Hollywood actor Sir Patrick Stewart honoured the memory of a former teacher who set him on the path to acting as he was knighted by the Queen today.

. . . The award-winning performer is best known for his sci-fi roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Superhero X-men blockbuster movies and said he was honoured to be in the company of other great actor knights.

It's staggering to contemplate the true reach of "Star Trek." On television it yielded five television franchises (six, if you count the Saturday morning cartoon series). There have been 11 feature films -- and one ingenious and thinly disguised parody in "Galaxy Quest." There are hundreds of books and short stories, a massive mountain of toys and collectibles, comic books, clothing, fan fiction, artwork, academic papers and dissertations, spoofs, and the list just goes and on and on.

It's interesting, then, to consider the man behind the original concept, the late Gene Roddenberry, and a new documentary that I'm hearing good things about, "Trek Nation."

Star Trek has been an ongoing phenomenon since its debut in 1966. Star Trek consists of 2 series on the USS Enterprise, 3 spin offs, an animated series, and 11 feature films. A franchise this long lasting and successful creates a loyal following that is interested in anything related to the series. Whether it's Star Trek clothing, home decor, or tattoos, there are a plethora of awesome examples of the fierceness of Star Trek fans. From the fantastic to the ridiculous, here are 10 of the most interesting expressions of Star Trek fanaticism:

Last weekend you may have heard about Andrew Koenig's disappearance via Twitter.

.... Koenig is best known for playing "Boner" on Growing Pains in the '80s and working on the podcast Never Not Funny. He's also the son of Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on Star Trek.

With the success J.J. Abrams has had in rebooting the Star Trek movie franchise in 2009, you just know that there are execs at Paramount that are kicking around the idea of getting the series back on the small screen as well. Star Trek has been mostly off the air since Enterprise ended earlier than any other Trek series since the 1980s and there are more science fiction fans than before, though many may not call themselves that. The success of series like Battlestar Galactica has tapped into new science fiction fans and people are more receptive than ever before. While many long time Star Trek fans will argue that the franchise should remain dead for another decade on TV, it's best to prepare for the worst by offering up the best ideas for ensuring a better show.

Zachary Quinto, who memorably played young Spock in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, said that filmmakers are in no hurry to mount a sequel, though he acknowledges everyone would like one next year. Quinto also offered us an update on several new projects and his NBC series Heroes.

With regard to Star Trek, "I know that they're breaking the stories and working on it," Quinto said

Los Angeles police say actor LeVar Burton was involved in a five-car accident but wasn't seriously injured.

To boldly go where no man has gone before, you'd need a really good starship - and to launch Star Trek, the pop culture phenomenon that entertained and inspired millions, you'd need a pretty darned good one! And that is exactly what the United Space Starship Enterprise delivered. Here are 8 Starship Enterprise facts every Trekker should know:

... Bryan Fuller thinks so. The former Star Trek: Voyager producer and current Heroes scribe told Sci Fi Wire that he'd love to create a new Star Trek series.

Talking to Entertainment Weekly, the veteran Star Trek actor explained what he finds intriguing about the mysterious - but often mentioned - Bell:

The ashes of actress Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, will be launched into deep space alongside those of her husband in a memorial spaceflight slated for 2012.

An unfortunate reality of television is that not every series gets to end in a fashion that the viewers actually like. Sometimes the show gets canceled before they can even shoot a final episode to bring closure to the various major plots and subplots. At other times the ending gets rushed, like when you're enjoying a nice long shower and suddenly you remember that Daylight Saving Time started yesterday and you should have left for work an hour ago. Instead of having a full season to wrap up a multitude of dangling subplots in a series they'll sometimes only get 13 episodes, leading to a hack job that leaves diehard fans shaking their heads in dismay. In other cases they had all the time in the world to do a proper ending but still they managed to botch the job and leave the fans unsatisfied.

For this particular excursion into Canceled Without Pity I'll pose this multi-part question:

What series ending would you have changed, why would you change it, and how would you change it?

America is, apparently, continuing to come around to the charms of a steady diet of Ghost Hunters, Amanda Tapping and Enterprise marathons as the Sci Fi Channel has its most successful year yet.

According to a press release from the Sci Fi Channel itself, 2008 saw audience growth of around 7% overall, with a staggering 14% increase in women aged 18-49 (or 12% increase among Women 25-54, if you'd rather skew a little older). The network is now the ninth-most watched cable channel in the US in the 18-49 demographic, and the fifth in the 25-54 age group.

