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William Shatner Pitches 'Starfleet Academy' Show
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that William Shatner recently pitched an 'Academy' show to Paramount. The series would feature teen versions of the Classic Star Trek characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and be set at Starfleet Academy. The studio turned Shatner down, but he's not letting go of the idea: Pocket Books has asked him to write a two-novel series based on the 'Starfleet Academy' concept. Also, Shatner apparently went over the head of Trek head honcho Rick Berman to pitch his idea straight to the head of Paramount - maybe after Enterprise ends and Berman leaves the franchise, the studio will be more inclined to listen to Shatner?"
Do NOT do a prequel to the TOS cast. If enterprise has taught us anything, it's that trying to write history to canon is full of pitfalls, and the nerds will never forgive even the smallest of errors. You'll also run into the problem that people had with enterprise in that the technology looked more advanced than TOS, simple because computer graphics were more advanced.
Also, it's a bit of a stretch to presume that all the TOS cast would be at the academy together. Kirk and Spock maybe, but all the junior officers are much younger than Kirk, Spock, and Bones (McCoy would have been at starfleet medical anyway).
An awesome show would be an academy show during the dominion war of an unknown group of cadets. So rather than being a futuristic "Saved by the Bell", you can follow these cadets in some of the extended duties they would have had to undertake during the war. We could even see how the attack on Starfleet Headquarters happened, since we only saw the aftermath in DS9.