"Star Trek" voyages?

There have been a number of threads on the history (or potential history) of "STTOS". Here's another variation.;)

What potential spinoffs were there from TOS? Were any likely to be successful? (I realize there was small chance the network would pick them up.)

I see at least two:

"Starfleet JAG", based on "Court Martial" & "The Menagerie". In both, it makes more sense having actual JAG officers involved.

"Starfleet Intelligence" (or something), based on "The Enterprise Incident". Seriously, does the Federation have no officers able to do undercover missions? (The same stupidity recurs in "STNG" & "DS9"...:rolleyes:) I reject Section 31 as inimical to everything Gene stood for...:eek::eek::angry:

Any other ideas?
 
Last edited:
There were plans for Star Trek spinoffs. Partially if the show succeeded, partially as a way to jump ship if the show failed:

  • Assignment Earth (which was an episode that was meant as a backdoor pilot for a series)
  • A Harry Mudd spinoff
  • Starship Hope, about a medical space ship with Doctor M'Benga as the lead.
 
There were plans for Star Trek spinoffs. Partially if the show succeeded, partially as a way to jump ship if the show failed:

  • Assignment Earth (which was an episode that was meant as a backdoor pilot for a series)
  • A Harry Mudd spinoff
  • Starship Hope, about a medical space ship with Doctor M'Benga as the lead.
I wouldn't call the "Assignment: Earth" backdoor pilot a spinoff, exactly, since it had nothing to do with "ST".

The other two, I confess, I'd never heard of.

The M'Belna hospital ship? I like it.:cool:

A Harry Mudd spinoff?:eek::eek::eek::eek::mad:

I'd probably have tried a Vulcan & an Andorian spinoff, myself, tho that may be influenced by Shran & the "ST:E" stuff.
 
Last edited:
Assignment Earth (which was an episode that was meant as a backdoor pilot for a series)
The original idea for Assignment Earth was that Seven was going to fight a Alien invasion of Earth. So a Version of "the Invader" or The British Series "Counterstrike".
There is a fan site that has the original story outlines and scripts. It also has a alternate history on what the show would have been like if it had gone to series.
https://www.assignmentearth.ca/

Starship Hope, about a medical space ship with Doctor M'Benga as the lead
Might work if they enlisted James White who had done the Sector General Stories and Alan E Nourse who did the novel Star Surgeon. But I fear it be a mixture of standard Medical Dramas and Star Trek TOS. Medical Stories were never Star Trek strength. McCoy would come up with the cure just toward the end of the episode.

A Harry Mudd spinoff
Always felt that Harry Mudd was over rated as a character. The Stories were weak and it was only Roger Carmel acting that made the episodes watchable.
Not sure how that would work as a Series. They might try to do it as Mudd working for Star Fleet intelligence. Something like a cross between "It Takes a Thief" and "Switch".
He need some supporting characters. It be interesting to see Mudd meet Cyrano Jones from "Trouble with Tribbles".
Not sure if Roddenberry would be willing to let the Producers develop a underworld for his perfect Star Trek Universe.
 
I can't see Dr. M'Benga being cast as a lead at that time. IMVHO, it's probably too early for a black lead actually giving orders to a white man to fly.
 
The original idea for Assignment Earth was that Seven was going to fight a Alien invasion of Earth. So a Version of "the Invader" or The British Series "Counterstrike".
I don't say it's necessarily a bad idea, tho I couldn't stand Robert Lansing or Teri Garr. It's OT here, tho: not "ST" related enough. (It's like suggesting a series about one of the crowd aliens just because they appeared in "Farpoint Station".:rolleyes:)
Might work if they enlisted James White who had done the Sector General Stories and Alan E Nourse who did the novel Star Surgeon. But I fear it be a mixture of standard Medical Dramas and Star Trek TOS. Medical Stories were never Star Trek strength. McCoy would come up with the cure just toward the end of the episode.
Bringing in Nourse would've been genius.:cool: Would it have degenerated into "disease of the week"? Maybe. ( :teary: ) It might have been interesting to see more Federation aliens, & get a look at how the bureaucracy worked.

