions and behavior. He doesn’t have to be Bender Bending Rodriguez, but he’d be way less tiresome if he was mostly indifferent to the fact that he wasn’t human.

I’d get rid of Riker. What, exactly was the point of that character?

25

1.) The first time Data is ‘hacked’ and takes control of my ship is the last… that’s it, decomissioned, de-compiled, whatever.

2.) If the Captain of the ship has been captured and tortured, to the extent of body altering mechanics, its desk duty time - no Captian gets to stay in command after having been assimilated by the Borg, Captured and tortured by the Cardassians, having acted as a Klingon Emmisary, etc…

26

Pretty much all of the mistakes, awkwardness, and shortcomings mentioned here were fixed for me with Deep Space 9.

27

I don’t mind the corporeal illusions, but they’d have to be consistent with it. To please the boob-seeking fanboys, for instance, you could have Troi & Crusher rushing out of the holodeck one day during an emergency and remembering–far, far too late–that they WERE wearing clothes they put on inside, and are NOW standing in the corridor wearing only panties and bra.

I’d also like it if there were a single character who absolutely refused to use it outside of work, because he hated it. Not because he or she’s a Luddite, but because he found the illusions annoying and prefers the real world. Or it could be Geordi, who should never have been able to be fooled by the holodeck anyway.

Well, someone had to be first officer. They felt Data was too much like Spock, and they didn’t yet have the balls to have a black or female first officer.

28

Troi’s main job is monitoring holodeck usage and intervening with misuse, or at least providing documentation that overusers or people with problematic usage have been counseled. Everyone going into the deck knows that what they do there will be reviewed. New programs are reviewed by a committee before being used.

29

What the hell is a chief of security on a starship? That is a low-level MP type role.

Make Worf the head of a real Marine Corps style unit on the ship. Guys with modern armor, phaser rifles, grenades, etc. An away team to an unknown environment includes the Marine platoon under the command of Lt. Worf. They also invade enemy ships when needed, and provide security for diplomats. They have their own uniform, and kick ass. Add in the usual Navy / Marine Corps conflict while you are at it.

The Tactical Officer is the one who knows how to fight with the Ship’s weapons, and is very different from the Marine officer. Tasha is the expert on ship to ship combat, under the command of Picard.

30

I don’t get the third one. Picard acted as Arbiter of Succession entirely of his free will and was in no way under anyone’s control during it.

But I’ll agree with your basic point. If the Picard-goes-to-the-vineyard-to-recuperate episode had ended with him deciding, “Hey, I’m 50 years old, I’ve done my bit, and I think I’d like a nice desk job now” it would have been interesting. It could have been a way for him to dodge a mental & physical fitness review board too, and they could still have had him come back for special episodes, but continued with Riker as captain.

Or Jellicoe. Jellicoe rocked. And he slapped ole willie around, which was fun to see.

31

They needed a foil to Picard’s stuffiness. He was pretty much the Kirk of TNG. Being the more adventurous of the two, it allowed them to partly fulfill the “Captain doesn’t go on away teams” rule while still having a prominent heroic-type character. Picard really didn’t go on away missions all that much, that was Riker’s duty.

As for moving Troi down to sickbay, wouldn’t that make her boobies redundant with Crusher’s? Navy SF tends to have the concept of bridge bunnies, maybe they would be sickbay sweeties? Medbay mommas?

32

Along these lines…

Did Worf ever have one of his plans agreed to? Ever? Seems to me there were dozens of times in the series when the senior officers were gathered in the conference room, and this happened:
[ol]
[li]General summary and discussion about the crisis they now face. Excellent PowerPoint presentation given by Geordi or Data on the viewscreen.[/li][li]Worf proposes an aggressive solution involving weapons and death and all sorts of things which would make for fantastic television.[/li][li]Riker, Geordi, Troi, or Data shoots down Worf’s suggestion as too dangerous. Proposes alternate solution that mainly involves diplomacy and/or running a clever program on the computer. Picard nods in agreement.[/li][li]Worf looks off in the distance and seethes quietly to himself.[/li][li]“Make it so!” Meeting adjourned.[/li][/ol]

33

The third one was simply outside of Federation mandate - conflict of interest and all that. Starship Captain’s don’t get to influence rulership decisions directly.

