How would you re-imagine and reboot Enterprise?

[Hopeful Romantic]

Well, since almost everyone agrees that excising the Temporal Cold War plot elements out of the show is a good idea, something has to fill in the gap for when Archer sacrifices himself at the end of the Xindi arc and wakes up in the Nazi camp. You could simply kill off Archer... but what if he wakes up in the Mirror Universe?

I love this idea. You get the "trapped in a nightmare" feel of "Mirror Mirror," which we lacked in "IAMD." And Archer has already been forced to compromise his morals all through the Xindi war, and hated himself for it - it's a really intriguing transition to throw him into a place where he has to dive headlong into the dark side in order to survive, and it starts to eat him up. Tons of potential for great drama.

 

[somebuddyX]

The Nazi Aliens ending to Season 3 was only needed so that they would get a renewal. They wanted to force the issue so that the execs would be hesitant about cancelling the show on a cliffhanger. If the show was better you wouldn't need that.
I think IAMD did the MU in the best way it could have for a prequel.
As a proponent of the Temporal Cold War I'd rather "Storm Front" have been some weird time war thing with reality all fucked up and then they just end the thing properly.

 

[somebuddyX]

I was thinking about what other ways you could end Season 3 on to hook people to come back other than Nazi Aliens.
My stupid idea because I'd want better closure to the Temporal Cold War is...Shatner appears on the bridge of the NX-01 and says he needs help and teleports away the Enterprise. Who's Shatner playing? Uh...Temporal Kirk anomaly.
And if they can't get Shatner they get Frakes.

 

[Sumire]

I do not have strong feelings for or against the Temporal Cold War, I just want good character beats. A temporal someone anomaly is an intriguing idea but wasn’t the scuttlebutt that they wanted Shatner for the original MU idea and the price tag was too high? Could have gone with someone a bit less pricey from TOS though… Uhura, Sulu, Chekov… I would have loved to have seen any of them and it would have been more of a surprise too.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Open the title sequence with Archer doing VO of the Gazelle speech as we watch Enterprise take laps around the planets as with the "these are the voyages....." speech in the old shows.

Instead of his usual "aye sir" have Travis make non sequitur references to the conspiracy theories whenever it cuts to him on the bridge and then continue on with the episode with no one noticing. "Jet fuel can't melt steel", "Did that photon torpedo come from the grassy knoll or the book depository", "that looked like a controlled explosion". Or TMI personal revelations like "I'm ok with having herpes" or "It's normal to wet the bed when you're 26".

Actually do the idea of having boybands perform in the mess hall with NSYNC eventually becoming regulars on the show and frequently coming along on away missions to perform songs narrating the action. No characters will ever acknowledge their presence on the show until the finale when Travis says "why are NSYNC on the ship?" when it cuts to him tapping his panel in the middle of a scene.

Have T'Pol always wear the halter top variant from the mirror episode. If she was going to work that hard on her abs they really should be featured.

Have Archer's pants rip as often as Kirk's shirt, revealing him to be wearing either bikini briefs with a gazelle's face on the crotch or extremely gross tidy whities with noticeable skid marks and tears.

Hoshi frequently gives incorrect translations on purpose just to prank the crew, such as telling trip that a hot alien babe wants to have sex with him when really she said he smelled bad or Archer than aliens are demanding Porthos as tribute when really they're just asking for directions.

A season long arc flashes back to Archer's gazelle experiences in real time like 24, with an abrupt cut once an episode to Travis back on the bridge blurting out his latest conspiracy theory before resuming with the episode.

Male members of the crew refer to themselves as "Warp 5 Chads" and have great success using the line to pick up women.

There should be a scene where Trip hypothesizes that breaking warp 10 in the future might cause people to turn into salamanders and mate. Archer responds that that's the stupidest thing he's ever heard and demotes him for a few episodes.

In the finale Future Guy is revealed to be the executive at UPN who insisted the show have a time travel element. Archer thinks that was a stupid idea and immediately whips out a phase pistol and kills him when he steps through the time portal. This is revealed to have an impact in the past, as this executive's death results in UPN collapsing and being merged into the CW, resulting in Enterprise being cancelled. In a further meta plot twist Enterprise is revealed to be a staged expedition by Earth's government in the 22nd Century, similar to moon landing conspiracy theories, when in reality warp drive is still only in its early stages. The real life show being cancelled causes a ripple effect and the fictional 22nd century citizens all find out that Enterprise's voyage was staged. When Archer gets up to give his speech in the finale (trying to repeat his signature Gazelle speech) who is greeted by boos and eggs being tossed at him. Trip (who is revealed to not be dead, his death being staged on the show within the show) says he wishes he really had died as he looks on, since the scene is such a disgrace. Travis then blurts out "Elvis actually died in like 2007) for the final line of the series.

