An Alternate Trek

[Lindseyman]

No way in hell these two would be interested in TV, much less sci-fi TV, much less continuing roles in sci-fi TV, at this point. Sorry, but that's really ASB.

Actually quite right however money talks and they were promised that they didn't have to appear in every episode. ITC wanted to build up a regular cast of charcters so that if anyone fell ill, had a contract dispute or just found something better and were willing to break contract there were ready made substitutes who could fill in and the audience wouldn't notice too much.(They didn't want a repeat of what happened with Patrick McGoohan) Also it allowed more scope for guest stars to be in the crew. Also it was recognised that there would be at least 3 shifts and not everything would happen on the Alpha Shift.
Helmsmen: Danny Dare (and yes this being a British show he would be teased about his name):Martin Shaw, Gary Mitchell:Ed Bishop
Navigators:Robert Bailey:Frazer Hines, Elizabeth Tydder:Susan Hampshire, Caroline D'Alembert:Alexandra Bastedo
Communications: Samantha Kennedy:Margaret Tyzack
Yeomen(first names to be decided) Colt:Caroline John, Rand:Jacqeline Pearce, Johnson:Gabrielle Drake
Doctors: Richard Fynely:William Gaunt, Sergei Karentov:Alfred Burke
Science Officers: Joseph Holmes:Ian Richardson, Alan Stein:Brian Blessed
Security Officer: Connor Lynch:James Ellis
Nurses: Majel Barrett and sundry British Actresses
Engineering:Aedh O'Gorman:Milo O'Shea (infrequent guest appearances only)

I know that this cast is overwhelmingly British and white any other suggestions still gratefully accepted.
(Also Christopher Plummer doesn't last more than one season.)

 

[Simreeve]

Doctors: Richard Fynely:William Gaunt

Dr Fynely? Is that pronounced as similarly as it looks to 'Findlay'?

 

[Lindseyman]

Dr Fynely? Is that pronounced as similarly as it looks to 'Findlay'?

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment!

It also strikes me that I'm missing George Sewell. Perhaps he can be the second security officer instead of James Ellis?

 

[Lindseyman]

During the hiatus whilst a replacement was sought for Patrick McGoohan there was a lot of debate about Spock especially about how devilish he would look. Gene Roddenberry wanted him to be very demonic in appearance, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were not so sure. Eventually a compromise was hammered out. Vulcanians would have slanted eyebrows and pointed ears and a very red complexion but neither prominant teeth nor a tail. Nor would they have facial hair. (An observer from OTL would recognise a black and white shot of Stuart Damon as indeed being a Vulcan). It was also decided that Vulcanians would be very spiritual much like Buddhists in many ways. They had adopted this approach to curb their emotions,note NOT suppress them, to avoid a final war about four hundred years earlier. (This was eventually established as the reason that they had helped Earth in the mid 21st century as they had felt that we needed help to recover from WWV as we were in much the same position that they had been in in our 17th century). This enabled the Sian Phillips character to remain the logical even cold and impersonal character, she was to be a follower of a post WWIV offshoot of Christianity which preached that a form of logic was the only way to survive in the fallout from that war. It was decided therefore that her character would be German (no stereotyping there then!!) with the name Katharina Braun.

 

[Stolengood]

Um... if you still want an American captain, Richard Bradford is available.

 

[Lindseyman]

Problems with the lead

Filming started in mid 1966, however it soon became apparent that Christopher Plummer wasn't happy. The Anderson's and Roddenberry finally sat him down in August 1966 and talked through the problem. it appeared that Plummer was aware of what a committment he had undertaken and was now realising that it would interfere with his film and theatre work. On reading the scripts he thought that this was going to be a big success and he really didn't want to be typecast as a ships captain for ever more. With Lew Grades acquiescence, they came to a compromise, Christopher Pike would be replaced as captain of the Endeavour a third of the way through the series. However he would be promoted to the Admiralty of the Fleet rather than killed off. In fact Christopher Plummer would continue to make cameo appearances as Admiral Pike throughout the entire run of Star Trek as his other committments allowed. As a replacement Richard Bradford who had been employed as star of Man in a Suitcase was approached and agreed to step in. From episode 10 he would star as Captain Matthew Decker.

 

[phx1138]

by 2nd Generation we can have the Q,.

No, no, a thousand times, no!!!!

Danny Dare:Martin Doyle

Am I right thinking he was also in "The Professionals"?

Gary Mitchell:Ed Bishop

Good choice.

Doctors: Richard Fynely:William Gaunt, Sergei Karentov:Alfred Burke

No *M'Benga? And why not make one or two a woman (per Claremont's Law)?