Main point is that there were never any ‘real’ repurcussions for actions - Worf “resigned his commission” - came back 2 espisodes later, He killed numerous Klingons of rank, to no charges or proceedings,etc…

34

  1. Start with the future. There’s no risk taking any more. The Federation has become risk-averse. It’s BORING. Until now.

  2. There’s hints of a big alien menace on the other side of the Galactic barrier which prompts the Federation to restart the old “Star Trek” program–Take 25 Constitution Class Vessels of the (say) 100 that are just wandering around (these are all old ships–none of them are shiny and new) doing routine traffic stops, etc. Those 25 will go out in all directions to keep an eye on things and see if they can get any hard data on this new alien menace.

  3. Picard is a prissy, deskbound twerp (so no real change in the character) with high-level political connections. He realizes he won’t get a promotion until he commands a starship (and since he has political ambitions, he needs a promotion). He’s an excellent historian, a great teacher and a lousy leader.

  4. Ryker is picked to be his first officer. Ryker desperately wants to be Kirk. To the point of taking stupid risks. The hope is that Ryker’s impulsiveness and leadership plus Picard’s strategic/tactical/historical knowledge will equal someone competent. Ryker will lead all away teams (this is regularly disobeyed). Over time, both characters get to < gasp > grow.

  5. Worf is a real Klingon–think Kor or Kang–no lobster head, no silly codes of ethics–he’s a sneaky, smart, tough manipulative bastard.

  6. Data–if we’re going to have to have Pinnochio Junior, let’s make it more interesting. We’ll have a large sub-plot about the fact that the Federation (at the insistence of the Vulcans) recently decided that self-aware machines are people legally–but there’s a lot of prejudice against them. Data, while curious about emotions, isn’t as obssessed with them. More bemused/puzzled. Play with the fact that he thinks a LOT faster than anyone else on the ship.

  7. Troi is a deck officer at the start–and within a few episodes, uses her powers unethically like she regularly did and is promptly demoted to Dr. Crusher’s eye-candy flunky.

  8. Geordie is junior chief engineer or whatever he was at the beginning. The reason he’s It comes out over the first season that the actual chief engineer is on drugs/drunk/etc. Geordie is promoted when it all shakes out.

  9. Wesley shows up from time-to-time. Make him an intern or some such–he’s essentially Picard’s go-fer. He REALLY pisses Picard off because he gets along with everyone. He’s not right all the time.

A large plot point will be (stolen shamelessly from B5) getting rid of all those fucking godlike aliens who are nice enough to not complain when we play in their galaxy. During Season 1, we see tensions between K’Worf (he’s a Klingon, his name begins with “K”, duh.) and the rest of the crew. We learn that the only reason that he’s on the ship is that the Organians have, in the last 80 years, forced closer relations between the Klingons, Romulans and the Federation. Think “Yugoslavia”–three groups that loathe each other held together because someone else has a bigger gun. During season 1, some groups (The “Q”, The Squire of Gothos and his family, the “Tranya!” guy, the Rock-People, etc) are killed off. The big season one finale ends with Organia getting blown up and the galaxy splintering.

Big season two plots revolve around “Who’s snuffing the God-Like Aliens of the TrekVerse” (Gary Mitchell and Dr. Denner from “Where No Man Has Gone Before”–they didn’t die, they just decided to leave and now decide to get rid of the competition–but for what purpose!?) and the galaxy going to war. Worf has some tough decisions to make (Who’s side is he on?). And worse, the remaining God-Like Aliens are worried AND pissed when they find out a couple of humans did all this damage and start heading towards Earth.

Season three involves the Federation, battered by the Klingons, the Romulans, the remaining God-Like aliens and splintering, throwing a bunch of people up against the galactic barrier in hopes of getting more Gary Mitchells. This proves to be…a mistake. A big one. A bunch of people with god-like skills going nuts does not help pour water on a troubled galaxy.

I don’t know where I’d go from there.

A side effect of being busy, etc, is that the holodeck isn’t regularly used–it’s a big TV and treated as such. We can still have the addiction episode.

35

Hmm, Fenris, I think you need to be hired to write Star Trek the Next NEXT Generation. It would probably be on a premium channel like Showtime though. :slight_smile:

36

[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
There’s a lot of odd things in this episode. For instance, fairly early on, the ship, while on a fairly important diplmatic mission, pretty much breaks down; both propulsion & communications are online. In the next scene, Picard is getting briefed on the situation–by the ASSISTANT chief engineer. Why, I wondered, isn’t the chief engineer doing this? For that matter, why wasn’t the chief engineer one of the main cast from the get-go?
[/QUOTE]

This was part of their effort to be different than TOS. Because Scotty was such an important part of TOS, they wanted to avoid having a Chief Engineer[sup]TM[/sup].

