Since the cancellation of ST:ENT, or as it is more commonly know as, Enterprise on UPN, fans are hungry for more Trek. Starting with ST:TOS (The Original Series of the 1960's with Kirk), and ST:TNG (The Next Generation with Picard) along with the movies, it hasn't been uncommon for fans to fantasize about being in Star Trek by writing their own stories or publishing fan magazines or fanzines or zines as they are known as. I myself have been a Trek fan or Trekker (not to be confused with little girls who love anything with Vulcan ears called Trekkies, there IS a difference) since I watched TOS on NBC in the 1960's, anything new about Star Trek will at least cause me to take a pause if nothing else. During the mid 1980's through this last TV season, there has not been so much of this fan driven activity due to something related to Star Trek being in major production for the last 20 years continuously (ST:TNG, ST:DS9 - Deep Space Nine, ST:VOY - Voyager and finally ST:ENT and the movies).
With the cancellation of ST:ENT last year, fans raised money to continue it just to find out that Paramount, the owner of the rights, had decided it was time to give Star Trek a rest. This restarted the fan driven activity of the past. In those bygone days of the 70's and early 80's, many fan stories were created and past around via mail and conventions. This did continue through the last 20 years, but not as much as before. Now with the Internet, the worship websites turned into new fan material factories. With the cost of camcorders and computer editing software in the range of everyday people, fans began to create their own Star Trek episodes and started to post them on the Internet. These fan created webisodes were not much more than home movies with bed sheets and cardboard phasers battling aliens in the backyard. But Star Trek has been around for 40 years and has influenced many people in the entertainment industry and they began to come together to pay homage to Star Trek through their own stories and webisodes.
One fan took it one step further. A man named James Cawley had friends in the industry. He had been collecting TOS props over a ten year period and had gotten the original set building plans and with his own money and help from other fans time and money, rebuilt the original sets of the Kirk era with the idea of one day continuing the stories of the original series. NBC had cancelled Star Trek after only 3 seasons. Cawley's idea was to begin production again with season 4 of TOS with fans portraying the classic characters, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. In 2004, he and Max Rem produced "Come What May" a story about two aliens who basically do a good cop, bad cop where one menaces a planet and then the other one saves them. The actor John Winston, who played Transporter Chief Kyle in the original series had a cameo as a star ship captain and Cawley himself portraying James Kirk. Cawley created a website called www.startreknewvoyages.com to promote and distribute the webisode. The actual story wasn't a bad one (I enjoyed it), and the production was head and shoulders above anything anyone else had done, but it still wasn't anywhere near even the campy original series. Cawley had industry professionals helping, but in order to get his dream made, Paramount would only allow him to use the Star Trek banner if no money was made. That meant that everyone involved could not be paid and had to donate their time and money to participate. The CGI computer special effects were certainly above anything the original series had enjoyed, many of the props were originals used on the series and the sets were so good, you expected to see William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy themselves coming out of the Turbolift on to the Bridge. But the script was not very tight and the acting, was in many places, not very good being that most of the actors had either never acted before or were not up on the original series and the interplay of the characters. It was a cross between Wayne's World and an indie film. But the fans wanted more and wanted to be a part of it.
In 2005 Cawley and Rem produced another webisode entitled "In Harms Way" a sequel to the second season episode "The Doomsday Machine" with William Windom in a cameo reprising his role of Commodore Matt Decker from that second season episode. Also appearing in this webisode is BarBara Luna who appeared in the second season episode "Mirror, Mirror" where she played the "Captain's Woman" in the parallel universe and to round out the cameos of former Trek actors appearing as a Klingon, Malachi Throne who portrayed Commodore Jose Mendez in season one's two parter "The Menagerie." This webisode was better than the first and the acting was better, still not ready for prime time, but with the cast beginning to gel along with the former Trek actors, people in the business began to take notice including Gene Roddenberry's son Roddy Roddenberry who was a Consulting Producer on this webisode.
