- 4 days ago
Given how much Star Trek there is, let's check out how much there isn't!
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00:00Hello my friends, Sean Farrick here for Trek Culture, and today's video is brought to you by
00:04Star Trek Fleet Command. Hooray! More on that now in a second.
00:07When Star Trek first hit the screens in 1966, there were a lot of ideas that were swirling
00:12around this brand new show and what Roddenberry's team of writers could come up with. Ideas and
00:17suggestions abounded, with entire fleshed out proposals dismissed and hastily rewritten.
00:22Plot threads and episode ideas were hashed out and rehashed out over and over again,
00:27until a finished product could be brought to screen. While some stories and ideas would fall
00:31foul of creative differences, some would be discarded due to scheduling conflicts and
00:36production difficulties. This is true of almost every television show, but given just how vast
00:41the franchise of Star Trek has become over the decades since Captain Kirk first sat in the
00:46captain's chair, there's a lot that was left on the cutting room floor. With a fanbase as passionate
00:50as Trek's, it's no surprise that many of these details have been dug up and discussed at length.
00:56So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture and here are 10 abandoned Star Trek
01:00ideas that would have been incredible.
01:03My friends, just before this video starts, I just want to take a quick second to shout
01:06out and thank our sponsor Star Trek Fleet Command. Fleet Command is a free to play game available
01:12on both iOS and Android and it's available via the link in the description to this video.
01:17You may be wondering why I'm dressed this way while talking about Fleet Command. I think
01:22you know where this is going. Star Trek Strange New Worlds is coming to Fleet Command. Yes,
01:27that is true. To coincide with the launch of the show on Paramount Plus, it is launching
01:32in game. What does that mean? It means you get to use the souped up enterprise. It also
01:36means you get to use the holodeck, which is a little bit cool, but we have new characters
01:41coming. Those characters including Captain Pike, you've got Lieutenant Spock and you've got
01:46Lieutenant La'Anne Noonien Singh, who I would follow into battle in a heartbeat. Of course,
01:52as you know, the game itself is open world. It's constantly evolving. So there's always
01:55new games, new things to do. In fact, there's more than 25 new missions on the way with Strange
02:01New Worlds as well. There's also a little bit of a surprise for those of you who feel he
02:05didn't get his due. While he's not Strange New Worlds exclusive, there is a rare Reginald Barkley
02:11that you can play as. Now, initially, he's only going to be available on PC before he extends
02:15into the mobile game as well. So make sure that you grab him where you can. Just to say
02:20again, thank you so much to Fleet Command. It is available via the description in the
02:23link to this video. Straight away, let's go.
02:25Number 10, Maurice Hurley's plans for Q. After the tumultuous production of The Next
02:31Generation's first season, head writer Maurice Hurley was ready to pack in the whole bridge
02:36crew and start afresh. He had said in an interview with William Shatner that he had hoped to kill
02:40off the main cast and build the second season around finding a new crew for the Enterprise.
02:45Pretty drastic. Maurice Hurley eventually left the show at the end of the second season,
02:50and the 1988 writer's strike put pay to many of his plans. Many of the episodes that he had
02:55intended weren't produced, and those that did make the screen were often last-minute replacements
02:59to scrapped plans. Hurley's plans for Q would have been extensive. The idea was that early in the
03:05second season, Q would pay another visit to the Enterprise to torment Picard and warn him of the
03:10dangers that were out there. Because of this, Q would be stripped of his powers and have to live
03:15on the Enterprise for a time, until he was able to regain his abilities. If all of this sounds
03:20familiar, it's because this plot was condensed into two episodes, Q Who and Déjà Q. The missing Q arc
03:26was essentially Q having to adjust to humanity and learn how to get along with Picard as an almost
03:31equal. Ronald D. Moore later commented that Hurley's plans were more plot-focused, and after his
03:37departure from the series, the show became much more character-focused. He stressed that they didn't
03:42want to overuse characters like Q, which this arc may well have done. Pivotly, however, there was one
03:48difference in Q Who that didn't make it into this arc. Q wouldn't have introduced humanity to the Borg.
