'Enterprise' & 'Twilight Zone' Launching Sep 18

See Also: 'Shockwave, Part II' Episode Guide

UPN announced at its Fall press junket today Enterprise's second season will debut on Wednesday the 18th of September.

Unlike in previous years with Voyager, UPN will not make the Enterprise season premiere a two-hour event. Only 'Shockwave, Part Two' will air on the 18th of September at 8:00pm, though viewers will likely be able to catch up on the first part the week before. Instead, UPN will launch the updated Twilight Zone at 9:00pm, thereby allowing the new show to benefit from the large expected audience for the Enterprise premiere.

The Twilight Zone has several connections with Star Trek, as former DS9 executive producer Ira Steven Behr is on the show's writing staff, and Jonathan Frakes (William T. Riker) directed the one-hour opening story. Further episodes of the anthology show will feature two self-contained half-hour stories, hosted by Forest Whitaker.

UPN announced its fall premiere dates during the summer press tour of the Television Critics Association, taking place this month in Los Angeles. UPN's presentation will be followed tomorrow by corporate sister CBS, but CBS president Leslie Moonves already shared the stage with UPN's Dawn Ostroff to give an update on the network's progress. The talent behind many of the UPN's shows were also on hand to answer press questions, and fall preview reports based on this will appear in the media over the coming week.

While UPN's Wednesday dramas will debut on the 18th of September, the rest of the network's programs won't launch until the week after. On Monday the 23rd of September, sitcoms The Parkers, One on One and Girlfriend will return, to be joined by new comedy Half and Half. A day later, Buffy the Vampire Slayer starts its seventh season, along with new supernatural detective show Haunted.

Both WWF Smackdown! on Thursday and the UPN Movie Friday continued throughout the Summer, but the movie night will officially start its second season on Friday the 27th of September. Some of the films that will have their broadcast premiere on UPN this season include 'The Man in the Iron Mask' and 'The Cell,' but most interesting for Trek fans should be the fact UPN will also show several of the nine Star Trek films.

The Television Critics Association's press tour started last week in the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel in Los Angeles, and already saw the announcement of a new Quantum Leap series (story). Following CBS, ABC and NBC will present their fall schedules, while next Saturday the 18th annual Television Critics Association Awards ceremony will be held at the Ritz-Carlton.

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