Saving Private Enterprise

A full page ad clamoring “Save Star Trek” was published in the February 15 edition of the Los Angeles Times,. It called on fans to get the show a new TV home through a petition campaign and rallies at network and Paramount offices. The ad was a response to the cancellation of Enterprise, the latest incarnation of the Star Trek franchise, one that has been received ambivalently even by most fans. The very fact warrants curiosity about a high-profile and expensive effort to “save” the show.

The ads and rallies are apparently publicized through a website called enterpriseproject.org. A sidebar story on the site reminds people of the Trimbles’ efforts to save the original Trek series in the late 1960s through a huge letter-writing campaign. While quite appropriate inspiration for any group trying to save a tv show, it is also an indirect reminder that the Trimbles’ efforts were instigated by Gene Roddenberry himself (according to one of the major biographies about the series creator.)