While you can start a friendly flame war online by posting your list of the very best science fiction TV shows, to fracture friendships, start bar fights, and generally cause a hellacious ruckus, all you really have to do is tell someone their favorite cult TV show is trash.

J.J. Abrams gets interviewed by Chris Moyers from BBC 1 Radio about his new show Fringe , Cloverfield, and his upcoming Star Trek movie.

Former Star Trek actor George Takei has married his long-term partner in a Buddhist ceremony in Los Angeles.

Takei, 71, who played Mr Sulu in the sci-fi series, married business manager Brad Altman, 54, in front of a number of his Star Trek co-stars.

My Uncle Charles always told me "Don't fire both barrels at the same time. Keep something in reserve." I'm going to ignore that wisdom and let loose with the first Canceled Without Pity double feature.

This time around we're talking about tv shows that simply don't pass the test of time. Maybe you loved the show a few years ago but it just doesn't move you now that you're seeing episodes in reruns. There are many reasons why a show can't pass the test of time.

Youthful Folly
Television shows aimed at kids don't usually hold up. As a child your life experiences were limited so lots of situations could come across as compelling or funny. As an adult hopefully your life experiences and maturity level have expanded your horizons, so those preteen and teen shows that once had your devotion just seem lame.

Not-so-Special Effects
Perhaps the effects were state-of-the-art at the time the show originally aired but the dazzling effects of the time can't hide a lame plot anymore.

Timing
Camera shots just aren't what they used to be. Just a few years ago an establishing shot might have been 10 seconds long. These days the same shot might be 4 seconds. By comparison, what was once a great show can seem plodding drudgery.

Dialogue
We just don't talk the way we used to, especially on television. A scene that had great dialogue 20 years years ago sounds like a college lecture to modern ears. They talk too much and the slang is dated. It all makes for a show that is painful to sit through.

What shows no longer pass the test of time when you try to watch them now?

Some of the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek have gone missing.

The remains were being sent into orbit by a company that offers a space burial service when the rocket carrying them malfunctioned minutes after take-off.

Star Trek: The Experience is ending after an 11 year run at the Las Vegas Hilton on September 1st, 2008. The interactive ride contained elements from the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.

Actor William Shatner has become one of the world's most well-known entertainers after almost 60 years in showbusiness.

. . . From his office in Los Angeles, California, he answered some of your questions about his life and career.

Weekend Edition Sunday, June 1, 2008 · When Gene Roddenberry created the TV series Star Trek, the suits at NBC had some advice: "Lose the Martian." They were talking about Spock.

It's not often that two people are so connected in these TV obituary roundup posts I do every week or so, but these two people are worth mentioning in the same post.

During the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s, two men -- Gene Roddenberry and Sherwood Schwartz -- developed TV shows with a similar, fundamental premise: The characters would be a microcosm of the world, and only through cooperation could they overcome their differences. Shwartz marooned his creativity on Gilligan's Island with seven imbeciles who deserved each other.

Alternately, Star Trek, Roddenberry's creation, featured a cast with groundbreaking diversity; it confronted relevant social and intellectual issues, and it was set against the vast expanse of the unknown universe, instead of on a confined island.

This approach struck an unparalleled chord, and four decades later the full Trek franchise is worth billions of dollars. It has been explored through six television series, 10 films, hundreds of novels, scores of video games, a Vegas attraction, and untold merchandising opportunities, from T-shirts and action figures in the millions to a limited-edition golf putter shaped -- you guessed it -- like the USS Enterprise.

Its devoted fans, Trekkies (some prefer Trekkers), own a fanatic detail-oriented reputation that predates the web and makes a similar phenomenon regarding a four-eyed boy wizard look like the pet rock. They are parodied endlessly and endure heaps of ridicule, all with admirable indifference.

As the franchise prepares for its 11th feature film, scheduled for release in late 2008, we present five things you didn't know about Star Trek.

On Tuesday, November 13, the two-part Star Trek Remastered version of "The Menagerie" will beam onto the big screen in a special engagement with selected theatres. The screening — a first for episodic Star Trek on this scale — will be seen in nearly 300 venues across the U.S. and Canada. This one-night-only event will also feature a special introduction by Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, plus an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Remastered series.

Forty episodes will be shown in total, starting September 15, 2007 and ending August 2, 2008. You'll have to check your listings to see what time they're airing, though it'll be either on a Saturday or Sunday.

