Star Trek Names 101
filed on Wednesday, October 08, 2003 at 10:46:24 PM CST

So, those of us geeky enough to remember, the scorecard looks like this:  Star Trek (now also known as "The Original Series"), Star Trek (The Animated Series) (also cleverly known as Star Trek), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager.  Clearly they were on to something here, as there were also 10 movies, all cleverly titled with the words "Star Trek."  Like many people, I wondered how wise the decision was then to name Enterprise as such.

Of course, my questioning of the decision was more along the lines of, "Isn't that a rent-a-car company?"  And "What kind of a silly name is that for a series?"  Now, I understand that Rick Berman probably thought this was a good idea.  After all, there'd just been two series without a starship named Enterprise.  What better way to tell fans that they'd returned to their roots by calling the series Enterprise?  Right?

Admittedly, I give them kudos for not calling the show Star Trek: The Early Years, Star Trek: The First Generation, Star Trek: Year One, CSI: UFP, Law & Order: STU (Star Trek Unit, btw), or any number of other goofy things.  But when I saw the first teasers for the Enterprise season opener, I knew the days of that silly name were finally at an end.

Star Trek: Enterprise had its season premiere a couple of weeks ago, picking up where the previous season left off.  Oddly, the first episode of the season was lacking the words "Star Trek," but last week, I caught the third show of the season (I think), and there, right along with "It's been a long road... getting from there to here..." were the words that had been missing for far too long.  "Star Trek."

I will say that the series has always interested me (though I've missed the entire second season, and will probably miss most of the third due to it playing opposite Smallville), and I think it has, to date, one of the two best series credits.  I'm not sure whether I like it better than Voyager's, but I'm pretty sure I do.  It was done with such style, and the song they chose could hardly have been more appropriate.

That they've taken great license with the franchise, and have re-written many pages of Star Trek's past only shows the kind of buffoon Berman's become, but that shouldn't reflect on the series itself, as it's rather good for any Trek series.