>1)Synopsize what the show's premise is to be. The only
>thing not permissible is to set the show in the past.
>It must be set in the present Star Trek time line or
>in the future. Please answer the 5 "w"s of writing:
>who, what, where, etc

Okay, what I'm imagining is a show based upon a series of young
characters all at Starfleet Academy.  These young, perky, extremely
good looking characters go through all sorts of teenage angst as they
try to live learn the trials of life, including love, drugs, etc.
Think of it as Star Trek meets Dawson's Creek...

Okay, I'm just kidding.  :)

Here's my real entry!  I guess I've had this idea bouncing around in
my head for a while.  TPTB at Paramount have been wanting to get away
from the same old 24th century rut.  They want to avoid Starfleet,
holodecks, replicators, Federation, Romulans, Borg, transporters, 
etc. ad nauseum.  Fine.  Here's my premise and the setup:

The Federation is sending a colony ship to settle a remote planet at 
the edge of Federation space.  Accompanying them is a small Starfleet
ship.  Now this area of space isn't known for any sort of problems
with neighboring aliens or anything, so the journey isn't expected to
be very eventful.  Although it's a hearty group of colonists, the
Starfleet presence is merely for supplies and set up reasons-- it's
hardly a war vessel.  (All this will play in later, as you'll see).
Then something unexpected happens.  The colony ship and the Starfleet
ship are suddenly transported to the Andromeda galaxy, the Milky Way's
nearest neighbor.  (I haven't quite figured out how it gets transported,
but it's hardly anything as lame as the Caretaker array.)  Note, that
since they're an entire galaxy away, there ain't no Alpha, Beta, Delta,
or Gamma quadrants.  Instead of being 70,000 light years away, ala
Voyager, they're 70 trillion, million light years away.  (I forget
exactly how far away the Andromeda galaxy really is, but suffice it to
say it's much, much more that Voyager's miniscule 70,000.)  There's
basically no hope at all for the ship to get back home.  They don't
even try beyond a few token attempts.  And since they're a colony ship
ready to settle a new world, they figure they're all equipped to settle
in to stay, so that's what they do.  As luck would have it, they find
themselves relatively close to a nice, uninhabited, Class-M planet.  The
colony ship sets down and they start setting up a new home.  The
Starfleet vessel hangs around as well, not really having anything better
to do (again, more on that below).  Let's just say that there are a few
tensions between the colony leader and the Starfleet captain that make
this a tenuous alliance and a bit of a power struggle.

As things start to settle down, the neighboring aliens decide to pay a
visit.  These guys turn out to be quite the nasties.  They have an
aggressive society, somewhat based upon the ancient Roman empire.  These
guys like to conquer and rule their neighbors and they're in an ongoing, 
particularly nasty war with another neighboring alien.  The colony now
finds out that they're in the middle of the warzone!  As the Roman
empire-like nasties pay their first visit, they warn the colony away,
threatening, but eventually avoiding violence.  They *do* attack the
Starfleet ship in orbit, causing minor damage, but seriously impairing
the ships warp capabilities.  This, added with the not-so-spectacular
engineer, means that the ship now can't go *too* far *too* fast and has
to hang around the colony planet most of the time.

In the meantime, the colonists discover that their world isn't exactly
uninhabited.  There is a mysterious, alien race living there.  Now this
race is very bizarre.  They exist in alternate realities/dimensions.
Their behavior is *very* bizarre and *very* difficult for the colonists
to understand.  They are truly ALIEN aliens-- no bumpy foreheads here.
At first they only have superficial interactions with the colonists, but
as the series progresses, more and more is found out about these strange
creatures.  It is because of these creatures that the Roman empire 
nasties did not attack the colony.  They fear these aliens.  It turns
out that the colony has found a strange and powerful ally in the aliens
with whom they share the planet.  They're just not sure if the aliens
are even aware of their presence.

So, the big arcs in the story are (1) learning to live on a new world
with limited supplies/knowledge, (2) dealing with the ongoing war
between the neighboring aliens, and (3) learning about the strange
aliens that inhabit their planet.  Through all this, the colonists
(which now includes the Starfleet crew) learn something about
themselves.

Studio sets would include only the colony itself and the Starfleet ship.
Only a few exterior shots would be needed for the planet itself.

At some point, the crew can even encounter and have some storylines with
the aliens from TOS' "By Any Other Name", who were from the Andromeda
galaxy.  In TOS, they were said to have had a natural form of giant,
green, multi-tentacled creatures.  They were never seen in the TOS
episode, but now that modern CGI effects exist, we can see what they
*really* look like.

Oh, and there'll be a very strict rule regarding the show.  There can be
at *MOST* only one episode per season about the characters trying to get
back to the Milky Way galaxy.  No Gilligan's Island syndrome here.

Now for the next part of the contest...
>2)Tell us about a few of the major protagonists and if
>you want to, who the cast will be. You may cast
>yourself as a character if you desire to. Isn't that
>what a lot of us dream about anyway? Since you will
>have a physical trainer at your disposal, do not
>consider any physical limitations when you are casting
>yourself in a role.

I am *not* casting myself in any of the roles.  :)

I don't know if I'm really bothering to come up with names, but rather
just simple character descriptions.

