NEW 'STAR TREK' PLAN REFLECTS SYMBIOSIS OF TV AND MOVIES

When Paramount executives speak of ''Star Trek,'' it is with a mixture of religious fervor and awe. ''Star Trek'' is ''our crown jewel,'' ''our priceless asset,'' a precious resource that ''must not be squandered.''

Paramount's decision, announced a few weeks ago, to make and distribute a new ''Star Trek'' television series itself - after spurning offers from CBS, NBC, ABC and the Fox Broadcasting Company - can only be understood in this context.

''In the end,'' says Mel Harris, who is president of the studio's television group and wears a huge brass belt buckle with a raised silhouette of the starship Enterprise, ''we realized that nobody else was going to care as much about 'Star Trek' as we did.''

Love notwithstanding, there are strong financial reasons, too, for Paramount to nurture ''Star Trek,'' including the $750,000 per episode it gets from the old series.

Since Paramount intends to make ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' without Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and all the other crew members of the Enterprise - and, indeed, without the Enterprise, because the new television show will take place 100 years further into the future - there is no guarantee that it will succeed.

''They're betting they can catch lightning in a bottle again, but the chemistry of that group of characters was unique,'' says Leonard Nimoy, who played the half-Vulcan Mr. Spock. ''And there will be constant comparisons with the old series and with the four movies.''

How and why Paramount decided to make a new ''Star Trek'' series says much about the changing landscape of television and its corollary, the growing symbiosis between a studio's movie and television divisions to ''maximize assets.'' Television no longer means just the three networks. Paramount is making television programs this year for seven different entities - ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcasting, Showtime, USA Cable and first-run syndication.

''With cable and all the new channels, television has turned into a retail medium,'' says Mr. Harris. ''It's the local store that's important. It's the way programs are promoted in a particular city that causes people to choose one channel over another. And, without question, we feel a great comfort in the sophistication of local station managers today.''

As short a time as six years ago, there were less than 100 independent stations. Now there are 328. The independents have thrived by using a new method of financing called barter syndication. They can buy original programs without paying cash. Instead, they pay by giving the producer half of the minutes set aside for commercials. Sometimes, stations pay with a combination of cash and barter.

''Star Trek,'' like Paramount's ''Entertainment Tonight'' and ''Solid Gold,'' will be financed by barter and sold to both independent stations and network affiliates. The hour-long episodes will cost slightly over $1-million each, just as they would if the program were made for the networks. The series will go into production next April for airing in September 1987. A two-hour television movie will launch the new series, to be followed by 24 one-hour epsidoes.

The trigger for the new television series came when agents for Mr. Shatner and Mr. Nimoy asked sky-high salaries for the fourth ''Star Trek'' movie, ''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.'' ''We thought of establishing new characters in a movie we called 'Star Trek: The Academy Years,' '' says a Paramount executive who asked not to be identified. That idea was abandoned when the two stars signed for approximately $2.5 million each. But the seeds of ''a new generation'' had been planted.

It has been 20 years since the Enterprise set off in September, 1966, ''to explore strange new worlds'' and ''boldly go where no man has gone before.'' A failure on network television, ''Star Trek'' would have been cancelled at the end of its first season if NBC had not been deluged by letters from fans. The ratings never improved, and the program left the air in June, 1969, after only 79 episodes. In those days, people turned on their television sets to watch whatever the three networks happened to be broadcasting; to survive, a program had to attract over one-third of the audience. ''Star Trek'' fans were dedicated -how dedicated has become apparent over the last two decades - but there weren't enough of them.

Ironically, the 28 percent of the audience who watched ''Star Trek'' in 1966 would be enough to make the show a hit today, when dozens of channels and millions of videocassette recorders are competing for a viewer's attention.

Nobody expected much success when ''Star Trek'' was syndicated after it was cancelled by NBC. Certainly no one expected that, in 1986, 17 years after it was placed in syndication, it would be listed by the A.C. Nielsen Co. as No. 1, the most watched show in syndication. But, freed from the tyranny of being broadcast everywhere at 8:30 P.M. on Thursday, ''Star Trek'' found a welcome in the late afternoon in one city, in the early evening or late night in another.

The new ''Star Trek'' series will be offered to the 145 stations, covering 90 percent of the country, that currently broadcast the old series. Forty-seven of those stations are network affiliates.

''The shelf life in this business is usually three days,'' says Frank Mancuso, Paramount's chairman. ''To flourish for 20 years. . .''