WI Star Trek: Excelsior

Instead of Deep Space 9 the popularity of Star Trek: VI convinces Paramount to go back in time and do a Star Trek: Excelsior series.

I assume they could get George Takei and perhaps Walter Koenig as well (he'd make a good second in command, and they are great friends, Koenig was best man at Takei's wedding), and some of the crew shown in the movie. Christian Slater being perhaps the most interesting of them.

Deep Space 9 had the good writers (at least compared to Star Trek: Voyager) and the movie era has the coolest looking stuff in Star Trek (IMO) so there's potential there I believe.

Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
Well, without the direct competition of a show with a very similar premise, I'd imagine Babylon 5 does better.
 
Walter Koenig had heart bypass surgery in 93. No idea which month. So something has to give if his condition is found before filming starts or after filming starts.

Once he's improved, I'd expect an annual Chekhov guest appearance episode.

Likewise with Nichelle Nichols.

Appearances by Majel Barrett will be inevitable. Make Dr. Chapel the ship doctor, or just guest appearances?

It would be cool, if as portrayed in the Voyager episode Flashback, that Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand) could be 2nd in command. No idea if she really had the acting chops to pull this big of a role off.

Also cool would be bringing back some of the other minor recurring characters from the original series. John Winston who played Lt Kyle. Make him in charge of Engineering for example. Again, this idea would depend on whether they could pull off such an increased acting role than they had 25 years earlier.


Some interesting themes an Excelsior show might explore:

A) revisiting planets, races, and encounters first seen during the 5 year mission of the original show (or even the movies). How has the planet with gangsters from A Piece of the Action progressed? What happened with the Nazi themed planet from Patterns of Force? Have the elites and the miners from the episode the Cloud Minders actually integrated their society into one of fairness? What if the Excelsior encounters Gary 27, descendant of Gary 7, and just like his predecessor he is manipulating Earth behind the scenes? Excelsior gets sent to track down the origins of the planet killing spaceship from The Doomsday Machine? What the hell did the Federation ever do with the Genisis device? How to cope with our new friends ... The Klingons. And have the Klingons led by one of our favorite baddies from original series. Something more on the Preservers or their technology?

B) Sulu is gay. The possible themes for episodes speak for themselves. But would Paramount have the testicular fortitude to go here?

C) Hero worship of anyone associated with Kirk. Age versus Youth within the crew (especially if lots of people from the original series get parts on the show). Sulu is NOT Kirk. Running into Kirk's ex-girlfriends. Not every Vulcan is as brilliant as Spock.
 
It doesn't have to be in lieu of DS9. We could have this instead of Voyager. Frankly, it would have been nicer to have seen, and Paramount wanted to get away from the darkness of DS9 with Voyager anyway, so better to have a better show.

without deep space nine, the whole star trek franchise dies never to be heard from again.

*Rolls up newspaper and smacks on nose* No. No. That's a bad DS9 Fan.
 
It doesn't have to be in lieu of DS9. We could have this instead of Voyager. Frankly, it would have been nicer to have seen, and Paramount wanted to get away from the darkness of DS9 with Voyager anyway, so better to have a better show.

Actually, I think Excelsior was pitched as a possible alternative to Enterprise, and George Takai wanted to do it. I think a Trek series set during the movie era is a great idea. The result would have been a Star Trek series set in the same time period as some of the original crew's great shinning moments, and featuring one of Trek's most beautiful classes of starships. Plus, we'd have had lots of Kirk and Spock cameos,

USS_Excelsior.jpg
 
Actually, I think Excelsior was pitched as a possible alternative to Enterprise, and George Takai wanted to do it. I think a Trek series set during the movie era is a great idea. The result would have been a Star Trek series set in the same time period as some of the original crew's great shinning moments, and featuring one of Trek's most beautiful classes of starships. Plus, we'd have had lots of Kirk and Spock cameos,


Takei and Shatner hate each other though.
 
Takei and Shatner hate each other though.

Yeah, I've heard that, but if the showrunners decide that there will be Kirk cameos, there may not be much the George can do about that, other than limit the number of epsiodes that Shatner appears in, which won't be very many anyway.
 
Last edited:
There was a graphic novel set shortly after Star Trek IV and it had moments involving appearances by Anan Seven, Bela Oxnyx, Leonard James Acka'ar and more, some of which were hysterical.

Especially when Oxnyx decides to deliver Kirk's 'cut' in the courtroom where Kirk is standing trial. Kirk tells the judge he would like to offer an explanation and the judge is "yes, I thought you might".:D
 
I really, really like the "Going back to see what happened to planets" bit. Personally, I've always wondered what happened to the "Piece Of The Action" planet. Since they tend to absorb the traits of other cultures, what were the repercussions of McCoy leaving his tricorder there?
 
