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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
01:11available on both iOS and Android, and it's available via the link in the description to
01:16this video. You may be wondering why I'm dressed this way while talking about Fleet Command.
01:21I think you know where this is going. Star Trek Strange New Worlds is coming to Fleet Command.
01:27Yes, that 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 means you
01:37get to use the holodeck, which is a little bit cool, but we have new characters coming. Those
01:42characters including Captain Pike, you've got Lieutenant Spock, and you've got Lieutenant La'Anne Noonien-Singh,
01:49who I would follow into battle in a heartbeat. Of course, as you know, the game itself is open
01:53world. It's constantly evolving, so there's always new games, new things to do. In fact,
01:58there's more than 25 new missions on the way with Strange New Worlds as well. There's also a little bit
02:04of a surprise for those of you who feel he didn't get his due. While he's not Strange New Worlds
02:08exclusive, there is a rare Reginald Barclay that you can play as. Now, initially, he's only going to be
02:14available on PC before he extends into the mobile game as well, so make sure that you grab him
02:18while you can. Just to say again, thank you so much for Fleet Command. It is available via the
02:23description in the link to this video. Straight away, let's go.
02:25Number 10, Maurice Hurley's plans for Q. After the tumultuous production of The Next Generation's
02:32first season, head writer Maurice Hurley was ready to pack in the whole bridge crew and start afresh.
02:37He had said in an interview with William Shatner that he had hoped to kill off the main cast and build
02:42the second season around finding a new crew for the Enterprise. Pretty drastic. Maurice Hurley
02:47eventually left the show at the end of the second season, and the 1988 writer's strike put pay to
02:52many of his plans. Many of the episodes that he had intended weren't produced, and those that did
02:57make the screen were often last-minute replacements to scrapped plans. Hurley's plans for Q would have
03:02been extensive. The idea was that early in the second season, Q would pay another visit to the
03:08Enterprise to torment Picard and warn him of the dangers that were out there. Because of this,
03:13Q would be stripped of his powers and have to live on the Enterprise for a time, until he was able to
03:18regain his abilities. If all of this sounds familiar, it's because this plot was condensed into two
03:23episodes, Q Who and Déjà Q. The Missing Q arc was essentially Q having to adjust to humanity and learn
03:29how to get along with Picard as an almost equal. Ronald D. Moore later commented that Hurley's plans were
03:35more plot-focused, and after his departure from the series, the show became much more
03:39character-focused. He stressed that they didn't want to overuse characters like Q, which this arc
03:44may well have done. Pivotly, however, there was one difference in Q Who that didn't make it into
03:50this arc. Q wouldn't have introduced humanity to the Borg. That would have been something else entirely.
03:569. Maurice Hurley's plans for the Borg
03:59Q wasn't the only Season 2 plan that Maurice Hurley had to leave by the wayside. Initially, his
04:05plans were for the first season finale episode, The Neutral Zone, to be the first of two parts.
04:10The second part would focus on the Enterprise and the Romulans being forced to work together to
04:15unravel the mystery of the missing colonies in both their territories. The answer to that mystery?
04:20A migratory insectoid hive-mined species called the Borg. That's right, in the eyes of the man who came
04:26up with them, the Borg weren't meant to be a race of cyborgs. They were meant to be space army ants.
04:32They were extracting all materials from planets in their way. The Enterprise would discover that
04:37they were heading deeper and deeper in the Federation, and would have to scramble to collect
04:41allies in facing off against this threat. The Romulans and Klingons would be among them.
04:46This plan would have seen the complete defeat of the Borg at the conclusion of the second season.
04:51Just think on that for a moment. The Borg were only meant to appear for a single season,
04:55and they weren't introduced by Q. Perhaps it's for the best that the writers strike through these
05:00plans asunder, because afterwards Maurice Hurley left the show, and it took a very different
05:04direction. A better one? Perhaps not, but a fascinating one, certainly.
05:10Number 8. Giant Ferengi
05:12A script by Stephen DeKnight for Deep Space Nine was simply going to be called Giant, and would have
05:17placed a humorous bent on Ferengi evolution. Wolf, while accompanying Jadzia Dax for a drink in
05:22Quark's bar, would have found a Ferengi hitting on Jadzia and angrily dismissed him. He would have
05:28uttered the line, there's no honor fighting a single Ferengi, only to hear, I'd say the same
05:33thing about Klingons from behind him. Wolf would then be faced with a Ferengi who was at least his
05:38equal in height and body mass, and the two of them would engage in a traditional barroom brawl.
05:43Eventually, 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
06:02were once 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, Wolf 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.
06:41Ron's ideas were never fully fleshed out. His desire sprang simply from thinking that making a musical
06:46episode for either 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
07:54to repair 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 that
08:34a season-long investment that would be reversed at its conclusion was too much for the audience to bear.
08:38Voyager, for all of the excellent solo episodes that are within it, overall lacked cohesion as
08:44a series, and this missed opportunity could have paved the way for more overarching stories,
08:48the kind that Voyager's very premise demanded. But it wasn't to be.
