Standalone episodes are anachronistic, and, frankly, I want to see Trek done in the modern style of storytelling, with continuity and character arcs and, y’know, decisions that actually matter because they exist in a Universe with cause-and-effect chains instead of a big Reset Button posed ever-so-obviously at the end of each tiny little episode. We have multiple series’ worth (American series, not British series: TOS was one series with three seasons.) of episodic or mostly-episodic or, even, overly-episodic Trek. The whole structure is stale. That’s why it’s relegated to shows on dinosaur media.
So. Give us Trek with long-form stories with tight plotting and continuity for both characters and setting. If the intrepid crew discovers a miracle cure in Week Seven, it damned well exists on Weeks Eight through whenever; figuring out it isn’t a miracle is a good plot, forgetting you ever saw the thing the next time you encounter a serious illness is not. That is usually considered basic storytelling, and the fact it’s suddenly controversial is indicative of how bizarre the episodic zero-continuity style really is.
I agree that Trek is best when it’s character-driven, and it is at its absolute best when the command crew is composed of a small number of clashing personalities. The Bones-Kirk-Spock power trio is practically Id-Ego-Superego in that order. Work with that. Do something to ensure a good portion of the conflict is thoughtful discussion among people who all want what’s best but who have different ideas of what the best is. That is a very humanistic, optimistic way to introduce conflict into a story, and optimism and humanism are what Trek should be about.
Similarly, make the outside antagonists into beings to be understood and reasoned with to the greatest extent possible. Sometimes, it won’t be, but that should be a decision of last resort. You know what the most Trek of the TOS episodes was? “The Devil in the Dark”. It was more of a mystery than a fist-fight, even though there was fighting, and, in the end, the solution was reason and reconciliation instead of blowing up an evil computer. If you want to solve problems with bombs more than words, go write for Star Wars. Having the crew figure out natural anomalies is also a good structure: Man vs Nature is one of the oldest and most fertile grounds to come back to, and it fits the Intrepid Explorer concept to a tee.
Finally, give other crewmembers an existence beyond being red-shirts. Red-shirts are cheap and expendable, and turn what should be the hardest part of command into a running joke. If the death didn’t mean anything, it damned well shouldn’t have happened. If you want cheap deaths, I’m sure some slasher reboot is hiring. It shouldn’t be Game Of Thrones, because that’s tonally wrong, but space exploration is dangerous, people are at risk of death, and the lower-ranking crewmembers will be at the greatest risk because they, get this, do more exploring. The better actors, the ones in the command crew, are best used for arguments about what to do about an away team in serious trouble. Leading from the front is noble, but there’s real drama to be mined from malfunctioning communicators and a team that’s suddenly out of reach. Besides, having the main trio do literally everything was a cost-saving measure to cut down on extras, and don’t pretend otherwise.
So, yes, I really want a modernized, bigger-budget TOS, an exploration-oriented show with a lot of focus on new life and new civilizations, and relatively less on combat with established enemies or pure political maneuvering.