 

[somebuddyX]

I do not have strong feelings for or against the Temporal Cold War, I just want good character beats. A temporal someone anomaly is an intriguing idea but wasn’t the scuttlebutt that they wanted Shatner for the original MU idea and the price tag was too high? Could have gone with someone a bit less pricey from TOS though… Uhura, Sulu, Chekov… I would have loved to have seen any of them and it would have been more of a surprise too.

Oooh, I like that a lot! Well since we're making this up, I choose all three!

 

[Shawnster]

Ring Ship Enterprise. Call it the NX-01 if you must. The image in TMP wasn't that clear on the registry.

No transporters

Lasers, not phase cannons. Nuclear or Merculite missiles, not photonic.

The Enterprise operates under the authority of UESPA, United Earth Space Probe Agency. The Macos are United Earth Marine Corps.

No Temporal War. No Romulans. Instead the rough and tumble conflict will feature Andorians, Tellerites, Kzinti, and Deltans. Maybe Betazoids. We will see first contact with these major species. There may be missteps and accidents. Misunderstandings will lead to conflict or potential conflict. Sometimes these species will be enemies or slow to trust while other times they will be allies. Eventually they will all learn to trust each other. The overall arc of the series will be the establishing of the Federation, or perhaps a precursor to the Federation much like the Articles of Confederation preceeded the Constitution.

Or have the big bad be the Romulans and the overall arc be the Romulan War. Or not and just retcon that the Romulan War was fought by the nascent Federation and not just Earth and happens a few years after the series ends.

First contact with the Klingons, if we have Klingons, will be disastrous. What we saw on ENT was definitely not disastrous.

No Duras family.

No augments.

No Soong family ancestors.

Have an overall arc planned from the start and don't change directions in response to 9/11.

 

[Space Socialist]

Slight tangent, but it makes my brain itch that ENT didn’t give the crew a Starfleet patch on their uniform sleeves until TATV, and that we never saw anyone with Lt (JG) and Lt Cmdr ranks. I wish we had seen both, and earlier!

(Where there any known real life reasons for the lack of patches and ranks?)

 

[oberth]

Slight tangent, but it makes my brain itch that ENT didn’t give the crew a Starfleet patch on their uniform sleeves until TATV, and that we never saw anyone with Lt (JG) and Lt Cmdr ranks. I wish we had seen both, and earlier!

(Where there any known real life reasons for the lack of patches and ranks?)

• the ranks did not excist at that time (starfleet not being military and all that nonsense)
• don't know about the patches

 

[Golbolco]

• the ranks did not excist at that time (starfleet not being military and all that nonsense)
• don't know about the patches

Speaking of Starfleet and its debated status as a military, does anyone else think that ENT is the perfect series to explore this very subject? Not only is this the era that should be formative for Starfleet, but we see the NX-01 embark on an expedition to defend Earth and the coming Romulan War would have been an outright war. In addition to Admiral Forrest, another admiral representing the position of militarizing Starfleet could have been a recurring character. It would have been great to get a definitive statement (especially from Archer) on the nature of Starfleet and its role in war.

Maybe the best way to do that would have been to show Starfleet interacting with a war that wasn't about Earth. The Vulcans and Andorians would have been one way to show that off.

 

[oberth]

Speaking of Starfleet and its debated status as a military, does anyone else think that ENT is the perfect series to explore this very subject? Not only is this the era that should be formative for Starfleet, but we see the NX-01 embark on an expedition to defend Earth and the coming Romulan War would have been an outright war. In addition to Admiral Forrest, another admiral representing the position of militarizing Starfleet could have been a recurring character. It would have been great to get a definitive statement (especially from Archer) on the nature of Starfleet and its role in war.

Maybe the best way to do that would have been to show Starfleet interacting with a war that wasn't about Earth. The Vulcans and Andorians would have been one way to show that off.

they do - adm forrest (i wonder whether he's related to nathan bedford forrest) asks archer what changed his mind about having the military (makos) on board his ship

 

[Rabid]

Delete 5 episodes and fire all executives who try to involve themselves in the creative process.

 

[Dukhat]

First contact with the Klingons, if we have Klingons, will be disastrous. What we saw on ENT was definitely not disastrous.

