So happy to see you here again, FederationHistorian!
You give me ideas. Has anyone already brought up the idea of an animated ENT followup? Maybe doing the Romulan War, the big thing that the show was perfectly set up for, but didn't get to do. Animation would solve the problem of those extra 15 years, and the Romulan War could be done for a lot less moolah, and a lot more creativity.
Yep, dreaming, but it's fun.
It has been brought up before.
IMO, Enterprise rebranded under the Earth-Romulan War banner would be one of the best bets for an ENT return, as it would signal that its free of the baggage from the B&B era and that its not more Bush-era Trek. It’s not like there cannot be any exploring done, moral dilemmas or real-world issues to be addressed in this setting. But they’d be revisiting these characters while still playing by their own rules.
Done right, a Earth-Romulan War series could even deal with the early days of the Federation-Romulan Cold War, and offer something never seen and explored with DS9 and VOY: recovery from the war effort and what becomes of the cast of characters in the post-war environment. And would allow for middle ground cast wise; the ENT cast returns for a few seasons before moving on if they wish to, and new characters for the ENT period can be created for further exploration of the late 22nd century or early 23rd century down the line if wanted.
Where I’m at, if such an idea were to be finally greenlit for production, is figuring out which characters would be featured in such a series. Since as a prequel series, it has to be planned out properly. In the early stages of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it was planned for it to have 100 episodes, and the series has been well received as a result.
For the main characters, Archer, Trip, Reed, Mayweather, Sato & Phlox are obvious. Shran should be made a main character member for this series as a liaison for Andoria. Maybe have Phlox’s wife Feezal become a main character and live on the ship as the new science officer on Enterprise, as well as add an extra female voice to the main cast. No disrespect towards T’Pol, but the only way I see her coming back is if the actress sees the show and is confident in its storytelling abilities.
As for supporting characters, its a long list:
Starfleet: Admirals Gardner, Black, & Douglas. Captains Hernandez, Ramirez, Jennings and Duvall. And although I don’t know if she would have a voice over actress, but there could be a few appearances of crewman Cutler if the series was animated.
MACOs: Major Takashi Kimura (Hoshi's husband)
Earth: Minister Samuels, Ruby, Gannet. Maybe add in previous removed characters in Becky and Tommy - whose scenes were deleted in the ENT S2 finale - to show the civilian perspective to counter Archer’s perspectives and display how the Romulan War is different from the Xindi conflict. Thomas Vanderbilt – the first Federation President – should be featured in some capacity as well.
Freighter families: the Mayweathers, the Keenes, the Stiles, maybe a couple of new freighter families
Vulcans: Soval, T’Pau, Skon (Spock's grandfather), maybe V’Las. Maybe T’Uerell (or a character based off of her) if they want to reference the
Star Trek: Legacy game.
Romulans: Admiral Valdore, operatives such as Talok, Praetor Gileus
Others: Unnamed Kzinti, Maltuvis, Future Guy
To create a connection to DIS, maybe the position of first contact officer (Saru's role on Discovery in S1) is created on Enterprise during this conflict, and this individual regularly reports to Sato. Could be a female role, but it could also be a gay character.
As for an idea to explain T’Pol's absence, I can totally see a storyline where Trip – on assignment from Section 31 - goes undercover in Romulan space looking for her as she’s been missing for months and presumed to have been abducted by the Romulans.
I’m not trying to build false hope or anything. Just showing what's possible.
