Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Protector. Her five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds...

Well, it's not exactly Star Trek. But Galaxy Quest is the most hilarious send-up of a scifi TV show since Lost in Space (which may have been unintentional).

Galaxy Quest, a parody inspired by the television series Star Trek, is about the washed-up stars of a fictional 1978-1982 TV series called Galaxy Quest. On the show, the actors played the crew of a spaceship, the NSEA Protector and embarked on "intergalactic adventures," but then they're recruited by aliens who believe that their fictional adventures were real.

The story focuses on the cast of Galaxy Quest, a space drama that was once a popular television series. Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) played the crew's commander, Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) was the show's female sex symbol, Sir Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) played the ship's alien science officer, Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) was the chief engineer, and Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) was a child prodigy (and the ship's pilot). Guy Fleegman (Rockwell) played a redshirt who was killed in his only episode. Seventeen years after the show was canceled, the cast members exist by appearing at scifi conventions and signing autographs.

But then, at a Galaxy Quest convention hosted by Guy the redshirt and attended by hordes of costumed fans, Jason is approached by a group of people whose leader, Mathesar (Enrico Colantoni), claims that they are aliens called "Thermians." Jason allows them to take him to what he assumes will be an amateur filming session, but the Thermians really are aliens, octopoidal creatures using "appearance generators" to make themselves appear human. Being so naïve as to have no concept of fiction, they have mistaken broadcasts of Galaxy Quest as "historical documents." The Thermians have built a full-size working version of the NSEA Protector (the show's spaceship) and developed real versions of the other technologies portrayed in the show.

The Thermians transport Jason aboard their spaceship to negotiate with Sarris, a reptilian humanoid warlord engaged in a genocidal war against their people. Sarris demands the "Omega 13," a device mentioned but never used in Galaxy Quest's final episode. Still believing the situation is fictional, Jason orders the Thermians to attack Sarris and then insists on returning home. When the Thermians encase him in a gelatinous "pod" and send him through space to Earth, he finally realizes the ordeal was real, and when they follow him to Earth and ask for more help, he asks his co-stars to join him. They agree, believing the mission is an acting job.

Galaxy Quest won the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (shouldn't that be best comedic presentation? maybe the Hugos don't have that category).

Galaxy Quest was written by David Howard and Robert Gordon and directed by Dean Parisot. The music score was composed by David Newman. Creatures were created by Stan Winston Studio from designs by Jordu Schell.

-- T.J. Powers