Jeffrey Combs/Shran as a regular...

[t_smitts]

There had been much talk that had the show gone on for a fifth season, that Shran would have joined the crew and Jeffrey Combs been made a regular. I asked Mike Sussman about it when I got the chance and he said this:

Yeah, Manny really wanted Shran on the ship full-time. Since Shran lost the Kumari and possibly suffered some measure of disgrace, it would have made sense, story-wise.

I, personally, thought this would be an exciting development. I don't know any fan who doesn't Shran, the Andorians, or Jeffrey Combs. It would have been interesting to see Shran adjusting to human culture. My question is what would Shran have done on the ship? They already have a security guy.

I suppose they could have come up with some vague make-work position like they did with Worf on DS9 (what exactly does a "Strategic Operations Officer" do anyway?)

What do you think?

 

[JiNX-01]

Oddly enough, I don't care for the idea of Shran being posted to Enterprise. I would definitely love to see him more frequently, but it works better, IMO, to have him in command of his own ship because then he is Archer's equal.

On Enterprise, he'd be Archer's subordinate and that wouldn't work for me at all. Besides, Archer already has a subordinate who is also a friend.

 

[Michael]

On Enterprise, he'd be Archer's subordinate and that wouldn't work for me at all. Besides, Archer already has a subordinate who is also a friend.

And I think THAT would have been the interesting thing about Shran as a regular. He is basically Archer's equal but has to be under his command. I can see good possibilites for conflict and drama in there.

 

[Hoshi's sis]

I'm with Jinx, I like Shran but I wouldn't like to see him as a regular on the NX-01.

 

[t_smitts]

On Enterprise, he'd be Archer's subordinate and that wouldn't work for me at all. Besides, Archer already has a subordinate who is also a friend.

And I think THAT would have been the interesting thing about Shran as a regular. He is basically Archer's equal but has to be under his command. I can see good possibilites for conflict and drama in there.

I agree. And he cartinaly wouldn't be able to call him "pink-skin" anymore.

 

[SFRabid]

I'd rather see him get his own ship again and take some type of leadership in the Federation. That would be a thorn in the side of the Vulcans and good for some story lines.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Personally I've loved the idea since I first heard it "leaked" somewhere. The way Season Four was going, with the number of Shran appearances increasing, they'd have needed to explain him just being in the area anyway.

Having him demoted then landing him among "the pinkskins", who he undoubtedly stuck up for when reporting to his superiors, would've been ironic. I imagine the beginning of an officier exchange program, probably something in the fine print of the Coalition charter. I imagine that kind of intermingling of species technical ability, starship protocol built up over the years leading into the 23rd Century. We get Shran, while another semi-regular gets shipped off to an Andorian vessel...

Bye then, Kelby.

 

[JiNX-01]

On Enterprise, he'd be Archer's subordinate and that wouldn't work for me at all. Besides, Archer already has a subordinate who is also a friend.

And I think THAT would have been the interesting thing about Shran as a regular. He is basically Archer's equal but has to be under his command. I can see good possibilites for conflict and drama in there.

Proving Ground: Shran is on a mission to betray a friend.

Drama doesn't get better than that.

 

[Cyrus]

Shran as a regular would have been good for the show. But it would have been bad for this forum, as it may have attracted yet another group of shippers (Shran-T'Pol).

 

[MattJC]

I have mixed feelings on this.
As much as I love Jeffrey Combs and Shran, and as much as I wanted to see him as a regular, I don't want him to take valuable screentime from the underused characters from the show: Hoshi, Malcolm, Travis, and Phlox.
Remember, Enterprise episodes were shorter in length then episodes from the earlier series like DS9 and TNG.

 

[t_smitts]

Some characters are more popular or prominent and others fall by the wayside. That's just the way it works on TV. Sometimes this is because they're not major players in the over all story (Jake Sisko) and sometimes just because they're a little dull (Harry Kim).

I actually liked that Enterprise went back to the "big three" plus minor players as they had on TOS. Whether Shran would have crashed that group or been relegated to the "middle tier" that Malcolm and (usually) Phlox occupied is hard to say (he was way too popular and interesting to be lumped in with Travis and Hoshi in the bottom tier).

 

[HoundDog]

I, personally, thought this would be an exciting development. I don't know any fan who doesn't Shran, the Andorians, or Jeffrey Combs. It would have been interesting to see Shran adjusting to human culture. My question is what would Shran have done on the ship? They already have a security guy.

