New Animated Star Trek In The Works

Philias writes "A new web-based Star Trek Animated Series may be in the works. CBS is considering a pitch by veteran Trek producer Dave Rossi for a 'Clone Wars' style animated series for StarTrek.com. Like Clone Wars the episodes would be just a few minutes long. Unlike the old animated Trek show from the 70s, this one would be with a whole new crew set in a new time period. The setting is to be a war-torn post-9/11-like Trek universe 150 years after the time of Picard." From the post: "The Zero Room team felt that the time was right for a new approach to Trek. The setting is the year 2528 and the Federation is a different place after suffering through a devastating war with the Romulans 60 years earlier. The war was sparked off after a surprise attack of dozens of 'Omega particle' detonations throughout the Federation creating vast areas which become impassible to warp travel and essentially cut off almost half the Federation from the rest. During the war the Klingon homeworld was occupied by the Romulans, all of Andoria was destroyed and the Vulcans, who were negotiating reunification with the Romulans, pulled out of the Federation. The setting may seem bleak and not very Trek-like, but that is where the show's hero Captain Alexander Chase comes in."

Re:Alexander Chase?

Yeah, this does seem awfully close to re-pitching Andromeda (back in the Trek universe where it started)....

And the first time travel episode will be...

Can we start a pool on when the first time travel episode will be? I'm betting 5th show of the first season.

Re:And the first time travel episode will be...

After the episode airs, I'll come back and replace this post with one that wins the pool.

Re:And the first time travel episode will be...

Pilot episode, in the first few minutes. The captain and starship will be from the past and get stuck near a black hole. After escaping the black hole, they find it is the future, and the happy life they had and their precious federation is now gone and has become a rough and tumble place with enemies everywhere....

Re:And the first time travel episode will be...

Season 1 had promise. Complicated universe, diverse characters, a couple good over-arching plotlines. Some rough edges, but go back and watch season 1 of TNG and it is no worse.

Then they decided to be an action show.

Re:And the first time travel episode will be...

Actually, it was Season 2 that the show really took off. They were just about ready to take the first step in putting the Commonwealth back together when they completely screwed it all up in Season 3. Suddenly and without warning, the Commonwealth is fully organized and funded, and Dylan is playing Hercules in Space with the assistence of a really bad cameraman. It was as if someone took the show and flushed it down the toilet.

Vedran homeworld plot? Gone.
Magog plot? Gone.
Abyss plot? Gone.
The really cool human technologists who became the Commonwealth's enemy? Gone.

I mean, is it even possible to do any more injustice to a show?

Re:Uniforms

Not in the cartoon version, they'll just be made out of pixels arranged to look like velour.

They got it, but they don't know how to handle it.

From TFA:

Rounding out the 'big 3 will be Lt. Kaylen Donal, a tough-as-nails security chief whose team of red shirts are all linked with Borg technology implants called 'Biomechanical Utility Grafts or 'BUGs'. The Zero Room team want to see this security squad kick some butt and not just be cannon fodder.

What the fuck? They have an entire section going trans-human with Borg technology ... VOLUNTARILY any they still miss the implications?

Instead ...

"Although the show is set in the future the designs are founded in TOS, it is a throwback that is also looking forward," explains Rossi.

That makes no sense what-so-ever.

And ...

"The Captain is more forward thinking and wants to go out and do some exploring but half the crew will be against that and want to just protect the border," says Rossi.

Captain's Log, Stardate 2528 point 4. I have beamed half the crew into space during a mutiny. They had forgotten that this was a Star Fleet vessel and not a Democracy. I will ... miss them.

Re:Omega particles, really?

Actually if they start monkeying about with the main deflector dish then for once I would like to see a star trek character say 'What?' instead of 'Yes, that might just work'. 'Run a reverse polarity inverse jellybaby through the main deflector dish!!! WTF are you babbling about???, is that even possible?????' seems like a much more natural response.

"The franchise is dead, Jim."

You know, if Viacom keeps pulling on those teats like that they're eventually just going to break right off. I mean, there's milking it and there's milking it.

Does new Trek content really have dominion over any part of our cultural consciousness anymore? Go on: quote me a well known line from Voyager. No, no -- the show. Remember? How could you forget? It not only featured the worst series finale of any TV show ever produced, it also made my ears bleed whenever the quavering caterwauling of that shifty-ass captain sounded.

And let's not forget Enterprise...no, wait -- let's.

Anyone who sat through Deanna and Riker's wedding in those waiter uniforms knows what I'm talking about: the whole idea has seen its day, and Star Trek should be buried alive...buried alive...buried alive...

The franchise peaked with "There are four lights!"

But what about mark twain

Why can't they make the Trek spinoff we really want to see: the late 19th century escapades of Mark Twain and Guinan.

Why not any other series?

There are many other series out there, such as Stargate, Babylon 5, Firefly and so on.

So, is there a reason that we have to keep coming back to Star Trek - The Search for More Money every damn time?

The franchise is dead. People just don't seem to get it.

There's already a post-911 Star Trek on TV

It's called Battlestar Galactica.

-Eric

Racism in Star Trek continues apace

Vulcans, who were negotiating reunification with the Romulans, pulled out of the Federation.

