Law & Order Format for ST?

[Red Ranger]

People,

This may have been explored at some point, but I honestly don't remember it. I'm not proposing a wildly different ST show, but rather, a subtle change in the format.

As many of you know, Law & Order has survived for many seasons despite the many cast changes over the years. The framework remains the same: cops and lawyers solve crimes and try cases. But the players change.

One of the complaints I've heard on this BBS is the static nature of the cast, that it's not realistic for the same group of officers to serve together for so long on one ship. That in the real-world military, officers and crew change postings every so often. Thinking about this complaint is what inspired me.

(True, a few cast members changed positions in TNG, like Geordi to chief engineer, and Worf to security chief after Yar was killed. But essentially, with minor changes, all the other crew members stayed in their respective posts on board Enterprise-D. Hell, most of the ST shows had very few cast changes -- more importantly, very few position changes.)

So suppose the show is similar to TNG and ENT and VOY in that the action takes place on a starship involved in deep space exploration -- there's still plenty of unexplored space out there in the Milky Way galaxy -- and that there could be some other kind of hook, like the region of space has been abandoned by a hostile race and Starfleet comes to help when the various inhabitants ask for help.

However, several crew members rotate off every season or so, including the captain and first officer. Maybe those two could be the only constants for a couple of seasons, but even they'd move on to other assignments. For example, we could have the captain be an ambitious career climber and wants in at Starfleet Command. For once, I'd like to see a starship captain who doesn't feel like being promoted to the admiralty is a death sentence, or has a long-range plan of getting into Federation politics.

It would be just like L&O, in that our principals shift around so that by the end of the series, not even one member of the original cast would be left. Or have one character advance through the ranks till he winds up as captain of the ship -- like in Herman Wouk's novel The Caine Mutiny -- and be the only one who started and ended with the series.

Thoughts?

Red Ranger

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

*DONK.DONK.*

 

[jgdst]

I've wondered if a changing cast would be a good thing for Trek - say like ER, Lost, Heroes. Those shows have a firm main cast, but they're never truly safe from being killed off or just disappearing.

i don't think a Trek series should be written with cast changes in mind, but there should definitely be the opportunity for characters to die, new characters to arrive (not necessarily replace). If a character can and will die, it makes situations all the more dramatic, which after 5 series of Trek (and only 3 instances where a main character never made it to the end of the episode) would be a welcome change, I feel.

DS9 went some way toward this, by having such a large supporting cast, so with a few adjustments, it probably could be done.

 

[Red Ranger]

I've wondered if a changing cast would be a good thing for Trek - say like ER, Lost, Heroes. Those shows have a firm main cast, but they're never truly safe from being killed off or just disappearing.

i don't think a Trek series should be written with cast changes in mind, but there should definitely be the opportunity for characters to die, new characters to arrive (not necessarily replace). If a character can and will die, it makes situations all the more dramatic, which after 5 series of Trek (and only 3 instances where a main character never made it to the end of the episode) would be a welcome change, I feel.

DS9 went some way toward this, by having such a large supporting cast, so with a few adjustments, it probably could be done.

Jongredic:

That's what I'm getting at. It's like when The Sopranos was on, you knew it was possible anyone could get whacked, and that was part of the appeal of that show. And the Bada-Bing girls!

But seriously, before TNG and Tasha Yar, there had not been a main ST cast member who died, and stayed dead!

Red Ranger

 

[Red Ranger]

*DONK.DONK.*

You're dazzling us with your extensive vocabulary! -- RR

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

^
I was feeling a touch goofy when I wrote that. It was supposed to be the Law and Order sound effect.

Anyway, I've wondered along these lines in the past. Maybe it was a mistake to go the double spin-off route? Voyager was essentially TNG with weirder aliens/anomalies and ENT really had to push it self to stop it from just being TNG with a rustier code of paint. What if instead of canceling Star Trek: The Next Generation they just let it go on from 1987 to 2005, with Deep Space Nine as the only spin-off? If Patrick Stewart wanted out of the deal they could have written a promotion for Riker and if Frakes wanted out too they could have Starfleet choose to install a new captain for some reason or another.

Shows that have an element of renewal and change can go on for a long time, like you mentioned with Law and Order. Doctor Who is also a long running show that replaces it's main characters from time to time and still manages to keep going on. Trek as we know managed to find plenty of great actors to hire -- anyone of them could have popped up to fill a vacant spot on the Enterprise. They coulod even have a season finale where they trashed the ENT-D for the ENT-E if they wanted to upgrade their graphics.

I'm obviously all for the Law and Order approach to characters. With Star Trek in mind I can only see a small flaw in the idea. L+O is centered in reality so it doesn't have to create galactic political intrigue or keep coming up with fresh alien species. (New perps and victims, sure, but they're individuals and not species.) If TNG went on with the changing cast scheme you would most likely be married to the idea of a show set on the Enterprise; if you did that with DS9 your show would be tied to Bajor and the Wormhole lest the station moves; and if you choose to do that with Voyager...Well, have fun wandering through alein territory you'll never see again.

