A bug in Beyond about Transporter

There was still Colonel West.

Yes, I know he wore the same uniform as all the rest of the Starfleet naval officers in that scene, but I don't care. It's the most logical explanation I can see. Starfleet is a navy; navies don't have colonels; the character was NAMED after a Marine (Oliver North); so most likely, West is a Marine. Problem solved.

 

The NX-01, if I remember, was never really supposed to use the transporters like they did which is why they had the shuttlepods. The writers just got lazy after restricting themselves.

 

Well, the writers in the first two seasons tried to minimize the use of the transporter except in extreme instances. At first they generally tried to justify why it wouldn't be a good idea in a given situation, but eventually it got to the point that they just ignored the option even when it would've made sense for the characters to at least consider it. But in seasons 3-4, they used it far more routinely. I'm not sure if that's just because of the changes in the writing staff from season to season or because they were under more pressure from the network to play up the familiar Trek elements more, as part of the overall season 3 revamp to address sagging ratings. In-story, you could say that the exigencies of the Xindi crisis compelled them to use the transporter more, after which they got more confident about using it.

Trivia: The ENT character who went through transporters the most was Archer, who was beamed at least 12 times in 8 episodes. Reed was beamed at least 8 times (it was unclear whether he and his team were beamed off of Cold Station 12 in "The Augments" or used a shuttle), Tucker 7 times, Sato and Mayweather twice each, Phlox either once or twice ("The Augments" again). Surprisingly, T'Pol never went through Enterprise's transporter; the one time we saw her beamed was when she was abducted by the Orions in "Borderland." A few of the recurring background MACOs were beamed two or three times each.

 

Fair enough, though I still wonder if the KT Enterprise might have been salvageable had someone remained to try and slow the saucer's descent and manage the ship's structural integrity field. Or you know...if Kirk hadn't flipped the saucer over.