The Sept. 26 debut of "Enterprise"-- the fifth "Star trek" series in 35 years-- was a space ace in the hole, beaming up a stellar 12.5 million viewers. How earth-shattering an event was that for UPN? You'd have to time-warp back to 1995- for the unveiling of "Star Trek: Voyager"--to see numbers bublier than that. "It's a reenergizing of the franchise," proclaims UPN chief Dean Valentine. "The battery poser was still there and it was working fine, but this completely turbocharged it."

Even juicier than the ratings, though, is the prospect that "Enterprise" could actually shape-shift the aging "Trek" franchise into a more mainstream success (currently, "Enterprise" is the season's top-rated freshman drama among 18-49-year-olds), pulling in the kind of folks who don't own Federation-issue bedsheets. It's far from coincidence that the "Trek" overlords decided to drop two of the most hallowed words in sci-fi from the show's title. "I didn't want this to be "Star Trek: The Next Thing," sums up "Enterprise" cocreator Rick Berman. "I wasn't going to just create another spaceship and put another crew on it. I couldn't do it. I knew that fans had enough, and I knew that we all had enough. We had to do something dramatically different in as many ways as possible." Just how different? Let us count those ways....

It takes a quantam leap away from "Trek" geek-ology. Are you the kind of person who thinks the words "Star Trek" sound more intimidating than a Limp Bizkit mosh pit? Before you run screaming from the galaxy, there's a guy sitting in the captain's chair who has a few words of encouragement for you. "It's me! There's a familiar face her! says Scott Bakula, 47, who is personally offering to ease you into the series. "It's like, 'Well Scott will hold our hand. Come on, it's Noah! Everybody get on the ark and we're going to be fine." The "Trek" producers were certainly quick to jump on Bakula's bandwagon- though they insist the idea of helming the ship with an established TV star (Bakula anchored NBC's 1989-1993 time-tripping drama "Quantam Leap") was not the motivating factor. "I was looking for somebody who had that kind of Sam Shepard, 'Right Suff' quality and Han Solo fly-boy quality," Berman explains. "If you take those two images and marry them, you get something that's pretty damn close to Scott Bakula. And he's got that boyish charm. You'd be hard-pressed to find a woman who didn't find him attractive."

And this new captain promises not to steer you straight into a fearsome black hole of complex "Trek" mytholoy. Rememer, this show is a prequel, taking place more than a century befor Kirk & Co. blasted off. "I keep telling everybody that you don't need to know anything," says Bakula. "'Star Trek' can be daunting in that it's 35 years and it's the history of this and that. And now we're starting from scratch. You don't need to have this big dictionary to back up everything happening on the screen.

So that would explain the sudden emergence of phrases like "son of a bitch" and "knock you on your ass" in the normally hypersanitary franchise. "[It makes] the show seem more realistic," says Braga. "Some people were offended by the expletives, though they were very tame by most standards." Diehard fans were also miffed by the "Enterprises"'s opening theme music, "Faith of the Heart," which forgoes a sweeping orchestral score for a schmaltzy pop tune with --gasp!--lyrics. "I wouldn't approve of this soft-rock garbage for a family sitcom 10 years ago," huffed on "Trek" message board, "much less for a new 200` ST series," Well, at least teh nitpickiness of the fans hasn't changed.

It's sexier (as in, Is that a photon torpedo in your space pants or are just happy to see me?). If you were to compile a list of adjectives to describe recent "Star Trek's", sexy would get a stiff neck from looking all the way up at gear-heady, socially responsible, and antiseptic. But "Enterprise's" premiere episode revealed that producers had slipped a few Viagra pills into the ol' warp drive: Witness a scene featuring butterfly-eating identical-twin alien babes (wearing nothing but latex paint!).