It could have been "St Elsewhere in Space" (so to speak), doing jobs nobody else wants. Or a dramedy closer to "M*A*S*H". Or a crime show, like "Quincy" or "CSI". (Actually, it could've been all of them, depending on what the script called for.;))

The problem I see is the budget for appliances & ship models. You could pretty easily break the bank.:eek: A typical episode of "TOS" was spending around $300K; this show could easily go $500K, IMO.:eek:
Always felt that Harry Mudd was over rated as a character. The Stories were weak and it was only Roger Carmel acting that made the episodes watchable.
Agree on the first. Never liked Carmel's performance. I'd far rather they'd substituted Cyrano Jones for those stories.
Not sure if Roddenberry would be willing to let the Producers develop a underworld for his perfect Star Trek Universe.
Judging by how he reacted to Harlan's original script for "City", I'd say not.

That said, IMO there was more room than there might seem, tho maybe they'd be kind of niche series that could only work once Trekker fandom had taken hold:
  1. Prequel at Academy, with Finnegan
  2. Prequel (of sorts) with Matt Decker before "Doomsday Machine"
  3. "Starbase", spun off "The Menagerie" (an early "DS9", without the religion?)
  4. An Iotian spinoff (based on "A Piece of the Action"). This seems really, really unlikely, given it effectively has the Fed endorse the Mafia.:eek: Or puts a Starfleet officer in the position of being *Luciano.:eek::eek: (Having them turn up in the first "ST" movie, after they've developed warp drive from reverse-engineering McCoy's communicator, might've been fun, tho.;) )
I can't see Dr. M'Benga being cast as a lead at that time. IMVHO, it's probably too early for a black lead actually giving orders to a white man to fly.
I could see him being Chief Surgeon under a white CO. (Actually, I'd cast an Asian woman & make her up as an Andorian.:openedeyewink: Screw the bigots, & the network.:openedeyewink: )

The other approach? A heavily black cast, like Diahann Carroll's show.

However, it isn't out of the question for black & white equals, even in this period. Recall "I Spy". So: Booker Bradshaw as Chief Medical Officer M'Benga & France Nguyen as Captain Tranh?
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I like that idea. An I Spy type of cast ensemble, but trying hard to keep it from being just the disease of the week. There was a kind of detective show type of episode oh, I forget the name, where Scotty was accused of murder. I forget most of the rest of the episode, but it seems like they were capable of trying to do a crime thing like a Quincy. So maybe that would be the best way to go about it.

I have heard Mork & Mindy considered to be a spin-off of Happy Days even though the shows were very disconnected. So I think that's why they say assignment Earth could have been considered a spin-off. Although, when I re-watched it it seemed like Gary Seven could have easily turned into a Doctor Who type of character just going from place to place not just on Earth the way he could travel.

In fact, maybe that would be how they could finally get a crossover.

I get Mudd and Jones confused as it is. Yeah, Jones is much more memorable and would have been the better spin-off.
 
cast ensemble
You're thinking of "Mission: Impossible", I'd guess, not "I Spy", with Cosby & Culp.

An ensemble cast like "M:I" (minus the mandatory guest star) would be a good call; going as far as "Hill Street" for the ensemble (14? members, all paid the same) is probably asking too much, but if I could get away with it...
Yeah, I like that idea.
TYVM.:cool:
There was a kind of detective show type of episode oh, I forget the name, where Scotty was accused of murder. I forget most of the rest of the episode, but it seems like they were capable of trying to do a crime thing like a Quincy.
"Wolf in the Fold", IIRC. And there were cases of pandemics mentioned, & vaccines that needed transporting, so medicine wasn't perfect.
I have heard Mork & Mindy considered to be a spin-off of Happy Days even though the shows were very disconnected. So I think that's why they say assignment Earth could have been considered a spin-off.
No argument. For my purposes, it's not.;)
 
You're thinking of "Mission: Impossible", I'd guess, not "I Spy", with Cosby & Culp.

An ensemble cast like "M:I" (minus the mandatory guest star) would be a good call; going as far as "Hill Street" for the ensemble (14? members, all paid the same) is probably asking too much, but if I could get away with it...

Thanks, yeah, I was thinking of Mission: Impossible. Cool shows to my childhood self but neither seen in well over 30 years. (And both in reruns even as a kid I think.)

MI still did have a black character If I recall, so having a black surgeon as part of the group would work well. And they could do a bit of everything - mystery solving, paandemic-preventing, etc.. The budget wouldn't even be a huge problem if you had it more on board the ship.Of course, 14 would be aa bit too much - don't know what actors made per episode but that would surely add up fast after maybe half a dozen.
 
Thanks, yeah, I was thinking of Mission: Impossible. Cool shows to my childhood self but neither seen in well over 30 years. (And both in reruns even as a kid I think.)

