Star Trek: The Voyage Continues

Are you a fan of the original television series, Star Trek? If so, then you'll remember that the series was canceled after its third year, even though voyage of the USS Enterprise's crew was supposed to last five years. But some fans of the series have gotten together, rebuilt the set and they are busily filming more episodes in the series. Their goal? To complete the USS Enterprise's five year voyage.

This project is the brain-child of James Crawley, whose talents as an Elvis impersonator provides the financial support. So far, Crawley and other volunteers have finished three episodes, which have included appearances by Star Trek icons Walter Koenig (Pavel Checkov) and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura). These episodes, which have already been downloaded more than 30 million times, are available free (in accordance with the agreement with CBS and Paramount, who provided permission to Crawley to film more episodes as long as they did not make any money from their venture). Behind the scenes videos showing the making of these episodes are also available for download.

[episode download mirror site]

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I remember Star Trek being cancelled after its third year. Weekend Edition is running a piece on the fan episodes this weekend, in addition to the spate of media reports on this over the last couple of months.

By David Bruggeman (not verified) on 22 Jul 2006 #permalink

Whatever happens, you know that these new episodes are going to be better than "Spock's Brain", "And The Children Shall Lead," and "The Way to Eden."

That's a pretty low bar to start with, though.

-Rob

Wired had a decent article about the subject a couple of issues ago.

By Kristjan Wager (not verified) on 25 Jul 2006 #permalink