Redo Star Trek TOS with more guts

Cafe Society
1

On a recent cross-time raiding expedition to get naked pictures of Josephine Baker, I sneezed while setting the verniers of my Burroughs-Libby continua buggy. As I result I accidentally wound up on Earth-analogue 10304404f in the year 1964. This particular Earth diverged from ours during World War II, when then-military aviator Gene Roddenberry was shot in the back by a cowardly masked figure who struck from the shadows, wielded a Glock 19, and was heard to mutter, “You’re next, Glen Larson!” just before he vanished. Consequently, this was destined to be a world without Star Trek.

Notions sprang into my pretty, wicked little head. Luckily I had a couple of dozen hookerbots in the continua buggy from another job (along with plentyof cameras & film), so shortly I had enough blackmail material on every NBC, Desilu, and FCC executive to make them all be my monkeys. Specifically I managed not only to get Star Trek greenlit, but also got a fourteen-year-commitment with an option for me or my surrogates to renew the series till I get tired of it.

Now I, of of course, am far too lazy to do the actual work of running the series. Thus I will be delegating all duties not involving murder, extortion, theft, or murder to a talented Doper. Whoever gets the job will be given a continua-buggy so she or he can commute from here to there (or just stay on that Earth; I see no reason I should care), along with all the original scripts for all the series and movies, along with the novels, plus contact information for actors, directors, crew & so forth. What you won’t get is any sort of tech that would allow you to do better special effects than existed at the time.

Anybody want the job? What episodes will you redo differently? What stays the same?

2

I’ll sign on as continuity director. That’s the one thing that bugged me more than anything else about TOS. They would come up with some marvelous solution to a problem, then forget about it forever by the next episode. None of that this time!

We’re still in 1964 and network TV, so that rules out skin.

As for scripts, I’d definitely film both versions of “City On the Edge of Forever” - Gene’s rework that fits canon and Harlan’s insane script that won the Hugo.

3

Personally I never had much sympathy for Ellison on this one. If he wanted to write a story on his own he was free to do so. But if he wanted to write a script for an established television series, it was reasonable for the producers to expect him to stay within the parameters of the show.

4

A few minor, obvious changes:

-Cut “The Omega Glory” and “Spock’s Brain”. Make “The City on the Edge of Forever” a two parter, possibly as a season ending cliffhanger, possibly closer to Ellison’s original script (which I confess I haven’t gotten around to reading yet).

-More gender equality. Keep Pike’s Number One as first officer with Spock as science officer.

-Use my knowledge of late 20th and early 21st century tech to make TOS even more prescient. We don’t have to have skype on set to give the appearance on screen of video phone calls, or pocket size video recorders, or touchscreens, or some kind of internet that the crew can use for information access and communication.

-Come up with something better than killing redshirts to indicate SRS DANGER GUYZ

-Give the Klingons SOME kind of ridges. I don’t care if Theiss has to stick them on with Sculpey.

-Make the language more consistent. None of this UESPA business, or “we’re the only ship in the quadrant”. The Enterprise is the flagship of Starfleet, representing the United Federation of Planets, and on occasion they are the only ship in the sector.

-Fix that ridiculous “one to the fourth power” mistake, and use the actual Drake equation.

-Put Janos Prohaska in charge of all alien creation. Give him whatever staff and budget he requires. Let’s get some more nonhuman aliens in there. Second or third season, have a Horta or two wandering the halls as background in some scenes.

Other than that, I’m reluctant to change too much, especially the broad themes of the show, and the character dynamics. The Kirk-Bones-Spock holy trinity is critical to the success of the show and future incarnations of Trek. The vision of a bright, optimistic future is exactly what America needed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With a bigger budget, maybe you could show more of it. Colony planets populated by thousands of extras, more of those lovely matte paintings of Federation infrastructure.

5

  1. Keep Kirk, Spock, Bones, as well as most of* the rest of the crew**. Put Shatner on a diet and fitness regime. Point out to Nimoy that he’ll never get another job as good as this one, and that you have blackmail material. Get DeForest Kelley a facial expression coach, he could probably have 6 expressions if he started early.

  2. Get a stable of writers and spend 2 weeks in a retreat working out the outlines of the Federation, its history, its allies and enemies, its ethics and failings. Make this canon. Get a guy whose entire job is keeper of canon, who must greenlight each episode.

  3. Read some non-western history. Where’s the planet based on the history of the people of the Maori?
    *Except get some minorities and women and aliens and (more than the one) minority women and women aliens and minority aliens and minority women aliens.

**Kevin Riley must be skewered by Sulu in The Naked Time, preferably just as he first begins to sing: “I’ll take you home agai - gak!”

ETA: Hire silenus for continuity

6

I agree. But the script is awesome nonetheless. Insane, but awesome. That’s why I’d film both.

With a 14 year commitment from the network and no FCC hassles, I’d likely start working in more minority characters in major roles. Uhura would get some romantic interests that are healthy, stable and don’t die. Sulu would come out somewhere in Year 10. I’d also introduce a Kaylee-esque character after about 5 years as Scotty’s assistant engineer and later replacement.

7

Eventually, I’m gonna get Scotty his own ship. He’d become a legendary captain in his own right.

8

Actually, belay that. Make Spock female. That would make Pon Farr awesome.

9

I disagree, but only because you cannot cannot cannot remove Leonard Nimoy from TOS.

10

WTF are you talking about, the Enterprise actually always had enough power to do whatever Kirk wanted it to do, but that idiot Scotty kept fucking up on his readings of the sensors. Got the job through his uncle or something.