Same reason Data is not First Officer or Science Officer. That would be too much like Spock.

Geordi was the pilot explicitly because Roddenberry liked having a “blind” pilot. Later he became Chief Engineer when they finally realized that was a crucial role to have major cast member, and he was the best fit out of the remaining characters.

Worf was originally not the Security Officer explicitly to play against stereotype. We see it explicitly in the pilot episode. The Enterprise is under attack and Worf wants to go all badass, and Picard tells him, “No, you have to follow my orders even if that means I place you in command of the Saucer Section to run away. So there.” The point is, as an officer in Starfleet, you do the duties assigned to your role regardless of your own personal desires.

[QUOTE=mbh]
4. Don’t try to pretend that the Federation is a utopian paradise.
[/QUOTE]

That was Roddenberry from the get go. He envisioned a future where humanity had largely conquered its internal problems, and was able to have a peaceful existence with many alien cultures. That didn’t change until Roddenberry died. Whether you agree or not, it was his show and his premise.

[QUOTE=Prox]
Something had to be done about the Ferengi. They were never credible as a serious threat, and, fortunately, the writers figured it out after using them once or twice. They should’ve figured it out once someone seriously suggested the energy whips, though.
[/QUOTE]

The first Ferengi episode did not work. They wanted them to be scary badasses, they wanted them to seem fierce and more barbaric, so they had them hunched rather than upright. Well, all it did is make them look like they were constantly cowering in fear.

37

The problem with the holodeck wasn’t that they kept showing it; the problem was that it kept trying to kill everyone. I mean, it was always “the mortality failsafes are disabled.” Apparently, the purpose of the “mortality failsafes” was actually to make sure that people got killed, because whenever this happened, the holodeck doors were locked!

Could you beam the people out, or just blast the doors down with phasers? If anyone actually bothered to think of such things, it wouldn’t have worked anyway because the “mortality failsafes” would have put up a forcefield or something. They need to put up a sign at the holodeck entrance: “Days without a holodeck fatality.”

38

Oh, and there’s also the warp core ejection system. It’s supposed to prevent the ship from exploding when the warp core is damaged. Problem is, anything that damages the warp core also damages the ejection system. So, it’s always like:

“We’ve gotta eject the core!”
“Core ejection system is offline!”
“What?! Every damn time this happens, the fucking system is offline! Why the fuck do we even have it? I feel like Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove!”

39

Do something about the Klingons. The Klingons in the Original Series were the analogue of the Soviet Union: an aggressive, hostile, modern empire, poorer than the Federation, but trying to increase its power and influence through direct millitary conquest, economic control, espionage, and proxy wars. The individual Klingon officers we saw, while malicious and certainly brutal(In ‘Errand of Mercy’, Kor, the Klingon commander of the occupation forces, threatens the mass execution of hostages if the escaped Kirk isn’t returned or if a Klingon soldier is harmed), were intelligent professionals.

The Klingons since then have been a bunch of Viking Samurai who get promoted by killing their superiors, whose preferred weapon in a universe of laser guns is a big sword, who have a taste for raw meat and living things, and who don’t believe in subtlety.

I don’t mind the head ridges, and I don’t mind that they’re now allied to the Federation, but at least try to make it believable that the Klingons are an interstellar empire.

40

Two more
1: The women should wear the uniforms from TOS, but more cleavage. :slight_smile:

  1. A bit more serious. Reading the comments about Data let me understand my problem with him. Though he is by far the most interesting character, he is a lot less interesting than Spock. Spock had a conflict, which was great, but most of the time he commented with irony on the foibles of the illogical humans. Data is all puppy-doggish - “Oh, let me be just like you wonderful humans.” It is another instance of the smugness of TNG. Og forbid he notices something the humans are doing which is absurd of foolish. Data would be a lot more interesting if he spent some time wondering why he was reporting to people who didn’t have half his skills, while wondering a bit about whether there was something he was missing.

As for smugness - when Kirk met the Organians, he found that he was not so morally and ethically advanced as he thought. When Picard met Q, it was “give us a few years and we’ll kick your ass. And we’re more ethically advanced than you now already.” Sheesh. The whole crew should retire and write advice columns, if you ask me.