On Monday and Tuesday, I looked at some pretty broad stroke aspects to STAR TREK--character types and themes.
Today and tomorrow I want to zoom in on two very specific kinds of stories STAR TREK shows love to tell. The first of which is the alternate universe story. In its most iconic format these are the Mirror Universe stories, where we meet other, usually darker versions of our characters. But there are some time travel episodes as well which end up presenting pretty similarly, insofar as the characters are thrown into a world that is not their own. And we have holodeck episodes that again work very similarly, just with the characters playing more specifically in new genres.
Most of these stories emerge out of the franchises's broader interest in social morality plays. Often the Mirror Universe stories come down to "There But for the Grace of God Go I", aka "If things had been just a little bit different I would have been such a different (and harsher) character." In season one of DISCOVERY they spent roughly half the season in the Mirror Universe, and the intriguing thing that came of it was that being there not only showed the characters who they could have become but that some of that was present in them, a great twist. And the universe they returned to ended up proving just as dark in other ways.
If I'm being honest, in general I find the alternate universe stuff tends to be a bust when it comes to STAR TREK. And I think it's because those episodes try to do way too much in too short a time. Even if you get two episodes (and often they do), it's just very very hard to build a whole universe, develop the alternate history characters and create a compelling storyline that quickly. They can end up feeling a lot more moralizing and/or just plain forced.
Which is why DISCOVERY gave its mirror universe so much more room to play. And I suspect it's why PICARD season two seems like it's going to be spending its entire second season hopping through time. If you're going to make the effort to do an alternate universe bit, might as well take the time to do it right.
If you want to pitch an alternate universe concept, a couple things to think about:
1) What Can It Reveal About Our Characters: It's essential to these stories that the characters learn something about themselves. In early iterations of mirror universe eps this would come in the form of seeing their alts and how different they were. But for me the more interesting versions are the ones in which our characters themselves are forced to make difficult decisions or see in themselves troubling or surprising things.
2) What's Something I Haven't Seen Already: STAR TREK really has done it all. So this is a challenge. But that's what makes it an opportunity too. Give me a twist I haven't seen and I'm going to be all in.
One way to think about this is in terms of genre. Alternate universe stories are often a chance to play in story worlds away seemingly far from science fiction, like noir or romance. What might be some other genres that could be fun?
How about fantasy--maybe a Harry Potteresque world with magic, or something with ogres, trolls, a quest? (STAR TREK seems so right for a quest story.)
What about an apocalypse or post-apocalypse story? It doesn't have to be the end of the world, either--could be just some sort of weather emergency adventure story.
What about a James Bond-type--or even better, a John Le Carré--spy/realpolitik story?
Family drama? Romcom? Conspiracy thriller? Children's story? Or some combination thereof?
2.5) What's Something I Haven't Seen For My Characters: This is a twist on the last point: What's something fun that I would like to see these characters/actors get to do that they can't normally do? Like a situation that allows the heroes to be villains, the smaller supporting characters to be put in charge, or the more intense characters to do comedy.
Put another way: What is my Worf is Actually Funny? Picard in a Sleeveless Top? Or Michael's Mom Figure Wants to Murder the World?
3) Use Our World as a Point of Inspiration: If I were to go through the paper in recent days, what would I find? Stories about a political party and politicians that simply refuse to do the right thing for Americans no matter what, because they want to hurt the other party. Stories about wealthy billionaires taking people into space. Stories of baseball teams trying to make it to the World Series. Stories of some people continuing to live in fear of a pandemic while others have been long since vaccinated.
These are all possible topics for an alt universe ep. They're also potential topics for normal TREK episodes. Which highlights one other key element to the alt universe concept: It works on TREK because at its foundations it's still about the same thematic preoccupations. It's just a different way to play in that same field.