-The main generator took a hit! I’m not sure I can hold it. You’ll have to make a crucial choice between having the shields up or the lasers ready!!
-Again???!

11

Well, you’ll have both scripts. Which will you film?

Silenus, are you doing City as a single episode or a multi-parter?

That’s why the OP says I will be in charge of any felonies that need to be committed; you guys will screw it up. I mean that in love, of course.

Blackmailing Nimoy is unwise. You don’t want to push him too far, because you can’t do the series without him. And you get more flies with molasses; be nice to him. Give him some more Spock-centric episodes.

Shatner’s expanding and contracting girth doesn’t bother me. He never got all that fat during the original run. And you could make it a running joke with McCoy occasionally forcing him onto salads.

I’m going to need you to take that back.

I’m not sure. Scotty is not captain material: not because he doesn’t have the skills, but because he wants to be an engineer. And he’s smarter than Kirk in this regard; he knows that if he does certain parts of his job too well, he’ll eventually be obliged to take a position he doesn’t want. I could be persuaded that he started the bar brawl in the tribbles episode because he realized, while the Klingons were needling him, that he needed a minor black mark on his record to make it less likely that he’d get a promotion to first officer.

I’d like to see a change with Scotty in this way, actually. The idea of him being third in command always bothered me, because if the ship is in a battle situation, it’d be better to have him in Engineering if at all possible. I could see Kirk always intending the second officer position for Sulu (who makes more sense in the job, in terms of minimum disruption to operations in a tight spot) but not being able to give him the job because of his rank; and Scotty, around season 4 or so, pointing out that Sulu had sufficient time in to become a lieutenant commander and prodding Kirk to give him the damn job so he (Scotty) had time to tend his bairns.

silenus, I want more with Uhura as well. I’d specifically replace the anvilicious episode with the half-white/half-black planet with a time travel episode: throw her and McCoy back to the 1950s Georgia and put 'em thru some trials. I can imagine her being very uninformed about that place & time; she’s not an American even in the loose sense that Kirk, McCoy, & Sulu are, and though she might have a vague idea about Jim Crow, she wouldn’t know exactly when it began and ended, or what it was like.

12

So, where are the Josephine Baker pics?

And Billie Holiday. Let me know if you get this tempura buggy thingie to work with Lady Day.

Oh, yeah the OP…
Do more with Koloth as Kirk’s reoccurring rival. Do episodes based on other characters, like the Lady Day, er, Lady Romulan Commander.
Limit time travel to using the Guardian.
And shorten Uhura’s skirt.

13

Technically I think the original won the Writers Guild of America Award, while the filmed version won the Hugo (which Ellison accepted, albeit “in memory of” the original).

14

For one, I would amp up the intro theme music a bit.

Here is one good idea. Safe for work. Enjoy.

15

Okay, you’re right, he probably couldn’t have six expressions, even with a coach.

That would be so very very good. Plus McCoy would have to stretch himself, and confront the ugly past of the south.

16

Already all over the 'Net. You just don’t remember the previous timeline. You’re welcome, and I’ve taken the liberty of taking a modest honorarium from your wallet.

Billy Holiday is/was/will be surprisingly handy with a handgun, and for reasons obscure to me always carried a scimitar as well. In short, YOU do that. I like my head attached to my neck.

I seem to recall reading somewheres that making Koloth a recurring character was the plan anyway, before NBC halved their budget. But I like the idea, though frankly I’d rather Kang. As for the female Romulan Commander: I’ll need a good reason to believe she wasn’t executed out of hand when she got home (or at a minimum forced into exile) after losing the cloaking device.

She’d make a good pirate, though. Actually I could deal with all three being recurring characters. Kang is the Klingon commander whom Kirk respects and, in a limited way, trusts (that is, Kang will kill you, but he won’t lie to you, even if ordered). Koloth is the commander he knows to treacherous, but he’s somewhat less formidable than Kang. And the Romulan Commander, who really needs a name, escaped from custody before she could be repatriated and went rogue. And there’s no silliness about her becoming an ally or friend as in the Phoenix novels; she wants our boys dead in a much more personal sense than either of the Klingons.

I don’t really see him as having any responsibility for Jim Crow or anything to confront in himself. But he’d be more likely than Uhura (or any of the others) to know that 1950s’ Georgia is going to be treacherous for her.

17

“City” as a multi-parter. I’m thinking three episodes, which had never been done before on network TV. Lots to work with, but I’m definitely keeping the final line.

If we have enough blackmail material, I think we can keep Shatner’s ego in line. That will enable us to do more character-specific episodes. Also, more light-hearted stuff.

We kill the anvils. No neo-Nazi planet or Romanesque Empire this time around.

18

silenus is right, I would also ax the fake Roman Empire episode. Another example of absurdly parallel evolution. The Nazi episode I would keep, because it’s a horse of a different color - there it was a Federation historian who intentionally broke the Prime Directive to try to fix what Hitler did wrong, and failed. It’s a lesson in hubris that is an important establishing point for the Prime Directive.

19

The captain *never *goes down on dangerous missions. That’s why he’s got half the ship devoted to housing the Federation Marines, who wear all black and are surprisingly competent at military tactics.

20

I’m going to disagree with the first part. I think there were plenty of times – say in “Friday’s Child,” the one with the pregnant Catwoman – that Kirk legitimately had to be the person leading the landing party; likewise “Errand of Mercy.” A better rule might be that Kirk and Spock generally cannot leave the ship on a dangerous mission at the same time.

I also don’t want half the ship housing marines, simply because the Enterprise isn’t primarily a warship. I wouldn’t object to some genuine badasses among the crew, though.