‘Star Trek’s’ bold TV journey coming to an end

TV viewers are about to go where no TV viewer has gone in 18 years: a landscape with no fresh episodes of “Star Trek.”

Plagued by poor ratings and high production costs, UPN and Paramount Network Television on Wednesday announced that this will be the final season of “Star Trek: Enterprise,” which stars Scott Bakula as Capt. Jonathan Archer. The four-year-old show is a “prequel” to the original “Star Trek” series that starred William Shatner and ran from 1966 to 1969.

The finale will air May 13.

The announcement came as no surprise. Some industry observers had expected UPN to end the series last year.

“Star Trek” movies began appearing in 1979, but it was not until 1987 that television responded, first with “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” starring Patrick Stewart. That show, which ran seven years, was followed by “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (1993 to 1999), “Star Trek: Voyager” (1995 to 2001) and “Star Trek: Enterprise” (beginning in 2001).

Paramount said it recently sold the syndication rights of “Enterprise”; reruns should begin this fall in virtually all major U.S. cities.

“Enterprise” is averaging 2.9 million viewers per week this season, down from 3.7 million for the show at this point a year ago and only half the audience it drew in its first season.

Co-creator and executive producer Rick Berman, whose relationship with “Star Trek” goes back to “The Next Generation,” blamed “franchise fatigue” for the diminished ratings. In the last 18 years, 624 episodes of the various TV series were shown. “After a certain amount of time, there’s a certain amount of apathy from the fans,” Berman said.

The most recent “Star Trek” movie, “Nemesis,” had the lowest gross of any “Star Trek” movie: $43 million. Another movie, with characters not associated with the TV series, is in development.

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Bob Baker