Christopher Plummer doesn't last more than one season.

I have my doubts you'd get him at all....

Also, tho Brian Blessed is a lovely idea, I'm seeing him more Security Officer.
Thinking of Edward Woodward, can I put in a vote for him as *McCoy? The idea, AIUI, was for him & Kirk to be of an age, but De played older so well (or it seemed like, to me...)

 

[Lindseyman]

From the ITC Star Trek Script Writer's Handbook

The Bridge Crew

Captain Matthew Decker; American from Houston, Texas. A driven officer. Decker has risen rapidly through the ranks of the Commonwealth Fleet. he was a captain by the age of 26. The Endeavour is his second command. he has gained the reputation of being a bit of a cowboy with regards to regulations. However he is respected by his crews as he never asks them to do things that he wouldn't do himself.
First Officer Commander Katharina Braun (Number One): A German from Neu Munchen on Mars. She is very efficient and a stickler for following the rules and regulations. She found Decker very hard to work with at the start of his tour of duty but they have now found a modus vivendi. She is a practising member of the "Hanovarian Way" a form of North German Protestantism that promotes frugality and logic. This was founded in Hamburg in the late 1990s as a means of coping with the aftermath of WWIV which had left much of Northern Europe in ruins.
Science Officer Lieutenant Commander Spock (Second Officer): A Vulcanian from s'Karrh on Vucanis. A passionate scientist who has an intense curiosity especially about humans. He is one of the few Vulcanians that serve in the Fleet(many do serve in the Navy). Spock is the grandson of the Vulcanian, Savek, who instigated first contact with Earth after Christopher Cochranes flight in the Phoenix.
Navigator Lieutenant Leo Chekov: An ethnic Russian from Sevastopol in the Ukraine. His family had served with distinction in the Black Sea Fleet in WWIV and WWV and he is very aware of his family tradition of service to the state. He is very slightly a black sheep of his family as he joined the Fleet rather than the Navy. He is very intense but shows a real flair bordering on genius for navigation. He is best friends with Erik Eisen.
Helmsman Lieutenant Erik Eisen: An Argentinian of German extraction. A flamboyant, larger than life character who has some slight ability to manipulate metal with his mind. He claims that he knows exactly how the ship is going to respond to any manouvers, he doesn't know how he just feels it. Best friends with Leo Chekov. They have come up from the academy together.
Communications Officer Lieutenant Esther McKenzie: A Jamaican from Kingston. She graduated as top of her class in the Academy and expects nothing but the best from her subordinate officers in communications and gets it. Maintains a professional distance from her fellow officers but is renowned for her ability to play matchmaker for the crew. She has an instinctive knack at knowing who will get along well with whom and what they are feeling. This ability also extends to non humans whom she meets.
Security Officer Lieutenant Commander Norman Stiles: A By the Book Security Officer from south London. He does however have enough sense to realise when by the book won't work and can improvise accordingly. He comes from a long line of London policemen. He is near worshipped by the security men as he has a reputation of being lucky and bringing his men back alive. He is married with two children.

 

[Lindseyman]

More from the Handbook

Other Bridge Characters

Helmsman Ensign Daniel Dare:a Mancunian who tries hard to be known as Danny. This works most of the time, however English crewmembers tease him incessantly about his name especially as his full name is Daniel Macgregor Dare!(when drunk he curses his parents' sense of humour). He is nearly as good a helmsman as Eisen.
Helmsman Lieutenant Gary Mitchell: A New Yorker who has some problems with authority hence him still being a lieutenant. More than a little foolhardy but a good helmsman if not in the same class as Dare and Eisen.
Navigator Ensign Robert Bailey: An Englishman from Wellstown on Mars. Very conscientious but tries too hard on occasion. Jealous of Chekovs natural ability but gets along well with everyone else.
Navigator Lieutenant Elizabeth Tydder: A Welshwoman from Baglan. Very quiet and understated but with a wicked sense of humour. Fluent in 5 languages.
Navigator Ensign Caroline D'Alembert: Very confident French Canadian from Montreal. Has to put up with men finding her attractive. She finds this annoying as she feels that they never see her excellence at her job.
Communications Officer Ensign Samantha Kennedy: Lacks confidence in her own ability at times but is gaining confidence under Esther McKenzie's tutelage.
Science Officer Lieutenant Joseph Holmes: An Edinburgh Scot knicknamed Sherlock both because of his surname and his resemblance to Sidney Paget's illustrations. Is also a follower of Hanovarian Way.
Science Officer Lieutenant Alan Stein: A very loud bear of a man who hails from Middlesborough. His larger than life blustery character hides an exceptionally intelligent and insightful mind. He is MUCH better at working things out in the lab rather than when dealing with other people who can find him insufferable especially when he's proved right. It takes newcomers to the crew a long time to work out why his nickname is George, unless they have read more Conan Doyle than the Holmes stories.
Security Officer Lieutenant Connor Lynch: An Ulsterman from Belfast. More voluable than Stiles but an excellent foil and second in command to him.