I really, really like the "Going back to see what happened to planets" bit. Personally, I've always wondered what happened to the "Piece Of The Action" planet. Since they tend to absorb the traits of other cultures, what were the repercussions of McCoy leaving his tricorder there?
FWIBGTU, back when they were planning a special episode to commemorate the franchises' 30th Anniversary, one suggestion was for them to go back to Sigma Iotia and find out that the culture has become a parody of the TOS-era UFP, due to them presuming that Kirk's posturing at the the end of the original episode was reality. They eventually decided to make "Trials and Tribble-ations" instead. I believe the idea was revived in one of the comics, though.

Personally, I like the idea of the Iotians turning into a functional society, but with Gangster trappings.
 
FWIBGTU, back when they were planning a special episode to commemorate the franchises' 30th Anniversary, one suggestion was for them to go back to Sigma Iotia and find out that the culture has become a parody of the TOS-era UFP, due to them presuming that Kirk's posturing at the the end of the original episode was reality. They eventually decided to make "Trials and Tribble-ations" instead. I believe the idea was revived in one of the comics, though.

Personally, I like the idea of the Iotians turning into a functional society, but with Gangster trappings.

I'd go for a little from column A, and a little from column B: Gangster Federation!
 
Kieth DeCandido covers the fact that the Iotians have joined the Federation by the time of the Dominion War. It's in the Star Trek:SCE (Starfleet Corps of Engineers) book Fables of the Primer Directive. I can ask him how he views the Iotians, if you wish.

Torqumada

Awesome. It's obviously not "official" canon, but I've always been more into personal canon than the official rules...adding the books and animated episodes that work for me, and willfully ignoring those that don't. So, yes, I'd be curious.
 
Instead of Deep Space 9 the popularity of Star Trek: VI convinces Paramount to go back in time and do a Star Trek: Excelsior series.

I assume they could get George Takei and perhaps Walter Koenig as well (he'd make a good second in command, and they are great friends, Koenig was best man at Takei's wedding), and some of the crew shown in the movie. Christian Slater being perhaps the most interesting of them.

Deep Space 9 had the good writers (at least compared to Star Trek: Voyager) and the movie era has the coolest looking stuff in Star Trek (IMO) so there's potential there I believe.

Thoughts?

Okay, here are a few thoughts:

Christian Slater was probably still relatively expensive around that time. Takei and Koenig -- would they do it just for old times sake, or would they demand a lot of money out of it? Plus, if you're looking at replicating the movie era on the small screen, that's some pretty expensive special effects.

These things could probably be worked out though.

I think the other issue is that they were ready to try something completely different at that point: they'd had plenty of starship voyages and they were ready to settle down, so to speak. The formulas for the stories had all been well-established over the previous six years (plus three more twenty years before), and a lot of them were starting to get cliche. Of course, again, this could probably be worked out with really good writers who can add life to the new formulas.

Finally, there's a big problem that comes from setting the series in the past. Short of introducing some sort of Time War concept to the setting (And we know Star Trek would never do something as silly as that :) ), with every story you'll have to deal with the realization that the events you're telling about will effect the future stories, which have already been told, so therefore you mostly know the outcome. No major threats to the Federation, no innovative technology that wasn't already found in TNG, etc. You're stuck with Klingons (who are now at peace with the Federation), Romulans, and maybe Cardassians, and a whole bunch of minor, somewhat uninteresting threats. The Borg are straight out.

Again, that could probably be worked out, though.
 
Now that I think about it, 1995 probably is the most opportune time for Star Trek: Excelsior to start. When Deep Space Nine started, Brandon Tartikoff (chairman of Paramount) was specifically looking for a new format of show to spin off from The Next Generation -- hence, it's set on a starbase rather than a starship. Voyager, however, was meant to be the new big thing which would become the focal point of the new fifth network UPN, so it was intended from the start to be somewhat... "safer" than Deep Space Nine. In fact, the case could be very easily made that Star Trek: Excelsior would be better at undergoing TNGification than Voyager ever was in OTL.

One thing that the Excelsior series could do is continue the post-Cold-War allegory in a few ways: for example, have large sections of the Klingon Empire previously under subjugation secede while the Empire is in its weakened state. In fact, that could be the hook: the Excelsior is exploring space that was formerly part of the vast expanse of the Klingon Empire and so was barred to all Federation starships until the First Khitomer Accords.

B) Sulu is gay. The possible themes for episodes speak for themselves. But would Paramount have the testicular fortitude to go here?
Sulu is straight. Takei is gay. :rolleyes:
 
Top