Star Trek: The Original Series digital remasters in syndication!

I first learned about this project from some links that Edige passed along to me, showing some CGI effects test footage. This was some kind of well-kept secret in the entertainment community, because the news has just been breaking in the past few weeks.

CBS/Paramount has been remastering episodes of TOS for syndication (and possibly later DVD issue). They will take the place of Star Trek: Enterprise, which now moves to the Sci-Fi Channel. Stations that had been airing Enterprise will now be showing the updated TOS episodes (which includes, locally, Fox on late Sunday nights).

So what is new about them? The image quality gets an upgrade, so they should look better than ever. Plus, many of the visual effects are getting CG makeovers. This could be as little as extra moving images in the static matte painting backgrounds to completely new CG starship exteriors. The opening credits are supposed to be new as well.

From the little I've read about it, they are still in the works, so they literally are getting them done week to week. The proposed schedule is on the offical site, and some of the backstory on what is being done can be found at The Digital Bits, here, here, here and here.

The first week's ep is "Balance of Terror", although the Tribune's TV Guide says "Miri" is on instead. We'll see in just about an hour from this posting. If you don't remember, "Balance..." is one of the better eps, very much like The Enemy Below but set in space.