Today’s Op-Ed section of the NYTimes prints the obituary of our long-beloved Star Trek. Since the Times only has its articles available for a short time, I’ll reprint the whole thing here:

By the middle of May, the “Star Trek” franchise will be no more, having died a death as long and lingering as — well, insert your favorite Trekkie long-and-lingering-death simile here. UPN has decided to bring “Star Trek: Enterprise” – the latest version of the saga – to an end and to give the whole idea of “Star Trek” a creative rest. The producers of the show have rejected a hopeless last-ditch effort to raise funds directly from fans to continue production.

The original “Star Trek” series proved what a little imagination, a little patience and a lot of plywood and foam core could do for televised science fiction. It ran for only three seasons on NBC in the late 1960′s but attracted a devoted following that seems, somehow, to have replicated itself by cloning. It also inspired four additional series, 10 “Star Trek” movies and a delightful parody called “Galaxy Quest,” starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, which flirted momentarily with the nihilistic possibility that a television show about space might merely be a television show about space.

For “Star Trek” fans, a future with no “Star Trek” at all must seem as empty as one of those great space voids the ever-endangered starship Enterprise kept getting sucked into. But somewhere, a TV executive is undoubtedly repeating the slogan about going where no one has gone before – and wondering how to make that idea about direct fan-financing work.

It was so young, but felt so damn old. I know it was tired and suffering. I say, may it rest in peace for a long time before some executive gets the idea to resurrect it as Star Trek: The Geriatric Generation. Let’s wipe away the tears and turn our attention toward the future, shall we?