There's always always the scary possibility that a new character cast doesn't click with audiences. Pulaski wasn't well received by most non message board-going obsessive viewers. One or two flat note characters could work, but what if you cast a Captain that fans hated? Imagine a Captain with triple the hate Janeway gets. That could sink the ship without immediate intervention. That isn't a certainty of course, but a possibility.

 

[hellsgate]

Get writing! I officially invite you to write & submit your story / stories to "Star Trek: New Worlds". trekwriter31@yahoo.ca

 

[jamestyler]

I've wondered if a changing cast would be a good thing for Trek - say like ER, Lost, Heroes. Those shows have a firm main cast, but they're never truly safe from being killed off or just disappearing.

A weird habit I've gotten into is figuring out how a character will die or depart when I'm first thinking about their personality. Though I think it's just because I like death scenes

It is a good point though - I think thats where DS9 found strength as, while they didn't exactly do a lot of changes to the cast, they did expand the supporting cast which widened the net compared to Voyager, Next Gen etc.

 

[Red Ranger]

^
I was feeling a touch goofy when I wrote that. It was supposed to be the Law and Order sound effect.

Anyway, I've wondered along these lines in the past. Maybe it was a mistake to go the double spin-off route? Voyager was essentially TNG with weirder aliens/anomalies and ENT really had to push it self to stop it from just being TNG with a rustier code of paint. What if instead of canceling Star Trek: The Next Generation they just let it go on from 1987 to 2005, with Deep Space Nine as the only spin-off? If Patrick Stewart wanted out of the deal they could have written a promotion for Riker and if Frakes wanted out too they could have Starfleet choose to install a new captain for some reason or another.

Shows that have an element of renewal and change can go on for a long time, like you mentioned with Law and Order. Doctor Who is also a long running show that replaces it's main characters from time to time and still manages to keep going on. Trek as we know managed to find plenty of great actors to hire -- anyone of them could have popped up to fill a vacant spot on the Enterprise. They coulod even have a season finale where they trashed the ENT-D for the ENT-E if they wanted to upgrade their graphics.

I'm obviously all for the Law and Order approach to characters. With Star Trek in mind I can only see a small flaw in the idea. L+O is centered in reality so it doesn't have to create galactic political intrigue or keep coming up with fresh alien species. (New perps and victims, sure, but they're individuals and not species.) If TNG went on with the changing cast scheme you would most likely be married to the idea of a show set on the Enterprise; if you did that with DS9 your show would be tied to Bajor and the Wormhole lest the station moves; and if you choose to do that with Voyager...Well, have fun wandering through alein territory you'll never see again.

There's always always the scary possibility that a new character cast doesn't click with audiences. Pulaski wasn't well received by most non message board-going obsessive viewers. One or two flat note characters could work, but what if you cast a Captain that fans hated? Imagine a Captain with triple the hate Janeway gets. That could sink the ship without immediate intervention. That isn't a certainty of course, but a possibility.

Newspaper Taxi,

Hey, great name, BTW (do you often appear on the shore, waiting to take people away?). Sorry about the comment about your DONK DONK!, was being sarcastic!

You make some interesting points, esp. the idea that what if fans hate a new captain? While I thought he was a dick, imagine if Ronny Cox as Edward Jellico became the regular captain on TNG. His appearance on Chain of Command is still debated to this day, so if TNG had gone on for more years, as you suggested, he could've filled the role admirably as a regular.

Perhaps we would've found out why he was such a hard-ass, too. The only person who could have been his first officer was Data, as he was unperturbed by Jellico's abrupt orders and abrasive command style. That would've been a challenge for Data to be the intermediary between a ticked off crew and a ticked off captain.

Certainly, with a longer-running series. Riker probably would've moved up to captain and Shelby might've been his first officer for a few years. It also would mean some career moves for some of the other crew members, too. As I mentioned, in TNG, the only cast members who changed jobs and had promotions were Worf and Geordi, and briefly, Riker. All the other cast members started and ended at the same position, with Troi also getting a promotion to full commander.

Red Ranger

 

[chardman]

I've wondered if a changing cast would be a good thing for Trek - say like ER, Lost, Heroes. Those shows have a firm main cast, but they're never truly safe from being killed off or just disappearing.

ER probably isn't the best example of "a firm main cast", as I'm pretty sure that not a single member of the show's original main cast members is still on the show. It is, however, a truly great example of a show surviving and even flourishing despite major cast changes over the years, including major changes to the "core" cast. Many of these changes have added to the show's overall realism and drama.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

This analogy doesn't work. The "star" of L&O is the solving of crimes, which is something tied to the real world that the audience can relate to. Instead of them latching onto characters, they latch onto "real world justice" as a consistent character for the series.

Star Trek is not tethered to the real world like that. The only real-world tie is the characters - their recognizably human personalities. Without them, the audience is cast adrift and will cease to care. Then they change the channel.

ER is also tied to the real world by the medical drama. It also can afford to change cast. But Lost and Heroes avoid doing that because they are sci fi and therefore more dependent on the characters to keep the audience tethered to the story.

