Trek's problem? It wasn't enough like Galactica

July 14, 2005, www.signonsandiego.com

It's tantamount to heresy.

A panel of Star Trek experts and enthusiasts said Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con that the reason the now-canceled Enterprise series cast the future of the franchise in doubt was that it wasn't enough like the gritty new Battlestar Galactica.

"Galactica is made like a contemporary television show. It can measure up to any show on television right now," said Jeff Bond, author of The Music of Star Trek and executive editor of Eon Magazine.

Star Trek shows -- even the critically acclaimed Star Trek: Deep Space 9 -- never evolved much past the episodic, alien-of-the-week approach of the original 1960s series, panelists said.

And, unlike the original series, which reflected the social turmoil of 1960s America, later Trek shows became increasingly about spatial anomalies and other oddities, said Robert Meyer Burnett, director of Free Enterprise, a 1999 feature film about a pair of dysfunctional Trek fans.

"Battlestar Galactica is basically a naval show set in space. It's World War II," Burnett said. "Star Trek used to be about our world. Now, it's not 'real'."

"That's because the Cylons look like us now," quipped Daren Dochterman, producer of the special edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, referring to Galactica's switch from the chrome-plated robots of the 1970s show to humanoids such as the seductive No. 6.

"Daren, the Cylons don't look anything like you or I," Burnett retorted.

Episodes of the survival-epic Galactica have dealt with contemporary issues such as suicide bombers, civil rights, torture and the paranoia of a society fearing infiltration by those who wish to destroy it.

"We need to ask the tough questions because the press isn't," Burnett said. "And Galactica has attempted to do that."

Much of the audience of roughly 800 Trek fans shuffled uneasily at the criticism of their iconic show. A few booed at the praise for Galactica and applauded when Deep Space 9 was heralded.

One problem with Enterprise was its bait-and-switch marketing, promising to bridge the gap between today's Space Shuttle technology and the star-spanning era of Captain Kirk and Spock, said Bill Hunt, editor of digitalbits.com, which focuses on DVD technology. And Enterprise quickly dropped that premise.

Another was the lack of joy among the characters, Dochterman said.

"When Captain Kirk is sitting there in the command chair, leaning forward, he looks like he's enjoying himself," Dochterman said. Whereas Scott Bakula's Captain Archer always looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.

A meandering plot and lack of character development for the first three seasons didn't help, Bond said.

"It wasn't a show where I felt like I wanted to tune in and spend time with these people," he said.

And by the time Manny Coto revamped the show as executive producer during its fourth and final season, it was too late.

Panelists said it seemed unlikely Paramount would revive Trek within the next few years, though the network might be pressured by the growth of independent fan films distributed over the Internet.

"We need to let Star Trek die for now. We know it will come back, just like Spock," Dochterman said.