 

[Lindseyman]

Engineering

Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott: A BRILLIANT practical Engineer born in Linlithgow but having lived in Aberdeen since being a young child. He can solve any engineering problem given to him. the Endeavour systems now bear little resemblance to the official blueprints but operate at least 30% more efficiently as a result. Many other ships are now having similar alterations made to their systems. He is intensely protective of his bairns (the engines) and the ship. Although technically he is third ranking officer after Braun and Decker, it would take Spock to be also incapacitated before he would leave the engine room. Scotty has a love/hate relationship with Aedh O'Gorman.

CPO Aedh O'Gorman: A native Dubliner, Aedh is another brilliant practical engineer but his solutions are not always the same as Scotty's. They argue incessantly about the best solution to problems but Aedh is the only person to whom Scotty will entrust Engineering if he has to leave for any reason. This can lead to problems with other Engineering Officers but the better ones soon learn to do as Aedh suggests!

Medical Staff

CMO Lieutenant Commander Phillip Noyce: An Australian from Sydney. Noyce is a gruff and taciturn man with a heart of gold. He also has an almost pathological hatred of paperwork. In his 10 years as CMO he has gone through 5 seconds before Richard Fynely. Noyce is a firm subscriber to "if they think it works" school of medicine and it takes a lot to convince him to adopt new methodology. Divorced from Christine Chapel they have found a way of working together.

Lieutenant Richard Fynely: A blunt almost rude Yorkshireman. Fynely is a brilliant surgeon but has an apalling bedside manner. However he is very good at paperwork so he does it all and so gets along well with Phillip Noyce. His best friend in the crew is Alan Stein and they spend a lot of time commiserating with each other over Yorkshire's latest poor performance in the county Championship.

Admiral Sergei Karentov: CMO of the Endeavour before Noyce and now Admiral in Charge of Medical Central, which deploys and trains medical staff for both the Fleet and the Navy. Does an odd tour of duty as relief CMO if both Noyce and Fynely are absent to keep his hand in "practicing real medicine".

Chief Nurse (equivalent to a CPO) Christine Chapel: Ex wife of Phillip Noyce. They divorced because they couldn't live together, Noyce being completely disorganised and untidy and Chapel being very organised and tidy. However (given that character fault,as they see it, in the other!) they do like each other and work together very well.

 

[Lindseyman]

Input appreciated

I would genuinely like some input for this. Would the first episode of this ITC version of Star Trek be "The Cage" ,"Where No Man has gone before", "The Omega Glory"(which was proposed as the second pilot in OTL ) made with the British cast or something else completely? I'm inclined to go with "The Cage" as it is what Roddenberry had in mind originally, but given that Lew Grade and the Andersons are involved I can see ways for either of the other two to be the first episode. In true British fashion of the time "Answers on a postcard please", ok a post here will do!

 

[viewcode]

Who does what and when

I would genuinely like some input for this. Would the first episode of this ITC version of Star Trek be "The Cage" ,"Where No Man has gone before", "The Omega Glory"(which was proposed as the second pilot in OTL ) made with the British cast or something else completely? I'm inclined to go with "The Cage" as it is what Roddenberry had in mind originally, but given that Lew Grade and the Andersons are involved I can see ways for either of the other two to be the first episode. In true British fashion of the time "Answers on a postcard please", ok a post here will do!

"The Cage" IOTL was redone because it was (thought to be) too cerebral. I assume ITTL something similar will occur: Roddenberry will want to go the route of thoughful mind-fucks, Lew is a showman and wants BIG EXPLOSIONS and a bit with a dog. So I can see the "two pilots" thing recurring ITTL - "The Cage" gets filmed, Hunter (IOTL)/Plummer (ITTL) leaves, "Where No Man" gets filmed with Shatner(IOTL)/Bradford(ITTL). Or (if I understand you correctly) Plummer ITTL will stay one season. In which case my suggestion may be gibberish...

Anyhoo, to answer your question: Cage first, then WNMHGB, for the same reason as IOTL.

Now, as for your third episode, you need a "Naked Now"/"Naked Time" analogue, and for the same reason: having set up the main cast in the pilots, you now need to introduce the secondary cast and the emotional and philosophical conflicts you will explore in your first season.

