You would think that the final frontier had been pretty well pioneered by now. But Paramount disagrees.

Not content to make only movies with its cash cow, the studio revisits “Star Trek” for a fifth time, as “Enterprise” launches at 8-10 tonight on UPN. It settles into its regular Wednesday time slot at 8 p.m. next week.

Fortunately, this latest entry in the “Star Trek” mythology isn’t mere recycling. Executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, both veterans of the franchise, have found an intriguing new direction for the “Enterprise” to follow.

The series is a prequel to the original “Star Trek” series, set about 100 years before James T. Kirk captained that other Enterprise. It takes place several decades after Earth’s first successful, faster-than-life space flight, and at the dawn of deep-space exploration.

After decades of being held back by Vulcan advisors, the human race makes its first venture into interstellar travel with Capt. Jonathan Archer at the helm of the Enterprise NX-01. The crew’s mission is to return an injured Klingon – the first humans have seen – to his people

Complications ensue, thanks to a villainous race of aliens called the Suliban, and Archer and his crew end up seeing more of the universe than they’d originally planned.

Archer, as played by Scott Bakula (“Quantum Leap”), is a captain in the mold of Kirk, more likely to get in the middle of a dangerous mission than to assign his crew. His father played a crucial role in developing the ship’s warp drive, and Archer blames the close-mouthed Klingons for his dad never being able to see his creation in action. That leads to tension between him and his science officer, T’Pol (played by Jolene Blalock), assigned to the Enterprise by the Vulcans.

The supporting cast is a likable bunch, especially John Billingsley as the alien Dr. Phlox, and Linda Park as skittish linguistics specialist Hoshi Sato.

“Enterprise” succeeds because it portrays humanity on the cusp of a great adventure. There’s a real sense of wide-eyed wonder as its crew heads off into the vast expanses of space, one that’s not so evident in chronologically later series such as “Deep Space Nine” and “Next Generation.” “To go where no man has gone before” actually means something. That’s why “Enterprise” deserves to fly on.