03:53That would have been something else entirely.
03:56Number 9. Maurice Hurley's plans for the Borg. Q wasn't the only season 2 plan that Maurice Hurley
04:02had to leave by the wayside. Initially, his plans were for the first season finale episode,
04:08The Neutral Zone, to be the first of two parts. The second part would focus on the Enterprise and
04:13the Romulans being forced to work together to unravel the mystery of the missing colonies in both
04:18their territories. The answer to that mystery? A migratory insectoid hive-mined species called the
04:24Borg. That's right, in the eyes of the man who came up with them, the Borg weren't meant to be a
04:29race of cyborgs. They were meant to be space army ants. They were extracting all materials from planets
04:35in their way. The Enterprise would discover that they were heading deeper and deeper in the Federation,
04:39and would have to scramble to collect allies in facing off against this threat. The Romulans and
04:44Klingons would be among them. This plan would have seen the complete defeat of the Borg at the
04:49conclusion of the second season. Just think on that for a moment. The Borg were only meant to appear
04:54for a single season, and they weren't introduced by Q. Perhaps it's for the best that the writers
04:59strike through these plans asunder, because afterwards Maurice Hurley left the show and it
05:03took a very different direction. A better one? Perhaps not, but a fascinating one, certainly.
05:09Number 8. Giant Ferengi. A script by Steven DeKnight for Deep Space Nine was simply going to be called
05:16Giant, and would have placed a humorous bent on Ferengi evolution. Wolf, while accompanying Jadzia
05:21Dax for a drink in Quark's bar, would have found a Ferengi hitting on Jadzia and angrily dismissed him.
05:27He would have uttered the line, there's no honor fighting a single Ferengi, only to hear,
05:32I'd say the same thing about Klingons from behind him. Wolf would then be faced with a Ferengi who was at
05:37least his equal in height and body mass, and the two of them would engage in a traditional barroom
05:42brawl. Eventually, it would turn out that these two Ferengi, one little and one large, were brothers
05:47on the run from Ferengi space. Wolf and Dax would have been tasked with escorting them back there,
05:53discovering that the two of them had discovered a scientific formula to activate the genes for
05:57physical strength and prowess that was deep within the Ferengi genome. They explained that Ferengi were
06:02once large and strong, but had developed down an evolutionary path to be smaller, sneakier,
06:07and thus not considered a threat by larger species. When the four of them were attacked by Jem'Hadar
06:12on the way, they'd all have to work together to survive. Eventually, Worf would have to acknowledge
06:17the history of the Ferengi as warriors in their own right. Could have been fun!
06:227. Ronald D. Moore's Obsession With Musicals
06:26Yes, before Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit us with its beloved musical episode, Ronald D. Moore wanted
06:32the next generation to have a musical episode. When the idea didn't go over particularly well
06:37there, he attempted to get it made on Deep Space Nine, and was again shot down. Ron's ideas were
06:42never fully fleshed out. His desire sprang simply from thinking that making a musical episode for
06:47either show would be fun. He's quoted as saying,
06:49there's some tech virus that infects the crew and they can only communicate in song, you know?
06:54And just do it and have a ball! Alas, nobody was interested in pursuing it, and the idea went
06:58nowhere. Coincidentally, Linda Park pushed to have a musical episode on Enterprise as well,
07:04given that she was a trained singer, as were John Billingsley and Scott Bakula. This idea didn't go
07:09anywhere either. Given the enduring popularity of Buffy's Once More With Feeling, maybe it might have
07:14been wise to cash in on the musical vibe. Also, has anyone attempted to adapt that Buffy episode
07:19into a stage show yet? If not, why not?
