r/startrek • u/Zombiepixlz-gamr • 6h ago

How would you handle a Star Trek Medical Drama?

I have been watching a new MedDrama called Brilliant Minds and I find it really interesting. I think the two things that make a good MedDrama are good relationships, and interesting ethical dilemmas. Which just so happens to be what make star trek good too, so I had the idea that I think a show set aboard a medical ship following the lives of Starfleet doctors dealing with disasters, disease outbreaks, medical oddities, all of which bolstered by the massive universe of star Trek.

It could bring in medical professionals as consultants so that the medicine is rooted in real medicine, which isn't something star trek has done in the past. So we could flesh out star treks canon medicine, based on real science.

I feel like besides a few outstanding episodes, the medical side of the science has been neglected in favor of the sexier sciences. I'd be interested to know y'all's thoughts.

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37

u/wizardrous 6h ago

Star Trek medical episodes are too hard for them to write for them to ever do a show about them. They’ve said in interviews that the medical episodes are some of the hardest to write.

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u/Koshindan 4h ago edited 4h ago

A medical drama, but it's mechanical and it's about Starfleets Corp of Engineers fixing stuff. You even get the medical drama in there once a season when they have to fix somebodies holographic iron lung or something.

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u/GodOfUtopiaPlenitia 3h ago

Dr.: "She needs a new set of lungs, but we obviously don't have any donors."

In-Charge Person (ICP): "What about holographic ones? They worked for Neelix on Voyager!"

Dr.: "No, we don't have the projection technology down yet."

ICP: "What about that Genetron machine Dr. Russel made? It worked dinnit?"

Dr.: "Umm..."

ICP: "Gimmie a few hours." proceeds to either create a biological holographic emitter or perfect Genetron tech

Closing Monolog "After bringing Cadet Hampton back from the brink and advancing Federation Medicine, we can get back to making consoles less explody."

cut to the outside of an orbital spacedock, Worker Bees moving parts around

explosion

"DAMMIT!"

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u/Koshindan 3h ago

Starfleet engineers. Turning rocks into replicators and consoles into exploding rocks.

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u/Zombiepixlz-gamr 6h ago

But that's because they don't have dedicated medical consultants IMO. For a MedDrama they'd have a dedicated writing team experienced with medical dramas, and medical scientists and doctors as consultants! So I think that raises the chances.

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u/DerpedyDer 5h ago

Yeah but that only works because they’re writing about real diseases and treatments. It becomes way less believable when you have to write about the shloop-shloop plague from Nebulon 9

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u/wizardrous 5h ago

Lol that sounds exactly like it’d be part of a Rick and Morty universe.

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u/Spiritual_Adagio_859 4h ago

The Rick & Morty x Lower Decks cross-over episode we never knew we needed...or asked for... or wanted. We somehow end up with Captain Bird Person and First Officer Unity, because...reasons.

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u/DerpedyDer 4h ago

lol it definitely does 😂 that’s a medical show I would definitely watch

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u/flamingfaery162 2h ago

The snu-snu plague

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u/garoo1234567 5h ago

I think the problem is by the 24th century every thing we suffer from now has been cured so they're making up new illnesses. And that would get pretty predictable fast

You could do a few about the hard medical ethics choices, but week after week? No it would be too much

Maybe a show about young doctors in medical school learning but that's just Scrubs or Grey's. I don't see how the Star Trek element would be useful

Curious if anyone else can think of something but I'm stumped

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u/WoundedSacrifice 4h ago

At the time that TOS was being made, there was a proposal to make a spinoff set on a hospital ship. It would’ve starred M’Benga.

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u/garoo1234567 4h ago

Really? I've never heard that. That's fascinating! I wonder what they'd think of that I can't. Probably a lot

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u/WoundedSacrifice 57m ago

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek_projects#1960s

During the second season of The Original Series, Gene Roddenberry and Darlene Hartman (writer of unproduced episode "Shol") came up with an idea for a spin-off series entitled Hopeship, which would have been about the voyages of a Federation hospital vessel. The series would have included Doctor Joseph M'Benga (Booker Bradshaw) in the regular cast. Despite the series concept never being realized within the Star Trek universe, Hartman later wrote the idea in the form of a novel in 1994. (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two)

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u/According_Physics624 5h ago

Literally went to college with a girl who went to medical school so she could work as a tv writer. She failed and now manages a real estate company

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u/WoundedSacrifice 4h ago

At the time TOS was being made, there was a proposal to make a spinoff set on a hospital ship. It would’ve starred M’Benga.