5. Reference Earlier Works, But Don't Rip Them Off
This is what I like to call the "Khan rule of thumb". There has been two occasions now that I can clearly remember where Star Trek has revisited an earlier story deliberately in order to repeat it rather than simply reference it. This first happened in the second episode of The Next Generation, where Gene Roddenberry wanted to rehash The Original Series' episode The Naked Time as The Naked Now. Then of course, we all know about Star Trek Into Darkness and the fan reaction. Needless to say, on neither occasion did the fans take it well. The reaction to The Naked Now was immediate with it occurring so early on in the life of The Next Generation that the fans felt like the entire show was simply going to re-run story ideas from the earlier series. Into Darkness took longer, and it seemed like it had good reviews up until that vote at the Convention where it was named the least popular Star Trek film (even being beaten by Galaxy Quest). Suddenly the flood gates opened to fan criticism, and this was bolstered by some of the silliest reactions I've ever seen from a film's production team. With Khan still fresh on their mind, the fans will simply not accept if the new series turned around and re-booted The Next Generation but set further along in the film's timeline. I doubt anyone would take it well if the entire franchise was suddenly re-cast when those cast members could still potentially play their own characters, although ten to twenty years older. Star Trek also has the habit of reusing some of its plots. For example, Enterprise did this a couple of times North Star was essentially a rebranded version of Voyager's The 37's, while E² was an update to Deep Space Nine's Children of Time (although in that case, the writer recognised the similarities and wanted to change it but the producers overruled him). At least for the short term, the new series should be very wary of treading down this route lest they find themselves in a The Naked Now type scenario. Probably the best way to do this is to bring in fans of the show, not simply television producers. Take Manny Coto and the final series of Enterprise it was jammed full of references to The Original Series (and Animated Series too) but never felt like it was ripping anything off. Oh and any new show must hire Mike and Denise Okuda. They're walking dictionaries on the Star Trek universe. What they don't know isn't worth knowing.