I know a strictly military-focused show goes against Roddenberry's vision, but what are the chances that we could see some sort of war-focused Trek in the future? The scenes in "Under the Cloak of War" (SNW 2x08... yes I'm a few weeks behind) fascinated me. What would a MAS*H-style show look like in Trek? Could the show tell the story of the war exclusively from the medical perspective? Until now, we've only gotten glimpses of war shown through the eyes of our main characters (O'Brien, Nog, Chakotay, Burnham, M'Benga, Chapel, etc) and we've gotten fleet-level looks of battles, but very little on-the-ground coverage of war.
I'd prefer the setting to be some war set some time after PIC--something we as an audience know nothing about. What are your thoughts, Lemmy?
Do you mean a war in space with spaceships? some war on an alien planet? Or a war on earth?
I mean we follow a mobile hospital, similar to MAS*H. Different planets as the front moves. We've had a lot of the war on starships, and I'm sure that there would necessarily be some of that, too, but we have not seen a lot of the war "on the ground" in Star Trek. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this episode of SNW and "Seige of AR-558" (DS9 7x08) are really the only episodes of Trek that I can remember that have depictions of full-scale battles on planets (or maybe I need to do a series rewatch somewhere)
I don't think a medical-focused Trek show would have to take place during war time. Medical Ethics in general is ripe for the sort of show Trek lends itself to.
There was a spinoff pitched during TOS called Hopeship featuring M'benga. The pitch for NBC/RCA was that instead of introducing expensive colorful sets, they could stay shipboard and have expensive alien makeup and costumes.
The last thing I want to see from Star Trek is something like MASH, a show which whitewashes the genocidal Korean War. The last thing Star Trek needs is more imperialism.
Wow. Yeah, because if you read my post, that is exactly the part of MAS*H that I wanted to copy.
My comment was just hating on MASH, not your concept. I just can't stand MASH.
The idea of a story of the war from a medical perspective sounds like fun, but I think it would be even more interesting to have war be a part of it (like the Dominion War) but also have some drama and fun like Scrubs.
One of Roddenberry's first series was called The Lieutenant which aired on NBC for a season -- until it was canceled due to a falling out between the Marines and the network over a race-based episode that nobody wanted but Roddenberry forced through (too preachy they worried). Episodes of this are available on YouTube and you will see some of the Trek stars that appeared in Where No Man has Gone Before.