08:52Number 5. Who's Killing the Great Voyagers of the Delta Quadrant?
08:57And why, yes, that title is directly taken from Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe.
09:01The premise of this episode, put forward by Brian Fuller, was to follow the adventures of
09:06several alternate 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 crewed by
09:27Holograms, as well as a few others. Eventually, our Voyager and her Captain Janeway would discover
09:32what'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. While this
09:52episode never panned out, it would have given Chakotay a lot more to do, and probably would
09:57have been pretty fun. We'd already seen Worf jump from timeline to timeline in the Next Generation
10:01episode Parallels, 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
10:19Mirror Universe by a freak ion storm, Kirk discovers a device in his opposite number's quarters. This is
10:25the Tantalus device, something that could simply make a selected target completely disappear. This
10:31device later cropped up in the palace of Emperor Georgiou when she used it to keep an eye on a wayward
10:36Michael Burnham. Frequent Star Trek novelist Judith and Garfield Reeve Stevens had pitched a two-part
10:42episode for Star Trek Enterprise that featured the Tantalus device, where it would have been
10:46revealed that it didn't kill people at all. It simply transported them back in time, about 150
10:51years, to an isolated penal planet. Since Mirror Spock, resplendent in his goatee, had used the device
10:57on Mirror Kirk just after the end of Mirror Mirror, this means that Kirk could still be there in the 2150s,
11:03when Captain Jonathan Archer and his crew would find him. You see, in the original pitch for this
11:09episode, the Mirror Universe hadn't been created by the 2150s. It didn't exist yet. Mirror Kirk and
11:15Archer would have tried to figure out what happened to it, and somehow, in some grave experiment,
11:19they would have accidentally created it. Yes, the plans for the Mirror Universe episode
11:24In a Mirror Darkly originally included a role for the evil version of Captain Kirk. While the episodes
11:29we did receive were amongst the strongest of Enterprise's fourth season, just imagine having
11:34had Kirk in the mix as well. Number three, the first season of Enterprise. So the first season
11:40of Enterprise could have turned out very different from the one that we watched. The pitch by Rick
11:44Berman and Brannon Braga was for a show that was set entirely on Earth, for the first season at least.
11:50Much of the premise still made it into pilot episode Broken Boat, but some of the plot points from the
11:55fourth season, such 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
12:39A scrapped episode from the third season of the original series, The Godhead was meant to be the 26th episode.
12:46This would have put it to be the very last, beating out the somewhat troublesome turnabout intruder.
12:51In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise would have discovered an ancient alien race that had
12:55discovered a way to accumulate all of their vast knowledge and place it inside a single person.
13:00While the details of who this single person were to be weren't released, it was likely to have been
13:05one of the crew, but unlikely to have been either Kirk or Spock. Whoever they turned out to be,
13:09the Godhead themselves would have been driven mad with power and would have become determined to use
13:14the Enterprise 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
13:24light 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 first of a
13:47trilogy of films that bridged the gap between Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek The Original Series.
13:53A full treatment was approved and multiple versions of the script were written, but the project fell
13:57apart in favour of going with J.J. Abrams' reboot film in 2009. Set four years after the events of
14:03Terra Prime, the United Earth's stellar navy is being folded into Starfleet, and a few officers are
14:09resentful of the move. One called Tiberius Chase has family ties back to the Terra Prime movement,
14:14who wanted to drive all alien influence from Earth. Somewhat suddenly, a massive Romulan attack
14:19fleet emerges from behind Earth's moon. They demand for Earth to turn over all of the Vulcans living
14:25on the planet, to which Admiral Gardiner refuses and manages to rally Starfleet and UESN forces.
14:31When the Romulans are just barely driven off, it's discovered that the Romulans are planning to
14:35regroup with reinforcements. Tiberius Chase and his band of survivors track down the nuclear stockpile of an
14:41isolationist group, then hijack the USS Spartan from its dry dock in Saturn and attempt to bring
14:46the war to the Romulans. This would be the opening moves of the much-talked-about Earth-Romulan War,
14:52during which the two sides did not see each other face to face. The war was fought entirely in ships,
14:57and a subsequent neutral zone treaty was negotiated over subspace transmission. In one final detail,
15:03Tiberius Chase would be sending letters to Penelope Gardiner, the daughter of Admiral Gardiner,
15:08who was a schoolteacher in Iowa, where a certain captain was born. While the 2009 reboot of the
15:14franchise seemed like a better bet, the franchise lost a lot by not following through with this project.
15:19But given how much of Star Trek there is, we, its faithful fans, must always remember that there
15:24were so many more ideas out there. Many would have sucked, but so many would have been just awesome!
15:29In theory, out there in an alternate timeline, they all got made for our viewing pleasure.
15:34Just think on that one. And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples,
15:39then do let us know in the comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like,
15:42and subscribe, and tap that notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
15:46and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
15:50I've been Ellie with Trek Culture. I hope you have a wonderful day, and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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