Colony Leader: She is a tough-as-nails, natural born leader.  She can
really inspire the people around here, but she also demands a lot.
Anything less than someone's best will not do.  She can actually be
rather brash and abrasive, meaning that not everyone really likes her
a whole lot.  Still, she's a good leader and they learn to respect
that.  This character is the true lead of the show (not the Starfleet
captain, for reasons I'll explain below).

Ship Captain: This guy is a mess!  He's a competent ship's captain and
has had a long, by-the-rules career with Starfleet.  It was his steady
hand and his strict following of the rules that allowed him to rise in
Starfleet to the rank of captain.  However, because he's had a basically
bland, unremarkable career, he's not exactly captaining a Galaxy class
starship.  Instead, his ship (the one that's trapped in the Andromeda
galaxy), is a small, minor, 40 person crewed starship used for the most
basic of Starfleet tasks.  At the point all this happens, he was nearing
retirement.  He's had a long, unremarkable career without too many 
challenges and has been looking forward to retirement.  Now, the man is
rather bitter because he not only leave behind a wife and several
children, he's also somewhat reluctant to lead on this forced adventure.
He clashes in a bit of a power struggle with the colony leader, but
eventually relents, letting her rule in that regard while he runs the
ship.  He's been thrust into an unwanted situation and must face many
challenges that he's avoided most of his life.  He lacks confidence, but
as the series progresses, we'll see this guy grow.  He also develops an
intimate relationship with the ship's engineer, even though he has a
wife back home.

Ship Engineer: Like her ship's captain, she's competent, but
unremarkable.  She's very young and more than a little naive.  Being
thrown into a desperate situation, she has difficulties learning to
think outside the box and improvise.  She has her hands full trying to
keep the ship running, much less the daily needs of the colony.  Because
of this (and lack of proper supplies), there is no holodeck or
replicators.  Everyone must depend upon the colony for survival.  By
watching her captain overcome his demons, she finds herself drawn to him
and they slowly develop a relationship, allowing the exploration of an
intimate relationship between an older man and a younger woman.  Just
for ethnic diversity, she's an Asian.

Colony Doctor: This guy has his head screwed on straight.  He's sharp,
intelligent, and knows how to survive off the environment given their
lack of technical conveniences.  He also unwittingly gets cast in the
role of counseler, given that he's such a straight and steady guy, as
many people come to him for advice.  He also gets a wee bit obsessed
with learning about the planet's mysterious aliens and takes some
remarkable risks to learn more about them, much to the ire of the colony
leader who chastises him greatly.  He's quite affable and promptly
ignores the colony leader-- being one of the few to openly defy her.  He
knows his limitations.

Supplies: Okay, since Klingon's are so closely associated with Star
Trek, they gotta be involved somehow.  The person who is in charge of
supplies inventory and distribution is a Klingon.  His job is to
maintain the colony's inventory and be sure they've got what they need
of the basics, beit food, water, power cells, weapons, etc.  He gets
involved in many of the away missions to find and secure needed
supplies.  It's a bit of a mystery why he, a Klingon, joined the 
original colony.  After all, why would a Klingon want to get involved
with a Federation colony?  As time goes on, we learn that he's not the
big, tough warrior that most Klingons are.  He's a rather soft-hearted
person who felt out of place amongst his own people.  Something had
happened in his past that caused him to disgrace his family name, so
he had willingly exiled himself which is how he ended up in the colony.

Security: This is an entirely CGI alien!  His anatomy is rather 
unimportant, but what makes him so interesting is that he is so alien.
He doesn't have the usual two legs, two arms, and a head.  In fact, he
moves by a strange floating movements, always staying about a foot off
the ground.  He's an odd creature, often spouting words and phrases that
leave others scratching their heads in confusion.  He doesn't at all
have human-like behavior.  As for why he's on the ship and in charge of
ships security-- even though he is very alien, he is very good at
following and interpretting the rules.  He's good about going 
by-the-book, which is one of the reasons the ship's captain wanted him
on his crew.  People rarely act up when a bizarr-o alien is in charge.

Um... I guess that's enough for now.  :)

>3)How are you going to handle the Merchandising of the
>show? Specifically, who is going to produce your line
>of figures, what scale will they be, etc

Oh, there'll be the usual... books, ornaments, magazines, models, etc.
In particular, since I'm a model kit builder, I'll make models of the
Starfleet ship, the colony ship (which, I forgot to mention, becomes
scrap material to build the colony itself), the Roman empire alien ship,
and some figure models of the security alien and the mysterious planet
alien.

As for toys, the manufacturer doesn't really matter.  I'd just as soon
have Playmates pick up where they left off with the 4.5" and 9" lines
(the 6" and 12" lines can bite the dust).  There'll be, of course, a
light and sound ship for the above mentioned ships.  However, they'll
have removable parts, meaning you can take off the warp nacelles and
other parts to re-arrange them ala the Soundbend Enterprise.  There's
gotta be a playset of the colony and the ship's bridge.  Figures, of
course, for each of the main crew members and the aliens.  There'll have
to be a special toy made for the security and planet aliens, with all
sorts of bizarro features (color changing, removable parts, etc.).