Coto: Trying To Save Star Trek: Enterprise

[gblews]

Or you could be right and Coto sort of remembers it differently. You'd think there would be a big promotion of the 'end of Star Trek' if that was their intention.

There was, the episode was called a "Valentine" to the fans who had watched the shows over the past 18 years. They even had an issue of TV Guide that stated it was a final goodbye to the fans.

I definitely do not remember the "valentine to the fans" statement being explained as a valentine to fans of all of T.V. Trek. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt (and that is a very large and stinky "doubt") that maybe that is what was meant, but that is not what we heard as part of the pre-promotion for TaTV. Originally, the statement was understood to be a reference to Ent fans only, since no one knew (or was supposed to know) about Riker and Troi's appearances or the 'boldy go" speech at the end. Fans who frequented this website, of course, knew the whole story.

If you have a link to the T.V. Guide story, please post.

 

[Cyke101]

It is far, far too late for that.

TOS came back after a 10 year hiatus (1969-1979). However Star Wars had a lot to do with that. Maybe Abrams' Episode VII can inspire more Trek material. Yeah right.

It's been almost 10 years since ENT went off the air, and there's no sign whatsoever that it's coming back. And comparing the circumstances behind TOS returning as TMP to ENT isn't any kind of valid comparison at all

I haven't seen TATV in years but do you thing it was a tribute to TNG? Wasn't it all about Riker saying how good Archer was or was there some aspect of saying good how TNG was. In a tribute show I would have Archer saying his speech and talking about the future of the Federation with short episode clips from the other shows going on in the background, showing all the brave characters in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY.

No. The main theme of the episode is Riker wasting time during a critical mission to fuck around in the holodeck so that he can decide whether to tell Picard about the cloaking device on his previous ship. Which doesn't even equate to the context of the actual TNG episode it was based on. The ENT characters were just secondary to whatever guilty conscience Riker was trying to absolve.

To add, it's also a side-story to a fairly obscure episode from over a decade prior, too. So not only does it sideline the main cast in their own finale, but its continuity, ethical dilemma, and dramatic push are dependent on an episode very distant from the show. There's no real conflict when Trip dies. No real concern for the future of the main cast. Certainly not much of a poignant moment when Riker finds the answer he was looking for. The biggest source of tension came from Archer being nervous about his lines.

Which further asks, if the episode is truly meant as an homage to the previous 18 years, why pick that one episode? The premise of Enterprise and later on JJTrek was to try and unshackle all that continuity and gain more creative freedom, so why the retread, especially for an episode that we know the outcome? Instead, the finale used it as a crutch.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Give ENT a 12 episode 5th season. Bring some genuine closure to that series.

That proposal to get Shatner to play Emperor Tiberius would still work for the 50th Anniversary. It was an Enterprise story, so reunite their cast for a one-off TV Movie. Have them face off again Bill in full-on twisted mirror mode Kirk.

After being left out of two JJ Abrams films, plus a hand in the story idea, maybe his asking price will be more realistic.

Write it like a cross between The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan. Strong emphasis on Enterprise characters coming back together to face a crisis after years apart and memorable bad guy as the Original Series celebratory connection. As for whether an 80 year could handle action scenes... well, Montalban's second go at Khan wasn't particularly physically demanding. He stood around commanding mostly SFX ship on ship action and getting others to do his dirty work. Inevitably Shatner would be chewing scenery and getting all the funny lines. The only risk is whether that would lead us to laugh with or at him. Then again, that's pretty much par the course.

If it's successful, perfect excuse to follow it up with more Enterprise... minus a headline grabbing TOS guest-star.

Unless you're going to acknowledge Pocket Books continuity, there is another solution to reversing Trip's death in this scenario. The movie would take into account the real passage of time since 2005, and not try to make-up Bakula et all like no time has passed. It's a decade since that final episode, which still happened in some form or other. Whichever version you accept - holodeck recreation or Section 31 cover-up. He's either dead. Or he's been given a new identity, and never officially sees the crew again. With a central plot involving evil Kirk has been thrown back in time and crossing over universes... you just have Trip's Mirror Universe counterpart find a way over to the Prime's 22nd Century too and explore directions that might go in.

 

[urbandefault]

I'd love to see Shatner back in Trek, however they could manage to get him there. But in my mind's eye I see Emperor Tiberius stretched out on a chaise, all Jabba-like, eating grapes and watching slave girls dancing and swilling Saurian brandy and leering and belching and making jokes and ... aw, hell. Mel Brooks already did that in History of the World, Part I.