07:22Number 6. The Literal Year of Hell
07:24Scuttlebutt would have us believe that the plans for Voyager's Year of Hell were much more extensive
07:29than the two-part episode that we eventually received. While this two-parter was sufficiently
07:34brutal as we witnessed the degradation and crippling of our beloved Voyager over an extended period of
07:39time, it could have been more. The plans for the Year of Hell were for it to have spanned an entire
07:44season, with the Krenim temporal ship haunting them for more than 20 episodes. Voyager would
07:50have accumulated more and more damage as time went by, as there would be nowhere for the ship to
07:54repair itself, and they would slowly lose crew members. The two-part episode did do an excellent
07:59job of conveying the damage that Voyager is continually subjected to, but picture that breakdown
08:04spread over a whole season. Picture the sense of loss and isolation that could have been worked into
08:09the very fabric of the show as it progressed, mirrored by the increased frustration of Anoraks
08:14as he tries to shape an entire quadrant to his liking until it's unrecognisable. The ultimate
08:19conclusion of the season would still have been the same, with Janeway destroying both the crippled
08:23Voyager and the Krenim time ship in a spectacular final space battle. Eventually, the plans for the
08:28season-long arc were reduced to the two-part episode we watched. Jerry Taylor and Brannon Braga felt
08:34that a season-long investment that would be reversed at its conclusion was too much for the audience to
08:38bear. Voyager, for all of the excellent solo episodes that are within it, overall lacked cohesion
08:43as a series, and this missed opportunity could have paved the way for more overarching stories,
08:49the kind that Voyager's very premise demanded. But it wasn't to be.
08:53Number 5. Who's Killing the Great Voyagers of the Delta Quadrant?
08:57Oh, why, yes, that title is directly taken from Who is Killing the Great Chefs of the Europe.
09:02The premise of this episode, put forward by Brian Fuller, was to follow the adventures of several
09:06alternate reality Voyagers. These different Voyagers are being systematically hunted down and
09:11destroyed by an unknown force that can somehow jump between these realities. Ideas included a
09:16completely Klingon version of Voyager, where the Klingon Empire had defeated the Federation back in
09:21Kirk's day, complete with Kate Mulgrew in full Klingon makeup, and a version that was completely
09:26crewed by Holograms, as well as a few others. Eventually, our Voyager and her Captain Janeway would
09:32discover what's happening. They would be confronted by another Voyager, this one commanded by Chakotay,
09:37whose marquee crew had overwhelmed the Starfleet crew. This alternate Chakotay had become convinced
09:42that Janeway was responsible for them being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, and while he had found a way
09:47to jump timelines, he hadn't yet found a way to cross the vast distance to return home.
09:52While this episode never panned out, it would have given Chakotay a lot more to do,
09:56and probably would have been pretty fun. We'd already seen Worf jump from timeline to timeline in the
10:01Next Generation episode parallel, so why not a rampaging alternate Voyager?
10:05Number 4. The Tantalus Prison of James T. Kirk
10:08You all remember the Tantalus device, yes? It was a minor plot point in the classic original series
10:14episode Mirror Mirror. When Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty are transported to the Mirror
10:19Universe by a freak ion storm, Kirk discovers a device in his opposite number's quarters. This is the
10:25Tantalus device, something that could simply make a selected target completely disappear.
10:30This device later cropped up in the palace of Emperor Georgiou when she used it to keep an eye on a
10:35wayward Michael Burnham. Frequent Star Trek novelist Judith and Garfield Reeve Stevens had pitched a
10:41two-part episode for Star Trek Enterprise that featured the Tantalus device, where it would have
10:46been revealed that it didn't kill people at all. It simply transported them back in time,
10:50about 150 years, to an isolated penal planet. Since Mirror Spock, resplendent in his goatee,
10:56had used the device on Mirror Kirk just after the end of Mirror Mirror. This means that Kirk could
11:01still be there in the 2150s, when Captain Jonathan Archer and his crew would find him.
11:07You see, in the original pitch for this episode, the Mirror Universe hadn't been created by the
11:122150s. It didn't exist yet. Mirror Kirk and Archer would have tried to figure out what happened to it,
11:17and somehow, in some grave experiment, they would have accidentally created it. Yes,
11:22the plans for the Mirror Universe episode, In a Mirror Darkly, originally included a role for the
11:27evil version of Captain Kirk. While the episodes we did receive were amongst the strongest of
11:31Enterprise's fourth season, just imagine having had Kirk in the mix as well.
