Well, it certainly seems like we\u2019ve reached the end of the final frontier.<\/p>\n
\u201cStar Trek,\u201d starring William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, premiered 60 years ago this week on CBS.<\/p>\n
Accompanying the U.S.S. Enterprise on its five-year mission to boldly go where no man has gone before, the groundbreaking show set the course for modern science-fiction storytelling as we know it and smashed societal barriers.<\/p>\n
Ahead of its time, Gene Roddenberry\u2019s series was canceled in 1969. Call it the \u201coriginal\u201d sin. But those three seasons birthed a sprawling franchise of interconnected TV and movie properties decades before the concept of onscreen \u201cuniverses\u201d was widely embraced by Marvel, \u201cStar Wars\u201d and, oy, King Kong.<\/p>\n
\u201cStar Trek\u201d debuted 60 years ago on Sept. 8. CBS via Getty Images<\/p>\n
And, for a while, \u201cTrek\u201d kept getting better and better. \u201cThe Wrath of Khan,\u201d \u201cThe Next Generation,\u201d \u201cDeep Space Nine\u201d \u2014 all glorious.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Oleksinski<\/p>\n
Um, what the hell happened? The current powers that be have certainly not heeded the sage wisdom of Lt. Spock: \u201cLive long and prosper.\u201d Because what was once \u2014 and what still should be \u2014 the jewel in Paramount\u2019s crown is now a mismanaged, barely watchable afterthought that nobody pays any attention to.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve attended \u201cStar Trek\u201d conventions. I stood in line and forked over $60 for a photo with an unsmiling Kate Mulgrew from \u201cVoyager.\u201d But now I can hardly make it through any of the dull and badly conceived dreck they\u2019re routinely churning out.<\/p>\n
Overabundant \u201cStar Trek\u201d shows are irrelevant castaways on Paramount+ that have been banished from CBS and are canceled before you\u2019ve heard of them. A bunch of other duds are weirdly animated. And in-development big-screen movies keep falling apart. Here\u2019s another less auspicious anniversary: It\u2019s been 10 years since the last one.<\/p>\n
There was one recent dreadful streaming movie called \u201cStar Trek: Section 31,\u201d starring Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh. It boasts a 15% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and makes \u201cNemesis\u201d look like \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation\u201d was part of the glory days of the franchise. CBS via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Really, I\u2019m not convinced the franchise is salvageable. At best it\u2019s doomed to nichedom. Forget tribbles. The trouble\u2019s with \u201cTrek.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ever since the execrable movie \u201cStar Trek: Into Darkness\u201d starring Chris Pine hit theaters 13 years ago, Paramount has made almost exclusively wrong turns with this property to the point that people in their 30s on down have zero connection to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cInto Darkness,\u201d by the way, was written by Alex Kurtzman, the no-talent man who is now perplexingly in charge of \u201cTrek\u201d on TV. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I yell \u201cKurtzman!\u201d like Shatner yells \u201cKhan!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStar Trek: Discovery\u201d was a dull dud. CBS<\/p>\n
\u201cDiscovery\u201d? Dismal<\/a>. \u201cStrange New Worlds\u201d? Overrated. The only great thing that\u2019s happened on his watch is the third season of \u201cStar Trek: Picard.\u201d And the man who was actually creatively responsible for that was showrunner Terry Matalas, who innately understands what makes \u201cTrek\u201d tick. He irresistibly brought back the cast of \u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation,\u201d which ended way back in 1994. <\/p>\n Nothing new is sticking.<\/p>\n While \u201cStar Trek\u201d was stupidly relegated to streaming \u2014 a mistake many of its competitors also made \u2014 there has not been a big-screen movie in a decade. The last one was \u201cStar Trek Beyond.\u201d Beyond terrible.<\/p>\n Even so, S.J. Clarkson (\u201cMadame Web<\/a>\u201d!) was in talks to direct a sequel to it in 2018. Didn\u2019t happen. Noah Hawley (\u201cFargo\u201d) was hired to write and direct one in 2019. Didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Quentin Tarantino, of all people, pitched an R-rated, gangster-tinged film<\/a> to Paramount, and they accepted it. But the \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d director dropped out in 2020 and it was never made.<\/p>\n Chris Pine at Captain Kirk in \u201cStar Trek: Beyond.\u201d Paramount Pictures \/ Everett Collection<\/p>\n