 

[Dukhat]

That proposal to get Shatner to play Emperor Tiberius would still work for the 50th Anniversary. It was an Enterprise story, so reunite their cast for a one-off TV Movie. Have them face off again Bill in full-on twisted mirror mode Kirk.

What? I could just hear the ENT cast now (not that the above would actually ever happen, but I'm playing devil's advocate here):

"Great, as if having those two idiots Frakes and Sirtis from TNG in our series finale and relegating us to fucking holograms wasn't bad enough, now they want to bring us back only to base it on some old TOS episode that didn't even take place in our own universe, and have Shatner ham all the scenes!"

Really, have you learned nothing from TATV? ENT isn't about "Emperor Tiberius." It isn't about the mirror universe. It was about events leading to the formation of the Federation. That's what I would want to see, not some ham-fisted plot device just to get Shat into a role he has nothing to do with.

 

[ChristopherPike]

It was nice reading an admission of what you would like to see, Dukhat.

I share your pain in never having seen that Birth of the Federation concept explored to its fullest potential... but in my hypothetical pitch, it's slowly-slowly catchy monkey. You've got to grab attention first. Then if your first adventure is a success, you'd maybe get to go back and explore that. I don't see the prospect of Shatner on Enterprise as anything like as bad as having the 22nd Century setting being some historical recreation for two Next Gen characters to look at. In fact, TOS characters guest starring on the prequel show feels more natural, and less distant than TNG ones. If the finale had been about Archer and his crew reaching out to the next iteration in the timeline, rather than skipping over to join hands with TNG, I bet you it would've been a success. Even years later, "In a Mirror, Darkly" is the highlight of the whole season because of that.

Depends how it's written. It'd be set in the same universe as Enterprise and not be in the Mirror Universe. They're still the stars of their own show and so much would have happened to those characters since the finale, that could be left like breadcrumbs to follow-up on. The Federation is up and running. The Romulan War also a decade since. In order to touch on those events, if a sequel to "the Shatner Opening Gambit" happened, you'd flashback to all that afterwards. Like the Earth-Minbari War on Babylon 5, or the Time War on Doctor Who. Just because Star Trek has moved on since the event many wanted to see explored, doesn't mean the main characters will necessarily have completely managed it. All it takes is a crisis in the present, and how all that might be a consequence of the war or how the Federation came about. Just enough detail covering that is peppered into mix on occasion, without the blow-by-blow account tried twice in books now. If you dived right into that in an attempt to revive Star Trek cold, it would fail. Build up to that. Do something that hooks mainstream audiences first and which is less hard-core fan territory. Shatner returns.

It's a long road. This is only the first step. You concoct a story that reunites the crew of NX-01 years since we last saw them. You throw Kirk as a mirror universe character at them, as the antagonist. Admiral Archer and co. get put through some feature-length hell and come out the other side ready for more if so desired. Those who aren't simply fans of Enterprise, but also the Original during its 50th Anniversary, get a kick out of that adventure at the same time.

 

[Yanks]

I found his remarks on TATV interesting. Makes it that much easier for me to see it as a stand alone that doesn't need to be considered.

I never did see it as Enterprise's closer.

Even with that considered, it's still a joke of a closer for 18 years of ST on TV.


Eeesh.... it not even a 2-parter...

 

[Dukhat]

It was nice reading an admission of what you would like to see, Dukhat.

Well, I've made no bones about my low opinion of ENT, but at the same time I feel that it should have gotten at least a fifth season. But this is the ENT forum, and I have no intention of coming in here and bashing a show that you and others here like.

However, with that said, IMHO your proposal doesn't work on multiple levels:

1. Shatner will never return to Star Trek on television, and even if he did, there's no way in hell he'd be playing an evil version of Kirk that he played once in an episode from 1966. He'd be playing our James T. Kirk. Period.

2. And again playing devil's advocate, if Shatner did come back as "Emperor Tiberius," he would totally eclipse any of the ENT cast, just like Frakes and Sirtis did, because the writers would be focusing wayyyyyy more on Shatner's character to the detriment of everyone else.

3. You're putting way too much stock in the mirror universe just as an excuse to shoehorn Shatner into an ENT role. The MU wasn't ever interesting enough to warrant using it as the basis for bringing ENT back after all this time. Add to that fact that most viewers, if they even know what the MU is at all, would equate it more with what they might have seen in DS9, which was quite frankly a bastardization of "Mirror Mirror," with the over-the-top "eeeeevilllllll!" characters and the rampant lesbian overtones.

