UnNews:Unseen Star Trek series discovered
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| Unseen Star Trek series discovered | 
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13 February 2007
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Television history researchers announced the discovery Monday of a previously unseen Star Trek series, "New Frontier," which may have originally aired sometime between 1983 and 1989.
The series centered around adventures of the crew of the Federation Starship Magellan, tasked with protecting settlers working to establish colonies in the wild and uncharted "Dalon Territories" of the Alpha Quadrant. Richard Grieco, perhaps better known for his concurrent work on the TV series "21 Jump Street," played Captain Matt Corso, a passionate young Starfleet officer willing to bend the rules to keep the fragile peace between new immigrants and the territory's indigenous populations of alien species.
"Oh, yeah, vaguely I remember doing that," commented Grieco, upon being told of the discovery. "We defended the settlers of the 'New Frontier' for six years and nearly 170 episodes. For some odd reason, though, only a few people ever saw the show. I remember some complaints about bad programming and constantly being pre-empted for sports events."
The series was set in the time period after the events portrayed in the Star Trek movie series and prior to those of "The Next Generation."
Along with Grieco as Captain Corso, the series also featured a genetically-modified human First Officer, played by former NBA star Greg Lennon, a martial-arts savvy doctor played by Vince Tang, and Jennifer Michel, who played a green, freed Orion slave woman who ran an interstellar brothel that attracted a strange collection of humans and aliens. "New Frontier" was groundbreaking in that it had occasional scenes of brief nudity (including alien nudity), which might have been controversial had anyone actually seen the series.
One of the few critics who saw the show noted that Grieco was particularly charismatic as the captain, and that the show deftly combined the character interest of "Gunsmoke" and the original "Star Trek" series, with imaginative state-of-the-art special effects, including some that were computer-generated, another first for the series.
"I thought it was a pretty good show, and Richard and Jen and the rest of the cast were a blast to work with" said Tang, who currently runs his own martial arts academy in Simi Valley. "I used to go to conventions and try to see how much I could get for my autograph, but all I got was blank stares. Maybe that'll change now."
Rumors of a "New Frontier" motion picture have been circulating around the Internet ever since the announcement of the discovery and the plans to air the series on-line beginning in early May.