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"The piece will deal with the fact that there is currently only one 'Star Trek' show on the air ..."

Nimoy stops, offers a very theatrical, "Oh, no!" and continues.

"And, at present, only rumors about a second show, which may or may not debut in 2001." Again, he pauses, laughs, and says, very dramatically, "What are we going to do?!"

He begins again: "Even Bill Shatner says it's over: 'The window of "Star Trek's" phenomenon status is closing rapidly!' Oh ... my ... God! The sky is falling." Spock laughs. "Your letter was so dour, so negative. I figured I had to talk to this guy." Again, a chuckle.

Suddenly, he turns very serious. "To say there's only one 'Star Trek' show on the air, as though that were a problem, is curious to me. It's as though we're losing. It's all perception, isn't it?"

Nimoy is, to say the least, amused by the notion that "Star Trek" is on its death bed. After all, this is a man whose character died in one film ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"), was resurrected in the next ("Star Trek III: The Search for Spock") and then lived long enough to appear on a series set 85 years after "The Original Series." (He starred in two "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes, playing Ambassador Spock.) He has heard stories of "Star Trek's" demise for 30 years -- ever since NBC canceled the old show due to low ratings.

"Star Trek" is dead. Does not compute.

But the inarguable facts stare Spock straight in the face; to argue against them would seem, well, illogical. After all, this season marks the first since 1993 that there's only one "Trek" series ("Voyager") on the air -- and it's doing poorly in the ratings, surely the opposite effect executive producer Rick Berman hoped the cancellation of "Deep Space Nine" would have.

And last year's "Star Trek" film, "Insurrection" (the series' ninth feature), tanked at the box office, raking in a disappointing $73 million -- just $6 million more than it cost to make the movie. By comparison, "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996) grossed $95 million in the United States, and another $58 million overseas, after the movie's $45 million cost. And the Nimoy-directed "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" made $108 million -- in 1986 dollars. All said, "Insurrection's" weak box-office receipts were hardly surprising: The movie played like a banal "Next Generation" episode, and there were already plenty of those available on videotape.

Paramount Pictures boss Sherry Lansing was so unhappy with the film's poor showing that she has suggested that "Star Trek's" keepers -- namely Berman, who took over the franchise in 1991 when "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry died -- rethink the franchise before blandly going where everyone's gone before.

Of course, for some, "Star Trek" died in 1991, when the cast of the first series said farewell in the sixth film, "The Undiscovered Country." There are also those, me included, who would insist "The Original Series" (as fans refer to it, with caps) was "Star Trek's" high point, even during its worst, giggle-ridden moments ("The Way to Eden," anyone?).

And there are those who would insist that "DS9" was the best "Trek" series (and it wasn't bad, though it was a little too "Love Boat"-in-space for my tastes). Anyone who would insist that the best of the lot was "Next Generation" (once called "a talk show in space" by Spin) or "Voyager" (the "Gilligan's Island" of "Trek") has been sipping too much Romulan ale.

Then again, "Star Trek" fans are like Van Halen fans: It's either Dave or Sammy, Kirk or Picard. Never both.

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