A Brief Guide to Star Trek

classic starship’s name. Rick Berman, co-creator of
Enterprise
, noted: ‘We’ve had so many
Star Trek
entities that were called “
Star Trek
-colon-something”. Our feeling was, in trying to make this show dramatically different, that it might be fun not to have a divided main title. If there’s one word that says
Star Trek
without actually saying
Star Trek
, it’s
Enterprise
.’
    The title sequence and theme tune were also radical departures from
Star Trek
tradition. Rather than the usual trip through space,
Enterprise
opened with a montage of historical flights, craft and aviation pioneers, leading up to the iconic first spacecraft to bear the title. A
Star Trek
theme tune featured vocals for the first time, from opera singer Russell Watson. The chosen song, ‘Faith of the Heart’ by Diane Warren, had been used previously (in a performance by Rod Stewart) in the Robin Williams movie
Patch Adams
.
    This radical iconoclasm was deliberate on the part of
StarTrek
’s long-serving producers, who were keen to differentiate
Enterprise
from all the
Star Trek
shows and movies that had come before – especially
Voyager
, a show widely regarded as a failure. This
Star Trek
would ‘belong’ to Berman and Brannon Braga, completely free of any of Gene Roddenberry’s forty-year-old trappings. Even though the pair had the opportunity of putting their unimpeded stamp on a new
Star Trek
show, Berman was not initially enthused by the idea. ‘You could take too many trips to the well, you could squeeze too many eggs out of the golden goose, but [it was] made very clear to me that if I did not do this they would ask someone else to.’
    From the beginning, the new show failed to connect with the majority of fans and more casual viewers alike, rapidly losing almost half of the first episode’s 12.5 million audience. ‘
Enterprise
was embraced, but by a smaller audience’, admitted Berman, talking to startrek.com. ‘Whoever came up with the term “franchise fatigue” was right, there was definitely some of that. There was just too much going on at the same time. By then,
Deep Space Nine
had ended,
Voyager
was still on the air, a third
The Next Generation
movie was coming out, and there was definitely a feeling that maybe we were pushing it. It was the fourth
Star Trek
series in a decade. The prequel idea was good – going back and learning something about what went on for the very first people who were stepping out into space . . . it seemed to us to be a great idea.’
    When the time came to create a fifth live-action
Star Trek
series, all those involved were certainly aware that it would not be possible simply to dish up more of the same formula that had gone out under the
Star Trek
banner for twenty years. Since the debut of
The Next Generation
,
Star Trek
had grown ever more dense. This complexity of the fictional universe was a key attraction for many of the series’ die-hard fans, who were deeply involved with it, but it was equally off-putting for the large, more casual viewing audience who felt it might now be difficult to understand
Star Trek
after twenty years of previously accumulated storytelling. Each subsequent series following
The Next Generation
had played to diminishing returns, with ratingsfalling and cultural impact lessened. It was never likely that either
Deep Space Nine
or
Voyager
would follow the first two
Star Trek
series to the big screen. Many people knew the characters of
Star Trek
and
The Next Generation
– often through the clichéd perception of their catchphrases – but few had the same knowledge of, or affection for, Sisko or Janeway and their respective crews and antagonists. Arguably, it was only the frequent appearances of the Borg on
Voyager
that had kept the show afloat for its final three years, rather than any intrinsic liking for the characters among viewers.
    It was clear that any new
Star Trek
show would have to be radically different, yet would have to still retain those core elements that made it the
Star Trek
of popular perception. Neither a series featuring the adventures of Captain Sulu or the repeatedly suggested Starfleet Academy idea were deemed to have the potential popular impact required. To avoid entanglements with the rich, deep and detailed twenty-fourth century back-story, Berman and Braga decided to go back to basics, to recreate what had made the original 1960s
Star Trek
such a long-lasting cultural phenomenon. They would go one step further than