A lot of people aren’t old enough to remember the years of “Star Trek” wandering in the wilderness. After the original series ended in 1969, following its third season, it was just barely beginning to catch the attention of the pop culture world at large. Before reruns had wound down from the original NBC run, the show had been syndicated. By 1970, Paramount was already bragging that reruns of the show’s three seasons improved the ratings for any station that aired it.
I became a fan of the show when an Indianapolis station began airing the reruns after the 11 p.m. newscast and the news anchors, through a video effect, “beamed” into the episode. Within a few years, Star Trek conventions had begun, a U.S. space shuttle was named after the Enterprise and plans were made for a “Star Trek Phase II” series. Then “Star Wars” was a huge hit in 1977 and Paramount shifted plans to the big screen and the Robert Wise-directed and enduringly controversial “Star Trek The Motion Picture” was released in 1979.
I’ll never forget watching Sunday morning reruns of the original series and seeing, during one of the commercial breaks, an ad for “The Motion Picture.” For an arrested adolescent in an Indiana Star Trek Club, it was a thrill. Finally, the long hiatus was over.
The movies followed, more TV series followed, and Star Trek became as much a part of our culture as superhero movies have been in the past few years.
Now, 60 years and a few days after the 1966 premiere of the original series, the future looks pretty bleak for Star Trek. We’re most of the way through the fourth season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” a series that winds down after a truncated final season (most likely) next year and four seasons of some really good Star Trek and some really good television but too many episodes that left me wondering how more thoroughly the potential and very limited lifespan of the series could be wasted. And no, I haven’t watched this season’s puppet episode yet, and I might not. As far as I’m concerned, no TV series will ever top the mixing of a puppet character and live action characters as well as “Smile Time,” the 2004 episode of “Angel.”
So we’ve got a couple of episodes left this year, six episodes of the fifth and final season probably next year and a second and final season of “Starfleet Academy,” already canceled by Paramount Plus.
Will they ever make another movie? Will they make more series? Probably, at some point. Star Trek is an intellectual property too valuable to leave alone.
Should they? I’m not sure. As much as I like that Star Trek is still a part of our culture, even in this truncated form, I’m not sure of the direction of the series.
We don’t need:
Ten-episode seasons in which a third of the episodes are stunt episodes.
A Quentin Tarantino Trek movie.
More series or movies that are far removed – by hundreds of years, like the final seasons of “Star Trek Discovery” – from the world of Star Trek, ie Starfleet Command, the Federation, familiar ships and even familiar characters.
What we do need:
A reboot, in effect, of the original series featuring the cast introduced in “Strange New Worlds.”
Maybe a series featuring Seven of Nine and the cast of the “Picard” series.
Movies drawing from the hugely rich history of the franchise.
New, creative blood. Like the original series, new movies and series should turn to experienced and knowledgeable science fiction writers. They should bring in people who love the series, characters and settings.
Maybe we need a break, but we don’t want a solid 10 years of wandering in the wilderness like we experienced from 1969, when the original series ended, to 1979, when the first movie was rushed into theaters.
