The One Thing You Could Change, ENTERPRISE Edition...

Tripp should have been German, and have a hobby of rebuilding/building clocks/pocket watches, the ones with the tiny tiny screws!

 

He could have spoken with an impenetrable accent and always been seen wearing a jeweler's lens...

 

Basically make him Uther from the Simpsons, sitting at his station on the bridge ceaselessly eating chocolate and sweets and trying to befriend T'Pol by offering her some Marzipan Joy-Joys (or to take a bite off his vangelerstrasse bar)

 

Scrap "Bound" so "These Are the Voyages..." can be a two hour finale. Make it fit better with TNG "The Pegasus," make the finale actually feel six years later. Promotions, new hair styles, subtle makeup to suggest a few years of age, wear and tear on the sets, random upgrades that look tacked on, you get the idea. As a two-hour, there's now time to focus on the TNG crossover AND give closure to the show.

This is my change.

 

Not saying your approach is wrong, but "Bound" wasn’t that bad of a story. Fuse it with the ENT part of TATV and it could have fit it perfectly.

- Riker finishes his hearing over the Pegasus and goes to the holodeck. He looks to a particular mission in ENT’s history that was similar to his situation, set shortly after the events of Terra Prime.

- Basically a fusion of the two stories: Shran’s looking for help as he’s in trouble with some criminals while the NX-01 is looking for a location for the first starbase as their new mission.

- The crew helps Shran and liberates captured Orion slave girls in the process on Rigel.

- It’s all part of a ploy to capture the NX-01 by Harrad-Sar and the Orion slave girls, who orchestrated the whole thing as a bounty had been out on the NX-01 ever since the events in “Borderland” by the Orion Syndicate. Kelby helps the Orions and the Rigel pirates take the ship.

- Trip sacrifices himself to help retake the ship as part of the ship’s mutiny, against Archer’s orders, who is not thinking clearly due to the presence of Orion slave girls, as well as T’Pol’s order, who is as clear minded as ever.

- Riker then takes the role of Chef on the advice of Troi, and learns how the crew dealt with Trip’s death in the years after, and Archer’s decision to divert from their new mission to help Shran. They would clearly go through changes like aging and promotions. And while there would be clear frustrations amongst the crew (with a couple of them wishing that they had never followed Archer's orders), Trip’s sacrifice also becomes a source of strength for them during the Romulan War. And this strength throughout the Earth forces is what encourages the Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites to join them in the fight and later on form the Federation.

- Riker leaps ahead to the UFP ceremony, where Shran is present with his daughter (who is gifted Frankenstein by T’Pol), and the rest of the NX-01 crew has been promoted by this time. All wounds over Trip's death have been healed by this point.

- Riker & Troi leave the holodeck, summoned to the bridge by Data, realizing good will come from the Pegasus incident.

That's plenty for a 2 hour finale.

 

The captain.

For all of my complaints, when I attempted to re-watch the series I found that I could forgive all of its faults, even the most laughably absurd, except for Johnathan Archer. Nothing against Scott Bakula, who seems like a likable dude outside that one show. But he and "Star Trek" must just not be a good match. Archer just feels like Dubya and Donald Trump got fused in a transporter accident, leaving us with a dopey faced guy trying to be serious, while openly lusting after his first officer and threatening to "water" the sacred trees of important allies.

 

I loved Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap. But he brought none of that warmth and humanity to Star Trek. He always seemed stiff and uncomfortable, like he was trying too hard sometimes. I remember that as the show progressed, the stand out stars of the show really became Connor Trineer and Jolene Blalock

 

Simple answer: Replace the Xindi with the Romulans.

Long answer: The Xindi war arc was what killed my interest in Enterprise. If the villains had been a race we knew existed, I probably would have been happier, but it was some no-name race that was never mentioned before or since except in vague passing. Nemesis had just come out, so the Romulan senate set could have been saved and reused for Enterprise, with a different senate and praetor. The whole thing could be done any number of ways, but Enterprise's biggest loss was that it wasted it's war arc on a group of aliens which had nothing to do with anything, instead of introducing us to a known villain in a century when we know they had waged war against Starfleet. Of course, this whole argument only works assuming the show still only features one major galactic war, this time against the Romulans, instead of two wars, one with the Xindi and the other with the Romulans (which would make the show too warlike for my liking), hence my push to replace the Xindi altogether.

EDIT: Keep the intro music from Season One throughout the show. The Season Three intro music was just bad...

 

I'd definitely want a final, concluding season, featuring the Romulan War, no question - so my answer if for it to have not been cancelled!

After that - for Archer's Theme to have been the opening music instead of the song.

 

So, would the Romulans be in regular space, or in the Delphic Expanse in place of the Xindi? As while I could buy that the Romulans made a replica Senate in an undisclosed location (and be unaware of the presence of the Sphere Builders too), Romulans hiding out in the Delphic Expanse plotting attacks against Starfleet seems more like a Tal Shiar thing.

And it would likely have been a Reman soldier placed in the probe instead of Romulan troop. And considering the body of the probe pilot in the S2 finale looks like a Reman anyways, it could have worked well.

But I get where you are coming from. Especially since they did make a mode of a 22nd century BoP and only used it for a single episode.

 

How about using the Kzin? Or would cat people be too goofy? I like the design of the Xindi, but yea either they shouldn't be a force attacking Earth or something so drastic. That would be remembered.

United Earth is older; and more of a power. They're not some Vulcan puppet. They own Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Bernard's, Wolf 359. Their reach is limited by the other powers they get along with (Andor, Tellar, Vulcan), have fought a few wars (Kzin, something else, maybe even the Xindi?), and they're limited by the slow speed of their ships, not Vulcan tut-tuting.

