Stories You Would have Enjoyed Seeing

II know everyone enjoys speculation threads.

I read somewhere that the writing team had ideas regarding what they wanted to do if Enterprise entered a fifth season. Manny Coto and crew did a great job with season 4 so it would have been interesting to see what they would have done. I for one would have liked a little more backstory on Dr. Phlox, and I think they could have explored Malcomb's background a bit more. I heard they wanted to bring the Andoreans and other species closer together to begin forging the Federation. What would you like them to have done?

 

I want E2, the mini-series.

 

That would be nice, though it would never happen.

For a couple of years after the end of the series, I just wished they'd go back and fix that awful final episode. I even fantasized about winning the lottery and funding it myself. But if I were to suddenly become that wealthy, fixing the end of a fictional series would probably be the lowest of my priorities. I may have the entire cast over at my mansion for dinner though.

 

I would like to have seen

1) more Romulan machinations.

2) A (small) running thread about Archer having feelings for T'pol. Not a full fledged love triangle or anything - just a simple unrequited love storyline for character development.

3) More Tellarites! I don't know why, but I like these guys. I would like to have seen a few episodes that focused on their race a bit.

4) An episode or two with God like beings. It seemed like there was a demi god around every corner in TOS but I think Observer Effect was the only episode we got any in Enterprise.

5) A followup episode featuring the Xindi. The Expanse being made more accessible is sort of like a mini version of the Bajoran wormhole being discovered. It would have been interesting to see how the Xindi and other races who lived their dealt with an influx of new visitors.

6) A prequel to a TOS episode. Maybe visit the planet from A Taste of Armageddon before they came up with their solution to the problems the war was causing their infrastructure.

7) A sequel to Cogenitor. I absolutely hated the ending to this episode. (spoilers) I would love to see an episode in which the enlightened alien race had to deal with the suicide of the congenitor. Would they revaluate their stance on the civil rights of the cogenitors? Would they become more xenophobic due to the meddling of Trip?

8) More episodes dealing with the struggle between the current Vulcan society and the Syrrannites.

9) I wouldn't mind seeing some elements of TAS brought into the series either. Slaver artifacts, the Kzinti, etc.

10) One final Temporal Cold War story. A good one, that made the other episodes more worthwhile. I think they should have went the Mirror Universe rout instead of the Space Nazi's to kick off season 4. Crazy Xindi War era Archer vs even crazier Mirror Universe Archer.


11) I would have liked to have seen the Suliban Cabal featured in some stories that weren't related to the TCW.

12) I would have liked to see more of Kolos. Maybe have a running storyline with him trying to enact reforms in the Klingon empire. Any excuse to get more J.G. Hertzler.

 

The one where William Shatner would've chewed the scenery as Mirror Kirk.

Or the idea they had about revealing him as the NX-01's unseen Chef.

 

The Enterprise trying to rescue the "real" ECS Kobayashi Maru. Seeing the real event which inspired the famous command test from Wrath of Khan (and later Star Trek) would be awesome.

Of course, for it to work and the Enterprise survive, they'd have to come up with one hell of a deus ex machina. Could the writers do justice to the concept?


Also: marlboro's Mirror T'Pol picture

 

Back around the end of the first or second season I wrote a mock review of the not-yet-made next season for Enterprise, mostly with silly gimmick plot outlines to build jokes from. But one I thought, then and now, was a legitimately good premise and if they were taking unsolicited scripts I might've tried sending it in. So here goes:

A Dark And Deadly Valley. Enterprise runs across a planet clearly getting ready for its local version of the World Wars, and the landing parties fall in with the not-quite-great-enough power that's obviously going to get wiped off the face of the Weekian world. Despite T'Pol's protests Archer starts supplying technical aid as fast as possible, hoping that by the lights of what modern technology, and more to the point advanced strategic and tactical doctrines, can do to give the surrounded power more of a fighting chance. As the project finally makes headway, T'Pol and Sato prove that Archer has made a terrible decision: they've been helping the local equivalents to interwar Germany against the British and for all the Weekian British's failings they're the ones the Enterprise crew would really prefer to come out ahead. They pull out of Weekian Germany and with great effort are able to push for the Weekian Brits instead, and are left aware that while they may not have changed the planet's ultimate ideological fate, they have made sure that the locals' upcoming World War is going to be a harder, bloodier, and closer-run thing than it might have been.

