Lots of praise goes towards the miniarcs used in S4, which helped bring ENT more in line with TOS and the rest of the franchise. And that praise is well deserved. But, looking back on that season, I wonder if there was a genuine missed opportunity to refresh the series from a visual perspective.
NX design – While it was not necessary to give Enterprise the secondary hull from the NX-refit, as it seems a bit much, it would have been beneficial to give Enterprise the TOS-era nacelles at minimum. Aside from being an upside down Akira-class, the nacelles are probably the leading reason there were complaints that the ship looked too new and out of place in the time period it was in. Compared to the TOS-era Enterprise, it glowed too much; changing the nacelles would have likely made it feel more era appropriate. And the glowing deflector dish should have been completely replaced with the dish used they would later used for Columbia.
They could have also upgraded the weapons and the bridge to resemble the Enterprise from “E2” as well. It doesn’t make sense for Starfleet - or Archer - to not use a number of those upgrades for Enterprise once Archer and his crew ran into their future descendant’s.
Presence of a ship’s counsellor – after what crew went through in the Delphic Expanse, you’d think that the presence of a ship counsellor would be added, at least for the short term. Seems like there should have been room for a minor, recurring role here. Maybe it says a lot about the toughness of the crew that they did not have or need one though.
New MACO Major – add a new character, or have Reed show interest in the role if they were going to continue being on board. I know they had Corporal McKenzie and that was the likely successor to Major Hayes according to “Countdown”, but they never did anything with her character. She only had one appearance total in the series.
Promotions of main characters - for all the flak that B&B got for TATV in terms of Sato and Mayweather still not being promoted several years later, that could have easily fixed that near the beginning at S4 with the both of them promoted. There was all season to do that, right up to the penultimate episode. It was not done though. In hindsight, it just seems unfair to B&B to blame them for why certain characters were still certain ranks in the series finale.
Now, in all fairness, yes, they did update the captain’s chair, and gave T'Pol a Starfleet commission. But that’s all they did, and I think that they could have gone further with the updates.
Thoughts?
NX design – While it was not necessary to give Enterprise the secondary hull from the NX-refit, as it seems a bit much, it would have been beneficial to give Enterprise the TOS-era nacelles at minimum. Aside from being an upside down Akira-class, the nacelles are probably the leading reason there were complaints that the ship looked too new and out of place in the time period it was in. Compared to the TOS-era Enterprise, it glowed too much; changing the nacelles would have likely made it feel more era appropriate. And the glowing deflector dish should have been completely replaced with the dish used they would later used for Columbia.
They could have also upgraded the weapons and the bridge to resemble the Enterprise from “E2” as well. It doesn’t make sense for Starfleet - or Archer - to not use a number of those upgrades for Enterprise once Archer and his crew ran into their future descendant’s.
Presence of a ship’s counsellor – after what crew went through in the Delphic Expanse, you’d think that the presence of a ship counsellor would be added, at least for the short term. Seems like there should have been room for a minor, recurring role here. Maybe it says a lot about the toughness of the crew that they did not have or need one though.
New MACO Major – add a new character, or have Reed show interest in the role if they were going to continue being on board. I know they had Corporal McKenzie and that was the likely successor to Major Hayes according to “Countdown”, but they never did anything with her character. She only had one appearance total in the series.
Promotions of main characters - for all the flak that B&B got for TATV in terms of Sato and Mayweather still not being promoted several years later, that could have easily fixed that near the beginning at S4 with the both of them promoted. There was all season to do that, right up to the penultimate episode. It was not done though. In hindsight, it just seems unfair to B&B to blame them for why certain characters were still certain ranks in the series finale.
Now, in all fairness, yes, they did update the captain’s chair, and gave T'Pol a Starfleet commission. But that’s all they did, and I think that they could have gone further with the updates.
Thoughts?
