tatv was a conspiracy by confederates of admiral pressman to discredit riker as a boob who was far more interested in playing on the holodeck instead of taking seriously his duties of being responsible for the recovery of pegasus. at the time riker was about to be captain of titan. this is why tatv at times blatantly contradicts pegasus and has riker acting in an aliern way to him.
So I rewatched S3's Countdown and Zero Hour which closed out the Xindi arc. I was wondering if anyone has the special features or commentary for that episode. I watched the series on Netflix. My question is why, after all the dangerous and high caliber threats the ENT crew faced. Why did Berman and Braga feel the ENT crew getting attacked by random aliens (I checked Memory Alpha they were never given a species designation) was the ending Trip Tucker deserved. He survived the Xindi, Sphere Builders, Romulans, Klingons, Temporal Cold War, Suliban, Orions and the Augments, but not random space thugs? Why didn't Trip take the aliens in to a room full of MACO's or wait for Malcolm to arrive with a security detail? I keep hearing "valentine to the fans" in my head and I think about Trip's arc on the show. Lost his only sister in the Xindi attack, lost his daughter in the previous episode, according to TATV; Trip and T'Pol just stopped any and all relationship after the babies death, and finally Trip dies. His family line has ended with him. Was there no one around to challenge B&B about these things?
If I had been around their ears would have bled. Or maybe not. Knowing me I would have been all like, Wow, brave move. Gritty, even. And then I would have eaten my words for the next decade.
They were the showrunners so they were in charge. They also had tradition on their sides because in television (American T.V.) the showrunner usually writes the season openers and closers, and series finale. But I'm sure some on the staff (not just the actors) objected to the episode. Most certainly the staffer who gave Quills the advance word on the episode. Quills never revealed his source, but I still think it was one of the writers.
I read somewhere (years ago) that Manny Coto himself objected. I distinctly remember an interview in which he refused to discuss TATV. He said something like: "Not getting into that, Rick and Brannon are my friends".
I'm surprised Manny Coto would object to the meaningless killing off of likable characters with deep arcs. He later became the master of such. Manny Coto "How dare you kill off Trip like that!" (Becomes producer of 24) Manny Coto "Okay, in the first episode we kill of two of the most likable, developed characters immediately, and have a third horribly injured so we can unceremoniously kill him off later."