Lower Decks

Contrary to popular belief, Star Trek did not enter the movie business simply because of the success of ‘Star Wars’ in 1977 (with apocryphal accounts suggesting Paramount more or less remarking, “What’ve we got like that?”). Gene Roddenberry, the fans, and even the studio that had seen the original series apparently run its course after [...]

The fall of 2004 marked the dawn of a whole new era in genre programming, with the debut of ‘Lost,’ which, at least temporarily, opened the floodgates to networks becoming receptive to wild ideas, bold concepts, and big stories. But wide audiences weren’t flocking to sci-fi, at least not in the traditional sense, at least [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 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 [...]