Where An Old Series Has Gone Before by Michael Lee

You may have heard by now about the Excelsior Campaign, which a bunch of Star Trek fans started in an attempt to bring Star Trek "back to its roots". With the end of Voyager in sight, and no formal plans for a new Star Trek series or movie announced, this is an attempt to make sure that Star Trek doesn't die. This new series would have Captain Hikaru Sulu in the Excelsior, in the wake of Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country.

My thought on it is that is so much the wrong direction for the series to go, it can't be believed.

I've been disappointed with Star Trek lately -- I haven't watched Voyager in well over a year, as I found the episodes to be less and less appealing, and the series more and more stuck in neutral, with the cheap eye candy of Seven of Nine as one of the few reasons to watch. After the triumphs of Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, I've lost complete interest in Voyager.

One of the positive things that Star Trek has done is that each series is new. When Next Generation started, it was not a remake of the original Star Trek with the same characters, even if some of the first season scripts were the same. The links were not that strong -- and as such, it created a series that was more successful than the oriinal series, and arguably more popular with the general public. A new Trek should do the same thing -- and bringing back an old character -- the oldest Star Trek captain by far -- would not be a step forward. It was a wise decision to set Next Generation so many years afterwards and to keep the links to a minimum.

Now, I'm not sure I like the other rumored rejected future Star Trek series either. A Starfleet Academy series, while perhaps a logical fit for a network like UPN, would likely appeal to neither fans nor the teen audience that they would want to target. But the solution isn't to make a character based revival; instead it should create new characters, new worlds, and new frontiers.

I'm also bothered by the militaristic approach that the Excelsior Campaign is taking -- describing their plans as an "attack on Paramount". This can't be appealing to Paramount; they've got to be convinced that this is being run by a bunch of well connected Trekkies, and not representative of the broader audience necessary for any series to survive in today's competative climate. Picketing television stations is not going to get you what you want -- just a reputation of being a difficult minority of people who let their enthusiasm get the better of them. The vast majority of the people they want to attract to any new series will not picket for any television show; they know that, and they also know that the opinions of a vocal minority do not necessarily match what would be the most successful (and profitable) use of their resources.

Perhaps Star Trek should take a break from high profile projects for several years -- in the past 12 years, they've produced 20 seasons of television and several feature films. This wouldn't be the death of Star Trek -- it is too valuable a franchise, too rich of a universe, to sit unused for long. But a twenty first century Star Trek should try something fresh, not go back to characters and situations from over thirty years ago. A new Star Trek series should boldly go where no series has gone before. That would be more fitting for Gene Roddenberry's legacy.

I'm sure some of you will disagree with me here -- if so, go ahead to the site at http://excelsior.iftcommand.com/ and let them know that you think the best way to present the future is by going back to the past.

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