Set phasers to stunned!

In a development sure to send nerd brains nationwide into overdrive, E!Online reporter Korbi Ghosh is reporting that Zachary Quinto, best known as the evil genius Sylar on "Heroes," is close to signing on the bottom line to be Spock in the upcoming "Star Trek" feature film.

"A source confirmed that the contract is with the business affairs team at Paramount, which is generally considered the last stop on the deal-negotiation train," according to a Monday press release from E!Online.com.

Wait! An actor from “Heroes” on “Star Trek”? The geek mind reels. Surely those eagerly awaiting Comic-Con, the giant sci-fi, film and comics convention this weekend in San Diego, are all in a tizzy over the news.

Lucky for me, I’m going to Comic-Con (for the first time, and I’m already geeking out in anticipation) and you can be sure I’ll try to shove myself into the room where the “Heroes” cast will be talking about the second season of the show. Perhaps Quinto will discuss his new gig as well, you never know. 

Aside from Quinto, the genre credentials of those creating the new “Star Trek” film are in good order: Director J.J. Abrams co-created “Lost” and was the prime mover behind “Alias,” and the men behind the new "Star Trek" script, Alex Kurzman and Roberto Orci, were both also “Alias” writers.

Set phasers to stunned: “Star Trek” got a face-lift.

Forty years after the original “Trek” debuted Sept. 8, 1966, Paramount is rolling out a digitally remastered version of the sci-fi series. That new version of the original “Star Trek” debuts locally at 6 p.m. Saturday and 11 p.m. Sunday on WWME-Ch. 23 (better known as ME-TV, which is also available via various Chicago-area satellite and cable providers).

Effects artists are going through each episode of the original “Trek” and inserting spiffier special effects, enhanced music and generally better visuals (without changing any of the classic “Trek” dialogue or stories, it should be noted).

Part of the motivation for the digital makeover was the arrival of high-definition television, according to Paramount syndication executive John Nogawski.

“The real reason just from a very technical standpoint to do this is, as we move into eventually a much better television set than there was in the ’60s, … this show would have not held up to that [younger] viewer,” Nogawski told a conference call with reporters. “And that viewer, in many ways, is kind of who you’re addressing … the younger viewer who really was not alive when the show was originally produced and may never have watched it up to this date.”

Even the famous opening sequence has been snazzed up: The Enterprise that boldly goes across the screen now is a digital space ship. “All the star patterns that were in the original opening are exactly duplicated in the new opening,” said effects supervisor David Rossi. “We smoothed out the motion of the Enterprise. It flies more dynamically now. It occupies real space. It doesn’t look like a model anymore.”

Rossi and others in charge of the “Trek” spruce-up took pains to say that they didn’t want to make intrusive changes that would alter the show substantially.

“Basically, the approach is that `Star Trek’ is a period piece, albeit a period in the far future. So all the decisions are being made to honor the production style, the style of cinematography and the style of editing,” said Michael Okuda, a longtime “Trek” staffer who supervised the updates. “Right down to placement of stars” and the direction of phaser fire, care was taken to enhance only what was already there, mainly in the special-effects realm, Rossi said.

The first refurbished “Trek” episodes that will air are “Balance of Terror,” “Journey to Babel,” “Mirror Mirror” and the two-part “Menagerie.” Effects crews are still working on the rest of the episodes; once every “Trek” outing has been enhanced, the new-look episodes will be made available to cable networks that air the original series (currently G4 and TV Land). That should happen in about 18 months, according to Paramount.

UPDATE (added Sept. 14): "Star Trek: Enterprise" debuts in high definition on cable's HDNet 8 p.m. Monday.

“Star Trek” fans, take note: Starting at 10 p.m. Monday, G4 is re-running the classic original edition of the sci-fi favorite, in a fresh and entertaining new way.

G4, for those who don’t know it, is a cable channel that focuses for the most part on developments in the video game world, but it also airs the addictive and irreverent nightly newscast known as “Attack of the Show.” “AOTS” is sort of a “Daily Show” for fans of all things nerdy, tech-oriented and just silly (a recent segment focused on a hypothetical trailer for the movie “Snakes on a Plane”).

