# Your rules if you were the showrunner on a Star Trek series **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 19, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136 "2016-12-19T15:30:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/101 "2016-12-23T14:20:29Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > _ **Nobody named Wesley!** _ I’ll go ahead and take this in the other direction: _ **THE WESLEY/ALEXANDER POWER HOUR!** _ Once that show becomes a success, we’ll launch a spinoff staring Jake and Nog. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/102 "2016-12-23T14:28:43Z")
Oh, if you want to hear bitching about The Starlost you should read _Ellison’s_ take on it… > [@Raguleader](#): > > Oh! Speaking of uniforms: Don’t have everyone just change uniforms between seasons, as if the Wardrobe department had simply been very busy during the off-season. Phase the old uniforms out, with the new ones getting phased in. Presumably the senior leadership would change first to set the standard and the junior officers would gradually switch over after a few episodes worth of griping. 😃 > . I suppose their thinking is that what with replicators and transporters you could have everyone re-outfitted right where they stood whenever you ran into the XXIV Century heirs of Gen. McPeak. (But please, no hats: hating the hats, Mr. Abrams). But it would have been fun to see some eps in early TNG with people complaining about the fit and the inconvenience of the jumpsuits or thanking goodness for getting rid of the skorts, and in later seasons Picard turning to Riker and saying “Number One, how can all this computer power fail to design a jacket that does not bunch up?” ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/103 "2016-12-23T14:36:33Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Wesley falls under the **NO FREAKIN’ CHILDREN!** category, but yeah, let’s create one just for him: > > **A WAY OF ELIMINATING WESLEY OR ANYONE LIKE HIM IS CONTRIVED BEFORE THE FIRST COMMERCIAL BREAK!** Or if you have to have a kid, don’t make him the technical genius wunderkind deus ex machina Mary Sue. You don’t give a teenager access to the warp drive or the ability to create experiments that could seriously F up life, the ship, or the universe. Maybe he’s a smart kid, but he’s still a kid. Nobody hands a kid an atomic bomb and says “here, experiment with this.” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/104 "2016-12-23T15:02:15Z")
Oh phuque. Referenced the wrong failed TV SF show. I blame time travel. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/105 "2016-12-23T15:27:34Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Oh, if you want to hear bitching about The Starlost you should read _Ellison’s_ take on it… > > I suppose their thinking is that what with replicators and transporters you could have everyone re-outfitted right where they stood whenever you ran into the XXIV Century heirs of Gen. McPeak. (But please, no hats: hating the hats, Mr. Abrams). > > But it would have been fun to see some eps in early TNG with people complaining about the fit and the inconvenience of the jumpsuits or thanking goodness for getting rid of the skorts, and in later seasons Picard turning to Riker and saying “Number One, how can all this computer power fail to design a jacket that does not bunch up?” Actually, the Babylon 5 franchise I think did uniform changes right. On the show proper the main characters swap out uniforms midway through. They made a big deal out of the senior leadership getting the new threads since this was part of the fallout of a couple of Wham Episodes in the same season, and in a later episode, we get treated to one of the more junior crewmembers getting fitted for his new uniform and complaining about how it sat on him. Then they did it again on the spinoff Crusade, where they swapped out the uniforms because of some behind-the-scenes stuff (the network didn’t like the original uniform, so they had the showrunners create some new ones.) So they did an episode where some PR expert from Earth was shipped in, complained about how everything presented the wrong image, had new uniforms designed and issued, and the Captain promptly snarking about how much he hated the new uniform. This gets better: The new uniforms were actually the original uniforms. Along with the new uniform design, the network didn’t like the first few episodes of the show, so they had a new pilot and some new lead-in episodes produced. So the old uniforms (actually the new ones) get replaced with the new uniforms (actually the old ones), and a later episode would have had the crew finding some excuse to ditch the new (old) uniforms so they could wear the old (new) ones again. For better or for worse, Crusade got cancelled before they got to tackling that wardrobe continuity snarl. The show had the kind of behind-the-scenes troubles between the network and the producers that would have made Firefly’s production look like a dream. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/106 "2016-12-23T16:03:45Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > This should save you the trouble… 😉 > > [The Starcrossed by Ben Bova | Goodreads](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/908237.The_Starcrossed) Thanks, I was already familiar with the premise, I just don’t know what the hell that has to do with my point 4 - as far as I know, _The Starlost_ was about 1 giant generation ship, so already we’re at one remove, and then the novel is about the writing process, so it’s at two removes. Which is why I wanted an _explanation_ for why multiple crews/ships would be a bad idea, rather than a cryptic “Read this dated, out-of-print, extended inside joke, it’ll explain everything” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/107 "2016-12-23T16:46:20Z")
