Star Trek Series Design #5: Mission

[Mark]

I see it something like this

Season One focuses on character introduction and development, laying the foundation with some of the colonies (and maybe some tension between a few), and other choice bits.

Seasons Two and Three begin to take a slightly darker tone with attacks by raiders, a pirate fleet, a medical emergency, and what not. Tensions continue to rise.

Season Four focuses on leading up to a "civil war outbreak" between the colonies.

Season Five is the civil war. Our heroes find themselves divided on the issue and drawn into moral crises as well as a possible mutiny.

Season Six shows the end of the civil war with order restored, however now is the aftermath. They begin rebuilding as rumors of a new baddie emerge, with them appearing in the season finale.

Season Seven shows the new baddie. Not another undefeatable foe like the Borg or Dominion, but a small expansionist empire maybe. Something that the Federation could easily defeat but a serious challange for those out here on the fringes. Alot of drama focusing on "Is it WORTH committing the resources to save this part of space?", with some allusions to the surrendering of Fed colonies to the Cardies.

Season Eight could go with either the Fed pulling out, or recommitting resources against the alien incursion. Another series of space battles....yay!

What do you guys think so far?

[Lt. Staplic]

I think it sounds good to start...but we'll have to wait for a few discussions before we know for sure...

[Tyyr]

I think that you'll lose your audience somewhere in season 3. You can't wait that long to have something significant happen. This is a TV show and you've got to have the ratings to keep getting picked up so you can do shows.

I think you'd want to combine Mark's seasons 1 and 2 into Season One, Mark's season 3 and 4 into Season Two, and start the civil war in Season Three. Have the first major battle of the civil war or its beginning be the first half of the season two finale.

[Mark]

That could work.....but IMO it seems like it'd be rushing things. After all, nothing very significant really happened in season one of any of the other shows.......but looking at that again, that's really not a reason to follow suit.

[Tyyr]

50ish episodes leading up to a civil war? That's about 35 hours of TV.

Nothing huge would be happening in the first season either, mostly character building and setting the scene. Besides, if you get rid of all the filler crap in the other shows I'd imagine they took about as much time or even less getting to the meat of things. That would be my goal here, get rid of the filler. Each episode would be important in the story and move things forward.

[shran]

You could avoid too much cramming by leaving the idea that one season equals one year. Thus, much time can pass in between episodes, and still keep the story going forward. Gaps can be filled in later.

[Mikey]

That could work.....but IMO it seems like it'd be rushing things. After all, nothing very significant really happened in season one of any of the other shows.......but looking at that again, that's really not a reason to follow suit.

TOS had as much going on in hte first season as in the other two... without significant arcs, that's a hard comparison to make.

TNG's quality was poor in the first season, but there was certainly action.

DS9 admittedly was flailing a bit in its first season.

VOY's first season set up the entire predicate of the series.

ENT's first season set it up as the load of canon-stomping, intelligence-insulting drek that it would prove to be.

[Lt. Staplic]

slight bump here...but we kinda need a consensus, I can start a poll if we want.

IIRC our two main candidates was an escort on deep space missions or a boarder patrol/colony defense ship.

[Deepcrush]

If you run the two ideas together you have a good mix to work with. You could also show crew conflict. While some of the crew like helping the colonies, so of the crew may feel a warship should be out fighting somewhere. Build up tension between the Command staff and whoever their CO is back at SFHQ. Maybe even add in how over worked the crew feels. One ship which has to serve as protector to "all of this space" on its own. Add this to your colony civil war idea and you have a ship that now has to use force against its own people to protect its own people. Again this would be a great point of conflict for the characters.