G4’s newest attempt to get geeks addicted to its fare is “Star Trek 2.0.” “Trek 2.0” will feature episodes of the original Spock and Kirk series in the middle of the TV screen, but the footage of the show will be surrounded by snippets from live chats that viewers can participate in at www.g4tv.com/trek2.0.

Also onscreen: “Trek” stats, including a running tally of Kirk’s dramatic pauses and the number of red-shirt deaths, as well as a constant stream of “Trek” trivia and a real-time, viewer-generated “Spock Market.”

The best running tally? The number of times Spock says “illogical.”

“Star Trek” may be gone, but the “Trek” goofs continue (thank goodness). My favorite recent “Trek” bit is this McSweeney’s list of Klingon personal ads.

A couple of samples: “Humorless widow seeks husband number 10. Must enjoy nights at the opera, long walks on the beach, and defending my honor against every imaginable slight, no matter what the odds.” “Male with low self-esteem seeks female with pain stick and soundproof basement.”   

Also worth checking out: “Klingon Fairy Tales,” at the same site (one sample title: “The Hare Foolishly Lowers His Guard and Is Devastated by the Tortoise, Whose Prowess in Battle Attracts Many Desirable Mates”).

My favorite new fall drama is "Threshold," an intriguing sci-fi story starring Carla Gugino, Peter Dinklage, Brent Spiner and Charles S. Dutton.

Monday I spoke with "Threshold" executive producer Brannon Braga, who for the past 15 years worked on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Star Trek: Enterprise."

It sounds as if Braga is digging the fact that he’s not working exclusively with space ships and Federation uniforms any more -- then again, he’s still working on a Friday night show, and yes, aliens are involved.

Here’s an edited transcript of our chat, which covered this Friday's "Threshold" episode (think alien infection + disco + Miami = chaos), the show's cast and the pleasures of dressing actors in plain old tennis shoes.

The first question for Brent Spiner, one of the stars of CBS' "Threshold,' has to be: How cool is to be out of the "Star Trek" face paint?

"It's so good, I can't even tell you," says Spiner, who played the yellow-skinned android Data for seven seasons on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and in various "Trek" films. "The makeup was a wonderful part of the role, a mask that allowed me to be anonymous. … But now I can finish the day, wipe my face with a baby wipe, and go home. When I was on `Star Trek,' it took 45 minutes to get enough [makeup] off so I could walk out the door."

On "Threshold," CBS' thrilling entry in the post-"Lost" sweepstakes, Spiner plays Dr. Nigel Fenway, a former political radical and top NASA biologist who's bitter and caustic in a way Data never was. Fenway is working with a disaster specialist (played by Carla Gugino) and two other scientists (played by Rob Benedict and Peter Dinklage) to figure out what the heck is going on after a very strange alien object enters Earth's orbit -and possibly starts messing with human DNA.

"We're going to discover as time goes on that there is some adversity" among members of the `Threshold' team, Spiner says. "They are not in love with each other. These three guys were essentially shanghaied and made to do this job, whether they want to or not. And they're geniuses, so they have egos. I play a doctor, and I never met a doctor without an ego."

Still, Spiner's a bit amused at the thought that his new TV gig, as his "Trek" job did, involves saving the world on a regular basis. "If I was choosing what do to next, it probably wouldn't be a genre piece," says Spiner, who has shown a talent for comedy in guest turns on "Friends" and "Mad About You."

Still, Spiner was the last cast member hired, and he says when he heard who else was working on the show (Charles S. Dutton is also in "Threshold"), he wanted in. His reaction, he says, was, "I don't care what genre this is in, these are good people to work with.

Plus, I don't have to wear makeup and I get to wear cool clothes."

Brent Spiner talks more about 'Star Trek' and 'Threshold' after the jump.

Almost 40 years ago, a journeyman character actor took a role on a show about space travel.

Why is it that we all still remember the role played by James Doohan, a.k.a. "Star Trek's" Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, who passed away at age 85 on Wednesday?

It's not just because "Beam me up, Scotty," became a legendary pop-culture catch-phrase.

