Trek Franchise

A new feature of TrekMovie.com, we take a look back on the news of the week reported here and elsewhere. Trek XI: The big news of the week was our report that JJ Abrams confirmed that Kirk will indeed ‘appear’ in Star Trek XI. This along with his ‘message to the fans‘ last weekend shows a bit of a growing openness on Abrams part. The only other movie news was a brief mention of Star Trek XI in Variety, where it was listed as one of the big movies that Paramount has high hopes for in the next year.

In the latest issue of Star Trek Magazine, Trek’s longtime producer Rick Berman has a sort of ‘exit interview.’ The interview was conducted last December, shortly before he packed up to vacate his offices on the Paramount lot after 22 years with the studio. When asked if he is considering writing about about his experiences not only did he say he would, but he has already started… I have started writing a book because I realized that in 1986, when Gene Roddenberry asked me to get involved  in work with him on this thing, the number of stories that I have accumulated is amazing.

The History Channel is taking a break from its regular schedule of shows on ancient Rome and World War II to take a look at the history of Star Trek. They are running two documentaries, the first of which ‘Star Trek Tech’ will air tonight (Sunday) at 9pm. ‘Tech’ is a regular show that devotes each episode the the technology of a particular time period or event or in this case a fictional universe. The second and bigger documentary is ‘Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier’, a two hour retrospective on Trek hosted by Leonard Nimoy (airing Monday at 9 pm). ‘Beyond the Final Frontier’ focuses much of its attention on the Christies auction and includes interviews with actors from each of the Trek series, but notably not William Shatner. There are already some reviews in on the longer doc and so far they are mixed at best.

In honor of the new year TrekMovie presents some of the most memorable moments of Trek drinking. So sit back and toast to the new year with our list.   Click more for the list      

In 2003 the British ITV program ‘After They Were Famous’ did an episode on Star Trek, focusing on the Original Series. It includes interviews with all the cast alive at the time (including Doohan)  as well as Bob Justman and Herb Solow. It has a lot of behind the scenes footage as well. It is now up on YouTube (in four parts…click more for parts 2-4)

As we reported recently Star Trek had 3 entries on TV Land’s list of Top 100 TV catchphrases. Here are William Shatner, Marina Sirtis, George Takei, LeVar Burton, and Wil Wheaton (along with a collection of quasi-celebrities) discussing "Resistance is Futile", "Live Long and Prosper" and "Space the Final Frontier…"

In the latest issue of the official Star Trek Magazine, Trek’s long-time producer Rick Berman talks about the end of his era. SciFi Pulse has excepts from the article where Berman defends his tenure and discusses why the last Trek TV show (Enterprise) failed. Berman says that the rumors of his hating The Original Series (TOS) are not true, but that doesn’t mean he has seen all of it: There was a feeling that Enterprise was going to be a show that was a precursor to The Original Series, and although I’ve read a lot of depictions of both Brannon and myself ‘hating’ the original series, that could not be farther from the truth. We were not obsessed by the original series. I can openly admit that I did not see all 79 episodes of the original series, or 80 if you include the various versions of the pilot, but it was something we respected and did our best to lead up to. But I think that was something that was unsettling for the fans. Not to jump on the ‘bash Bermaga bandwagon’, but it is not unreasonable to expect the creators and producers of a TOS prequel to have at least seen all of TOS.