There is simply no way to make the Enterprise finale work using the same story premise, because the series finale is not the time to do a crossover with another series. TATV would have worked fine as a standalone episode in the spirit of "Trials and Tribble-ations" or "Flashback." But it's not an appropriate finale. So the only answer to the OP's question is.... scrap it.
How would you fix the series finale?
- Thread starter Admiral Jean-Luc Picard
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The only way it would work is if the future segments were aboard a future Enterprise (perhaps the J that they revealed earlier) and the future crew were played by the ENT cast in different roles, and they were using their holodeck to recreate actual black box recordings from the NX-01’s last days.
Cancel Trip's death and put the episode into the middle of the season. Problem solved.
I have to admit, I kind of like the episode, like most crossover episodes. But I get the argument that it was terrible as a series finale.
I agree completely with your statement, and I mean completely.
However, from the perspective of the fannish questions of whether ENT is in continuity with TNG and in particular of whether the time loop introduced by the film First Contact remains closed going through ENT, through the episode "Regeneration," through TOS, and back into TNG, TATV answers these questions with about as hard a "yes" as one could hope to get. To answer those questions, there is a purpose, but just one regarding a point that neither I nor apparently you felt actually needed to be addressed in canon, at least by the ENT finale, and certainly not in that ham-fisted way.
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Instead of mixing in all the TNG stuff, only have Riker in the scene as the cook, and make no other reference til the end of the episode where we see Riker and Troi in the crowd, than they shut the program down. None of the Pegasus stuff, just the cameo moments. Also no need to kill off Trip, but they could have him stuck in a coma or something from the time he gets zapped til the end of the episode, making his story nebulous whether he survives or dies.
I’d give it an actual finale. Really have no love for that “ending.”
Given what we have to work with, I think the easiest way for them to fix the finale involves two minor changes, assuming we live in a universe where the production team learn the episode is going to be seen as an insult rather than a valentine, and/or they listen to Scott Bakula's criticism of the script.
1. Trim the episode and cut the CGI enterprise montage and end the episode at the "computer, end program" bit where Riker and Troi walk off. I would also say delete Trip's death scenes, but I don't think there is any other way to get to Archer walking out to give us speech with what they filmed without making really awkward cuts or filming additional scenes, which let's say for the moment isn't feasible. This is a "fix it in post" solution where the studio is telling us no to reshoots.
2. Change the episode air order - Have TATV air before the Demon/Terra Prime arc. This makes the episodes many fans feel should have been the final episodes the final episodes of the series that focuses on the Enterprise characters. Maybe they could also keep the CGI enterprise montage, and substitute a voice over where Archer starts off his speech, mentions something about the Gazelles, and then starts to tell everyone how the Federation wouldn't have been formed without the lessons learned from that fateful day on one of our earlier missions blah blah blah..." and then have it lead into Demons/Terra Prime. (Assuming the studio says no to reshoots, but begrudgingly say yes to some voice over work.)
This really doesn't address the fact they killed off Trip. But it re-contextualizes TATV to make it a fun one-off adventure, similar in-vein of In a Mirror, Darkly, which they had just done. Alternatively, combined with Demons/Terra Prime as a prelude, it makes it a little less bitter of a pill to swallow. You still could do post finale comics/novels/tie-ins that bring him back or say he didn't die/it was a clone / it was inaccurate.
At the end of the day, I think we just have to live with that unpopular decision, just like with what they did to Jadzia.
1. Trim the episode and cut the CGI enterprise montage and end the episode at the "computer, end program" bit where Riker and Troi walk off. I would also say delete Trip's death scenes, but I don't think there is any other way to get to Archer walking out to give us speech with what they filmed without making really awkward cuts or filming additional scenes, which let's say for the moment isn't feasible. This is a "fix it in post" solution where the studio is telling us no to reshoots.
2. Change the episode air order - Have TATV air before the Demon/Terra Prime arc. This makes the episodes many fans feel should have been the final episodes the final episodes of the series that focuses on the Enterprise characters. Maybe they could also keep the CGI enterprise montage, and substitute a voice over where Archer starts off his speech, mentions something about the Gazelles, and then starts to tell everyone how the Federation wouldn't have been formed without the lessons learned from that fateful day on one of our earlier missions blah blah blah..." and then have it lead into Demons/Terra Prime. (Assuming the studio says no to reshoots, but begrudgingly say yes to some voice over work.)
This really doesn't address the fact they killed off Trip. But it re-contextualizes TATV to make it a fun one-off adventure, similar in-vein of In a Mirror, Darkly, which they had just done. Alternatively, combined with Demons/Terra Prime as a prelude, it makes it a little less bitter of a pill to swallow. You still could do post finale comics/novels/tie-ins that bring him back or say he didn't die/it was a clone / it was inaccurate.
At the end of the day, I think we just have to live with that unpopular decision, just like with what they did to Jadzia.
Have some of them be out of Starfleet and involved in a civilian life, careers, families. Use make -up to age them slightly.
if they are going to kill off Trip, have it be multiple episodes before the ending. The crew can then deal with his loss, introduce the new chief engineer, and life goes on. And it's an actual death, not Trip becoming a secret agent.
Without canon what are we left with? A mish mash.
As much as I love the ship, I'm pretty OK with the NX-01 being decommissioned after 10 years.
At the rate at which Starfleet was advancing, it's understandable that the ship was rendered obsolete after such a short period.
Even if that wasn't the case, the ship had taken one hell of a beating over those 10 years, and that's just what we saw on the show. God knows what it went through during the Romulan War.
I think the NX-01 earned its retirement.
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True... once humanity made its way out into the depths of space, it probably gained access to all sorts of technology: more reliable transporters, internal force field generators, and we know the Vulcans weren't willing to share their tractor beam tech, but maybe the Andorians or Tellarites did. Plus, of course, that warp 6 engine they had just cooked up.
There's also the notion that war usually brings about accelerated technological advancement. Between the Xindi conflict and the Romulan War, it's a surefire bet that Starfleet had cooked up a lot of things that couldn't simply be tacked on to the already existing NX-01.
Which would also explain differences in the Kelvinverse, post-Nero's attack.
Please let CBS/Paramount know that.
Then it doesn't make much sense to have added a secondary hull to it post-decommission. But I get that that was a PIC retcon.
Hey, nobody outright pointed the ship out as being the NX-01. We only ever saw it at an extreme distance. Who says that's the NX-01 and not some other NX Class ship that was built years after the launch of the Enterprise? Hell, Strange New Worlds implied they had more than one "in mothballs." There's absolutely nothing stopping that ship we saw from being the Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavor, or Columbia.
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