Well, at least they're getting the racist aspects of Star Trek correct. This has been predictable ever since it was revealed that Romulans and Vulcans were the same race.

Star Trek is dedicated to the idea that every species has one culture, one religion, one government, and they all belong together on the same planet (or at least the same star system). Anybody who dares to marry outside of their race, err, species, will have children that are horribly torn between their two distinct and apparently utterly immiscible heritages. "Oh, woe is me, shall I be Vulcan or Human because it isn't possible for me to forge my own distinct identity, I must only belong to one race, err, species!"

What other reasons would the Vulcans have for re-uniting with the Romulans? The Vulcans may be the same species but in almost every other way they are night and day; their culture, their philosophies, their approaches to problems, everything except maybe general arrogance. They're geographically separated so far apart that there was enough time before they re-discovered each other that they forgot they were related. They share few to no strategic interests.

But blood will out, apparently.

I bet Vulcan or Romulus ends up destroyed at some point (probably Vulcan) and all of the Vulcan refugees go live on Romulus, cause the post-TNG Star Trek mythos can't tolerate races living in two places.

Re:Racism in Star Trek continues apace

This is exactly the problem that I have with Star Trek. Captain Sisko pops down to Bajor, and stops at some peasant's house, and the ENTIRE design motif is the symbol of the planet Bajor. I mean, people have these things hanging all over the place. Their *windows* are bajor-symbol shaped, for God's sake. Where do you see anything like this on Earth? Where do you see this level of ultra-nationalism in our society? It's almost never a good sign. We've had some in the US since 2001, and I'm quite relieved that this blind "patriotism" is beginning to give way to reason. I'll cut that rant off there, but the point is, race is the defining characteristic of almost anybody on Star Trek these days, but the people of the Trek universe never seem to notice what a vast problem they have with racism.

The explanation for all of this is just that it makes a convenient shortcut for the writers: they don't have to spend any time on character development for minor characters in a given episode. Want a sneaky, conniving bad guy? Romulan. Want a greedy, selfish bad guy? Ferrengi. Want someone controlled by reason? Vulcan. Any race that you care to mention in Trek is characterized by a handful of primary traits that set them apart from everyone else. And almost every member of that race is an exemplar of their racial identity. I find it tiresome that so much of what happens in Trek is based entirely upon racial stereotypes. And I don't find it much of a consolation when they occasionally throw us a demented Vulcan or a noble Romulan.

The exception to this, of course, is the human race. Humans tend to be more realistic characters because they're not constrained by such narrow stereotypes. The stereotypes are still there, especially for people who are members of particular factions. But they're a little more tolerable.

Re:Racism in Star Trek continues apace

Apparently, the symbol of the human race in the real world is the rectangle, with arches sprinkled in for interest.

I pity the rest of the races of our galaxy, whose architects are crippled by the fact that they can't use rectangles and arches because unbeknownst to them, twenty thousand light years away, humans already claimed them.

Pity the poor, primitive Kr'zilt'k of Tomporon, as they attempt to build their first primitive mud huts completely out of isosceles triangles.

Pity the poor, advanced RRRRRzzzzzzRrrz of ZZZZrrZzRz, as they try to build skyscrapers that look like clumps of mud stuck together, but fail due to the simple laws of materials science, and are thus stuck with cities built out of the equivalent of five-story buildings.

Curse humanity! Curse them and their claiming of the precious "simple, unadorned rectangle"!

Bad reference

"The setting is to be a war-torn post-9/11-like Trek universe 150 years after the time of Picard."

So there will be no liquids or gels allowed on starships? "Tea Earl Grey powdered"

I'm not even American and it still pains me to see how diluted 9/11 is becoming. Call it war-torn or whatever, but at least reference an event that occurred in a warzone.

Oh God No!!!

Come on? Seriously! That is the premise for a new Star Trek series? If TPTB are listening, don't do it! It's bad enough that you ran the franchise into the ground with Voyager and Enterprise. Don't compound your mistake with this idea.

Re:Oh God No!!!

It's not that the creators ran the series into the ground -- it's that the rest of the world made it out of the 80s, which was really the only decade in which it was acceptable for grown men to be seen in leotards.

~OT

Even you're even a minor trek fan and enjoy/can tolerate house I recommend tracking
down some Star Pilot on Channel K (S.P.O.C.K), a nifty little Sci-Fi Swedish band.
"Never Trust a Klingon" and "The Trouble with Tribbles" are especially good.

the further in the future the more magical it is

Ok so now we're in the 26th Century. Time travel, trading bodies on demand, immortality, whatnot. The further you push this stuff into the future the more it becomes a Science Fantasy Chick Flick Soap Opera. Everything will get magically solved with magic science at the end of every episode. Engines going to blow up? Push the 17th dimension button that supercools them to 1 billion degrees below absolute zero. Then fly through the sun with your sun protector shield. Naturally.

Stardate 60418.6: Dead Horse Nebula In Sight.

I know someone will mod this "-5 send him to Gitmo!", but:

I didn't watch ANY of the spin-offs after they stopped making ST:TNG.

Why?

I recognized the horse, as it were, was dead. Sometimes, even most times, it's better to let the thing rot and disperse back into the environment, instead of resurrecting it over and over again. It's looking a bit tatty now.