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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fans creating episodes of ”Star Trek” on Web

Frank Ahrens The Washington Post

The final episodes of “Star Trek: Enterprise” may be airing Friday on UPN, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the trek is over.

On two Web sites – www.newvoyages.com and homepage.mac.com/starshipexeter – fans with some money and a lot of time have created hour-long “Star Trek” episodes.

“New Voyages,” the better of the two, has produced two episodes. It’s a novel idea: What if the original “Star Trek” had a fourth season? And what if the roles of Kirk, Spock and others were played by, well, your buddies?

“New Voyages,” which flaunts meticulously re-created sets from the original “Star Trek” and digital special effects, posits that Kirk and the other crew members are timeless characters, like Hamlet, who can be played by any number of actors.

In this case, Kirk is James Cawley, a lifelong fan sporting an Elvis haircut. His full-time job is as an Elvis impersonator.

“During the first two episodes, I was performing at Six Flags. If I’d have cut my hair and stopped impersonating Elvis, there wouldn’t have been any income coming in to finance the film,” said Cawley, 38.

In their third episode, set to begin shooting in September – and starring Walter Koenig, who reprises the role of Pavel Chekov from the original series – Cawley promises: “I’ll have a more Shatneresque hairdo.”

“New Voyages” posted its first episode to the Web in January 2004. It racked up 6 million downloads. The second episode hit the Web last October and has so far recorded 22 million downloads.

The millions of downloads of the “New Voyages” episodes suggests there remains a reliable audience.

Currently, Paramount allows “New Voyages” to exist as long as it makes no money. Cawley’s group hopes for an eventual licensing deal with the studio.

“It blows my mind that if we charged even a dollar a download, that would be $22 million,” Cawley said. “I’d be happy to give Paramount three-quarters of that.”