On September 8, the 40th anniversary of Star Trek was big news throughout the mainstream news media (not as big as the run-up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11, but at least it was a little cheerier). That morning on NBC — the network which aired Star Trek in the first place — the Today show aired a segment, about four minutes long, that recognized the significance of the date with interviews with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, footage of fans at last month's Creation convention in Las Vegas, plenty of clips from the original show, and no dearth of puns ("Kerry Sanders set his phasers on stun to see how they all lived long and prospered").

"The surprise of the Star Trek audience is always that they're still there," said Shatner in the Today segment. "Star Trek has a formula, a magic formula — exactly what it is, exactly what the proportions are, nobody knows."

"Because the show was not heavily budgeted and was not heavily dependent on special effects, I think it had an enduring quality," said Nimoy.

Shatner and Nimoy also taped an interview together for CNN.com, which appears in three segments at this link. The text article accompanying the interview clips claims that the two "are so over 'Star Trek,'" but actually the video shows two long-time friends having so much fun laughing between themselves that they can't keep a straight face long enough to answer the interviewer's questions.

Over at Wired.com, the hi-tech magazine marked September 8 with an interview with Shatner, this time solo. The captain said he never had an inkling the show would have so much staying power, "nor would anyone have been able to suggest that after all this time that Star Trek would still have life, and more life than meets the eye." Among the variety of questions, he was asked how he would feel if the character of Kirk is re-cast in the upcoming J.J. Abrams "Star Trek XI" movie: "Well as long as he's good-looking, talented, slim and ... rich, I guess. Lacking any of those elements I would feel very bad." See the full interview at this Wired.com link.

At Space.com, which follows Star Trek developments with almost as much zeal as they do NASA and astronomy news, the anniversary was celebrated with an editorial that calls Trek "the TV show that never dies." In particular the article quotes Mike Fincke, NASA astronaut who spent six months aboard the International Space Station in 2004, during which time he spoke very-long-distance with Scott Bakula while filming Enterprise (related story). "It touches a fundamental nerve in human beings, especially Americans, because we're pioneers and explorers ... all these things that are the good parts of our country, and Star Trek captures that in a glorious way and gives us a picture towards the future," said Fincke. See the full story at this Space.com link.

Showbiz trade paper The Hollywood Reporter also marked the occasion by running the gold-and-blue "Star Trek XI" teaser poster as a full-page ad on page 2, and an interview with "the matriarch of Trek-dom," Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. In talking about the 40-year legacy of her husband's creation, the first thing that comes to her mind is "how much we had to struggle in the ratings all of those years, which is easy to forget now. We weren't close to being a hit. But we managed to run for three years and 79 episodes anyway."

On the subject of the current remastering project underway to upgrade the visual effects of the Original Series (related story), Barrett-Roddenberry says her husband "wouldn't have been bothered by it at all. Gene did the best work he could at the time, but he was also all about the future. I think he'd have thought it was terrific that the show was being made to look better because of new technology."

Read the full interview with Barrett-Roddenberry at this link.

Biller to Run Abrams' Six Degrees

Also in Friday's Hollywood Reporter, it was announced that Kenneth Biller — writer/producer/director for Star Trek: Voyager and showrunner in its final season — will be working very closely with "Star Trek XI" producer J.J. Abrams on the latter's new primetime drama, Six Degrees. Biller is stepping in as executive producer and showrunner during its first season of production, as part of an overall deal with Touchstone TV.

Six Degrees is an ensemble drama about six strangers in New York who are drawn into a mysterious web of coincidence that gradually brings them closer together. It is set to premiere on ABC on Thursday, September 21, at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. Biller will also be working alongside Bryan Burk, another "ST XI" producer.

Since Voyager wrapped, Biller has worked extensively on Smallville and more recently, E-Ring. For more on this story, see this Zap2it.com link.