Summary
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds should embrace the gangster genre like previous Trek series, offering the opportunity for fun period costumes and a different version of the characters.
- The combination of gangster or detective stories with Star Trek works well, utilizing recognizable tropes and cliches to create an entertaining and engaging storyline.
- Despite not having a holodeck, Strange New Worlds can find creative ways to justify a mobster storyline, such as revisiting the planet Sigma Iotia II and incorporating the book "Chicago Mobs of the Twenties" left behind by the Federation.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds should take on the gangster genre, following in the footsteps of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Both previous Trek series made excellent use of the gangster genre in the classic episodes TOS season 2, episode 17, "A Piece of the Action" and TNG season 1, episode 12, "The Big Goodbye." "A Piece of the Action" sees Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) visit a planet with a culture based on 1920s-era Chicago. Kirk and Spock dress the part as mobsters and have fun interacting with the eccentric locals.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Big Goodbye," Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) takes on the persona of fictional hard-boiled detective Dixon Hill in the first Star Trek holodeck episode. Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) also get in on the fun, dressing in period wear and embracing the fictional story they find themselves in. The characters of Strange New Worlds have had their fair share of wacky adventures, and they would have a blast taking on a story of mobsters and murder mysteries.