11:36Number 3, the first season of Enterprise. So, the first season of Enterprise could have
11:41turned out very different from the one that we watched. The pitch by Rick Berman and Brandon Braga
11:46was for a show that was set entirely on Earth, for the first season at least. Much of the premise still
11:51made it into pilot episode Broken Boat, but some of the plot points from the fourth season,
11:56such as anti-alien resentment amongst some humans, would have made it into this storyline.
12:01Essentially, the series would begin with first contact with the Klingons, which would have left
12:05Starfleet Command scrabbling to finish their first Warp 5-capable ship. So far, so familiar,
12:11but there was no temporal Cold War in this proposal, and humanity would have stumbled at the first hurdle.
12:16The brand new Enterprise would have been destroyed in its first attempt at a launch,
12:20leading the design team to go back to the drawing board. Eventually, this idea was rejected,
12:24and the show we got was a lot more like its predecessors in the original series,
12:28The Next Generation, and Voyager. Eventually, Enterprise would shake up its format with the
12:33Zindi War, but the first two seasons were not what they could have been.
12:37Number 2, the Godhead. A scrapped episode from the third season of the original series,
12:43the Godhead was meant to be the 26th episode. This would have put it to be the very last,
12:48beating out the somewhat troublesome turnabout intruder. In this episode, the crew of the
12:52Enterprise would have discovered an ancient alien race that had discovered a way to accumulate
12:56all of their vast knowledge and place it inside a single person. While the details of who this
13:01single person were to be weren't released, it was likely to have been one of the crew,
13:06but unlikely to have been either Kirk or Spock. Whoever they turned out to be, the Godhead
13:10themselves would have been driven mad with power and would have become determined to use the
13:14Enterprise to conquer the galaxy. This story was actually put into the first stages of production,
13:19but the final two episodes of the third season were cancelled by NBC, and this one never saw the
13:25light of day. The Godhead is one of many original series episodes that could have been. In fact,
13:30our very own Brie has made a whole video talking about them, which includes some Oscar-worthy acting
13:35by Adam Cleary, so be sure to check that out. But for now, number 1, Star Trek The Beginning.
13:41The tentative title for an 11th film that never came to pass, The Beginning was meant to be the
13:47first of a trilogy of films that bridged the gap between Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek The
13:52Original Series. A full treatment was approved and multiple versions of the script were written,
13:56but the project fell apart in favour of going with J.J. Abrams' reboot film in 2009.
14:02Set four years after the events of Terra Prime, the United Earth's stellar navy is being folded into
14:07Starfleet, and a few officers are resentful of the move. One called Tiberius Chase has family ties
14:13back to the Terra Prime movement, who wanted to drive all alien influence from Earth. Somewhat
14:17suddenly, a massive Romulan attack fleet emerges from behind Earth's moon. They demand for Earth to
14:23turn over all of the Vulcans living on the planet, to which Admiral Gardiner refuses and manages to
14:28rally Starfleet and UESN forces. When the Romulans are just barely driven off, it's discovered that
14:34the Romulans are planning to regroup with reinforcements. Tiberius Chase and his band
14:38of survivors track down the nuclear stockpile of an isolationist group, then hijack the USS
14:43Spartan from its dry dock in Saturn and attempt to bring the war to the Romulans. This would be the
14:49opening moves of the much-talked-about Earth-Romulan War, during which the two sides did not see each
14:54other face-to-face. The war was fought entirely in ships, and a subsequent neutral zone treaty was
14:59negotiated over subspace transmission. In one final detail, Tiberius Chase would be sending
15:04letters to Penelope Gardiner, the daughter of Admiral Gardiner, who is a schoolteacher in Iowa,
15:09where a certain captain was born. While the 2009 reboot of the franchise seemed like a better bet,
15:15the franchise lost a lot by not following through with this project. But given how much of Star Trek
15:20there is, we, its faithful fans, must always remember that there were so many more ideas out
15:25there. Many would have sucked, but so many would have been just awesome. In theory, out there in
15:31an alternate timeline, they all got made for our viewing pleasure. Just think on that one.
15:35And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in the
15:40comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
15:44Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just
15:49by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Trek Culture. I hope you have a wonderful day,
15:53and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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