The New York Times > Opinion > An End to the Enterprise

The New York Times > Opinion > An End to the Enterprise: "By the middle of May, the 'Star Trek' franchise will be no more, having died a death as long and lingering as -- well, insert your favorite Trekkie long-and-lingering-death simile here. UPN has decided to bring 'Star Trek: Enterprise' - the latest version of the saga - to an end and to give the whole idea of 'Star Trek' a creative rest. The producers of the show have rejected a hopeless last-ditch effort to raise funds directly from fans to continue production. The original 'Star Trek' series proved what a little imagination, a little patience and a lot of plywood and foam core could do for televised science fiction. It ran for only three seasons on NBC in the late 1960's but attracted a devoted following that seems, somehow, to have replicated itself by cloning. It also inspired four additional series, 10 'Star Trek' movies and a delightful parody called 'Galaxy Quest,' starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, which flirted momentarily with the nihilistic possibility that a television show about space might merely be a television show about space. For 'Star Trek' fans, a future with no 'Star Trek' at all must seem as empty as one of those great space voids the ever-endangered starship Enterprise kept getting sucked into. But somewhere, a TV executive is undoubtedly repeating the slogan about going where no one has gone before - and wondering how to make that idea about direct fan-financing work."