Those were the voyages...

Note: Spoilers about the series finale of “Enterprise” lie dead ahead.

Star Trek is over.
At least for now.
But, ironically enough, on Friday the 13th of May, the most recent Star Trek show -- "Enterprise" -- ended its four-year run. That means, for the first time since 1979, the Star Trek franchise doesn't have a new movie or television show in production.
And that's just too bad.
True, ratings for "Enterprise" had fallen, no doubt assisted by Paramount/UPN's decision to move the show to Friday nights, where good TV goes to die. Even the watch-anytime movement embodied by TiVo couldn't save Capt. Jonathan Archer and his intrepid crew, who had prequeled the original series by about 100 years.
Actors, and fans of the new show, were particularly disturbed about the way the show went out, with guest appearances by "Star Trek: The Next Generation" favorites Jonathan Frakes, as Cmdr. William Riker, and Marina Sirtis, as Counselor Deanna Troi.
The final episode of "Enterprise" unfolded against the backdrop of a seventh-season Next Gen episode called "The Pegasus," in which Riker's old captain (Adm. Eric Pressman, played by Terry O'Quinn, late of "Lost" fame) returns to retrieve an illegal Federation cloaking device from the U.S.S. Pegasus, stuck in an asteroid. It was a pretty good episode, in which Riker had to wrestle with Pressman's order to keep the controversial device secret. And why not? The advanced Federation cloaking device allowed ships to move through normal matter as well as remain invisible to sensors. I've often wished in rush-hour traffic that I had one of those bad boys for my car.
But the introduction of outsider characters did two terrible things: One, it reduced the final episode of what could be the final Star Trek series to a postscript of an 11-year-old episode of another show. The "Enterprise" crew unfolded in holodeck flashbacks as a way to help Riker work out his moral dilemma, with the death of a favorite “Enterprise” crew member and the founding of the United Federation of Planets almost as afterthoughts. And two, it implied that the fan base of "Enterprise" was insufficient to sustain even a final episode on its own, without help from another crew. No wonder the “Enterprise” cast resented the intrusion.
True, “Enterprise” had its problems. It's third-season foray into a distant region of space to stop a race intent on destroying Earth was intended to boost ratings, but it seemed like one, long, drawn out borefest. And the final-season arc about Archer and his crew fighting alien-assisted Nazis? Pure crap.
But Enterprise had its high points, too. It finally answered one of Star Trek's most enduring questions: Why did Klingons in Capt. Kirk's day look different than the ones we saw at the beginning of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"? True answer: Makeup budgets were bigger in 1979 than they were in 1966. Star Trek answer: A genetic mutation, created by an ancestor of the scientist who built Next Gen's Data. (Now THERE was a star appearance, by Brent Spiner, done right.)
Like all Star Trek series -- save, of course, for the original -- "Enterprise" borrowed from its predecessors. There was the fun two-part episode toward the end in which we saw the show unfold, from opening credits on, in the evil mirror universe, in which humans are bent on conquest and not peaceful exploration. (That episode was a two-fer, since "Enterprise"-era characters located the U.S.S. Defiant from the classic series episode "The Tholian Web," and used that advanced ship to kick some ass in their time. The speed with which they adapted to a ship 100 years more advanced than their own was a little distracting, and the ending just left us hanging, but it was a fun time overall.)
And, of course, the most tried, tired device in all of Star Trek -- time travel -- was overused.
Of all the series, "Enterprise" was the most boxed in. Star Trek history has been written, and thus the prequel crew couldn't really do much except meet for the first time species like Klingons, Gorn, Tholians, Orions, all with better makeup than the original. But they couldn't really explore new worlds, since we pretty much know about all of them. They couldn't really have cool phasers or advanced technology, since the original series didn't. (Still, those fully automatic blaster rifles were cooler than anything Kirk had.) And they couldn't go off in a new direction without bumping up against another show, or a movie, or some piece of Trek canon.
Still, their efforts were worthwhile, even if the show never really caught on with the public. A latter-day effort to save the show was ignored by Paramount, much unlike the decision back in the late 1960s to save the show from cancellation that spawned the entire enterprise that has come since.
History and better commentators than I will put the show in its place when it comes time for that. I rank the original at the top, since it was truly groundbreaking, with “Next Generation” following close behind. “Voyager” probably comes in next, since it sailed into what was truly a new universe (or new section of our galaxy, at least). “Enterprise” probably comes after that, with “Deep Space 9” bringing up the rear. (That show suffered so badly it needed to start a galactic war to survive.)
Has Star Trek lost its allure, after five series and 10 movies? Was the audience of 1966-1969 really so different than the audience of today? Has the culture changed too much, that the exploration of space and all the possibilities thereof are less interesting than seeing people eat bugs on "Fear Factor" or try to screw each other over on "The Apprentice"? If so, has Gene Roddenberry's vision of a world where people have evolved past their darker sides been lost forever? And if that's true, what does it say about us?
I hope it says that what fans and non-fans alike are waiting for is a show for 2005 and beyond that is truly as groundbreaking as the one in 1966. All that's lacking is imagination, creativity and a studio willing to put up a franchise in a place where it can compete and hold its own against everything else on TV, on DVD, and on the Internet.
The last time I checked, the science fiction section at the bookstore was crowded with Star Trek-inspired books, some based on the shows, some new. There are writers plowing these fields, so the talent exists, and so does the fan base.
At the end of the final episode of "Enterprise," the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D moves away from the asteroid field in which the Pegasus was untombed, as Patrick Stewart's voice begins the classic speech: "Space, the final frontier . These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission..." The mantra is picked up by William Shatner, over an image of the Enterprise from the original series, "...to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and new civilizations..." Finally, we cut to the Enterprise of "Enterprise," as Scott Bakula finishes: "...to boldly go where no man has gone before."
After all these years, and all these episodes, I still love those words, and the ethos they represent. Surely, I can't be the only one? Surely, this can’t be the end?