“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise”

I’m a long time “Star Trek” fan, but I’ve honestly never been able to stand the original series much. I love the characters, I love the boundaries that were pushed, and I used to love Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. I even liked a lot of the actors; Leonard Nimoy’s photography is great, and DeForest Kelley made a great grumpy admiral in his “Star Trek: The Next Generation” appearance.

But the acting. Oh, god, the acting.

Give me “Next Generation,” “Deep Space 9,” or “Voyager” any day over a prattling William Shatner as James T. Kirk, or a walking Scottish stereotype. (Not that “Star Trek” has ever been able to escape stereotyping or blatant speciesism.)

But recently, as I was randomly clicking around the Internet, I found myself watching the most charming Original Series portrayal that I’ve ever seen. Kirk, for instance, was an aggressive hotshot, but not immediately off-putting due to acting.

The original production by Paramount ran from 1966 to 1969, only covering the first three years of mission. The project “Star Trek: New Voyages” is a fan-based series of Internet-released episodes chronicling the U.S.S. Enterprise crew’s fourth and fifth years of her mission under Kirk.

“New Voyages,” accessible on the Internet at http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/, is funded largely by Executive Producer/Creator James Cawley, who works in real life as an Elvis impersonator. Obviously, he plays Kirk on the show. All of the “big nine” are represented - Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, Dr. McCoy, Hikaru Sulu, Nyota Uhura, Pavel Chekov, and Montgomery “Scotty” Scott. There are currently three full 50-minute episodes (including a pilot) and a short “vignette,” with a fourth episode in post-production and due out in March.

There are several amazing things about this series. First, it’s very charming. Maybe I’m a woman of too late a generation, but when I saw Shatner playing Kirk, I just didn’t find him as boyishly charming as he was evidently supposed to be. I was plagued by the memory of an unhealthy-looking Shatner in the movie “Generations” or in Priceline commercials.

Cawley brings back that charisma in Kirk, making it easy to separate Shatner from that role; the same is true for Chekov and Sulu. Many of the other characters haven’t had very strong presences yet, so it remains to be seen how their roles will be portrayed, really.

The second awesome thing about the series is the production quality. While there is usually a single scene that is strangely fuzzy and blurred in each episode, overall the camera work and special effects are nothing to sneer at. The mix of new technology with hobbyist time constraints yields something more solid than the original series while, again, maintaining the charm... not to mention the fact that the sets are very impressive.

Thirdly, this series has some big name connections that help make the series cool while showing some Trekkie love. The second “official” episode (discounting the pilot) guest-stars Walter Koenig, the actor who originally played Pavel Chekov. The third episode (which is still in production), will guest star George Takei as an older Hikaru Sulu. J.G. Hertzler, who played General Martok in several “Deep Space 9” episodes, will be playing Harry Mudd in the fourth episode. The series has writers of varying degrees of fame, including D.C. Fontana and Howard Weinstein.

All of the episodes are available as (free) downloads on the “Star Trek: New Voyages” website. If you’re a Trekkie, at the very least try out the pilot or the first episode. It’s less campy than the original series.

Just, uh, don’t tell your roommate that you’re watching “Star Trek” fan films. That just can’t go well.