There isn't any hinderance as far as writing is concerned. And one could always pull a Generations and have the first one be balanced between TNG and the new crew.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine--the show named for a rickety space station--is being 86'd from television Saturday like, well, like Mir space junk.

This is the third series spin-off of the original Star Trek, and it lasted seven seasons--more than twice as long as the original. It won Emmys, earned critical acclaim and ranked, on average, ninth among all syndicated shows in the ratings on 241 stations. But for some reason, it didn't quite catch on with denizens like other Trek TV shows and films.

DS9, starring Avery Brooks as Captain Benjamin Sisko, and debuting in January 1993, will close out Saturday with a two-hour episode.

"It's very obvious why this show didn't take off, it's very sedentary," says Roger Nygard, director of the fan documentary Trekkies. "It's about a space station where people came to them, rather than a moving spaceship that took them to a new planet and new scenario each week."

Although writers tried everything from creating a wormhole that zapped ships across the galaxy, to sticking some of the cast on a starship called the Defiant, the show never ignited like The Next Generation (which also lasted seven seasons, but like the original, spawned a series of motion pictures) or even Voyager (entering its seventh--and many believe final--season on the UPN).

Still, Nine had its supporters.

"It was the most political, most cohesive and most revolutionary of all the Star Trek series," says sci-fi writer Andy Mangels, of Portland, Oregon, who co-wrote the Star Trek comic series and answers questions daily about the shows on his Hollywood Heroes Internet site (www.anotheruniverse.com/amhh/amhh080197.html).

"This show had a lot of misfits. It was dark, edgy and unsettling, and it could have reached a wider audience if it didn't have the Star Trek name attached," assesses Mangels. "It will be known as the black sheep of the series, but some of the characters will undoubtedly find their way into other shows, maybe even the movies."

Indeed, in terms of imagination, DS 9 pulled out all stops: spats with the big-eared Ferengi, wars with the Dominion and an errant holographic lounge singer.

"This is the first time in Star Trek history that the story is really over," says 16-year-old Gabriel Koerner, of Bakersfield, California, who was featured in Trekkies--and who already saw the final episode. (According to docu-director Nygard, Koerner was recently on a radio show with William Shatner and got more calls than Captain Kirk himself.)