Former Star Trek executive producer Brannon Braga has been named the showrunner of CBS' new drama pilot Threshold and will remain with Paramount Network Television through 2007 if the series is picked up by the network.

Variety reports that the Star Trek: Enterprise co-creator, who joins Bragi Schut, David Goyer, David Heyman and Mark Rosen as executive producers of the new series, has signed an extension on his current contract with Paramount Television that would add a year if Threshold films weekly episodes. His current contract runs through 2006.

Threshold focuses on a group of officers and scientists dealing with the impact of extraterrestrials on Earth. Paramount Network Television president David Stapf said that after 14 years with Star Trek, Braga knows how to "put together the pieces you need to have a successful series."

Braga himself said that he was interested in the project since it received the green light and was happy to be working on another genre series. "This is a contemporary show with characters who are from our time," he noted. "It's not B-movie aliens blowing up cities." The writer of two Star Trek feature films and Mission: Impossible 2 said that he "was eager to get out of outer space and do something more psychological and based in reality" after working on Star Trek.

As previously reported, Threshold will star Brent Spiner, whom Braga knows from the many years the actor played Data and other characters on Star Trek. The latest news item is at Variety.

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