WI: Star Trek finished it's five year run

Michael E Johnson

Banned
From: Tristan Jones (tristan@scm-rpg.com.au)
Subject: WI: Star Trek finished it's five year run


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Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Date: 2004-01-20 19:41:21 PST


The Original Star Trek series when it first aired in NBC back in the
1960's did not have good ratings for the period, however had very good
demographics and if the current method of using demographics in
deteriming which shows stay on the air or not were implented a few
years eariler than OTL. Star Trek would have remained on the air for
the whole five years and the producers would have not fought so hard
to get it renewed for the second and third seasons.

By the end of the fifth season, there would have been a decline in the
quality of the series and Star Trek might end like other popular
1960's television series like Mission Impossible or Lost in Space.
There is no serious demand like in OTL during 1970's and 1980's for
new Star Trek films or television. The Next Generation, Deep Space
Nine, Voyager and Enterprise never get made.

Patrick Stewart remains a minor British actor, who stars in ocassional
supporting roles in Hollywood films. Michael Dorn is a big voice actor
on cartoon shows, LeVar Burton makes it big on kids shows. Avery
Brooks and Scott Baluka have steady careers on television shows, The
rest of them remain virtual unknowns.

In the late 1990's or early 2000's, some Hollywood producers decide to
remake the original Star Trek into a motion picture. Despite a
talented cast which has Hugh Jackman as Captain Kirk, Jude Law as
Spock, Gary Sinsie as McCoy, Jet Li as Sulu, Jada Smith as Uhura, Colm
Meaney as Lt Kyle, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Yeoman Rand, Mimi Rogers
as Nurse Chapel and Amand Assante as Khan Noonien Singh. The film is
panned by the critics and fans of the original series and just makes
enough money to break even.

As a result of Star Trek: The Next Generation not being on the air,
some science fiction shows of the 1990's never get made like Space
Rangers, Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict. However Babylon 5 probably
still gets made, maybe Paramount accepts the creator of Babylon 5's
pitch for the series as a possible flagship show for the new United
Paramount Network. I will talk about this in more length later.
 

PM Nixon

AHHHHH!!! No new Trek! :D

Actually, all of what you said is quite plausible, especially the remake part. It would probably have a gritty feel to it, since it's a remake in the 1990s. Of course, this may make Star Wars more popular than OTL. At least there may not be as many Star Trek vs. Star Wars flamewars online....:D
 

Kuralyov

I don't know, that seems like TOO many major stars for a remake of a 60's TV show.

Also, why not keep Ricardo Montalban as Khan, like OTL? He was perfect for the role. And where're Scotty and Checkov?!!
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
I am a little at a loss to see why the dwindling quality of the last two years would effect the appeal of the first three that much. If it became comparable to Lost in Space in only two seasons then that is a truly precipitious decline, more like a disintergration (perhaps the writers were phasered :D ) In any case it would probably only become yet another conversation topic among the devotees. I can see papers being written comparing the quality of Shatner's egregious overacting in the first season to his abysmal overacting in the fifth.
 

DominusNovus

If there's still a Star Wars, there'll still probably be a Star Trek: TMP around the same time. Assuming Star Wars does well, of course.
 

Xen

Banned
Star Wars will still do well, it's graphics were phenomenal for the time and are still heads and shoulders above many films, and the story was great too.

Good point about the actors though Michael, I think only recent Star Wars films actors are doing ok for themselves. Ewan McGregor is in everything, Liam Neeson does pretty good, Hayden Christiansen is up and coming, and the beautiful duo Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley are not only just about every mans wetdream but are two of the brightest stars and are both not considered to hit their peak yet.
 

Adam Parsons

The Motion Picture History

DominusNovus said:
If there's still a Star Wars, there'll still probably be a Star Trek: TMP around the same time. Assuming Star Wars does well, of course.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. The basic idea for TMP came from an attempt to write a Trek TV-movie to cash in on the popularity of the reruns in 1975. This eventually morphed into a second series for a new network Paramount was working on in 1977-1978, then finally turned into TMP after Barry Diller (Paramount CEO at the time) dumped the network idea. Less fan support may mean that TV-movie is never attempted.
 
tom

tom

IIRC, Bjo Trimble almost single handedly saved the series for a third year. If she had not done so, we might have ended up with a series with only two seasons, making it almost impossible to syndicate. Then Star Trek could have been another Space:1999.
 
Mr_ Bondoc

Mr_ Bondoc

Something that might have happened is that science fiction would have been allowed to explore other directions, reflecting the mood and sentiment of the period. Consider the paranoia and angst of The X-Files and its reflection of the 1990s. While Smallville can be seen as being symbolic of the strange growth of America, post 9/11/2001 (for proof of this , consider the meteor shower in the premiere episode). Personally, I would hope that shows like Firefly, Futurama , and Space: Above and Beyond would have been given a better chance at survival, rather being hampered by a 35-year old franchise, with self-important cliches about it's own greatness.
 

Adam Parsons

Ah, ah, ah. Without Star Trek, Futurama will have less to mock. There's actually quite a bit of Star Trek in that show. Too bad it's gone...
 
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