Lower Decks

“The Expanse” had already prepared fans for what they could expect in the fall of 2003, when ‘Enterprise’ would take Star Trek for its most sustained serialized storytelling ever, an entire season of a single arc. ‘Deep Space Nine’ had done direct stretches of six and ten hours, sure, and famously had the most involved writing in franchise history, but this was going to be more ambitious still. Would it be enough to win back the interest of viewers?

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Like every other Star Trek before it, ‘Enterprise’ spent its second year in apparent ignorance that its original approach wasn’t connecting with fans, which at this point was either really a problem with viewers or really a problem with the creators (isn’t it a little hard to understand, putting it into such stark language?), but probably not both (but then again, probably both). Either way, the season began in 2002, which was notable as also seeing the release of ‘Star Trek Nemesis,’ the final ‘Next Generation’ film, to incredible apathy (and some outright vitriol), which helps mark this year as the hammering of the final nail of the coffin in this incarnation of the franchise. History, really, was just repeating itself. The original series probably would have been more of an actual success if it had been able to truly capitalize on that second chance. But it didn’t, and by that point, the third really didn’t matter. Wasn’t that just true of ‘Enterprise,’ too?

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Everyone remembers the fall of 2001. The new millennium wasted little time in making history, and Star Trek had nothing to do with it. Yet that’s also when the fifth live action TV series in franchise history launched, at the time hotly anticipated, at last a moment when all the fans seemed to be buzzing with positive energy again, arguably for the first time since 1993, when ‘Deep Space Nine’ launched. Yet the enthusiasm, as everyone would soon realize, would be short-lived.

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In the fall of 2000, ‘Voyager’ began its seventh and final season in a unique position. Unlike ‘Next Generation,’ which reached the same point with massive popularity but low on creative energy, or ‘Deep Space Nine,’ rearing on the strength of a critically approved sixth season and faced with the daunting task of wrapping up everything it had been working on throughout the series, ‘Voyager’ was relatively free of expectations, and was thus free to bow out however it liked. To say more of the same would be very deceptive indeed.

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In the fall of 1999, ‘Voyager’ began its final two seasons as the only Star Trek anyone would see at that time, a novelty that was lost on fans who had already grown jaded. Its sixth season would in fact turn out to be its least popular, which was not so surprising, given the circumstances. It was also a downright shame.

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The 1998-1999 season was the last time Star Trek would overlap itself on TV, ending a seven year stretch that saw the franchise reach the apex of its cultural appeal at the time, and its steady decline. ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ would be released in the middle of the season, marking the first of two nails in the coffin of the film series from this incarnation, proving that even the once-mighty ‘Next Generation’ crew was not immune from this loss of interest, even though, two years earlier, it had just reached perhaps its widest mark of approval with ‘Star Trek: First Contact.’ So while ‘Deep Space Nine’ completed its seven year run, ‘Voyager’ was about to find out if it could carry the weight of expectations. Its fifth season would be crucial indeed.

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For some reason, Star Trek was never really good about changing cast members. The original series completely recast itself once, but it was between pilots, so no one ever really knew, before adding Chekov (the shaggy-headed Russian meant to boost popularity) in the second season. ‘Next Generation’ lost Yar in the first season, switched doctors in the second (before quickly switching back in the third). ‘Deep Space Nine’ brought in Worf in its fourth. But it’s safe to say that no Star Trek ever affected a complete reinvention with the addition of a single character like ‘Voyager’ did with Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).

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In the fall of 1996, the franchise was celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, which was an event every incarnation got to celebrate. But perhaps more importantly, ‘Next Generation’ got to enjoy its most obvious parting gifts to the two shows that immediately succeeded it, thanks to the success of that winter’s ‘Star Trek: First Contact.’ Midway through its fifth season, ‘Deep Space Nine’ inherited the distinctive new movie’s uniforms. And midway through its third, ‘Voyager’ inherited the Borg.

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This is as far away from traditional wisdom as I’m willing to go: no Star Trek had a better second season than ‘Voyager.’ Flush from a strong push in the early months of 1995, and thanks to some production and network quirks, a few episodes from that early run were held back for the new season that started in the fall, but even from that point, the show only seemed to grow stronger and more bold, building the first true long arc of the franchise, at the same time that ‘Deep Space Nine’ was only just getting the hang of the Dominion, and getting a tad scuttled in its own efforts by the same studio (remember that ‘Voyager’ debuted during the other show’s third season, and so was in its second season as the older show went on to its fourth, with the debut of Worf and infusion of Klingons). How’s that for revisionism?

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In 1995, Paramount achieved its greatest dream buy launching its own TV network with a Star Trek, something it had been trying to do since the 1970s. That show was ‘Voyager,’ conceived to replace ‘Next Generation’ as a traditional space-faring adventure and contrast to ‘Deep Space Nine.’ But it wouldn’t be entirely episodic, since it was equipped with the high concept of a Starfleet crew abandoned far from home, and forced to join with rebels who had previously rejected everything it had stood for.

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