The Star Trek franchise is in reasonable need of a reboot. One production team, headed by Rick Berman, has been responsible for all "official" Star Trek output on film and television since 1992. That team no longer has a Trek series in production and creative control of the next Trek film has been given to J.J. Abrams. To further emphasize the point, sets in use for decades on the Paramount backlot as "planet locations" have been struck. Long time Trek model and costume makers have been let go. Paramount even reached into its warehouses and auctioned off much of the memorabilia it accumulated over 40 years. The direct creative link reaching back from Berman, Leonard Nimoy, and Harve Bennett to Gene Roddenberry himself has been broken. The old Trek is dead.

To boldly go where other Star Trek actors have gone before: Heroes! A few days ago, TrekMovie.com revealed that Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in the original Star Trek series, was cast in a recurring role on NBC's hit show Heroes.

Like any normal person living in the 21st century, the first thing I did upon hearing about Tom Snyder's death was to try and find some of his old interviews on YouTube. I'm too young to have watched The Tomorrow Show, but I did watch Snyder on The Late Late Show during my college years.

As I assumed, my YouTube search resulted in a lot of great clips, but the most interesting, to me anyway, is the interview Snyder conducted with James Doohan, Deforest Kelley, Walter Koenig, Harlan Ellison and Al Shuster. The men are talking about the still-in-development Star Trek motion picture. I've placed the interview, in five parts, below.

Recently, I hepped you to news that Leonard Nimoy would be appearing in JJ Abrams' Star Trek XI, but that William "Captain kirk" Shatner would not.

I have to say that of everyone I've interviewed, George Takei (for the record it's pronounced "Tah-kay" ... like "okay") has to be one of the most gracious, kind, accommodating, and honest people I've ever met. Not just in the entertainment industry either. He's definitely from the old school of politeness, etiquette and speaking well, yet he has a sharp sense of humor and is always quick to hand out thanks and give kudos where necessary.

Ronald D. Moore on Producing Galactica and What Went Wrong with Voyager

So what is it about William Shatner? Is he cool because he doesn't know how uncool he is? Is he cool because he knows he's uncool? Has he found some way to straddle the line between lame and cool, thus remaining an enigma that will confound us for all time? Whatever it is, no one else has that "Shatner thing" that ol' Bill brings to all his projects.

Alright, I'll admit it. I bought this wine to satisfy my inner geek. What can I say—resistance was futile.

Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will recall that Chateau Picard was the fictional 24th Century red wine estate in La Barre, France owned and operated by Captain Jean-Luc Picard's brother. The wine was featured in several ST:NG episodes and movies. At the "40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection" auction held in October 2006, two empty bottles of the 2267 vintage of Chateau Picard, which were used as props in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis, sold for $6,600. Talk about wine futures….

It seems like George Takei has become quite the popular actor lately, hasn't he? Since he came out of the closet last year, then joined Howard Stern and crew on Sirius, he's been in high demand. We at TVS have a soft spot for the guy because he was nice enough to give us an in-depth interview, complete with his trademark halting laugh (if you don't believe me, listen to the attached audio of the interview. That laugh is infectious).

He made history with his television voyage on the Starship Enterprise, and now Captain Sulu is returning in NBC's latest unlikely sci fi hit.TV Guide is set to report that George Takei will show up on Heroes, playing the father of the space-time continuum-bender Hiro Nakamura, known to civilians as the "Japanese guy" on the serialized drama. The role is sure to be fodder for future sci-fi convention seminars, since the character Hiro is also a sci-fi and Star Trek-quoting geek.

Last night ABC kicked off their new game show Show Me The Money in the best time slot they had available, following the finals competition of Dancing with the Stars. While nobody expected the game show to hold on to all of that DWTS audience, how little of it they managed to keep has to be a disappointment. Fast nationals for the night have Show Me The Money losing more than 14 million viewers from the lead-in. That is over half the audience.

I wasn't around when the original Star Trek premiered on September 8th, 1966; I was but a fleeting thought to my parents. However, I did watch plenty of the series as it ran over-and-over again in syndication. As I got older I noticed that the show wasn't just entertainment, but a teaching tool as well. So, in honor of this breakthrough science-fiction show's 40th (!) anniversary, I present to you the five things I personally learned from Star Trek (not what I learned from All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek, written by Dave Marinaccio.).

You know, you'd think a science-fiction show like Star Trek would have an infinite number of plot devices they could use to keep people's interest. But by creating a world of rigid rules, Prime Directives, peace amongst races, etc., the writers had to find ways to get the stuffy Federation folks into hot water week after week. The plot devices they used on the original series fourty years ago seemed fresh, but as the Trek universe expanded through ten movies and four additional series, some of these devices were trotted out so much that they seemed like the writers were using them as crutches. Here are five plot gimmicks that seemed to be used the most.