MI still did have a black character If I recall, so having a black surgeon as part of the group would work well.
They did indeed. And I think the best writing of any TV series I've ever seen. Conceptually, it was also really smart.
And they could do a bit of everything - mystery solving, paandemic-preventing, etc..
IMO, part of the problem was rating "TOS" as action/adventure, & not drama (tho TBH IDK if "M:I" was, either).
The budget wouldn't even be a huge problem if you had it more on board the ship.Of course, 14 would be aa bit too much - don't know what actors made per episode but that would surely add up fast after maybe half a dozen.
All shipboard stories? You'd be bankrupt in no time.:eek: AIUI, shipboard sets cost more. (If Making of Star Trek is accurate; it reproduces a memo about it from Gene, or Bob Justman, saying the network wanted more ship stories, & the reply to the effect, "Sure, we can do that til they go broke.";) )

The trouble with a having lot of aliens then was the appliances, & especially the ship models. That's why the writers had the Klingon-Romulan tech exchange: they couldn't afford a Romulan ship design.:eek: Actually, that's why they had the transorter: there wasn't any budget for a shuttlecraft model. (Leave off the fact they could've worked around it...:rolleyes:)

As for actors' wages, that wasn't the issue for me: it was the very idea of an ensemble designed that way. For that period, my ideal "TOS" would've been the "Big Six", & keep them on the bridge (where you'd expect them to stay), then use recurring guest stars as crewmen & aliens. They couldn't do that & still pay star wages--so pay everybody equally (& all less), which is what "HSB" did.
 
Might work if they enlisted James White who had done the Sector General Stories and Alan E Nourse who did the novel Star Surgeon. But I fear it be a mixture of standard Medical Dramas and Star Trek TOS. Medical Stories were never Star Trek strength. McCoy would come up with the cure just toward the end of the episode.
Interestingly, James White's second book (after Hospital Station) was also called Star Surgeon.

Bringing in Nourse would've been genius.:cool: Would it have degenerated into "disease of the week"? Maybe. ( :teary: ) It might have been interesting to see more Federation aliens, & get a look at how the bureaucracy worked.

It could have been "St Elsewhere in Space" (so to speak), doing jobs nobody else wants. Or a dramedy closer to "M*A*S*H". Or a crime show, like "Quincy" or "CSI". (Actually, it could've been all of them, depending on what the script called for.;))
A mix of all three most likely. After all, just because there's a disease, it doesn't have to mean it's natural. They don't even have to always be dealing with a disease, they could have the occasional natural disaster thrown in

The problem I see is the budget for appliances & ship models. You could pretty easily break the bank.:eek: A typical episode of "TOS" was spending around $300K; this show could easily go $500K, IMO.:eek:
Maybe, but if the Hope was a hospital ship they'd probably spend most of their time dealing with colony issues, which would lower the costs a bit I imagine.
 
Last edited:
Interesting, I thought I had read or heard that when will the final episodes of the third season had to be done entirely on board ship because of budget constraints. But, I can imagine where they could have had very simple sets and had those be cheaper. Like the ones for OK Corral Planet where even I could tell how cheap they were as a child and I'm legally blind.
 
Interesting, I thought I had read or heard that when will the final episodes of the third season had to be done entirely on board ship because of budget constraints. But, I can imagine where they could have had very simple sets and had those be cheaper. Like the ones for OK Corral Planet where even I could tell how cheap they were as a child and I'm legally blind.
I can't guarantee the truth of it; Making has its share of mistakes. Third season was generally done on the cheap, for sure.

One thing about a show set shipboard, tho: once you've built your essential sets, you never need to do it again. In the long run, it might end up being feasible, where for "TOS" it wasn't. Not to mention, some of "Starship Hope" could re-use "TOS" sets (in particular the bridge), or slightly redress existing sets. About the only one that would have to be completely new would be Sickbay; a hospital ship would have to have more room (more biobeds).

Come to that, you might end up being able to swap ship models back into "TOS", too--if it lasted long enough, & if any spinoff got picked up, of course.
A mix of all three most likely. After all, just because there's a disease, it doesn't have to mean it's natural. They don't even have to always be dealing with a disease, they could have the occasional natural disaster thrown in
I can see them dealing with natural disasters; it's a facet I hadn't considered. It's just possible they could deal with threats of (or suspicions of) biowarfare, too.
Maybe, but if the Hope was a hospital ship they'd probably spend most of their time dealing with colony issues, which would lower the costs a bit I imagine.
I'm not seeing how. It's not like she'd be a colony transport ship. I'm seeing this more like "Marcus Welby" or "Emergency" than "Little House" (so to speak): you only need a hospital ship where there's overwhelming problems.

