But I found 2010 to be mildly disappointing, due to a variety of logistical decisions. The Q&A sessions are scheduled for specific times and days, but the event coordinator chooses not to publicize those schedules ahead of time, such as on the Super Megafest Web site; my email requesting this data confirmed that it is not available in advance. Although I realize celebrities' schedules often cannot be determined until the last minute, it's frustrating for me to not know if I should be at the conference on Saturday at 10 AM or 5 PM, or on Sunday. Without the Q&A, I need only an hour or two to absorb the event in its entirety; it's unreasonable to block out an entire two-day weekend for whenever the Q&As might be.

The comfort of the celebrities is of course the organizers' priority, so rather than have the stars stand for an hour during Q&A, they're allowed to sit. But the session is held in a conference room large enough that folks in the back can't see someone seated at the front. A simple riser that would elevate the celebrity would be a simple fix.

Last year, I calculated the cost of admission plus that of Christopher Lloyd's autograph and decided it was worth getting the "VIP speed pass", which included admission and autographs by Lloyd and Lea Thompson. The "speed" aspect allowed me to bypass the line for this celebrity, which would otherwise take hours to traverse. But there was no fine print indicating that this privilege was valid only from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM! The Web site informed me only that I was paying for "a beat-the-line speed pass". Such vague terminology bordered on the deceptive.

Despite all that, I was still glad for the opportunity to meet the stars. Few people had paid for the speed pass, which also granted exclusive access to Lloyd's Q&A session, which made for an intimate setting. Everyone got to ask a question, with mine being: "Does an actor of your renown still have to audition for parts, or are they written for or handed to you?" Lloyd said that sometimes, the writers say to themselves, "Oh, this script calls for a drunk? Let's get Lloyd." But more often, he still needs to audition, as it's not always clear whether he or someone else will be right for a part. Lea Thompson never showed up, so my pass got me two Lloyd autographs instead.

I also met Marina Sirtis, better known as Deanna Troi from Star Trek: TNG. She was very friendly and fun, laughing and smiling and calling everyone "hon". When I saw the various 8"x10" glossies she had available to autograph, I chose an off-camera shot from First Contact, commenting, "You were so funny in that film!" She responded, "I was more myself in that Star Trek movie than in any other."

I had some time to kill between sessions, so I sat in on a Q&A by Kristin Bauer, who plays Pam De Beaufort on True Blood. I'd never seen this show so wasn't very interested, but she redeemed herself with the credit of playing Lt. Laneth on an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

I ended the show by getting Peter Mayhew's autograph. The taciturn Wookie didn't have much to say and didn't offer to personalize his signature, though he did do so after I handed it back with the request.

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The headliners for this year's Super Megafest are Patrick Stewart and Sean Astin. After a month of waffling, and with just a week to spare, I coughed up the dough for another VIP speed pass. I'm a bit disenchanted with Super Megafest, though, and would not have been roped in for another expensive pass for anyone other than Captain Picard.

One of Mr. Verniere's more interesting comments was that Star Trek had to stop recruiting from within its own ranks (the film's director was Jonathan Frakes). Why not have Antonio Banderas as an ensign on the Enterprise, he suggested? I presume the critic was trying to expand the franchise's appeal by giving non-Trekkies a point of familiarity by which to be introduced to the series. Though it would be jarring for an established cast to suddenly be joined by an actor known for non-sci-fi work, Mr. Verniere's suggestion proved correct in the appropriate context: the presence of Bruce Greenwood, Winona Ryder, Zachary Quinto, and others didn't detract from but added to last year's reboot of Star Trek: TOS, which provided an entirely new slate on which these actors could gel as a team.

What other celebrities might Star Trek benefit from introducing? We still don't know what's to come in the sequel, slated for release on June 29, 2012 — but we can imagine what it might look like if Nicolas Cage, Summer Glau, and David Tennant joined the ranks of Starfleet, courtesy the Photoshop machinations of Rabittooth.

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Several of the stars in this small sampling would surely be scene-stealers; Kevin Spacey warrants nothing less than prime antagonist, for example. But Brandon Routh, whose one leading role as Superman was fleeting enough to allow him to turn in a stellar yet innocuous performance in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, could be a subtle yet effective addition to any bridge crew.

This isn't the first time non-Trek actors have been inserted into Gene Roddenberry's universe. Alex Luko transposed one show's entire cast onto the Enterprise with a result that left geeks salivating:

Who would you like to see in the next Star Trek movie, and why?

• Earthrise
• Legacy
• Serenity
• Venture

Node 3 of the International Space Station. Image courtesy NASA.

(Hat tips to SJVN and Lisa Hoover)

The most recent and famous example may be William Shatner plugging DirecTV:

Of course, once you find the DirecTV channel you want, put down the remote and get your hands busy with some finger-lickin' goodness:

Unfortunately, not all Star Trek tie-ins have such a healthy sense of humor. In much the way Mr. T puts the 'T' in 'IT', Jonathan Frakes appeared in this excruciating commercial in which the commander of the Enterprise sells enterprise software. Yet the impression the ad leaves is not of any particular IT solution, as its name is seldom, if ever, mention. (I'm told it's "Main View Enterprise Management software, and the commercial is from Blooper and Babbage")

Fortunately, Frakes later redeemed himself and the rest of the TNG crew when they applied their talents to a charitable cause:

Just like technology, eugenics, and Tribbles, commercial endorsement can be used for good or ill. May all our bottom lines live long and prosper.