It's because we identified with the exuberant chief engineer that Doohan created. Scotty was the working stiff. He was not one of the exalted beings lording over the bridge of the Enterprise. No, he was the overworked guy in engineering, the sweaty, busy guy in charge of keeping the darn thing running.

Who hasn't been there? The boss says, "I need you to do this Herculean task now. In fact, I needed it yesterday. Why haven't you finished yet?"

And you nod your head and say, "Sure, no problem." Even as the sweat breaking out on your brow leaves the distinct impression that you really don't know how you're going to do whatever impossible job you've just agreed to do.

Not that the bigwigs see your sweat. They're off to the next Hugely Important Decision, the next crisis, the next alien babe.

You're left getting the ship underway again within an hour. Good thing you told the boss that you'd need three!

That's what a smart worker does -- give the boss a somewhat realistic idea of how long the job will take ("You'll have it on your desk in the morning!"), knowing that the boss'll want it sooner ("End of business today, got that?"). Even though you know that, if you really buckled down and got cracking, you could get it done by about 4:30 p.m. and still have time for a Starbucks break.

That's what Scotty represented -- the cunning intelligence of the grunt worker. Do the impossible enough times and your bosses will take it for granted. Scotty did the impossible time and again, and always tweaked things just a little bit so that he'd come out looking good.

But he wasn't devious or shiftless. The Enterprise was his first priority and his only love. Scotty was just a guy who, like us, had to figure out on the fly how to manage the expectations of the muckety-mucks.

"But Captain, she can't take it!" he'd yell in that Scottish burr of his, as Captain Kirk tried yet another crazy maneuver with Scotty's beloved ship.

But she could and did take it, because Scotty was there to fix the warp plasma manifolds or whatever and make it all run smoothly again.

It's the Scottys of this world who keep it running. And that's why we loved him. Because he was one of us.

It's not easy to be a "Star Trek" fan.

Sure, there's the predictable ribbing about being a geek, a nerd, a dork, a loser who still lives with the folks - maybe even (eek!) in the basement.

Never mind that that stereotype doesn't have much basis in reality. Most "Trek" fans don't live in basements and have kissed girls -- or are girls, thank you very much. We can take the teasing, and even know how to laugh at ourselves (you have to have a sense of humor when you watch a TV show featuring characters with blue antennae).

What will be pretty hard to deal with, though, is a TV schedule without any "Star Trek" on it. Once "Star Trek: Enterprise" leaves the UPN network after a two-hour finale Friday, there will be no new "Trek" on TV for the first time in 18 years.

Sure, the five "Trek" series live on in syndication, and there's lots of fine sci-fi that may even rise above the television legacy of the Federation ("The 4400" and "Battlestar Galactica," which return June 5 and sometime in July, respectively, are just a couple of examples).

Most modern televised sci-fi is edgier, sexier, more angst-ridden than "Trek" ever was. Which is only appropriate, considering the edgy, sex-obsessed, angst-ridden age we live in. Still, though fans were often frustrated with the various series' stodginess -- not to mention their dependence on "holodeck malfunction" plots and aliens with bumpy foreheads --"Trek" stood for something.

Perhaps the idea of taking a mixed group of humans, androids and aliens, putting them on a ship and having them attempt to spread the concepts of fair play and justice across the galaxy is hopelessly square, but so what? If that's square, that's fine with us.

To the "Trek"-ian mandate -- to "boldly go" into new realms of human endeavor while holding on to compassion, ideals and a commitment to freedom -- we say, live long and prosper. But of course, we couldn't let the TV franchise go without looking over the last 18 years of televised "Trek" and revisiting some high and low points.

Thanks for all the great feedback on the suggestions we posted last week on how to fix the 'Star Trek' television franchise. Below are excerpts from readers' many fine ideas on how to revamp the show.

We dig "Star Trek," really, we do (we being myself and my former Tribune colleague Raoul Mowatt). And like most "Trek" fans, we have way too many ideas on how to improve the series, and though they may sound like criticisms, we do appreciate all the good TV that "Trek" has supplied us with over the years.

The list below arises from an e-mail dialogue that Raoul and I had about how "Trek" should be fixed if and when the TV franchise is revived after "Star Trek: Enterprise" leaves the airwaves this May.