"Star Trek" Gets New Alias

Variety is reporting that JJ Abrams -- the creator of "Alias" and "Lost" and the director of what he hopes will be the first decent "Mission: Impossible" movie -- has been tapped by Paramount to take over the helm of "Star Trek." The plan is a prequel out in 2008, with Kirk and Spock first meeting (at the Starfleet Academy?) and their first mission in space (albeit not perhaps on the Enterprise, I think). Well, since it's been all of one year since they cancelled the last spin-off ("Enterprise) this hardly constitutes a real rest for a franchise that had grown very weary. And it's only been four years since the miserable movie "Star Trek: Nemesis." And fans are already arguing over whether Kirk and Spock actually crossed paths at the Academy (remember, there are dozens of books in the franchise with plotlines outside the shows and movies), not to mention fears over anything to do with the Academy and why aren't they doing the Romulan Wars anyway? You never know, but this hardly sounds like the creative re-thinking that went into, say, "Battlestar: Galactica."