4. And, IMHO, very few of the ENT characters interested me enough anyway for me to care about what they're doing now. Trip was the most interesting character in that show (once the writers got past that silly southern-fried McCoy clone persona they gave him for the first two seasons), and he's dead. Phlox would probably be the next one, and he was interesting not so much because he was Phlox, but because John Billingsley's acting made him a bit more than the token alien with bumps on his forehead.

 

[T'Girl]

Always liked the idea of Shatner as Chef.

Wonder if they could build a show around that?

 

[ChristopherPike]

http://www.startrek.com/article/these-are-the-voyages-nine-years-later

^ Turned nine years on yesterday, since it ended. God, I feel old.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Always liked the idea of Shatner as Chef.

Wonder if they could build a show around that?

I might have coped with TATV with that part. If I could also leave out all the other parts. Yeah.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this:

When Coto arrived for work the first day, he saw Braga in his office. “Brannon (Braga) was in his office, standing at the window, smoking a cigarette and looking desperate, like everything was falling apart,” said Coto. “They were in a hole, script-wise, and I really got the sense that Brannon was kind of at the end of his rope, so to speak, as far as getting scripts. So it was an interesting sense of ‘Wow, desperation, this is either going to work well or it’s going to be a disaster.’ But I’ll never forget Brannon standing at the window, staring out glassy-eyed.”​

Doesn't that sum up the 1st 3 seasons of Enterprise?

I really appreciate Manny's leadership...he almost saved Trek, but was brought on board too late.


regarding TATV...i read him as being as diplomatic as possible.

AMaybe i'll start another thread, but a better "valentine" would have been a couple actors of each series (probably the minor ones, who they could afford), and reminice with a younger Starfleet officer about one or two Enterprise officer who inspired them, and then go to a clip of a new adventure with that Enterprise crew member, highlighting their strength.

Exampe: Uhura talking with a cadet about how Sato inspired her.

I

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Fuck clip shows!

No.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Fuck clip shows!

No.

Not a clip show of old stuff... the "clips" would be new material...which builds into one short story.

I might make a post to show the connections

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

that would be interesting! Please make post !

 

[Yanks]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this:

When Coto arrived for work the first day, he saw Braga in his office. “Brannon (Braga) was in his office, standing at the window, smoking a cigarette and looking desperate, like everything was falling apart,” said Coto. “They were in a hole, script-wise, and I really got the sense that Brannon was kind of at the end of his rope, so to speak, as far as getting scripts. So it was an interesting sense of ‘Wow, desperation, this is either going to work well or it’s going to be a disaster.’ But I’ll never forget Brannon standing at the window, staring out glassy-eyed.”
​

Doesn't that sum up the 1st 3 seasons of Enterprise?

I really appreciate Manny's leadership...he almost saved Trek, but was brought on board too late.

I can hear the questions at the next convention now

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

As far as I'm concerned he did save it, not that it sucked before but he raised it above its pedestrian nature (which tv had moved past) and made it great.

Season 5 would have been to die for

 

[Yanks]

Always liked the idea of Shatner as Chef.

Wonder if they could build a show around that?

That would have been better than Riker IMO.

The fact that it WAS Riker and Troi, just amplifies what many saw as wrong with Enterprise. It was more of a prequel to TNG than TOS.

I don't think that, but I've heard many express those feelings.

 

[MacLeod]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this:

When Coto arrived for work the first day, he saw Braga in his office. “Brannon (Braga) was in his office, standing at the window, smoking a cigarette and looking desperate, like everything was falling apart,” said Coto. “They were in a hole, script-wise, and I really got the sense that Brannon was kind of at the end of his rope, so to speak, as far as getting scripts. So it was an interesting sense of ‘Wow, desperation, this is either going to work well or it’s going to be a disaster.’ But I’ll never forget Brannon standing at the window, staring out glassy-eyed.”​

Doesn't that sum up the 1st 3 seasons of Enterprise?

I really appreciate Manny's leadership...he almost saved Trek, but was brought on board too late.

If that's true it says a lot. It's almost as if they had the idea let's do a prequel show, yet they didn't really have an idea of how to do it.

 

[Morpheus 02]

that would be interesting! Please make post !

I just posted it. Feel free to add your own thoughts.

I also elaborated on my blog, More2Ignore.