Here's how that should have gone down. Earth's first contact with the Klingons should have been the reason for the Prime Directive. The Klingons were actually at a much lower technology level than humans were, but the humans gave them (or the Klingons stole) their tech, advanced faster than they should have, built battlecruisers, and became the quadrant's enemies. All thanks to the humans.

Of course this means that the time period for ENT would change from pre-Federation to just right after the Federation was founded. But I'm good with that too.

 

[passinglurker]

I'm not really inclined towards setting a precedent for do overs cause you know corpos will just reboot the popular stuff that doesn't need a do over (TOS, TNG, etc). That being said though remastering and redoing the special effects shots to overcome the original limits of tech and budgets à la TOS-R I feel are fair game.

So with that in mind my ideal ENT-R would...

1. Adjust and touch up alien ship designs to be as intuitive as Human and Vulcan ships (ie you can tell a warp drive, from an impulse drive, from a weapon). With exceptions given to speices who's onscreen depictions gave them an excuse to be unintuitive (for example Suliban got help from the future, Xindi Reptilians incorperate bioengineered components into their machinery and tech, Xindi Aquadics build their ships in an exotic deep sea environment, etc it just has to be said on screen and not left for the viewer to assume and make excuses) This is because this is supposed to be a more primitive era and therefore more intuitive for the attentive viewer to sort out what is what.

2. Make new ships for any case of model reuse, flipping, squishing, and pallet swaping. (Replace the K'tinga with a D4, new ships for the Arkonians, and Arborial Xindi, etc)

3. Scrap the Soreavo and the ECS frieghters and replace them with ships that follow the Daedalus class design language (not exactly the Daedalus, but looking like they're kitbashed out of most of the same set of ribbed parts from Sisko's desk model) this isn't because the designs are bad(ok the Soreavo is but still), but because the opportunity should be taken to smooth over the continutity a bit, and this is easier than replacing the UES ships which we can assume were spin-off's of the warp 5 engine program, and so would follow similar design language as the NX.

4. Have the few shots around the Sol system be relatively lousy with Human ships and space stations, if they're gonna be stuck behind the warp 2 barrier for 80ish years then the home system should be stacked with industry to support the colonization efforts. Mostly this is just to show off Human space since there aren't a lot of other opportunities, but also cause Vulcan's furrowing their brows is no excuse for humans not trying to expand a much as they could after first contact.

5. Leave the UES ship design language untouched for season one (aside from showing off the warp delta and half saucer in the back ground much sooner than the expanse). So as to not invalidate the NX's appearances in other series, but in subsequent shots should show off upgrades, refits, and bolt-on secondary hulls for the second stringer ships to suggest that UES isn't sitting idle between the launch of NX-01 and NX-02, and in particular should include a configuration of either the delta or half saucer sporting the name Dauntless that bares resemblance to the fake NX-01-A from Voyager just to nod to the common theory that some temporal wierdness has happened with that discrepancy.

6. Add spatial torpedo spam to every fight involving a UES ship. They have no deflector shields and distracting enemy disruptors with having to play point defense adds to the believability of their survivability on top of the polarized hull plating technobable. And when I say spam I mean missile trails from every possible orifice no matter where it's facing, and beaming pallets full of them into space like a 22nd century implementation of rapid dragon(again no deflector shields, use it to your advantage!). This obviously doesn't change the outcomes of any fight because it's only a remaster of the effects and not a redo of the acting/writing, but now it can be said it wasn't for a lack of trying.

7. Modify human warp effects to include some sort of traveling wave going down(and possibly back up) the length of the exposed glowing blue grills on the warp nacelles, and add a subtle pulsing sound effect in sync with the movement, the frequency of both becoming more rapid the faster the NX-01 goes. The idea is to suggest that 22nd century warp drive is to 23rd century warp drive what a piston engine is to a turbine engine.

And that's all that comes to mind. Sorry if this came off as ship obsessed but most special effects shots are about the ships.

 

[Jedi Marso]

I like to come back to this thread every once in a while.

Was thinking about some of the plans for future ENT episodes that never were and the idea proposed to set an entire season inside of the Mirror Universe. How could that really be done?

Well, since almost everyone agrees that excising the Temporal Cold War plot elements out of the show is a good idea, something has to fill in the gap for when Archer sacrifices himself at the end of the Xindi arc and wakes up in the Nazi camp. You could simply kill off Archer... but what if he wakes up in the Mirror Universe?

Ignore "In A Mirror, Darkly" for a moment. Archer's counterpart would have died in some similar event to what occurs in the main universe (the conquest of the Xindi, no doubt) and Archer would assume his identity, allowing all of the main cast to remain on board in warped roles while Archer's characterization remains the same--and that would be the part most disturbing to him, is that he fits so well into the Mirror Universe. We've already seen Archer at some pretty significant low points during the Xindi arc and he has what seems like severe trauma from it all.