Your cast is large: start thinking about which of them will bail-out in the first year, and which conflicts will be interesting to explore. Some of your characters will break out (I can see Braun subsuming Spock, for example), some will fade away

Incidentally, what function is Gerry Anderson playing here? They are very different characters: Grade is a showman (a former performer and tapdancer) with a big heart who plays to the stalls: Roddenberry is louche and expansive, the philosopher-king who worships ideas (but couldn't run a whelk-stall). Anderson is passive-aggressive, quiet and shy, but very good on detail. Grade is the producer: comes up with the money and publicity. Roddenberry is the showrunner: sets the tone and general direction, writes the bible. Anderson is..the script-editor? Commissions and approves scripts, makes sure they fit the showrunner's concept. This could work well, but round about season 3 Roddenberry and Anderson are going to argue: Grade's task is to ensure they don't...

 

[Lurksalot]

What if Gene gets shot down over Germany and spends time after his release in Germany which leads to him liking the country and settling there?

Not familiar with German tv, but could Gene have made the series there?

 

[Nivek]

What if Gene gets shot down over Germany and spends time after his release in Germany which leads to him liking the country and settling there?

Not familiar with German tv, but could Gene have made the series there?

Well the german OTL have this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumpatrouille_–_Die_phantastischen_Abenteuer_des_Raumschiffes_Orion who was made as short as startrek(1963 vs 1964), have the same tropes but different evolution(Space Patrol is more life the life of Space Polices/Air force scouts that Space navigators/wagon to the west) but as both idea born indepenenat each other..maybe German Star Trek will be Star Patrol and being more focus in alliens wars(first Klingolns, later Borg and ferentenis) that explotarion?

 

[Blurgle]

Other Bridge Characters

Navigator Ensign Caroline D'Alembert: Very confident French Canadian from Montreal.

I guess a British producer could choose an aristocratic French name such as D'Alembert in ignorance, but any Canadian in the decision-making process would have to stifle a chuckle - it's SO not Quebecois.

 

[Lindseyman]

I guess a British producer could choose an aristocratic French name such as D'Alembert in ignorance, but any Canadian in the decision-making process would have to stifle a chuckle - it's SO not Quebecois.

GUILTY AS CHARGED! However I would think that most British would make the same assumption( especially in the 60s)with the Quebecois being so voiciferous about their frenchness. Doesn't make it right of course.

 

[MattII]

I notice that very few of these proposals include a dedicated 'away team' which I find a rather daft thing, because really, the last thing you want to do is leave your ship without a critical member because they've either picked up some nasty exotic illness, or they've been killed.

 

[Lindseyman]

Here is the first series of Star Trek. Thanks to Viewcode, I've used his input (sort of!- you'll see what I mean!). It is in broadcast order the second name is the equivalent episode from OTL Star Trek. I'll give thumbnail plot summaries later. Warning just because they are equivalent episodes does not mean they are as OTL but with TTL cast.(they'll have different script writers for a start!)
The Plummer Episodes
1. The Cage(The Cage)
2. Inhibitions (The Naked Time)
3. Yesterday is Tomorrow (Tomorrow is Yesterday)
4. The Herschel (The Galileo 7)
5. Old Wounds (The Man Trap)
6. The Mind Sifter (Dagger of the Mind)
7. The Federation (The Corbomite Manouver)
8. Shiva (Space Seed)
9. The Guardian of Time (City on the Edge of Forever)
The Bradford Episodes
10. Where no one has gone before (WNMHGB)
11. Yin and Yang (The Enemy Within)
12. The Aphrodite Syndrome (Mudd's Women)
13. Sugar and Spice (What are little girls made of?)
14. The Lost
15. Elsinore (The Conscience of the King)
16. Shore Leave (Shore Leave)
17. The Forgotten(The Return of the Archons)
18. MAD (Balance of Terror)
19. Triskelon (Arena)
20. Court Martial (Court Martial)
21. The Spores (This Side of Paradise)
22. The Miners (Devil in the Dark)
23. Organia (Errand of Mercy)
24. Brothers (Operation:Annihilate)
25. The Computer War (A Taste of Armageddon)
26. Janus (The Alternative Factor)

I apologise for leaving out Miri (but I want to rethink the planet as an identical twin to Earth part) but not for Charlie X and the Squire of Gothos (the last two plots are too similar for my tastes).

 

[katchen]

And what happens to "The Trouble With Tribbles" and "A Piece of the Action"?

 

[Lindseyman]

They were season 2 in OTL. Panic ye not, I have absolutely no intention of losing Tribbles although A Piece of the Action will need some reworking given TTL characters.