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HOLLYWOOD, CA - After a week which to many eager observers has felt more like two weeks, Paramount Pictures has now opened the field to outside candidates in their election for the role of executive producer of Star Trek.
"It took a while to decide who should be eligible to run," explained Paramount spokesman José Niger yesterday. "We didn't want to exclude anyone who might make a good EP. For example, Matchbox Twenty made a good EP recently. Okay, it wasn't that good.
"Take the upcoming American election, for example. George W. Bush. John Kerry. Out of a nation of 300 million, these are the best two people we can find to run for president? Of course not -- they're leading the race only because the system makes it impossible for most people to run. You have to be rich, male, and visually similar to some sort of animal if you want to be president. We were determined not to place any such restriction on the eTrektion.
"So here's the deal. We don't require a minimum income, age, or IQ. You don't have to have any experience in the TV industry. You don't have to be a sentient lifeform. All you have to do is correctly answer a series of Star Trek trivia questions we will be asking, one at a time, over the course of the campaigns. The first time you get one wrong, you're out. Oh, yoo, tee, OUT. So out you've got your grandma fixing you up with guys (or girls, as the case may be).
"The only thing that matters to us is that you know your Trek. As long as you do, you can be a pretzel for all we care. Speaking of which, is anyone here a pretzel? I'd like to choke Kerry and Bush with you."
Following this announcement, a wide variety of candidates have registered to run in the eTrektion. Paramount's official eTrektion registrar, J. Gideon, reports that "We got 32,000 applications the first day. Paramount told me I needed to weed them down a bit, so I told anyone who was afraid to go home. That left ten thousand. Next, I brought them to the river to drink, and Paramount told me to watch how they did it. Those who knelt to drink the water were to be sent home; those who stayed vigilant, raising the water to their mouths with their hands, could stay. We were left with 300 candidates. Man, I've never seen so many people drink directly from a river. Maybe it's because I told them it was Naya water."
While most of the 300 candidates are unknown Trek dweebs, several are public figures. Kevin Sorbo, lead actor of Andromeda, is running (in slow motion). Sorbo is one of three actors who have registered, the other two being George Takei (Star Trek's Mr. Sulu) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars' Luke Skywalker, Batman: The Animated Series' Joker, The Flash's Trickster, the ephemerality of fame's bee-yotch).
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The popular songstress Madonna has entered the race, arguing that "Star Trek needs to be reinvented, and who knows more about reinvention than me?" We at This Just In, while our policy is to refrain from endorsing one candidate over another, would like to remind the reader of "Music," "Don't Tell Me to Stop," and, deity of your choice help us, her cover of "American Pie," as well as her known associations with such dubious figures as Mike Myers, Britney Spears, and Madonna.
Presidential candidate Ralph Nader has announced that he will run, but will concede the EP position if he should win the federal election. While he has not yet spoken to the press personally, his handlers confided to us that "He'd just like to have a chance of winning something this year."
Reports that the Sony corporation was engineering a small robot to run in the eTrektion could not be confirmed at press time. Another small candidate, cartoon dog Dogbert, told this reporter that "Yes. That's what I'm doing. Running for executive producer of Star Trek. No secret plans here. Not a one."
In the dweeb candidate category is Egbert McNursky, ex-president of the Wisconsin Star Trek fan club "Commanders of the Sixth Fleet." Commenting on the breakup of his former club, Mr. McNursky said "It was just a parting of the ways. The other officers were starting to take a greater interest in Star Wars, and finally they decided to rename the club 'Commanders of the Sith Fleet.' I was rather attached to that X, so I ended up an X-president. But that just leaves me open to try for bigger game -- the Trek franchise itself."
Surprisingly for longtime readers of This Just In, Five-Minute Voyager webmaster Zeke appears to have no interest in running, or taking any other part in this storyline. We did, however, speak with 5MV Site Manager Kira about whether she thought Zeke was qualified to be executive producer. Her response, 15 solid minutes of non-stop laughter, was too long to be reproduced here.
A partial list of the remaining candidates follows: Mark Mazzone, Asky, Xeroc, Hotaru, ASCII, antodav, PointyHairedJedi, Draknek, Alexia, Nic Corelli, and Admiral Sab. Readers will have the chance to learn more about these candidates in This Just In's upcoming series of Candidate Profiles, available soon for only $2.50 Canadian ($700 US) at a cigar store near you. They will not, however, have the chance to learn who the electors are, as Mr. Niger still won't tell us. This reporter is beginning to suspect that, like the true identity of the Evil Future Guy, the identity of the electors may never be revealed....
OR WILL IT?
Perhaps not....
OR WILL IT? 
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