At news of ENT I was happy, plain and simple. Bad Trek is better than no Trek at all, and the ongoing voyages must always ongo. The life of our species depends on it. More about that later.

In this time frame I am an engineer and to make things worse, a total TOS-head. I am "an Old One," as Ruk says, growing up with Star Trek completely. In those days Star Trek was easy. You memorized every frame of every episode, read every book, fanzine, and blueprint, and filled a folder fat with your own writings and clippings. It was an awesome, magic moment in history and it tasted great, thank you very much. Yet everything living grows. It would not just stay TOS for long.

The new captain reports only 150 years now separate the vision and us. Pulling the series back is a bold move arguably surpassing Roddenberry's original. TOS was intentionally placed ambiguously into the future to remove any technical objections. Transporters - why not? Saves filming costs too. But consider something as reasonable as the sidearms of Archer's crew. Can we ever expect anything more powerful than Pike's? Berman says:

"The terrific thing about this for longtime fans is that they'll get to see the development of all the technological gadgetry and capabilities that have become part of the Trek mythos. They'll see them in their infant, trial-and-error stages, before they end up being what we know them to be."

God willing. In a franchise oft accused of needlessly escaping into Treknobabble, a crazy move locating the series closer in time - tantalizingly so - might be considered an ambitious form of boat-burning by the producers.

We should be so lucky! This provides all the room in the world for stories about what really matters - people. Human people specifically, since they happen to be the most interesting kind we know. Cap'n Bakula says:

"It's basically these people are getting on a ship and going out to explore for the first time. It's very much like 'The Right Stuff' or any of those kind of movies, where it's much more humanly based in terms of emotion and seeing this Universe for this first time. Which I think is really exciting."

Most definitely. Like our favorite starship to come, this column intends to explore the exciting. ENT, TOS sand our own forward gaze join as a spectacular prize awaiting our living, questing species. Here we grow again. We'll all end up happier for it, trust me.