Well, it does! 😃 One of the plot points in the book (not the actual show, which was its own kind of stupid) was that there were two trading ships, run by competing families. Let’s call them the Montagues and Capulets. And you easily see where all the cheap writing took them. Parallel plot threads with different ships would inevitably lead to such shenanigans, and those are not to be allowed. Plus the fact that, if you like one crew and hate the other, you have zero reason to watch the episodes of the “bad” crew, and that affects ratings and ad revenue. I also second the idea that the crew is not made up of youngsters. Working your way up to the flagship should take decades of hard work. You don’t just hand it over to some random, untrained punk kid. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/108 "2016-12-23T17:12:09Z")
At the same time, seasoned experienced professionals don’t do scut work, so you are going to have a lot of pimply kids filling out the lower ranks just as they do in the real armed forces, yes, even on the flagship. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/109 "2016-12-23T17:54:09Z")
The kids can be the ones who get sent on the more dangerous Away missions. Let _them_ get eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/110 "2016-12-23T17:57:56Z")
This has the side benefit of weeding out any individuals with less than ideal luck. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/111 "2016-12-23T18:33:12Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I also second the idea that the crew is not made up of youngsters. Working your way up to the flagship should take decades of hard work. You don’t just hand it over to some random, untrained punk kid. That’s another rule that should be amended - flagships should refer to ships with a commander of flag (admiral/general) rank in command of a fleet, group, or task force and not the unofficial usage of civilian cruise liners for their latest pride-and-joy ship. Given that Starfleet does have many military components and tasks, designating a particular ship as a flagship of the entire fleet without regard to any kind of functional role it has (like it having a flag officer who is in a command position) just means that everyone will be gunning for it as a particularly special symbolic target that would have disproportionate negative consequences to morale and prestige if it is destroyed or lost. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/112 "2016-12-23T18:53:44Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Also: More dynamically chromatic space babes. Also some space hunks. It’s the 21st century, fanservice need not be so specific. I’m pretty sure we could get more interest in the fandom if we could draw in some ladies and alternately-focused guys with some Green-Skinned Space Chippendales. Note that Shatner spent a inordinate amount of time with his shirt ripped off. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/113 "2016-12-23T19:12:08Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > Or if you have to have a kid, don’t make him the technical genius wunderkind deus ex machina Mary Sue. Under what conditions would we “have to have a kid” (presumably someone 14 or younger)? Please elaborate! :dubious: OTOH, I’m all in favor of having a wider range of ages among the personnel. During WWII, every outfit had “The Kid” (usually someone who lied about their age in order to enlist) and “The Old Man.” The only time I can think of we explicitly saw someone younger than 22 (Chekov’s age) was in “Charlie X.” The bulk of most services have always consisted of young types, not the late 20s–early 30s crew regularly shown on _ **Star Trek** _. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/114 "2016-12-23T19:46:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Note that Shatner spent a inordinate amount of time with his shirt ripped off. Now just paint him blue, you’ll have all the Star Wars fans beating your door down. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/115 "2016-12-23T20:20:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Note that Shatner spent a inordinate amount of time with his shirt ripped off. Giving us a view of his doughy torso, which is probably why Spock became the series male sex symbol. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/116 "2016-12-23T22:43:21Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Giving us a view of his doughy torso, which is probably why Spock became the series male sex symbol. Not during the early episodes, when he was in pretty good shape. Also the ‘six pack’ wasnt in style then. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/117 "2016-12-23T23:22:50Z")
