Friday, April 01, 2005

April Fools, Star Trek-Style

The Official Star Trek site is chock full of April Fools fake stories today, including this list of rejected series:

Desperate Yeomans — A saucy look at the secret lives of five starship yeomans, each competing for the attention of their captain but never succeeding because he's always got eyes for the green or blue alien-chick-of-the-week. Though guaranteed to be a water-cooler conversation piece, the network rejected it due to concerns that the show's star, Grace Lee Whitney, "wouldn't appeal to our target demographic." Teri Hatcher, who would have reprised the role of "B.G. Robinson," turned down the offer due to a prior commitment.

The B.Q. — A steamy space opera taking place in that sometimes-forgotten corner of Federation space, the Beta Quadrant. An attractive ion-surfing commander of an upscale space station with an attractively smart-mouthed son takes in an attractive Klingon delinquent. Sexual tension runs rampant as the two youths cross paths with the attractively troubled Romulan princess next door. The network sent back the pilot episode, requesting more attractive characters.

Ferengi Apprentice — Former Grand Nagus Zek has retired from political life but still has a substantial financial empire, so he's looking to hire a young go-getter to run one of his large corporations. A multi-species slate of contestants line up for outlandish competitions, from who can sell the most jumja sticks to who can negotiate the best asteroid-terraforming contract. Using a Tantalus Field he brought back from the mirror universe, Zek eliminates contestants one by one with the phrase, "You're fried." Network executives rejected the show because they didn't like Zek's hair; plus, they were annoyed by an obnoxious contestant named Amargosa.

Betazoid Bachelorette — A young dark-eyed beauty gets to select her future husband from ten handsome suitors. In the pilot, though, the fact that the woman knew everything the males were thinking and feeling pretty much took all the drama out of the show. Plus, the network was afraid of conservative backlash over the all-nude Betazed wedding planned for the season finale.

Fat Vulcan — Kirstie Alley returns as Saavik, the Vulcan Starfleet officer who is still petitioning for a starship command despite the fact that she's put on quite a few pounds and can barely fit in a uniform. Cable executives actually liked the concept, but they retooled it a bit. Instead of a wannabe starship captain, they made Saavik a temporal operative disguised as a human, sent to early 21st-century Earth to pose as a struggling neurotic actress, in order to study the mores of the planet's pre-warp culture. Spock, who dabbles in photography of women as a sideline, has expressed displeasure with the show saying it is un-Vulcanlike and dishonest.

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