Had the grain on K-7 actually been planted & eaten, I'd see Hope responding, to treat the people involved. Or had the pathogen from "Omega Glory" gotten off-planet. Or for any of the number of disease outbreaks mentioned, where medicines needed to be urgently transported by other ships: supplies aboard hospital ships expended? Or because hospital ships aren't on scene yet?

Might be there's also research on vaccines or treatments that go wrong on one ship that needs cleaning up, too, akin to the "active immune system" idea from "TNG" (episode I can't recall...:oops::oops:)

One thought: "Starfleet Intelligence" would probably look a lot like "I Spy", but was there any prospect of it being realistic, dealing with signals intercepts & crypto? Or would that be insanely boring?:openedeyewink:
 
Last edited:
There were plans at paramount to do a Captain Sulu series following TOS, Captain Worf following TNG, and a Starfleet Academy series. But it seems we are getting the Academy series along with the Picard series.

The Captain Worf series would probably be the most successful, especially if they started it directly after DS9.
 
There were plans at paramount to do a Captain Sulu series following TOS, Captain Worf following TNG, and a Starfleet Academy series. But it seems we are getting the Academy series along with the Picard series.

The Captain Worf series would probably be the most successful, especially if they started it directly after DS9.
I'd have watched them all. IMO, Sulu getting a Captaincy right after "TOS" (instead of "TNG"?) would've been a decent call--or right after "TMP", anyhow.

I kind of like the idea of a Picard prequel. (Use the kid from the "youthenized" episode.)

And in any event, find a spot for Shelby.
 
Last edited:
Depending on the sort of show, I can see characters occasionally griping, "Time to clean up another of Kirk's messes!"

Apollo spread himself on the wind--and Enterprise raced off afterwards to deal with the next crisis. Perhaps something from that planet holds the secret of a cure.

A civilization with the tech to put a brain back into someone--send the best medical specialists in the fleet to find out more. (Spock's Brain)

Dr. McCoy got cured of an incurable disease by Fabrini technology--get the USS Hope there. (For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky)

A longevity project that ALMOST worked, and also has the potential to spread, with deadly consequences? Send the USS Hope (Miri)

A hospital ship can end up in a lot of adventures that aren't on a planet, solving the plague du jour, and cranking up the technobabble generators when readings are off the scale.

Biowar, of course, is a threat.

Then I can see a debate about arming a hospital ship...

If you want to keep M'Benga, but for political reasons don't want him is the main character, make it a science ship--medical and other. Along with the things I've already mentioned, there's lots of science. After Kirk plays with the space-time anomaly of the week, The USS Einstein follows up. (Enterprise is an exploration ship, and really a jack of all trades.)

A cone of essentially indestructible neutronium left behind---how does it work? How was it made? Can we make MORE?

Archeology of the Kalandrans--or the plague that killed them--is great for a science ship. Thre's useful tech in there...

Of course, "Cleaning up after Kirk" would get old, but an occasional episode that's a direct follow up might work. (Paramount would probably veto anyone mentioning :Cleaning up after Kirk," though.
 
What potential spinoffs were there from TOS? Were any likely to be successful? (I realize there was small chance the network would pick them up.)

Any other ideas?

I don't think it would make a series, but I've always thought a mini-series based on Space Seed, with Ricardo Montalban and Madelyn Rhue reprising their roles, exploring the crew of the Botany Bay setting up life on Ceti Alpha V would have been interesting.

Regards,
 
There were plans at paramount to do a Captain Sulu series following TOS, Captain Worf following TNG, and a Starfleet Academy series. But it seems we are getting the Academy series along with the Picard series.

The Captain Worf series would probably be the most successful, especially if they started it directly after DS9.
The Problems were, they were talking about the Captain Sulu series after Undiscovered Country that came out in 1991. George Taki was 54 at the time. We not going to get the heroic action base Captain Sulu that we all want.

As for Worf as Captain, He left Deep Space Nine to become the Federation Ambassador. The Problem is that both Star Trek and DS9 both overused the Klingons and many of those Stories were not that great. I for one found the Klingon Spiritual Stories to be boring. With out some real new creative blood, A Captain Worf series would have major problems.
 
Top