That was my main pet peeve. That Starfleet is just twenty years old, UE something along that. Now sure jumping back after a nuclear war to such an extent may be a bit much to take but By 2110 nearly all problems on Earth would had been solved - but how? The Vulcans helping individual governments, or maybe the UN reforms and forms the UNE to UE. All those space missions from the 60s didn't come from individual states, but Earth. Friendship One - 2067. Valiant - 2065. Conestoga - 2069. Then for fifty years, nothing? Mars colonized in the 2100s? Yea sureee. Hell when does XCV-330 come in, if at all?

Now I'm not saying Earth went all kumbaya after the Vulcans landed, but it seems that the West-UN forces did, and probably united quickly and used their already expansive space presence to expand quickly. Then maybe they settled down, helped the ECON Post-Atomic Horror remnants, settled SolSys, and by 2110 everything was peachy, and the UN/UE would be a settled power, with energy, but are stuck with Warp 1-3 ships.

Humans can get a lot done in 20, 30, 40 years, to say nothing of 70, 80, 90....

 

I like all of these ideas, but I originally had no specific plot of my own. I don't see why the Tal Shiar couldn't have been behind the whole Romulan War, but at the same time, I think I'd scrap the whole "Delphic Expanse" plot and either have it be Romulans in regular space, or in the Bassen Rift from Nemesis. Maybe have a whole plot about how most of the war was fought in the Bassen Rift (The rift interferes with long range communication, making it easy for our NX-01 crew to not have visual contact with the Romulans) except towards the end when, upon exhausting the Earth Starfleet resources both mentally and physically, an entire fleet of Romulan ships arrives (have the Romulan fleets be comprised of a massive number of relatively small and easy to handle ships), pushes through the last remnants of the Earth fleet, then proceeds directly to Earth. Fortunately, the Romulan fleet doesn't get very far, and is intercepted and only with the combined forces of the Earth/Vulcan/Tellarite fleets are the Romulans driven back, where they make their last stand at Cheron. The war can even end in something of a stalemate, when both powers practically beat each other into submission.

 

It would be good as a call back to TAS. But they would have to pay to use the Kzin, like they had to pay to use T’Pau in S4.

I don’t think it was fifty years of nothing. I think a bunch of nations went and attempted to colonize planets on their own, mainly those known to have their own space program.

And the XCV-330 is probably in the 2120s. It clearly holds importance if its image is in the 602 Club, Admiral Forrest’s office, and the USS Enterprise over a century later. If it was the first Earth ship to get to Warp 2, then is clearly has its place in history.

But its hard to tell if that Enterprise actually did hit warp 2 first, or if the freighters developed at the beginning of the 22nd century did. Since J-Class freighters predate the founding of the Warp Five Complex, which the XCV-330 time seems to be shortly after its founding. While it would make sense to conclude that speeds greater than warp 2 are necessary to reach greater distances after the establishment of freighters, thus necessitating the complex, I also don't find it hard to believe that the XCV-330 was the first ship that Cochrane implemented a warp 2 engine with.

 

Well, that certainly would have been a different way to present the Romulan War.

Bassen Rift Conflict (2153-54) – A lone Earth ship, Enterprise, heads to the Bassen Rift to destroy a Romulan Superweapon.

Romulan War, pt. 1 (2156-59) – After a two-year cold war period, a fleet of Earth ships head to the Bassen Rift after the Romulans attack an Earth Starbase.

Romulan War, pt. 2 (2159-60) – After a Romulan Attack on Earth, Earth/Vulcan/Andorian/Tellarate Alliance heads to the Bassen Rift.

But it would have made for a great companion to Nemesis at the time. And a number of species and individuals met during the Xindi conflict (Triannon, Ossarian pirates, Rajiin, Tarquin, North Star settlers) could have still fit in here if they were either subjects of the Romulan Empire, or lived rather close to Romulan borders.

That it would be perceived as a defensive war on the part of the Romulans would be an interesting twist too.

 

Like the idea of a Reman pilot. Looking at this question after seeing Star Trek 09 and ST: Picard, we know what happens to Romulus, so that's similar to the same motivation that the Xindi had, and the Romulans could easily blame the Federation for failing to save their descendants, either because of Spock or the synth attack on Mars. The 22nd century Romulans could conclude that without the Federation meddling in their affairs they could've solved the problem or had a bigger empire by the 24th century to soften the loss of Romulus. I thought the idea of Future Guy being Romulan made sense, and he could've been the mysterious benefactor instead of the Sphere Builders.

I liked the Xindi (and the Sphere Builders), but I felt using the Romulans instead would've given much more weight to the storyline. Not sure the Delphic Expanse angle is needed if the Romulans are used, however, why not? That could be the reason the Romulans haven't encountered humans, and there might not be much contact between the Vulcans and the Romulans in the 22nd century.

Using the Romulans doesn't mean they had to get rid of the Xindi either. The Xindi could've been subject species of the Romulan Empire. They could do the fighting and conversing with the humans which keeps the Romulans hidden.

 

Well, I've already listed the one thing that I'd change. But if I could make a second one, it'd be to get some color into Season 1 and 2. I'm doing a re-watch (again) and it really is a grey and cold show. Color, contrast - less of that Y2K silver/grey.

 

Making the Enterprise's bridge some lighter.

 

The novels agree with you.

 

The Xindi avians not extinct after all.

 

I was really waiting for that twist.