"The Deeper Side of Trek" column series at Space.com
8/3/2000. Defining a Franchise — It's a safe bet to say not everyone is intimately familiar with Star Trek and its various spin-offs, but is there anyone with any knowledge of mainstream American entertainment who hasn't at least heard of it? I tend to doubt it.
8/17/2000. The Movies — Not surprisingly, some important chapters in Star Trek emanate not only from the small screen, but also from the big one, in the form of feature films.
9/1/2000. Galaxy of the Elite? — I've been through the Star Trek canon and back, and I've found that the visible Trek universe (or at least the parts where humans live) is a pretty elite place. Where are the plumbers? Blue-collar factory workers? People performing manual labor? Do they exist in the 23rd and 24th centuries?
9/19/2000. Technobabble — I'd like to single out a specific subset of Federation society that we can't fully comprehend: the technology.
10/5/2000. Dogs of War — Trek has not escaped war. Instead of extinguishing war, the Federation has applied it to new frontiers.
11/7/2000. Franchise at the Crossroads — The way I see it, Trek resides in a strange place it hasn't been in since The Next Generation was facing a launch marked with optimism but also uncertainty: There's concern that a new direction may not be successful.
