Were there ideas for 'Enterprise' after season 4?

Originally, might it have been the idea to continue 'Enterprise' for 7 seasons like the series right before it, had it not been cancelled?

If the series had continued, were there ideas where the series might go? Temporal cold war stories? Xindi returns? More stuff with Andorians? Would Trip be around and what about him and T'Pol? First encounter with Tribbles?

 

Yes, the plan was to have 7 seasons just like all the other shows.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_Enterprise_episodes

 

When Enterprise was renewed for Season 4, the focus should have been on wrapping up the show. It only got renewed for a fourth season so there'd be enough episodes for reruns. Though episodes were being pitched for Season 5, there was never a chance of the show getting renewed. Some say we got robbed of 3 potential seasons. I say, be happy we got 4 seasons.

 

We actually first encountered a tribble in a pre-title sequence for Season 2's "The Breach".

But don't feel bad for not remembering... the writer of Short Trek "The Trouble with Edward" didn't either!

Even if they had, I guess I can see why they wouldn't want a sight gag of Dr. Phlox feeding one to an unseen creature in a cage, ruining their new origin story explaining how they came to breed fast.

Even though Phlox seems to know all about their most famous trait, over a century before a Starfleet scientist apparently came to bio-engineer them to be that way.

I'm not sure, but the thing in the cage is probably meant to be a Glommer. The solution to having trouble with tribbles, from the Animated Series sequel.

 

Honestly, the tribbles are more fun with their insane breeding as a natural feature instead of the result of genetic engineering.

 

I love the idea, had Enterprise not been winding down, there might've been a crossover episode with Doctor Who.

Amazingly this would've been during its relaunch in 2005, when Christopher Eccleston was in the role. Presumably a Doctor Who episode, rather than a Star Trek one, with the BBC purely taking advantage flying a few cast members to shoot location to the Paramount lot, and a not-to-be taken all that seriously storyline.

Roswell, if anybody remembers that, did a show where its alien teenagers crossed paths with John Billingsley while working on Enterprise. I think Buffy injoked the then current Trek series once or twice. Star Trek has been portrayed as a TV show in the Doctor Who universe too. So I'm guessing it's more a Galaxy Quest-style thing, where actors playing their characters, don't realize what's real and what isn't scenario.

 

i always thought that Tribbles was like "space-bunnies" and they where like this naturally, not by engineering.

 

The fucking series was too compelled in making the statement "Whatever TOS did, ENT did it first!"

 

I recall reading the

I recall reading they were going to show the construction of orbital star bases

 

I take all these "season 5" plans with a pinch of salt, since I've read that they knew the writing was on the wall when they started season 4, and that they only got that season to bring the show up to the required number of episodes for syndication.

 

Thinking about that Doctor Who crossover tangentially but in 2005 we had Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who all debuting new live action media of some sort that year.

Movieblog's review of Future Tense posits the idea that the episode could be seen as Trek/Who lawyer friendly crossover. They find a time/space travel pod that is dimensionally transcendant (Tardis) floating in space with the dead body of a future humanoid (Time Lord). The author draws parallels with the DW book "Alien Bodies" and the auction of the future Doctor's body there, and how you have the Suliban and Tholians battling each other for the right to claim the time pod, or the parallels of the offscreen War in Heaven future war and the offscreen Temporal Cold War. It's not a perfect parallel but interesting to me nonetheless.

 

By a hypothetical season 5, it would have been impossible to avoid the subject of the Romulan War any longer. And that was something I get the distinct impression either Berman or the network execs very much did not want to do. That alone would have been reason to kill the show where they did.

 

Thing there is they already did a war arc with the Xindi, so a war arc with the Romulans would have been retracing old territory.

Maybe show the run up to the Earth-Romulan war at the end of season four, then the premiere of season five it's a few years later and the war just ended.

 

Have S5 span several years, the first half building up to the Romulan War, then 6-8 episodes highlighting what they were up to over the four years of conflict, then the remaining part of the season being the building of the Federation.

S6 then kicks off with Captain Charles Tucker III commanding the U.S.S. Daedalus and a new crew, whilst Archer takes up a post at Starfleet Command, T'Pol has to deal with issues back on Vulcan, Reed is now a full-time intelligence operative, Phlox is dealing with refugees and devastation the war has caused along the former frontlines, Sato could be serving alongside Tucker (XO perhaps?), and Mayweather left Starfleet to help rebuild the devastated Boomer fleet. They can tell some universe-spanning stories dealing with the fallout of the war, and go with a more ensemble approach, to actually give the characters/actors something to do.

 

If they did the Romulan War I think it would have been cool to have seen a coordinated fleet assault of Enterprise and few other support ships engaging some Romulans ships at some point. Not like a huge Dominion War space battle but like a bigger version of that shot from the In A Mirror Darkly intro where ISS Enterprise and some other ships are flying around blowing stuff up. They also should have brought back Captain Hernandez even if she was just a face on the viewscreen to mention other engagements the Columbia was doing. And bring in NX-03.
I think they could have just done the war as a season and maybe taking place only over a year too and I'd have been happy. On B5 the Shadow War and Earth Civil War each lasted less than a year.

 

Everything in the fifth season was supposed to build toward the Earth-Romulan War. As well as TOS related and TAS related stories. Plus, an episode set on Denobula, a revisit to the Mirror Universe, and the identity of Future Guy was to be revealed.

ENT was originally supposed to go 7 seasons, like TNG, DS9 and VOY before it.

If the S4 episode order wasn’t cut, and there was official notice that the show was ending, the writers could have probably squeezed in a few of the planned S5 stories. When S4 aired, renewal was still up in the air at the time, although being given the Friday night death slot should have been a big hint that the end was near. Even if they got moved to a different time slot for a final season - like Marvel Agent’s of Shield did recently after being placed on a Friday - once your show is moved from its regular time slot to the Friday night slot, renewal show not be expected.

Shame there was never a visit Denobula when ENT was on the air.

 

Also, whatever TNG did, ENT did it first.

 

As I've mentioned in other ENT threads, I thought ENT had the best ensemble cast in TNG era, in the pilot episode the chemistry was there and they were ready to go. Treading water was not what these characters deserved, its a big galaxy out there and what the producers did was make the Star Trek Universe a lot smaller. For season 5, I would've had the Vulcans fed up with Earth and moved on, this will allow the humans to learn on their own and we could see the mistakes made on these pioneering journeys. Klingons or Romulans or Andorians should be a treat, we should see them in season ending cliffhangers or a special episodes and these episodes should be bottled shows nothing which could alter or change the politics going on. Also, I thought it was a missed-opportunity, from the get go, not to have these empires a lot smaller and there were situations not involving ENT which propel them to what they would become. Could there have been aliens who were the major biggie in the galaxy and fell like Rome or the mystical Atlantis? ENT should've explored this.

Show some failure in their warp concept and reduce their speeds to Warp 3 and lets see how these characters adjust, lets see this universe earn their wings.

 

Hmm, first one

"Enterprise encountering "a completely featureless planet, something that's the size of the Earth but is as smooth as a billiard ball,"


So they go to Earth? http://www.curiouser.co.uk/facts/smooth_earth.htm

(In reality the earth is about as smooth as fairly course sandpaper, a typical billiard ball scaled up to Earth size would have peaks and dips only 150m high, but still not particularly interesting -- beam down to Norfolk and you'll see that. )

 

Gasp! A slur on my fine county?! How very dare you-

- looks out of window -

- checks Norfolk facts -

- looks out of window again, just in case -

Hmmph! Well, you may have a point, but you overexaggerate: Norfolk's highest point (a few miles from me, actually) is only 103 metres above sea level.