For 2006, Cawley and company landed ST:TOS's Executive Story Editor and writer of many well known Star Trek scripts from TOS, the animated series, and TNG. D.C. (Dorothy) Fontana and reprising his role from TOS and the movies, Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov for a webisode entitled "To Serve All My Days." It is scheduled to be released on Septemberer 8, the 40 anniversary of the premier of ST:TOS on NBC.Mr Koenig, in a podcast interview, admitted that he was contacted by Mr Cawley and looked at "Come What May" and "In Harms Way" and while it was not up to the standards he was used to, he said he saw something unique and had to be a part of it, even if it meant he had to pay his way onto the set, like everyone else. He contacted Dorothy Fontana about writing a script and they began to talk to others formally connected with Star Trek in various forms.
For the next webisode "World Enough and Time" that starts shooting later this year, George Takei will reprise his character of helmsman Hikaru Sulu. Also appearing with Mr Takei is Grace Lee Whitney who played the Captain's Yeoman, Janice Rand the first season. "World Enough And Time" is being co-authored by Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves. Mr Zicree wrote several DS9 episodes, the TNG episode "First Contact" along with the Babylon 5 episode "Survivors" just to name a few of his many credits. Mr Reaves credits includes a writing stint on "The New Batman Adventures", TNG episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" as well as many animated sci fi series and the Twilightht Zone episode "Nightsong".
But that doesn't signal the end of former Trek people becoming involved with ST:New Voyages. The writer of second season episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" David Gerrold has signed up for two scripts along with Ron B. Moore who is perhaps best known for his visual effects supervision on TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise and the feature film, "Generations". His film credits include: "Ghostbusters", "2010", "Frightnight", "Solarbabies" and "Moonstruck". Mr Moore will be supervising future ST:NV special effects. And even more former Trek types are coming on board. The actor who portrayeded Commander Sirol in the "Pegasus" episode of ST:TNG, Michael Mack, who's other credits include "Outerworld", "Head Of State", "The West Wing", "The Wire" and a recurring role on "The Young & The Restless." Mr Mack is also an acting coach. Former DS9 writers Jack Trevino and Ethan Calk have agreed to write this script.
But non Trek types in the industry want in as well. Leslie Silva, who was a lead on the recent Showtime series "Odyssey 5" has been cast as a guest star in the webisode "World Enough And Time."
So even though none of the above mentioned people will be paid for their efforts, it is quite clear that Mr Cawley and Mr Rem have caught fire in a bottle with many of the past Trek people wanting to be a part of this fan driven project.
With original TOS standing sets available, Sky Douglas Conway, head of PlanetXpo and producer of "Lady Magdalene's" and the "Roddenberry on Patrol" short films, has announced he will be producing a script written by himself along with Jack Trevino and Ethan Calk called "Star Trek: Of Gods and Men". This will be a 3 part miniseries using the ST:NV sets and in cooperation with ST:NV for technical support and additional actors. Staring in this indie web mini series are Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig reprising their roles as Uhura and Chekov, but in the post-Kirk time of Enterprise-B captain John Harriman, reprised by Alan Ruck. Tim Russ will direct, and will also appear as a younger Tuvok. The film will include other performances by Garrett Wang (Harry Kim of Enterprise), Chase Masterson (Leeta of DS9), Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand of TOS), Gary Graham (Soval of Enterprise as well as credits in JAG, Crossing Jordan, Walker, Texas Ranger, Ally McBeal, just to name a few) and Crystal Allen (from the ST:ENT episode "Bound" along with credits from The Sopranos, NCIS, Boston Legal, Sex In The City and Ed just to name a few), along with some special "surprise" guests. If the music industry is afraid of artists bypassing the traditional record companies for the Internet to distribute their products, the same could be said that when the big media companies do not deliver the video content the public wants, the public will make it for themselves. Who knows, ST:NV may be the next "official" Star Trek when Paramount brings the franchise back in a few years.
There is another large website that has been doing Star Trek fan webisodes called Hidden Frontier from the time period immediately after TNG movies and along side Voyager. But that site appears to be in a time of change with several of their technical people and actors moving to ST:NV.
In the mean time, it appears that ST:NV is the place to be if you are into Star Trek. If you can get past William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy not playing Kirk and Spock, can put up with some actors who are not as polished as you might like, but some stories with real heart and feeling as if "The Great Bird" himself had written them, then you must check out Star Trek: New Voyages at http://www.startreknewvoyages.com.
Don't worry, even though none of the actors try to immitate the original actors, James Cawley does a good Bill Shatner even when he isn't trying.
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