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What is Star Trek?

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FINAL FRONTIER

Launched
21 December 2004

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The fifth Trek TV series, and brainchild of
Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

Set 150 years before the start of the original
series, Enterprise, which was on the air for
four seasons in the United States, began
in 2001. Taking its starting point as the
meeting between humans and Vulcans
depicted in Star Trek: First Contact, the
show acts as a prequel to each of the other
shows and films.

Immediate fan reaction to such an endeavour
was concerned with "canon", the mystical
term used by Trekkers to refer to the body of
work which makes up the Trek universe's
future history and lore. Brannon Braga had
built himself a reputation over the years of
his involvement with Trek for a disregard for
canon, but, by and large, fans' fears were
proven unfounded. Enterprise was a generally
strong show with a strong cast (for the most
part), despite the recurrence of the babe in a
catsuit syndrome in the form of first officer
T'Pol (Jolene Blalock). Enterprise delivered
what may have been the most consistently
high-quality season of episodes since the
heyday of The Next Generation with its third year, which depicted the crew racing against time to stop an alien species from destroying Earth with a weapon of mass destruction.

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Star Trek executive producer Rick Berman

"To me, the most important element of Star Trek, the thing
that's made it endure and made it so popular over three and a
half decades, is that it portrays a very hopeful and positive
view of the future ... Star Trek has always painted a picture of
the future that people can look forward to and people can wish
that they were a part of." Rick Berman

To some people, Star Trek means Kirk, Spock, McCoy, the rickety
cardboard 'rocks' of the 60s sets. To others, it means Patrick Stewart's
Shakespearian Captain Picard and the Borg. Still others remember it
for Avery Brooks' strength as Ben Sisko and Deep Space Nine's gritty
depiction of war and friendship. Trek is many things and takes many
forms. It can also be monolithic and incomprehensible. How can a Trekker (or Trekkie - you see?) hold that much encyclopedic knowledge in their head all at once? Star Trek: Phase II? Star Trek VI? Star Trek Generations? What is all this and what does it mean?

Allow us to explain ...

What is ... Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS)?

The original cast. L-R: James Doohan (Scotty); DeForrest Kelley (Dr McCoy); Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov); Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (Nurse Chapel); William Shatner (Captain Kirk); Nichelle Nichols (Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Spock); and George Takei (Sulu)

The series that started it all. Conceived
by Gene Roddenberry in the early 1960s
as a means by which to consider
possible solutions to contemporary
political and ethical dilemmas without
fear of network censorship, Star Trek's
pioneering spirit is encapsulated in the
pitch phrase: "Wagon Train to the stars".
The first pilot, "The Cage", was rejected
by network NBC in 1964 for being "too
cerebral", but in an unprecedented move
the executives ordered a second pilot
(unheard of at the time). The second
attempt, "Where No Man Has Gone
Before", sold the series, the first
season of which aired in 1966-7.

Starring William Shatner as Captain
James Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock
and DeForrest Kelley as Dr Leonard
'Bones' McCoy, the undeniable charm of the series captivated a generation. Although it was twice earmarked for cancellation, massive letter-writing campaigns kept the series on the air for three years. Despite a distinct downturn in quality in its waning days and disputes between production staff, the original series remains beloved by millions. Fans of the spin-off series often display a snobbish attitude to the original show, which they would do well to watch to remind themselves where some of the plots of the spin-offs come from.

What is ... Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS)?

The original series cast as rendered in TAS

The fan pressure to resurrect Star
Trek in some form gained greater and
greater momentum in the 1970s.
Massive conventions, where 2,000
people were expected but 20,000
turned up, formed just a part of an
increasingly active - and vocal - fanbase.

In 1973, "the animated adventures of
Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek" began
a two-year stint on children's television.
Despite being advertised as 'for kids,'
the animated show boasted the
voices of the entire original cast bar
Walter Koenig (although he scripted
an episode) and most of the principal
production team from TOS. The series
has tended to be ignored in official
canon, although references to it have
made their way into certain episodes of the spin-off series, like Enterprise's "Fallen Hero". Final Frontier includes the animated series in its chronology of the Star Trek universe.

What is ... Star Trek: Phase II?

Before the plans to produce Star Trek: The Motion Picture took shape in the late 1970s, the idea of going ahead with a second live-action TV series was seriously considered. Entitled, variously, Star Trek II, Star Trek: Phase II or a number of other monikers, this new show would bring back the original series cast alongside some new crewmembers, such as Xon (who would replace Spock) and Ilia, a Deltan woman who would later find a role in The Motion Picture. The plans for a new series were shelved in the wake of the success at the cinema of Star Wars, and Paramount plumped for a big screen adventure instead.

What is ... Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG)?