(I suppose that's really too much plot for 42 minutes. Too bad.)

 

That would have been epic.

 

I would've like to have seen more backstory for characters like Phlox, Malcolm and Hoshi and Travis Mayweather. Also T'Pol when she served in the Vulcan high command. Also Archer and Trip too.

 

That's a very interesting idea. I think there is a way to do the story justice without resorting to a deus ex machina ending.

Archer was portrayed as being a bit naive and overly optimistic in the early seasons of the show. Have this be the episode where the reality of what it means to be a captain smacks him in the face. Just because you have a test called the "Kobayashi Maru" doesn't mean that you have to actually have a ship with that name. You just need a scenario featuring an enemy, a ship in distress, and a no win situation. Have Archer make his decision (obviously it would need to be the one that didn't end up with the destruction of the Enterprise) and have it be such an impactful moment that it becomes a standard part of Starfleet training.

 

I don't know if Archer's sometimes-incompetence as a Captain in the earlier part of the show was completely be design or a grand plan, or if it was by the writer's design. If it was by design, then it would seem to suit T'pol's argument that humans weren't ready to go so deeply into space.

 

I think The Crossing (the one with body-swapping wraiths) would also fall into this category.

I would have liked to see the establishment of diplomatic relations with the occupants of the Expanse. A sort of Marshall Plan in space.

After what we saw in Detained, I was hoping the Suliban diaspora would be explored further. And would the enhanced Suliban degrade after they had lost contact with Future Guy?

Also, the Romulan war. The fact that they're not supposed to meet face-to-face sets up intriguing possibilities for long-range weapons, guerilla attacks and even terrorism.

 

I know he wasn't a diplomat, he was an astronaut. Still, you would think since his prime mission was making first contact they would have picked someone with leadership skills who didn't act like a bumbling tourist rubbing up against the natives.

It's not like he had any other skills other than ship captaincy, when did he ever save the day through science or engineering or helmsmanship or.. he saved it by accident with his mouth, after removing his foot, and as the seasons went on he got better and saved it by design. Or being a bully when it was needed.

While a definite arc of Archer Learns to Diplomacy I think they made a mistake making him so stupid in the start. It's just a bit unbelievable that they didn't pick someone renown for their dealings with Vulcans, someone who wasn't "whaaaaaaaaaaaat?" when confronted with a Klingon on earth.

You could find someone today who could do this job, be a diplomat and command a starship. Though really they painted a lot of them pretty stupid in Broken Bow, all the peeps yelling at Soval (or maybe that was just Archer). Maybe the culture in the military and on earth was kind of dim.

 

Archer was supposed to be a good pilot, but he always let Travis take the helm. Must have been a union thing.

 

I would have loved to see an episode where the crew of Enterprise transitioned to uniforms which would resemble Captain Pike's Enterprise crew uniforms. Or at least, make it close so I could see the show was trying to link it to future Trek or Trek in classic series.

 

Enterprise had sooooo many stories left untold. One of the real shames of this series is how many shoes were left untied by the many shifts in direction. The Temporal Coldwar, the beginning of the Federation, The Prime Directive, T'pol/Trip and the various moral complications that developed from the Xindi arc. So much potential that was never realized. It would have taken 5 more years to sort out what the dragged out in the first four.

 

Since we know the plan was to make Shran a member of the crew (and presumably make Jeffrey Combs a series regular), more Shran stories would've been in order. I would've loved to have seen him adjusting to life on a human ship, learning about our culture, trying our food, going to movie night, etc.

In terms of more specific stories, I think they should've brought back Admiral Valdore, if for no other reason than the idea that he had to improve his reputation in the empire after the last time we saw him (since we know they'll be naming a ship after him in a couple of centuries).

I had an idea where he captures Archer and tries to trick him into revealing Starfleet secrets by putting him in this elaborate illusion, with the reluctant help of a captured Talosian (whom Archer presumably never sees).

 

I can imagine Malcolm or Trip shouting "Down in front!"

 

That would have been nice. I could see Shran adjusting to life among the 'pink skins.'