How to Save Star Trek

by Adam Teiichi Yoshida

Now, I’m going to be wandering slightly off my reservation again. Frankly, there are only so many “nuke the Gooks” stories that a person can write before growing tired. I’ll still be writing about politics (and one can expect to see my lunacy emerge anew when some leftist insanity triggers my Hulk-like rage), but I’m also going to be talking about all sorts of other issues. I’m sure it will be hard to think of ways to call for executions while writing about films and television, but I’m also quite certain that I’ll find a way to make it work.

One of my deepest beliefs about conservatism is that it cannot become ossified. One of the greatest dangers that conservatives face is becoming too firmly planted in one of two camps. There’s one group which is so obsessed with ideology that it’s unable to think beyond theory into the world of reality. There’s another group which is trying to wall itself off from popular culture.

The problem with the tendency towards cultural bantuism among some, especially conservative Christians, is that it gives mainstream culture an excuse to simply write them off. It’s striking that, to a very large degree, cultural institutions (most notably films and television) simply don’t make an effort to even serve conservatives. They don’t bother in part because they don’t understand them and in part simply because they’re well aware that they don’t consume their products.

Thus, I’m going be devoting some of my time to offering conservative entertainment criticism. I don’t intend to make this explicitly political (anymore than the liberalism of most of television is explicitly political most of the time), but rather to simply say what I think and, in so doing, hopefully impart a little bit of conservative wisdom.

With that, I want to turn to Star Trek. Those among my audience who’ve spent the most time studying my background are apparently well-aware of my affection for that show (I know this because I occasionally get hatemail deriding me as a “Nazi Trekkie Warmonger” instead of just a simple, plain, old fashioned “Nazi Warmonger”). I’ve been a fan since Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered before I entered Kindergarten. I can still remember watching early episodes from the first season.

I’ll even admit to having attended two Star Trek conventions (though, in fairness to myself, I can fix the date of the last one as being about eleven years ago since, at that convention, I acquired a copy of the script for the then-unaired final episode of TNG). Though, I’ll also admit that I lost interest sometime around the time Deep Space Nine ended. Since then I’ve watched minimally: the movies that have come out since then, the last episode of Voyager, the premiere of Enterprise and a few other episodes here and there.

What’s constantly mystified me has been how colossally the Star Trek franchise has been mishandled in recent years. The event that precipitated this column, the cancellation of UPN’s Enterprise, was, in my view, nearly a foregone conclusion from day one. Only the hardest of hard-core fans would be truly willing to stick around for years to rewatch the same thing for the sixth or seven hundredth time. The entire franchise grew stale towards the end of The Next Generation. It was revived in spirit, briefly, by the final years of Deep Space Nine, when the creators temporarily shook loose of their moorings. But, since then, it’s been just further and further downhill.

The Star Trek property has massive potential. Massive. Instead of being used to turn out hackneyed third-rate television shows, it should be churning out billions of dollars in profits for everyone involved.

Why isn’t it? That one’s easy enough to answer: the creators are so beholden to a fan base which screams at even the slightest change that they’re unwilling to do what’s necessary to attract anyone but the hardest of hard-core fans to the show. They’re so afraid of killing the thing by innovation that they’ve killed it by stagnation.

What should be done? The answer is obvious to me: the show needs to move off of starships for a while: and I don’t mean to a space station.

The creators of Star Trek have created a massive and rich universe for people to explore. Why do we only see such a small portion of it? Why don’t we go actually exploring? Not for aliens-of-the-week, but to learn a little more about what it’s like to actually live in the Star Trek universe.

Instead of simply creating another “Starship-goes-exploring” show, the creators should explore how the show can be fused with other genres to create a new and innovative program.

Now, obviously, these concepts are going to take some tweaking. But they strike me as a good starting point for a conversation about just what could be done.

Star Trek: Smallville: The “Starfleet Academy” idea proposal has been floating around for years. At least since the time before Star Trek 6 was made. It’s an idea with potential. If executed correctly, it might well work.

There’s two ways of doing this: cast people to play famous characters when they were younger or create new characters. I tend to favor the former. Hence why I’ve designated this option “Smallville.” I’d favor doing it with original series characters, since the later ones lack the fame and, in the case of the later generations, too far separated in age.

Star Trek: The West Wing: We’ve established a little bit about the Federation Government. Why don’t we learn a little more? It strikes me as entirely possible that world of the Federation President, if well-written, would make for an interesting show. This would give us the opportunity to explore the more traditional areas of the Federation (particularly Earth, Luna, Mars, etc.) which we’ve yet to see explored.

CSI Vulcan: This is actually my personal favorite. Frankly, the CSI-genre and the Star Trek-genre strike me as the perfect two areas for the creation of a fusion product. Criminal investigations (and the ability of criminals for disguise) in the Star Trek-universe just seems like a perfect candidate for a future hit.

The solution for Star Trek is innovation. Combine new ideas. Explore the universe. Move beyond the already done.

The opinions expressed in this column represent those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or philosophy of TheRealityCheck.org, Inc.