The 10th Anniversary of the ENT Series Finale

I don't think TATV is the crap episode people make it out to be. Heck, it's not even my least favorite series finale (Endgame is). I guess I don't mind it because Terra Prime felt like the real Enterprise Series finale.

 

You're quite the optimist. Lots of people hated it because it seemed to erase the progress Trip and T'Pol made in Terra Prime. There was really no explanation as to why they broke up. As bad as that was, it's far from the worst part.

I never watched the Pegasus but I didn't get what Riker's issue had to do with ENT. I couldn't take his problem seriously when he asked the crew about gossipy subjects. Worst of all, they dumbed down not 1 but 2 characters in order to kill Trip off. A grown-ass man like Shran is gullible enough to join a gang? Never heard of midlife crisis like that. They could have just had him hang out with the wrong crowd as a kid. I was also offended they turned Trip into a hick. And I'm a Jersey girl guilty of her fair share of dumb Southerner jokes.

 

Terra Prime made it appear, as mentioned above, that Trip and T'Pol would marry and have children. That was a great ending. Archer gave the speech at the first intergalactic conference, perfect ending to the series. Then the Medusa-like TATV had to mess it all up. You know what I don't get? Frakes and Sirtis were only 3 years out of Nemesis, yet they look 20 years older in TATV than said film. What the what? They look better NOW than they did in that insult of a series finale.

Son and I just completed a run through ENT on BRD (it looks amazing!): both he, daughter and myself refused to watch that abomination called TATV. Terra Prime is the series finale, I don't care what the novels did to try and "fix" it.

 

And not one single mention of the Earth-Romulan War having happened before the events recorded in the holoprogram. At some point just before the final mission of the NX-01 the Romulans had been defeated after a bloody interstellar war that lasted about four years and forever changed the fate of the galaxy, solidifying the coalition and alliance that became the Federation.

Season 5 had been rumored even then to focus on the Romulans and the huge and devastating war mentioned in TOS and some of the other series, but in the final episode of the series there's not even one mention of it or them, either by the 22nd century Enterprise crew nor by Will Riker and Deanna Troi more than two centuries into the future. Almost every longtime fan who was still interested enough in ENT to keep watching up to the cancellation and final episodes of the series knew about the Earth-Romulan War and it's a shame they didn't at least acknowledge such a pivotal event in history that the fans have been aware of since 1966.

 

The problem is that the ENT finale isn't really a finale. B&B wanted to hedge their bets and write a story that could serve as an ending, but was still ambiguous enough that if by some miracle the network (or another network entirely) had picked up the show for another season at the last minute, it would have been easy to keep it going. Hence, the time skip. The general idea was that if the show had been picked up again, then "These Are The Voyages..." would be able to stand alone as a jolly holodeck romp, rather than being an 'end' to the series. And if the show didn't get picked up, then there was just enough there to be able to call it a finale.

That's why it ultimately feels so unsatisfactory, not only because the time skip is done without any elegance whatsoever (by having characters verbalise it: "Hey guys, as you know we've just finished our historic mission..." ), but also because the holodeck premise causes us to feel that the episode doesn't have any emotional weight.

If B&B's plan had met fruition, the show would have been back in its regular timeslot the next year, complete with Tucker's death negated and picking up where Terra Prime left off.

 

I'd always read (or perhaps, misread) that Berman hastily scribbled TATV precisely because they'd hedged their bets (against somewhat obvious odds) that there'd be a fifth season, and so TATV is half-baked because he had a single hour to work with and didn't go the more sensible route of simply adding a touch of denouement to the proceedings after "Terra Prime".

 

ISTR there was a deliberate moratorium on the Sovereign Class ever appearing on TV. I can't recall the exact quote, but I do remember reading somewhere that it was only to be seen in movies (which is also why we never saw any other Sovereigns in Star Trek aside from the 1701-E).

 

That's... weird as hell. I wonder why.

 

I think they just wanted to keep things seperate. They wanted the Sovereign to be the uniquely 'theatrical' hero ship. Kind of like how we never saw another Constitution refit outside of the movies. There was still a chance for further TNG movies at that point. The Galaxy Class was fair game for reappearances in DS9, VOY and ENT though.

I believe Berman, at least, was still under contract for quite a while even after Enterprise finished (he was still being employed to develop the ultimately abandoned fifth TNG-era feature I mentioned above), so maybe he was figuring that they'd keep the show going until his contract expired, given he was going to be on the studio payroll anyway.

 

Ahh, makes sense (re: the Sovereign).

