The Characters.

THE CHARACTERS:
I can not reveal specifics about each individual character until the show can go into production. But here you will find that our cast is really unique in the television landscape.

LARGEST CAST OF CHARACTERS EVER:
My Science-Fiction series has the largest cast ever for a television series. Guest-stars are extremely rare. Only 6 of the first season of 14 episodes even have any guest-stars at all. Because of the lack of guest-stars (only 40% of the episodes), a large cast exists to compensate.

Beyond the intitial predictable (and needed) characters of Captain, Commander, Doctor, etc, we will have a supply of a dozen Ensigns used throughout the episodes, a dozen Lieutenants, a dozen Security Officers, a handful of Engineers, etc.

NO NAMELESS ENSIGNS:
Every character onboard would be accounted for. Every crewmember has a name, and every crewmember has a face. There are NO nameless "supernumerary" characters. With every single person onboard identified, the large cast acts as a source supply to pull from to find the best characters for each particular story or scene. Besides the racial diversity, also separating the characters are ages, sexes, positions, ranks, attitudes, relationships with other characters and background history already revealed. This allows us to do stories that other programs can't by allowing us to always have the exact perfect character among the cast that can work the best for each particular story or scene.

FIXING STAR TREK'S PROBLEMS, AGAIN:
The Star Trek series generally only have one Ensign, one Lieutenant, etc. This is rediculous to have the focus and the stories on only one Ensign while the other Ensigns don't even get to speak. It is also rediculous to have that one lone Trek Ensign get more to say and do than the other Lieutenants of higher rank onboard, who also don't get to speak. Also keep in mind that Star Trek Producers would never allow the focus of a story to be on a guest-star.

Many Voyager fans just simply can't explain how or why Ensign Harry Kim managed to become a "senior officer" being allowed to sit in on official conferences, meetings, ordering around other Lieutenants (of higher rank than him), and even taking command of the ship on occasion when there are so many others above him in rank. To make matters worse, Harry Kim was suppose to be "fresh out of the Academy". Other than the fact that he is in the opening credits, none of it makes any logistical sense.

My Science-Fiction series would fix this by having nearly a dozen Ensigns, a dozen Lieutenants, a dozen Security Officers, etc, every one identified. There isn't going to be an Ensign sitting in on the senior staff meetings. And the duplicate ranks higher up will be split between the three to four shifts that are in a 24-hour day rotation. Unlike Star Trek, some of our episodes actually take place at night.

BAND OF BROTHERS:
The current tradition of Science-Fiction television series (SeaQuest DSV, Babylon 5, Andromeda) of having a main cast that consist of one Ensign, one Lieutenant, etc, are all reflections of what we know as Star Trek. But the pattern of this adopted Trek-cast layout in itself is a fluke.

Gene Roddenberry's original idea behind Star Trek was a "band of brothers" feeling. He wanted the viewers to care about ALL the characters like family, not just Kirk, Spock and McCoy. However, as Star Trek progressed to what it is today, this "band of brothers" concept was altered to only reflect the cast in the opening credits.

Putting aside the facts that before Kirk came Captain Pike, and before Doctor McCoy were Doctors Boyce and Piper, it's interesting to see how that idea of "family" was shook up throughout the series. At first only Kirk and Spock were listed in the opening credits, with McCoy only being added in the second season. Yeoman Rand, who was originally planned to be Kirk's long-term love interest (and some say the original intended "trilogy" of "Kirk, Spock, Rand", as some early merchandise labeled her in the cast listing) disappeared after just 13 episodes. Chekov was only added in the second season (creating the glaring question of how Khan and Chekov recognized eachother in Star Trek II when Chekov was absent from the Enterprise in Khan's first-season episode). Nichelle Nichols herself attempted to leave the program, only deciding to stay when Martin Luther King told her to stay. Sulu started disappearing in the last season.

Lieutenant Kevin Riley, who we know and love for singing his favorite Irish song "one more time" after commandeering the Enterprise eventually disappeared after a small handful of episodes, as did other recurring characters such as Lieutenant Leslie ("The Alternative Factor", "The Omega Glory"), Lieutenant Kyle ("The Lights of Zetar", "Who mourns for Adonais?") and Lieutenant John Farrell ("Mudd's Women", "Miri"). Chekov's absense in the animated episodes came about because the production couldn't afford the extra castmember. And this was followed by Nurse Chapel's disappearance in the movies, eventually leaving the movies to rely on a much smaller limited cast, all building up to what we now have as the current Trek-casting ideals, leaving us with one Lieutenant, one Ensign, etc.

While some episodes of the later incarnations of Star Trek made attempts to also expand the family beyond the opening credits, every one of these characters were also eventually dropped and forgotten (The Next Generation's Chief Engineer Argyle, Ensign Sonya Gomez, Assistant Engineer Leland T. Lynch, Christy Henshaw, Ensign Robin Lefler, Voyager crewmen Hogan, Chell, Lt. Carey, Baxter, etc). Chief O'Brien is the biggest exception.

But with a large cast, no nameless Ensigns, and every character identified, my Science-Fiction series achieves this "band of brothers" attitude that Star Trek as a "franchise" fails to do, and all other programs who follow its casting guide also fail to achieve.

WILL A LARGE CAST BE EXPENSIVE?:
No. The large cast compensates for the lack of guest-stars. Per episode the number of actors actually used is the same as any drama (ER, Law and Order, etc), only the ratio between main characters and guest-stars is different.

Where Star Trek might use four guest-stars for four different episodes to play four different Ensigns, we would use one main character to play one Ensign over those four episodes. Four actors used once or one actor used four times, the financial costs are the same.

The Troublemaker.

As a side-effect of having the largest cast ever for a television series, we would also have the most diverse cast ever for a television series, including the largest black cast for a television series, and the largest hispanic cast ever for an American series.

Among the uniqueness of the characters is a deaf character, making us only the third television series to feature a deaf main character (Find out more Here).

Our plans is to also have an actor who is missing an arm or a leg, which is also incredibly rare (Find out more Here).

The large cast of characters also allows us to do something that is pretty much impossible on the average program unless an actor wanted to leave, and that is killing off a main character, although not for a long time.