(Hat tip to Dayton Ward)

• Star Trek: Enterprise Saved … With Strings Attached
  
• Several New Star Trek Pilots Rejected
  
• Your Mirror Universe Twin and You
  
• The Galactic Enquirer
  
• GQ: Gorn Quarterly
  

A few other pieces were not captured by the Wayback Machine but have been reposted to a Trek message board:

• Bakula Debunks "Holodeck" Rumor
  
• BBC to Remake Star Trek
  
• New Series Announced: Klingon Eye for the Starfleet Guy
  

His characters are surprisingly similar, with almost interchangeable lines. You'd expect the following retort to come from Star Trek — but it didn't:

And before that was a fly-by of a remodeled CGI Enterprise that proved to be cool yet false. Even the rabid paparazzi have gotten in on it by snapping some shots of the supposed Kirk and an Orion slave girl.

My curiosity occasionally gets the better of me, but in general, I'd rather avoid all these grovelling for media scraps. No news, rumor, or trailer is needed to sell me on this film, nor can any dissuade me from seeing it. I'm already sold and would like to see as much of the film for the first time upon its theatrical debut next Christmas. What about you?

[Hat tip to the Trek Movie Report Web site.]

My immersion in Trek lore had, unfortunately, not protected me from some spoilers. I knew some of the plots, such as that the divergence between The Original Series and The Next Generation Klingons would be explained; that there'd be a Mirror Universe episode; and of the guest stars and casualties of the finale. I can't imagine how blown away I'd've been had these stories come as complete surprises.

And speaking of blown away, it was masterful to incorporate actual footage from the Star Trek: First Contact film into the opening of the two-part "In a Mirror, Darkly". I was intrigued to see how this episode would connect to the primary universe, and it took some time for me to suspect there may not be a direct correlation; I was impressed when they carried it out. Greater familiarity with TOS would've helped, as I recognized the eponymous Tholian web, but not the Defiant (which proved to not be Deep Space Nine's little ship, though it was still a lot of fun to see the NX-01 crew on a recreated, TOS-era ship!). Though this episode had little impact on Enterprise Prime or the founding of the United Federation of Planets, I am eager to see its implications in the current trend of Mirror Universe novels.

Another neat pair of episodes were the series antepenultimate and penultimate two-parters "Demons" and "Terra Prime", which featured Harry Groener (the villainous mayor from Buffy; also a guest star on an early episode of TNG) as the good guy, and Peter Weller (the heroic Robocop) as the bad guy. It was in this episode that Ensign Sato finally showed some balls, demonstrating some believable character development after four years.

And that's probably what I loved best about the fourth season: the development of characters. This season took a different tact to storytelling, employing multiple arcs that took several episodes to tell. While TNG might've fit 22 major plots into 22 episodes, Enterprise fit only 12 — many of them more substantial than we've come to expect from the already-voluminous Star Trek universe. I felt a bit more like I was watching Deep Space Nine and its far-reaching Dominion War than Voyager's "alien/space anomaly of the week". Enterprise saw major changes not only for individuals, like Soval and Shran, but also for relationships, both personal and political: T'Pol and Trip; Phlox and Enterprise; Starfleet and Section 31; Andorians and Tellarites alike.

It all culminated in a finale that was… odd. I can see the value of the frame they gave it, but it also detracted from the series' main characters by focusing on others (and adding little to them). The situation that Archer and Trip found themselves in was completely unnecessary, predicated by foolishness and unpreparedness. So my qualm is not with Trip's handling of the situation, but with landing himself in that jam in the first place. The finale did not provide the positive closure I appreciated in TNG, Voyager, or DS9 (and not once in the fourth season was the Temporal Cold War ever resolved or even mentioned).

The finale's last ten seconds, though, were extremely moving. It created a context in which the impact of each of the three eras of Trek on each other is irrefutable, summing up this series' implications for me. Star Trek has been on the air continuously for 18 years, and I'm just finishing it now, stretching that span to 20 years — over two-thirds of my life. It's helped me define my interests, my values, my aspirations. Now it's gone, and though its return to the silver screen is predicted for Christmas 2008, Star Trek is, first and foremost, a vehicle of the television medium, and whether it ever returns there remains to be seen.

Of greater concern to me is whether humanity will ever achieve a utopia on the scale of the 24th — or even 22nd — century. Is Archer and his flawed era someone we can relate and aspire to? Can we put aside our differences and unite to realize a shared and optimistic vision of our future? Or is Star Trek fated to be nothing more than science fiction? Doesn't Gene Roddenberry's dream deserve to be our own? Don't we deserve that for ourselves?

I've always enjoyed the "trying to be human" characters of Star Trek, even if it has become cliché by now. And though TOS was my least favorite of the five series, it seems to make the best novels; I'll devour anything about Spock, for example. I would love the opportunity to engage some comparable narratives about our favorite android. Can anyone recommend any similarly spectacular Datacentric stories?