“You in the cube! Pull over!”
Höhne Sparborth, the founder of TrekToday.com. As Anthony Pascale, editor of TrekMovie.com, points out, former “Trek” producer Ronald Moore (“Caprica”) once explained that a reboot was necessary when the canon became too complicated after 700 TV episodes. Pascale points to this quote from a 2008 interview Moore did with syfy-wire.com (now blastr.com): “I just think that Star Trek had gone on for so long and had developed such a complicated backstory and so much continuity that it really wasn’t possible
“It’S doubtful that Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and others will ever sign on for a weekly series,” —Russ haslage, TREK INSIDER
for any one writer or any one group of writers, really, to keep it all straight anymore. And that meant there was a whole legion of people out there that weren’t even going to make the effort because it was just too much work. This really gives it a chance to start over and bring everybody back to what made it so great to begin with." The decision to pull the plug on “Enterprise” was far less complicated: Its ratings were hardly out of this world, with just an average of 2.8 million viewers tuning in each week, according to the Hollywood Reporter. That’s
daunting numbers for any network executive looking at green-lighting an expensive new series. For his part, Sparborth wonders if a new TV series is even a good idea: “I’m not sure a weekly TV show would be the best way to go forward for ‘Star Trek.’ There’d be a huge danger of them falling into the same ‘alien of the week’ trap that plagued a lot of ‘Voyager’ and ‘Enterprise.’” And that’s not the only danger, says Sparborth: “For God’s sake, please, not a funny cameo role by William Shatner as James T. Kirk’s cranky grandpa!”
TREK TELEVISION
The enterprising sci-fi series we wanna see! You wanna beam a new “Star Trek” show into your living room? Here’s how we’d get a new installment of the venerable sci-fi franchise off the launch pad: MOORE IS MORE D. Moore blew fans 1 Ronald away with his updating of the “Battlestar Galactica” franchise, a heady mix of sci-fi action and insightful social commentary; that was the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s work on the original TV series. Moore also boasts plenty of Trek TV credits, including showrunning “Deep Space Nine.” Combine J.J. Abrams—who should come aboard as an executive producer—and Moore as showrunner, that’s enough Trek juice to power the warp engines. HEAD BACK TO SCHOOL 2 There were rumors a few years back about a potential “Starfleet Academy” TV series focusing on the students training to go into space. Bring that setting out of mothballs, but tie it into the new continuity: Captain
Pike (Bruce Greenwood) retires from active service to train a new class of space cadets who must come to grips with their deadly new reality following the Vulcan disaster. You save money on the Earth setting, you tie it into the movie storyline and you bring in young viewers with a cast of twentysomethings. FORGET THE PAST, THE FUTURE 3 FORGE Don’t worry about Kirk cameos, Spock surprises or those tired old aliens like Klingons and Romulans. This new Star Trek universe is a blank slate, so make it a space opera worth watching: Can we get a Starfleet that’s more Empire than U.N.? What lengths will Starfleet go to protect the galaxy and its interests? Can the students handle the training, course work and military academy life? What new threats does this deadly new Trek universe house? And what’s the balance of power like in the universe with no Vulcans? It’s time to go where no Trek show has gone before! • THE WIZARD STAFF
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Maybe Pike can end up in a wheelchair? Easter egg!