The Section 31 series is dead.

I actually hope the "movie event" becomes the new normal. Imagine if Picard had been 3 movie events rather than 3 seasons. Cut the filler and get to the best bits. Or the option to have a couple one-ofs focusing on all sorts of different things, with different story styles.

PIC S1 *WAS* pitched as a movie

It should've stayed one.

Hmmm...that's actually a good idea. Even if we have to suffer through Section 31 as the first of them.

I really HATE Section 31 & am very happy they're not making a new STAR TREK series about them , but I don't like that they'll be making a series of telemovies about Section 31. After DS9 the makers of Trek should've just completely forgotten about Section 31 & should've never have brought them back for any reason.

Though I do agree with & like a Trek series being made in the "COLUMBO" format , IE: an ongoing series of telemovies coming out either 2 or 3 times a year or maybe once a year. Unfortunately it looks the first Trek series to be done in the "COLUMBO" format will be the Section 31 series

From what I hear "STAR TREK : PICARD" would probably have been better had it been made in the "COLUMBO" format instead of being a weekly series.

But what about "STAR TREK : STRANGE NEW WORLDS"? Is that fine as it is as a weekly series or would it too maybe be a better show done in the "COLUMBO"/"McMILLAN & WIFE"/"BANACEK" format?

The idea of Section 31 actually started out in the books. Don't remember which one specifically, but I recall Picard and .. Beverly (I think) being old friends with a guy who turned out to be in Section 31. I think that was the first reference. I could be wrong. If I were a betting person, I'd bet it started with the RPG.

As for a Columbo style story, I've thought (since The Most Toys) that a cool story line might be Federation Marshalls who go after people like Kivas Fajo and Palor Toff and, of course, Harry Mudd.

@Jenee , good post

BUT ... the gist of what I meant by "COLUMBO"/"McMILLAN & WIFE"/"BANACEK" format is the makers of Trek only making maybe 2 to 3 , perhaps 4? , telemovies a year , or depending on the show only one telemovie a year. I wasn't really talking about the Trek stories being in the genre of those '70s telemovie crime shows.

BUT ... you provide good information to know in your post about Section 31 & your idea for an actual "COLUMBO" style story for STAR TREK would be entertaining, ESPECIALLY if the villain were Harry Mudd.

Ah. in that case, my apologies as I've never even heard the term "telemovies" and am not old enough (despite appearances to the contrary) to remember that specific formatting for those shows (which i did watch cuz my parents did and that's what happened in those days).

Anyway, Harry Mudd may be a good villain. But, I was more concerned with who the deputy marshal would be. Tommy Lee Jones is too old and ... I like Timothy Olyphant as the sheriff of Mos Pelgo.

They did do a novel with Sam Cogley (from TOS "Court Martial"), which I recall enjoying, however I was obviously in a minority as the mooted book series featuring him never came to pass.

It was more Perry Mason than Columbo though.

The usual Columbo 'howcatchem' fits well with Trek, reckon a few "oh, we were secretly undercover" eps could have benefitted from rejigging that way.

Curious where they go with this, S31 are a great background for shades of grey storytelling, but - outside of DS9 - has frequently been uncomfortable parking its heroes in a field of shitty choices and having them come out the other side looking like they've just had to have their kids pet put down.

For me, Pale Moonlight should be a reference point, with Georgiou being the "Garak" and finding someone to be "Sisko" for whom we'll see the consequences of having to take a hammer to your moral compass in order to save lives.

It's much easier showing sociopaths (hello Mr Bond!), or having the sacrifice being someone's actual life (you get the funeral scene then with the sad acapello and flags and all that), having them sacrifice their beliefs and/or morality means you get to see the broken person too, which is a lot more uncomfortable but gives you much more meat on the bones.

I don't think so. You shouldn't go to ALL movies (particularly that far apart) and SNW is the ideal show to carry the series format (albeit I'd really like it to be somewhat more than 10 episodes if the seasons are so far apart)

The movies serve, in a sense, to be the "something new" in between seasons of whatever series are ongoing at any given time

Like "Short Trek" but feature length

We could brainstorm endlessly about what those movies would look like.

***April's last mission as Captain of Enterprise (or first?)
***Something with Kirk's (recast) crew in the wake of the V'Ger story (I'm thinking that they end up being basically a "specialist" crew asked to do the most unique or difficult jobs)
***A Captain Sulu story if they can get it in before Takai is gone too)
***Something featuring the "Special Agent Worf" concept we saw in Picard (indeed, this would be ideal for like a trilogy or something if they do it before Dorn gets too old)
***want to be really bold, do something with the "Boomers" seen in Enterprise during the very early days of the Federation
***use Cronenberg to do something interesting in the 32nd century that doesn't involve Disco
***Book could probably carry a story without Burnham involved if they came up with one
***Return of Sisko?
***Basically anything else springing from the post DS9 situation, hopefully somehow involving Garak and/or Bashir and/or O'Brien....also a wholly other thread about Kira in some way?
***major events mentioned but not seen in other series like the fall of Garth of Izar

That's without having the talent of actual professional writers, just off the top of my head

Probably the best way to do a S31 story would be to use her as a wedge to do away with it altogether. like something with Bashir having discovered something and decided to organize a resistance to it and they end up in conflict with her before convincing her they were in the right or some such. You could honestly include Worf in something like this.

But settle the S31 question once and for all (as far as storytelling goes, we all know that such instincts are never eradicated)

By the way, I must protest this McCloud erasure.

The NBC Mystery Movie - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

• 
  
  To be fair, I had no memory whatsoever of Hec Ramsey
  
  

I don't remember any of this shit except Banacek

I'd rather they work Garth in as an SNW two-parter, but I'd take a movie too.

Radical, man.

You just made me realize something. I can watch streaming services in every room in my home except for the bathrooms. And not on tablets, phones, or other portable devices but TVs and screens.

I have a whole little wish lists of things like that, including Garth, that I want in SNW but I just lifted the idea from one list to put on the other

The post DS9 novels had an ongoing plot with Bashir trying to bring down Section 31 and eventually succeeding, they even had the twist that 31 was actually run by a rogue AI named Control before Discovery did it.

@Nova

Sorry that I had forgotten about "McCLOUD" when I wrote those posts

I was TRYING to remember what the 4th series of telemovies was in that 1970s NBC Mystery Movie Rotation but for some reason "McCLOUD" WASN'T coming to mind

I have no idea WHY.

But I'm glad you remembered "McCLOUD" & mentioned it in your reply

Oh! I know what I want for a movie!
Emory Erickson!


He hung out with Zephrame Cochrane, Henry Archer, and little Jonnie Archer, so you've got that crossover baked in.
You can have T'Pol & Guinan running around.
You can have the Observers.

I dunno what bad guy you could have...
Arik Soong would be around, maybe he's up to something with the Augment fetuses? *Shirogayne rips her hair out*
Maybe the Colonel Green terrorists?

I just want a First Contact for the transporter.
I just want it.

Ira Behr came up with the idea after noting a line in TNG's Maquis about it was easy to be moral in paradise, and speculation that there was a darker force in the Federation that took care of the things people didn't want to think of. It showed up first in DS9 season 6 ep 18 'Inquisition.'

There's also some talk that it might have been influenced by the B5 script that JMS attempted to sell to paramount for the ST universe. In it there was a shadowy organization Bureau 13. That was dropped relatively quickly in the run however and replaced with the Psi Corps and the Night Watch.

If only some fan had already thought of that and made a fan film with that premise.

Not canon.
And the director is busting rocks in a federal pen.