The regular TNG cast. L-R: Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher); Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker); Brent Spiner (Data); Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi); Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard); Michael Dorn (Lieutenant Worf); Gates McFadden (Dr Crusher); LeVar Burton (George La Forge)

A series of films wasn't
enough for the fans of Trek, or
for Paramount, who saw that
the money-making potential
of Star Trek was huge. In
1986, Gene Roddenberry
got the green light to try and
"catch lightning in a bottle
twice," as Leonard Nimoy put
it, by creating Star Trek: The
Next Generation, set ninety
years after the original show
with a new crew and a new
starship Enterprise.

Led by Patrick Stewart's
Jean-Luc Picard and Brent
Spiner's android Data - who
became the principle
secondary character in the
TNG-related movies that
followed the series' 1987-
1994 run - the first Trek
spin-off made huge waves
on television. In fact, the series is largely responsible for the 1990s boom, in TV SF, paving as it did the way for The X-Files, the Outer Limits remake and networks' willingness to commission shows like Dark Skies and Roswell. Oh, and it led to three more Trek spin-offs.

What is ... going on with all these movies?

When Star Trek: Phase II was ditched in favour of a movie, the result was Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), a bloated philosophical treatise which seemed to return to the more cerebral nature of "The Cage". Nevertheless, the fans wanted more, and boy did they get it. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) form a trilogy. The Wrath of Khan is a particular fan favourite when it comes to the Trek movies.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) was William Shatner's turn in the director's chair after Leonard Nimoy had directed Treks III and IV - but his film received a critical mauling. Most of the original cast bowed out, older and wrinklier, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), which addressed the contemporary detente between the US and the USSR by having the Federation make peace with its nemesis, the Klingon Empire.

Kirk, Scotty and Chekov returned for cameos in Star Trek Generations (1994), which passed the cinematic torch to The Next Generation and killed off William Shatner's charismatic captain. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) featured Trek's most lethal bad guys, the cybernetic Borg, and was rewarded by being one of the best loved of all the Trek films. 1998's Star Trek: Insurrection was a much weaker offering, with a weighty philosophical element, despite lush cinematography. December 2002 saw the release of Star Trek: Nemesis, which was billed by Paramount - much to Rick Berman's surprise - as "A generation's final journey".

What is ... Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9)?

Before his death in 1991,
Gene Roddenberry gave
his blessing to Rick Berman
and Michael Piller to begin
the creation of a second
spin-off series, the end
result being Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine. For the
first time, a Star Trek series
would take place not
aboard a starship but on a
space station. Consequences
would have to be dealt with
"properly" for the first time
in the Trek universe.

For seven seasons, from
1993 to 2001, DS9's cast,
led by Trek's first starring
black captain in Avery
Brooks, drew an unhappy
picture of a society at war,
forced into uneasy alliances
and existing in a galactic
realpolitik which all too often
reflected the uncertain
post-Cold War era of 20th century Earth. By season seven's close, DS9 had the most fiercely loyal fanbase of any Star Trek series, and could boast some of the franchise's finest and most thought-provoking episodes.

The principal cast of DS9. Back row, L-R: Michael Dorn (Worf); Alexander Siddig (Dr Julian Bashir); Terry Farrell (Jadzia Dax); Colm Meaney (Chief Miles O'Brien). Middle row, L-R: Armin Shimerman (Quark); Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko). Front row, L-R: Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys); Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko); Rene Auberjonois (Odo)

What is ... Star Trek: Voyager (VGR)?

The fourth Star Trek TV series,
Voyager was created by Rick
Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri
Taylor.

Running from 1995 to 2001,
Voyager told the story of a
Federation starship captained by
Trek's first starring female
commanding officer, Kathryn
Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), which
was lost 75 years' travel from
friendly space. Often held by critics
to be the weakest of the Trek
series, Voyager compromised
itself, perhaps fatally, by virtue
of an unoriginal premise (at least,
outside of Trek), the brushing
aside of the tension aboard ship
that should have resulted when
professional Starfleet men and
women were thrown together
with terrorists to survive, and
the introduction of a babe in a
catsuit in the form of Jeri Ryan's
Seven of Nine. On the other hand,
that character did provide some
of Voyager's most potent
storylines, and the raison d'etre
of virtually the entirety of seasons
four to seven (including that of
the series finale, "Endgame").
Even this, however, gave rise
to concerns that Voyager had
undermined the authority of Trek's
deadliest villains - the Borg - by
having the crew beat them time
and again, dispelling any notion of tension or danger.

The Voyager cast. L-R: Ethan Phillips (Neelix); Jennifer Lien (Kes); Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim); Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway); Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris); Roxann Dawson (B'Elanna Torres); Tim Russ (Tuvok); Robert Beltran (Chakotay); Robert Picardo (The Doctor). Inset: Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine

What is ... Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT)?

The crew of the first Starship Enterprise. Upper level (L-R): Connor Trineer (Charles Tucker); Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer); T'Pol). Lower level (L-R): John Billingsley (Phlox); Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather); Linda Park (Hoshi Sato); Dominic Keating (Malcolm Reed)