Create a new series premise

[AKAArzosah]

Hey I was serious. I'd watch that show!

I watch SGA (remake of SG1, and sort of similar to Voyager if you think about it)

I watch Heroes (practically a remake of X-Men, and there was Mutant X)

I watch Scrubs and House (ER, Chicago Hope - though neither were as funny)

I watch Battlestar Galactica (If you don't know what that's a remake of, I'm not telling you)

And every Star Trek is basically a remake of the one before, set in a different time or place. And there's DEFINITELY nothing wrong with that!

[AKAArzosah]

http://www.bash.org/?221128

[Nate the Great]

That's the odd part, I don't think anybody actually calls it SGA, they call it Atlantis. There's not a reason in the world why you couldn't say SGA, but I'm still not seeing it. Weird...

[NAHTMMM]

^ Personally, "SGA" makes me think of some sort of student organization.

Originally Posted by mudshark

There must be a way to manage it, though, and then you may have your series premise. Has there ever been one before in which the main character gets murdered every week? It'd be sort of Quantum Victim, or something.

There was one in chat once, starring Top Hat Man's counterpart John as a private eye who investigated his own death each week.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Originally Posted by mudshark

There must be a way to manage it, though, and then you may have your series premise. Has there ever been one before in which the main character gets murdered every week? It'd be sort of Quantum Victim, or something.

...I think we've come back to The Goon Show again. Granted, Bulebottle didn't get 'deaded' every episode, but it happened pretty often, and Neddie was usually the one responsible for it.

The best ideas are already long done, it's only how you present them that matters (take a bow, Shakespeare, you huge show-off you). People need to be shown something they never did see before, and Trek did that for a while, and then didn't, and then did start to again but was canned anyway (because in TV, money comes before stories almost every time). Even having made my own suggestion, I don't honestly think that it matters much what the premise of a new show would be as long as the hands that guide it and the faces that tell it manage to show us something we never did see before. That's what made Trek big, back in the day - Roddenberry tapped into our collective sense of wonder and what-if in a way that has been lacking in the last few years. It can be that again, if only the right person can find their way into doing it.

Someone, like, say, Aaron Sork--

*Is clubbed by a piano*

[Nate the Great]

I'm reminded of the Zeroth Law of Trope Examples:

"Shakespeare did it off first. Or at least ripped it off first."

[PointyHairedJedi]

The dastard.

[Chancellor Valium]

Trek always tries 'new' and 'wacky' for the first three seasons, which tend to be rubbish. In season 4 they decide on an identity for the programme, it peaks with innovation and cool stuff in season 6 ("Chain of Command"/"Far Beyond The Stars"/Year of Hell"), season 7 is fun, good tv but lacking the "wow!" episodes and it ends.

>_><_<

I hereby patent this as Valium's Law of Star Trek.

[Nate the Great]

Um, wacky seasons? Certainly wacky episodes, wacky plotlines, but SEASONS?

No offense meant, but I'd think that Valium's Law of Star Trek would be that you need one before watching ENT.

[Chancellor Valium]

Hmm. That didn't come across right. I meant that it tries 'new' and 'wacky' episodes in the first three seasons. By midway through s3 it's settling down into an identity, but you're right, they aren't completely 'wacky'.

[Nate the Great]

Well, as long as it's only once in awhile, I don't see a problem with wacky. After all, I enjoy the early "wacky" NextGen episodes. Up the Long Ladder, The Outrageous Okona, and so forth.

[Chancellor Valium]

Yes, looking back at them they make a change from later stories which have a stronger sense of franchise-identity, but nevertheless, they can make people look askance at the series when it starts out.

I'm hoping to find some way to map this thinking onto Enterprise.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, here's a related question: When do you think the next new Trek show will be created and released?

[ijdgaf]

Not soon. They'll stick to movies for the time being, I'd wager.

[Nate the Great]

That wasn't the question. It was hypothetical, designed to elicit controversy. WHEN they make a new show, whether it's next year or next century, that's the question.

[ijdgaf]

I don't really see how my answer doesn't qualify as an "answer", per say. You asked when and my answer was, it'll be a while.

To further elaborate, it really depends on how successful this string of movies is. If the first movie bombs and Paramount isn't inclined to make more then it'll probably be a long time. A longer gap than the one since Enterprise. Finally somebody will gather the courage to commission/write a premise, and a TV series might be the result. If the first movie is successful, they'll make a second one and I don't see them throwing a new TV series into the mix for a while. That sort of thing muddies the water, in ijdgaf-hypothetical-movie-producer-speak/think. Maybe after a bit they'd branch out and make a new series. Or the movie series would run its course and, after another hiatus, a new series might come out of the woodwork.

The question just has so many variables involved. And I don't get how "not soon" is... wrong? Would "the day after tomorrow" be a better answer? I don't see how. While it gains something in precision, it loses quite a bit in terms of plausability and all around well-informedness.

[Nate the Great]

Is this really your answer, or are you trying to be difficult? Is a simple answer expressed in years, totally nonbinding and based on personal opinion too much to ask?

[ijdgaf]

No, you're right. That was my fake answer.

[Nate the Great]

And your real answer is...?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

No, you're right. That was my fake answer.

The way you can tell is, he flicks his teeth.

I can't give any answer to the question that doesn't involve Aaron Sorkin, especially not as I'm currently working my way through my precious precious TWW DVDs, though right now I'm deep in the Wells-o-vision crapshoot that is season five. I'll agree with IJD that a lot rides on the film, and that barring someone pushy and egotistical enough to press Paramount into it in the near future (say, a clone of JMS that has been suitably brainwashed) it will be... oh, five years? Six?