New Trek series full of Enterprise?
01/06/2001 . Source: Jessica Martin 

Well, events in the Trek world are moving on a-pace, some might even say at warp speed. The new TV Star Trek series is - unfortunately - as we leaked, due to be set in the early past of the Federation, 150 years before Kirk even got his first wig fitted.

Buy Star Trek Enterprise in the USA - or Buy Star Trek Enterprise in the UK

Judging by the results of last month's poll, a surprisingly massive - to us - 67% of you thought that setting the series in the past would be an excellent idea, and no, you don't mind harking back to the past. As long as you get new Trek, that is.

The new series name looks like it is now set in stone as simply 'Enterprise', or to use the series' catch-phrase … "Enterprise: Back to where it all began".

Enterprise will have it's premiere in the Autumn of this year. This looks like quite a mighty ambitious schedule to us, and suggests that Rick Berman and Braga have - as we leaked a while back - had their plot concepts sorted out a long time ago. By the time you read this, filming will now already started for the new series' first episode pilot, Broken Bow.

Broken Bow features the first contact with the Klingons - which rather raises the question as to whether we are going to see them in the knobbly headed mode of STNG, or as the grey skinned russian-oriental looking baddies of Kirk's day. The former, we suspect, is far more likely. The series is actually set pre-Federation, so the UFP is still a gleam in some Terran politician's eye.

Scott ' Quantum Leap' Bakula has definitely wrinkled out some of his more bothersome work commitments to confirm he will indeed be filling the skipper's chair, playing Captain Jonathan Archer. His character is said to be a bit of a 'throw the rulebook away' rascal.

In a nod to both the original Trek, and the revealed history that it was the Vulcans that kick-started a nuked humanity back on the road to progress, the skipper's second in command will be a pointy-eared type again.

This time the number two is called T'Pol and is female. The actress is 'pour me into that toga' babe, Jolene Blalock, last seen in the TV movie version of Jason and the Argonauts. She starts out with a bit of a dodgy relationship with the captain, who in the pilot compares the Vulcan's intervention in human affairs with that of the white man in the red indian's.

The ship's she helping command is a bit of a divergence from the modern expanses of Voyager though - with a bridge that includes mechanical buttons and switches.

The ship will have transporter technology, although in a little plot wrinkle, it has apparently just been invented and everyone is a little nervous about trusting it. The holodeck is, of course, nowhere to be seen, although virtual reality entertainment and training is included on the ship.

The uniforms are NASA-like jumpsuits with a military twist and naval piping, so forget those 1960s mini-dresses for the actresses, guys.

The vulcans are acting as humanity's main guides in space, in a kind of expanded Neelix role. Other actors filling out the crew include John Billingsley playing the ship's medic, Doctor Phlox. Interestingly enough, he's an alien character, so maybe vet would be a better description, rather than doctor?

The lovely Linda Park plays Ensign Hoshi Sato (Comms and exo-linguist). Dominic Keating plays Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Reed (Weapons), while veteran African American thespian Anthony Montgomery plays one Lieutenant Mayweather (Pilot).

The latter was raised in space as an infant, so knows his way around a starship.

Whether Rick Berman knows his way around a prequel series ... well, that remains to be seen.