It's always struck me as strange though, yeah. Just like... that design was introduced 19 years ago, with FC, and then it was after that that the Dominion War started, and every time I look back at the sixth and seventh seasons of DS9, it feels off that I don't see it. Leaves the Enterprise-E as this super-early vision of "things to come" in my mind, because damn if they never quite "came" by the end of 2375.

Then again, I suppose the Defiant-class warships are not to be undervalued.

 

I think the finale was a miss but not terrible but it did feel as if Berman & Braga had become angry at the series, that it didn't succeed more and that what was popular was credited to other people, and took it out on the characters, especially Trip & T'Pol.

 

It didn't have to be the Sovereign. They could have tweaked the Ent-E CGI model so that it represented another starship class. My point was that they already had the CGI model to work with, instead of having to build a brand-new CGI model of the Ent-D from scratch.

 

I don't know, that's a pretty dire analysis. Not one that I disagree with, even, necessarily. Just, I mean... I'm going to have to see how I react upon rewatching it once I hit the end (ugh, nooo) in several more weeks, but if that's what I take from it then I'll probably loathe it wholesale. "Taking it out" on T'Pol is just... she's a top ten Trek character for me. D:

 

There is a part of me that thinks Brannon Braga's 'Valentine To The Fans' idea was inspired by envy over how well In A Mirror Darkly turned out. They wanted to up the ante, so they were like, "Yeah, let's recreate the 1701-D sets and rehire a couple of TNG actors". And in that respect, the show does hit the right buttons (I remember *loving* TATV the first time I ever watched it because I grew up on TNG and seeing all those sets again was absolutely awesome). But in hindsight, it kind of lost its lustre.

One wonders what difference a two-hour long version would've made. Maybe if they had've had more time and money to play with, it would've felt better. In A Mirror Darkly holds up well because the effort taken to rebuild so many TOS sets feels like a real punch-the-air achievement, maybe a two-hour version of TATV might've gone futher and rebuilt 1701-D's engineering and the bridge and maybe hired a couple more of the TNG cast? And two-hours would've meant more time could be given to the 'Enterprise' side of the story, too. As it was, they kind of had to work with what they got. Which wasn't much.

 

A two-hour finale in the style of TNG, DS9 and VOY might have made some kind of qualitative difference had the characters both in the 22nd and 24th century been given more dialogue and things to do so we felt like the cast of Enterprise was getting a lot more screentime and more of a proper sendoff, but the story idea was flawed enough by itself that I don't think even an episode twice as long and with more for the actors to do could have saved the finale from its creative shortcomings.

 

According to Connor, they killed Trip for the shock value. As for being angry with the show or giving fans the middle finger, I don't think they had any such intent. To me, the most likely scenario is that they just didn't give TATV a lot of thought. Why do I think that way? Because seasons 1 and 2 suffered from a lack of direction. It reminds me of a professor who decided to assign my class into groups for a discussion. It was also going to stay that way for the final project. Until she changed her mind for no reason. This resulted in 50 people each making their own presentations and 1 extra class. Guys, take a guess at what this hot mess of a professor taught!

I don't think Twilight is the masterpiece most fans believe it is but I love the level of detail they had for the future. Everyone looked older and they even gave slight makeovers to Hoshi and Malcolm. The best TATV could do was to give T'Pol highlights.

 

I don't think that was implicit at all. It could have gone either way, especially as a number of relationships don't survive the death of a child. I think that was the backstory to their relationship in TATV. Though, as I said, I think the baby in Terra Prime was only included to feed that subplot in TATV - it's superfluous to the plot IMO.

I think it would have just meant an extra hour of suck. The basic premise was broken.

 

Nah, the baby was always going to be there. Whether TATV happened or not, they were going to kill Elizabeth. You might find this link interesting.
http://www.triaxiansilk.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=162&sid=7fe0621a1392c4c4f034d7497df6a3cc

Amen to that.

 

It's interesting to consider how the episode would have been regarded, I think much better, if it hadn't aired as the finale, hadn't killed Trip and had involved a random mission rather than the final voyage; some other crossover episodes are fairly popular, at least Voyager's midseason "Pathfinder" was despite focusing more on the guest stars.
OTOH, airing "In a Mirror, Darkly" as the finale would have also generated interesting reactions, being not about the actual characters but still being about their mirror-selves, there would have been some disappointment but it probably would have been regarded more as a coda.

Archer saying "Here's to the next generation," Phlox saying Archer had been lucky and the supporting characters getting bad seats and complaining about it felt pretty vindictive but again I'm not sure it was really conscious or intended it just came out.

 

I did as well. I enjoyed Riker and Troi on the final episode too.