Star Trek producers said today they hoped Enterprise would revitalise fan interest in the franchise by recapturing the original Star Trek spirit. "It's time to get back to the fundamentals of Star Trek."

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga described the premise of Series V, which will be set approximately 100 years before the events in the original Star Trek series. "You'll see the first guys who go out into space, the Chuck Yeagers of space exploration," said Berman, referring to the aviator who first broke the sound barrier. "Fans will see all the things they recognize from Star Trek, but in the developmental phase."

Like Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which featured regular characters that were not in Starfleet, the new series will allow the producers to evade some of Gene Roddenberry's restrictions on conflict between characters. "The formula must evolve," said Braga, though acknowledging that an important part of the formula is that people in Star Trek are better. "[There] have been some attempts to alter that with Deep Space Nine and Voyager, arguably darker shows. Was that a mistake? Might have been. Do we want to just go back to the Next Generation formula? No way. We need a show that gives us everything."

But even if Enterprise will be bending the rules a little, Berman promised that the show would still preserve Roddenberry's optimistic vision of the future. "The Roddenberry perfection of humanity is in the process of happening but will be not completed when the series begins. That will enable us to do a show within the general umbrella of Star Trek, but eliminate some of the stumbling blocks."

For the original article, which was written by Dan Cray, please follow this link. Thanks go out to Lysette van Erp for this!

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