<reminisce>
Back in October 1966, after a day working in the weather station at Webb Air Force Base in (or outside of) Big Spring, Texas, I came home to the little cinder block house in which we were then living, anxious to see a new TV science-fiction show that looked like being a worthy successor to such great classics as Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and The Time Tunnel: something called Star Trek. That evening we spent an hour being fascinated as the crew of the star ship Enterprise ― particularly the ship's doctor (1) ― rescued an unwilling archaeologist from a salt-sucking alien disguised as his (late) wife, who had at one time been a flame of the doctor's, as well. There was no question that this program heralded a new generation of TV science-fiction.
</reminisce>
Well, time sure flies when you're having fun. Tomorrow night the final episodes of the lastest ― and perhaps last ― Star Trek series, Enterprise, will air on UPN.
The original series was ill-fated. It lasted two seasons, and was headed for cancellation because of relatively low ratings; NBC was not at that time aware, apparently, that a show's value should be determined not just by sheer number of watchers but by demographics as well. A mass viewer movement to write in to NBC saved it for another year, but then there was a decade-long period in which it was relegated to the Saturday-morning cartoon-show period.
Nevertheless, someone took note of the fact that reruns of the original series were themselves drawing extremely high ratings ― much higher than one might expect of the ordinary series in syndication. At the end of the seventies, the first Star Trek movie hit the market, to be followed by nine more. In 1987 the TV franchise was revived in the form of Star Trek: The Next Generation, to be followed by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise.
But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. The last Star Trek movie netted (or was that grossed?) a measly forty million dollars, and ratings for Enterprise have been disturbingly low. It has appeared to me, for some years now, that the Star Trek franchise has rapidly been approaching the end of its long run.
Why? Arguments can be made for the fact that, under Rick Berman &c, the more recent episodes have deviated fairly considerably from the vision established by Gene Roddenberry. Furthermore, the original formula has been tweaked and, sometimes, completely ignored (2). The chemistry between the various main characters, which was apparent in the original series, in The Next Generation and Voyager and, to a lesser extent, in Deep Space Nine, has been notably lacking in Enterprise. (3)
But I think that what the whole thing comes down to is that Star Trek was a phenomenon belonging to a particular generation ― the baby boomers. The boomer generation is now aging, and its interests and priorities have changed as its "sense of wonder" has eroded; and I don't think that the next generation has as great an interest in going "where no man (no one) has gone before", at least on TV.
Besides being an old-time Star Trek fan ― not usually the kind that dresses up and goes to cons, though (4) ― I also have an interest in the franchise because of the Klingon language, an artificial language which some have (incorrectly, I think) seen as being in competition with Esperanto, which I love and promote. For quite a long time, I have insisted that the fate of the Klingon language is inextricably intertwined with that of the Star Trek franchise, and I think that now is the time when this is going to be proved.
When Esperanto was first published some 118 years ago, it contained the all-purpose word adiaŭ, meaning either "so long" or "goodbye", to be used in all circumstances. Over the years, however, speakers of the language developed the expression ĝis ("until") (5) for use when one expects to encounter the other person in the farewell at some time in the future; adiaŭ has come to have rather final connotations, and you never hear it in actual use these days. If I had to decide which word to use for Star Trek right now, though, I think I would ― with some (great) regrets ― choose adiaŭ.
(1) DeForrest Kelley was not, apparently, the series' first choice for a doctor; quite a different person played the ship's doctor in the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before, which was made before the episode first shown on TV, but for some reason was shown later. And the entire cast of the original pilot, which later aired as the core of ― what, The Menagerie? The Cage? ― was quite different.
(2) The third season of Enterprise, which consisted of one interminable story line, got so boring that I simply stopped watching; one may suspect that the decision to cancel was based on the results from that third season, without much attention being paid to the fourth season, which was considerably better.
(3) I am not here talking about the totally artificial sexual chemistry which the writers, totally ignoring the Vulcan biological restriction of pon far, have attempted to establish between Trip and T'pol.
(4) When I was at Activision, one of our younger Nintendo game programmers once came up to me with an old program from a Star Trek con in the late seventies, listing a "Don Harlow" as one of the speakers, and showing a picture of what appeared to be a considerably younger me leaning over a water fountain, and I was forced to confess my sinful past.
(5) Ĝis is an abbreviation of the internationally common expression ĝis revido (au revoir, a rividerci, auf wiedersehen, do svidanija, zai jian ― generally, "until we see each other again").