Archer would spend a season (or maybe just half a season) in the Mirror Universe, slowly being undone by it. This would be his "A Christmas Carol" moment, realizing what kind of path his actions and Humanity as a whole could go down. Eventually an event similar to that in "In A Mirror, Darkly" occurs where the Tholians have opened up an interdimensional rift, but this one doesn't connect back to the TOS episode. Archer makes his escape through it and returns to the Prime Universe.

Now, this might look like it violates the events of "Mirror, Mirror" as being first contact with the Mirror Universe, but by making Archer the only visitor to the Mirror Universe it 1) makes his story suspect, and 2) since he arrived by virtue of a near-death experience, he might have thought it was all made up in his head anyway, or evidence of an afterlife (a personal Hell, probably). The people in the Mirror Universe would also continue to assume that Prime-Archer is Mirror-Archer.

This is a really neat idea.

 

[Golbolco]

This is a really neat idea.

Thank you!

To expand on it: on further reflection I don't think that a Mirror Universe plot could carry a whole season, because in my opinion the concept wears on its welcome quickly. I think it could work as a two-parter, although I might prefer half or quarter of a season to really drive it home that Archer may never go back to the Prime Universe. I will also say that I haven't seen much of Discovery, I just know that they've done extensive Mirror Universe plots.

So you open with Archer waking up back on the NX-01, with his crew celebrating the conquest of the Xindi or some equivalent. Trip's face is scarred, Sato is in his bed, Phlox and Reed are manning a torture chamber... it's all very similar to what we got in "In A Mirror, Darkly" but with Prime Archer realizing that he is acclimating to the environment under the Terran Empire all too well.

Over the course of the episode(s) his crew mutinies with T'Pol and the Vulcans planning a rebellion against the Empire. This plays well into Archer's anti-Vulcan sentiments, which at this point in the original ENT storyline still won't be resolved until his trip to Vulcan and experience with Surak. But maybe putting down a Vulcan insurrection and driving T'Pol off of his ship really breaks him down. Something would have to convince him that he is not doomed but in fact can return to his original world.

I love Tholians to death, so I would like to keep in their presence. I don't feel that the USS Defiant from TOS is necessary for the story, and it's an obvious anachronism. I think there are better ways to do an episode with the ENT crew in TOS uniforms fighting Gorn. Rather, the Tholian Assembly being multidimensional would be a plot point here, and Archer would feign an invasion/suicide mission into Tholian territory to actually use as a gambit to escape this world he's in.

Perhaps something very wrong happens, and most of the Mirror NX-01's crew is left dead at the end of this storyline, but Archer would succeed in escaping and be picked up by the NX-01 while it's still returning from the Delphic Expanse to Earth.

 

[Tenacity]

The Enterprise operates under the authority of UESPA, United Earth Space Probe Agency. The Macos are United Earth Marine Corps.

Make the MACO's a special forces team on loan from the Australian military, they all have thick Aussie accents.

and that we never saw anyone with Lt (JG) and Lt Cmdr ranks

Have there be relatively few officers aboard, most of the crew are enlisted, plus a few NCO's. Archer is the rank of commander, Reed and Tucker are first lieutenants, Maywheather is a petty officer, Phlox and Sato are civilians.

Speaking of Starfleet and its debated status as a military, does anyone else think that ENT is the perfect series to explore this very subject?

Part of the crew are military, the others are civilians, I always felt that Phlox was a civilian anyway.

and fire all executives who try to involve themselves in the creative process

You know that the people making Enterprise were doing it for the people who owned Star trek right?

 

[KennyMadison]

I mean, I love the original idea of "Right Stuff" but with Star Trek iconography. That absolutely rules. And changes what Star Trek can be while still being Star Trek.

We're literally building what Star Trek will be. Here's how Starfleet as we know it was done.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Have there be relatively few officers aboard, most of the crew are enlisted, plus a few NCO's. Archer is the rank of commander, Reed and Tucker are first lieutenants, Maywheather is a petty officer, Phlox and Sato are civilians.

Your right about this. As much as we drone on about Mayweather and Sato never getting promoted, in reality everyone on board was one rank too high to begin with.

Archer becoming captain, the first captain among a bunch of commanders, should have been a very big deal.

 

[oberth]

Archer becoming captain, the first captain among a bunch of commanders, should have been a very big deal.

who's in comand of the older earth ships then? these are warp ships and i don't think they give them to commanders.