I don’t think Kirk was doughy _at all._ He was quite attractive. Spock was a little too lean for me. Ok, you can have your miniskirts if there are hunks for us women. 🙂 Blue or green are fine. As far as kids, I liked Icheb. He was believable and not annoying. I think he was around 16 or 17. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/118 "2016-12-24T01:51:44Z")
One of the troubles with _Star Trek_ and _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ was that the basic underlying premise limited storylines. If you are on an extended mission to explore the boundaries of Known Space® (as Niven would call it), you cannot be ambling back to sector 0,0,0 (or 1,1,1) anytime you please for storyline purposes. We presume it’s a long journey to the outer boundaries of the part of the galaxy humans have actively explored. Even at maximum warp, held for extended period of time, you’d take quite a bit of time to get “home”. Presumably, then, you’d have some sort of pre-programmed trajectory that would route you out from “home”, get to the edge quickly, and then have you spend most of your time on some extended arc outside the area you’re familiar with. You’re on your own, so to speak: no one is around who can come running to your rescue. But by the same token, you’re not available to rescue the home crowd, either. You can see that this starts cramping the plot ideas. Indeed, _Star Trek_ itself never really followed this plot basis, despite the introductory declaration by James T. Kirk. The second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” weakly attempts the idea, but you’ll notice that there is a convenient “lithium cracking” station on a planet within impulse engine range. But of the first season episodes, only a few are set in places that are truly “new” to humans; the rest involve visiting places the Federation is already established in. As for _The Next Generation_, they didn’t really try any harder to follow that concept, though they had more first season scripts that could be interpreted as occurring in places that the Federation has not gone to before. Yet they end the season with a script that has the Enterprise returning to Earth, followed by a trip to the Neutral Zone with the Romulan Empire. Hardly going where no one has gone before. So if I was running the show, here are some rules I would set down to truly implement the concept of exploring the unknown: 1. The ship is not the most powerful ship the Federation owns. That’s stupid. That ship would be within easy traveling of Earth/Vulcan/Andor/etc. The ship is powerful enough, but also designed to carry out scientific investigations, etc. Think a combination of the _Beagle_ and the _Golden Hind_. 2. The ship actually leaves known space and doesn’t intend to return for the duration of the voyage. This doesn’t mean that it never is in contact with species who know of humans. So it’s not quite the situation in _Star Trek: Voyager_. Indeed, one of the tropes of the show could be the difficulties encountered by running into species on the periphery which have negative views of the Federation. 3. Communications _ **do not happen at the speed of plot!!!** _ The time it takes to contact the Federation is not instantaneous one week, and days the next. Preferably, there is a limit on how fast communications can travel, which causes the delay between message and response to lengthen at first, then stay steady, then slowly reduce at the end of the show’s run. 4. The ability of the ship to go “fast” is not dependent upon plot, either. For once and for all, make a decision on what the limits of “warp factors” are (if any), and then determine what the ship can do both as a regular cruising speed, as a fast get there ASAP speed, and as a MUST BE THERE NOW speed. Then stick to that. Stop going warp 14 all of a sudden because that’s what the script needs. 5. Don’t involve the ship in the Federation’s internal politics, nor in the defense of the Federation from any sudden threats (like the Borg). It finds out about these after the fact, then has to deal with the implications. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2016, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/119 "2016-12-24T05:32:45Z")
> [@Helena330](#): > > I don’t think Kirk was doughy _at all._ He was quite attractive. Spock was a little too lean for me. Spock was _ **exactly** _ my type. Kirk always looked like he was wearing a girdle. These days he could actually use one. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2016, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/120 "2016-12-24T05:42:58Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Spock was _ **exactly** _ my type. Kirk always looked like he was wearing a girdle. These days he could actually use one. He’s 85! He gets some slack! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136.md?page=7)