I suppose they could have come up with some vague make-work position like they did with Worf on DS9 (what exactly does a "Strategic Operations Officer" do anyway?)

What do you think?

With the formation of the Coalition of Planets at the end of season 4, they could have made Shran some kind of contact to the Imperial Guard for Archer.

 

[Moocey]

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we're all speculating whether or not Jeffery Combs should have been a main cast member on a Trek show for Enterprise's hypothetical fifth season. He should have been a main character on DS9. The least they should have done is make him a regular on Enterprise.

 

[ialfan]

I too have mixed feelings about this. What would he have done on Enterprise?

I suppose they could have replaced Travis and put Shran at the helm. But with Shran becoming a main character he undoubtably would have had as much screen time as Archer, T'Pol and Trip pushing the rest further into the background.

 

[JiNX-01]

I actually liked that Enterprise went back to the "big three" plus minor players as they had on TOS.

The only issue I had with this arrangement is that the opening credits included the supporting cast. After TNG, DS9 and VOY, it made it appear that ENT was going to be an ensemble cast as well.
For clarity, Scott, Jolene and Connor should have been in the opening credits with the others credited at the end of the show as in TOS.

 

[commodore64]

Fire Trip and make Shran engineer. Shran is more interesting and I like the interplay with Captain Archer. Archer, T'Pol and Shran would be an awesome big three.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

I agree with the poster who mentioned Shran being part of an officer exchange thing. The way I see it is that the Andorians could become paranoid about how the Vulcans have a representitive on their ship and demand that they have an Andorian of equal rank on the ship. The Andoiran government could then choose Shran -- either because they want to get rid of him or because Shran begged for a ship.

The thing I love about Shran is that he's so unpredictiable. Everytime you started to feel that Shran was a good guy he'd do something out of left field -- like demand a battle to the death or kidnap and torture an ambassardor. Shran was the little spark of Chaos on Enterprise. If he was actually a crewmember he would be able to create all sorts of different tensions on the ship between characters...Causing trouble and sometimes doing work for the Andorians in secret.

Heck. Maybe they could have beefed up the other characters by having Shran play off them. Like having a cold war betweeen him and Reed. Or by having him develop a relationship with Mayweather, the Pinkskin who wasn't pink. Aside from the Aenar the Andorians didn't seem to be that different in skin tone so that could spark some of Shran's interest in humanity.

It is true, though, that Shran's inclusion would probably end up hurting the Minor 4 more than helping them. Although they weren't getting much attention anyway. I remember there was an episode during the Xindi War arc where Mayweather only had one line -- and he was interrupted by the computer!

 

[t_smitts]

I actually liked that Enterprise went back to the "big three" plus minor players as they had on TOS.

The only issue I had with this arrangement is that the opening credits included the supporting cast. After TNG, DS9 and VOY, it made it appear that ENT was going to be an ensemble cast as well.
For clarity, Scott, Jolene and Connor should have been in the opening credits with the others credited at the end of the show as in TOS.

That makes no sense since they were all indeed series regulars and regulars are shown in the opening credits, not the end ones. On an hour-long drama, they don't even put the guest actors there except for the ones with the smallest roles.

Having them all alphabetically is much easier than arbitrarily getting into who gets billing over whom (because then you get agents involved and contract negotiations and such).

For the record, I think Jeffrey's name would have fit in nicely between Jolene's and Dominic's.

 

[Pensive]

Bye then, Kelby.

I like the way you think (especially after his b.s. in "Bound")

Maybe they could have beefed up the other characters by having Shran play off them. Like having a cold war betweeen him and Reed.

That was already done with Reed/Hayes, but a cool idea nevertheless. I don't personally go for Shran being a crewmember on Enterprise, but having him as a regular would have rocked.

 

[Lys]

As much as I love Shran, I don't think having him as a regular would have been a good idea. Shran has a wonderful antagonistic yet friendly relationship with Archer, but it could work only if they were on the same level and not Shran being a subordinate of Archer. Besides, I don't quite see which post he would fill up. In my opinion, Shran belongs to a captain's chair, nothing else, and I can't see him taking Archer's place. Well, maybe for one episode, some sort of exchange program while Archer would deal with commanding an Andorian ship.

Of course, in an ideal season 5, I would have him play a prominent role and maybe work with the "Pinkskins" more often, but please, give the man his own ship!