Stick your eyeballs back in their sockets after a skin-heavy decontamination chamber liason between Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) and Vulcan T'Pol (Jolene Blalock). ("I had to shave my chest and all that stuff," admits Trinneer. "Never done that before.") And holy holodeck-- why are we seeing the captain unwinding in his quarters...in his underpants? (Maybe it's for the same reason that an "Enterprise" story idea board hanging in Braga's office contains the term "Tri-sexual.") "We learned from Seven of Nine that 'Star Trek' could use a little senusality," says Braga, referencing Jeri Ryan's Borg-turned-babe whom "Voyager" introduced in season 3. "I wouldn't say 'sex' per se. It's not like the crew is going to be off boffing one another. But sensuality? You'd better believe it."

Oh, we're believers. For those of you who've been living in another solar system, "Enterpise" has scored another Seven of Nine (actually, some say she's even closer to their idea of a perfect 19). Introducing Jolene Blalock, a 26-year-old model-turned-actress, who's already transformed the austere T'Pol into the best looking Vulcan this space quadrant has ever witnessed. An old-school "Trek" devotee-- "Spock was so cool" she coos- Blalock turned down two requests to try on the pointy ears and bowl-cut wig before finally agreeing to audition. "I thought it was going to be just another 'Deep Space Nine' or 'Voyager' or something along those lines," explains Blalock, whose previous credits include appearance on "CSI" and "JAG".

"My agent sat me down, we had a little powwow, and he said, 'You know what? I suggest you read the script.' And I took it home. I got the premise, found out it was a prequel, found out she was a Vulcan, and was sold." The third time was apparently the charm for the producers as well. "She's obviously very beautiful," says Braga, "but she had an otherworldly quality when she came in to read. She seemed kind of...alien. She had very interesting eyes. It was weird. Beautiful, but kind of odd. That's what you look for in an alien."

And- quelle coincidence!-- she happens to fit quite nicely into that catsuit. ("What could be more comfortable-- it's like long johns," she says. "I'm not going to say leotards, because that would be a fashion faux pas.") She's also not too shabby at executing that whole Vulcan neck pinch thing (which this reporter bravely experienced firsthand). "Jolene's really good-- she's not just eye candy," observes Keating. "She's quite aware that she'll probably be the breakout star of the show." She's already one of the most ogled women on the Internet. "I have no control over that," she says. "Physicality is physicality and I can use it to empower me. I am woman. I can't hide that."

Fair enough, Jolene, but are you prepared to fend off that legion of Trekkers whose phasers are already set to hot-and-bothered? "My people made me change my phone number and my address," she says with a nervous laugh.

It's actually funny-- on purpose. Did you hear the one about the rabbi, the Tribble and the Klingon? No, you didn't. That's because "Trek" has traditionally boasted about as many yuks as the Weather Channel. "We're trying to make the show funnier out of the gate," says Braga. "The way we approached humor in the past, we would occasionally do the funny episode. But there was always kind of a visceral feeling that the show was not inherently humorous. It was very serious, a somewhat brooding kind of thing. We wanted to create a show that would have organic humor every single week, humor that didn't fell forced." To that end, keep an eye on Trip, a sarcastic dude from the Florida Keys who's a gifted engineer but a high-level fish-out-of-water when it comes to interspecies relations. "I don't think i would have been cast on 'Voyager,'" notes Trinneer. "I was talking to somebody at the beginning of this series and they said, 'How's it going?' And I said, 'I think the tone's a little different, because if it's not, I'm going to suck.'". Chuckles Berman: "My favorite line-- the shuttle craft lands, and as the dog runs out of the craft into the woods, Trip looks up and goes, 'Where no dog has gone before.' And the dog is running right for a tree." Granted, it's not quite "Seinfeld"-- nor should it try to be-- but, c'mon, if you can't laugh at deep-space dog wee-wee, what can you laugh at?

The article is accompanied by a color photo of the Enterprise crew, Capt. Archer (S. Bakula seated at front), standing behind him John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park and Connor Trinnear; 4 small color photos of the shower scene from episode one with T'Pol and Trip; A color photo of Scott Bakula as Archer.