Heroes has had an infamous track record so far of new characters being introduced, and fan favorites from the original cast neglected, to howls of derision from the audience and steeply falling Nielsons ratings, so that the show is way, way, way down from its original "hit" ratings and can't afford to fall much farther for fear of cancellation. Hopefully that will put an end to any further experiments with new characters.

Lost has been much more prudent about cast changes. There have been some deletions and additions, but the core fan favorites are not neglected - and the ratings have held up much better than Heroes, despite Lost's premise being inherently frustrating.

That's the problem with changing casts - you take a serious risk of eroding ratings. And keep in mind, Heroes didn't kill off fan favorites (they are smarter than to do something that fatal) but just neglect them.

One of the complaints I've heard on this BBS is the static nature of the cast, that it's not realistic for the same group of officers to serve together for so long on one ship.

Of the 1001 complaints about Star Trek that get tossed around here, that's certainly one of the minor ones. Give me a solid premise with engaging characters, good acting and writing, and a story arc that is both surprising and intelligently logical, and you can keep the same cast for 30 years, no problem.

But if the premise, characters, acting, writing or story arc are deficient, you can change the actors all you want, it's just deck chairs on the Titanic. Just look at Stargate: Atlantis for an example of that. They fired and hired actors with impunity, and it all just had the effect of looking like incompetent writers who were blaming the poor actors for crappy writing and trying to cover up their deficiencies by getting rid of characters they couldn't think of anything to do with - because they're bad writers, not because there was anything fatally flawed about the actors or the characters.

 

[Admiral2]

People,

This may have been explored at some point, but I honestly don't remember it. I'm not proposing a wildly different ST show, but rather, a subtle change in the format.

As many of you know, Law & Order has survived for many seasons despite the many cast changes over the years. The framework remains the same: cops and lawyers solve crimes and try cases. But the players change.

One of the complaints I've heard on this BBS is the static nature of the cast, that it's not realistic for the same group of officers to serve together for so long on one ship. That in the real-world military, officers and crew change postings every so often. Thinking about this complaint is what inspired me.

(True, a few cast members changed positions in TNG, like Geordi to chief engineer, and Worf to security chief after Yar was killed. But essentially, with minor changes, all the other crew members stayed in their respective posts on board Enterprise-D. Hell, most of the ST shows had very few cast changes -- more importantly, very few position changes.)

So suppose the show is similar to TNG and ENT and VOY in that the action takes place on a starship involved in deep space exploration -- there's still plenty of unexplored space out there in the Milky Way galaxy -- and that there could be some other kind of hook, like the region of space has been abandoned by a hostile race and Starfleet comes to help when the various inhabitants ask for help.

However, several crew members rotate off every season or so, including the captain and first officer. Maybe those two could be the only constants for a couple of seasons, but even they'd move on to other assignments. For example, we could have the captain be an ambitious career climber and wants in at Starfleet Command. For once, I'd like to see a starship captain who doesn't feel like being promoted to the admiralty is a death sentence, or has a long-range plan of getting into Federation politics.

It would be just like L&O, in that our principals shift around so that by the end of the series, not even one member of the original cast would be left. Or have one character advance through the ranks till he winds up as captain of the ship -- like in Herman Wouk's novel The Caine Mutiny -- and be the only one who started and ended with the series.

Thoughts?

Red Ranger

The one quibble I have with this idea is that you're describing a planned turnover of cast over the course of the series, which, strictly speaking, is not the same as what happens on ER and L&O. Especially on L&O, where most of the turnover is the result of unplanned departures.

This goes all the way back to Michael Moriarty, the original ADA. His departure came as a surprise to the producers as well as the fans when he went slightly nuts and ran up to Canada. He was replaced by Sam Watterson who went through three bosses - Steven Hill (retired), Dianne Wiest (served out her contract), and Fred Dalton Thompson (ran for President in real life) and about half a dozen sidekicks before he advanced anywhere, and this show is in its late teens!

Also, there was Jerry Orbach, who replaced George Dzundza and went through three partners before deciding to work a little less. so he got transferred to "Trial by Jury", where his character would have continued had he not died. Also, S. Epatha Merkerson has been the Lieutenant at the precinct since Dann Florek got switched to SVU. There's no hint of her getting promoted any time soon.

They had to shoot Det. Green so Jesse Martin could do the movie "Rent". Dennis Farina did one year and said adios. The only reason Det. Logan came back to the franchise at all was so he could give Vinny D'Onofrio time off (he went slightly nuts, too). And on and on.

My point? Almost none of the turnover you see - the big shake-up a season ago being the main exception - had anything to do with progressing the individual characters. They were mainly reactions to circumstances in real life. They were driven by the portrayers, not by any plan by the producers to advance the characters. It's kinda the same with ER.

Here, you're talking about designing the turnover into the overall narrative, which is a very good idea, but not at all what L&O's creators do. Some cast members stay, some leave, almost always of their own accord.