New Beginnings: Coto's Enterprise

[IrishNero]

I've heard it said that, with Enterprise, Berman and Braga brought their post-TOS imagination to a pre-TOS reality. On the other hand, were it not for B&B, the show would never have come to fruition because they pitched it to the now-defunct UPN.

IMO, Coto's Enterprise episodes are some of the most imaginative, brash and outstanding of all of the ST series. If Coto had been brought in initially, do you think Enterprise would have had greater success? -or would UPN's control have hampered his ability to make Enterprise a more popular series? I'm just trying to find perspectives on why Enterprise seems to have failed in the eyes of so many.

BTW: I actually loved the series for the most part. I'm just trying to find perspectives on why Enterprise failed.

 

[Saul]

From interviews over the years it sounds like UPN hampered the series by wanting it to be another Star Trek show instead of having it start on Earth and gradually go to space over a season. With that said B&B had milked themselves creatively dry by that stage anyway and were even considering to use the Akira class design for the NX Enterprise without even changing it.

Coto had some fresh ideas, he brought on different people and tried to make it a PreTOS show with the goods he was given. He did a fairly bang up job. If he had been there from the start it might have been even better.
We wouldn't have gotten an ending like 'These are the Voyages' either.

Enterprise just got stuck in the times while other shows were moving on with them.

 

[IrishNero]

You know, I don't really read many articles about Enterprise, but I read a few months ago that Coto and the rest of the writing and management team always intended for the last episode to be a wrap-up for all of the 'B&B' series, and it that respect, the end to the actual series was prior to that.

My personal belief is that that's a great story, but it doesn't add up. If the last story was to be a wrap for all of those series (TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT), why wasn't more footage included from those other series? Or at least a few minutes devoted to each series (and I'm not going to include that 5-second flyby of the starships at the end). Even most of the Enterprise cast weren't provided explanations regarding the reason why they did it the way they did. Jolene Blalock was actually pretty upset about it.

Anyway, I agree that UPN was probably exerting a lot of influence. I heard that the writers originally wanted the show to be interaction/cast focused, not another 'lets go to a planet, meet an alien, solve their problem and leave' series.

 

[marlboro]

I think that if they had found a balance between the action oriented Coto stories from season 4 and a few of the character development episodes from the first two seasons that the show would have had a much longer run.




I think B&B's idea to have the entire first season is fairly terrible. 26 episodes of Archer getting into pissing matches with snooty Vulcans and Star Fleet bureaucrats? I think I'll wait until the green chicks and Gorn captains show up.

 

[IrishNero]

Yeah the Vulcan-Archer thing got old and Archer seemed to be filled with teen angst half the time. They'd have a great episode or two, then they'd have an episode where they seemed to be making it up as they went along.

 

[Morpheus 02]

i totaly agree with the OP...if Manny had been there form the get-go, it would've felt like a REAL prequel, and not get stupid stuff that didn't make much sense.

there WERE a few good things... like the Xindi -- a NON mono-species space empire, with non-human species to boot. Now, making them seemingly more significant than the Romulans....that part...not sure how it fit in


But i think the stink of B & B would've been avoided, and Enterprise could've easily done 7 seasons with Coto. He also wouldn't have ot clean up previous messes. And would we have seen Shran as part of the crew?

 

[Mage]

Berman and Braga had different plans for Enterprise. In their original concept, Enterprise wouldn't even launch untill the end of the first season.

The studios wanted things like transporters, UT's, phase pistols and what not, so people could identify. A lot was forced into the show.

 

[MacLeod]

I'm not sure about a whole season set on Earth but I could certainly see the first 6-10 episodes working based on Earth.

 

[IrishNero]

Yes, a half-season of organizing, negotiating and preparing would have been a great series setup provided the stories were engaging.

 

[Saul]

You know, I don't really read many articles about Enterprise, but I read a few months ago that Coto and the rest of the writing and management team always intended for the last episode to be a wrap-up for all of the 'B&B' series, and it that respect, the end to the actual series was prior to that.

Actually I think it was just the plan of B&B.
Coto had planned the Terra Prime arc as 3 episodes until they found out the show was cancelled and the Bs wanted to write their own final.

 

[IrishNero]

Yes, I remember that they had that plan. Then UPN shot that down. Apparently, when the execs learned that they were planning several personnel-focused episodes on Earth, the execs said "This is a space show, right?" And I guess from there, it devolved into another 'hunt down another alien of the week' type of show. It appears to me that the B&B group had some success at injecting their ideas of more personal interaction over the course of the series, but the net effect was a jumble. I think that is why the show had so many differences from season to season. You can almost 'see' the off-screen drama as it has since been described by the cast and writers.

 

[The Wormhole]

The problem with these speculations about "could Manny Coto do better if he were in charge" is that it ignores the fact that UPN mandated a lot of what went on in the first two seasons. Things like the TCW and the Xindi storyline would still have happened regardless of who was running the show, they were forced onto the show by UPN or Paramount.

And although fandom jumps to readily to unfairly blame Berman and Braga, I'll admit that in some cases they kind of did squander the first two seasons, particularly the second with sub-par standalone episodes. The TCW, even if it were a studio-mandated storyline could have benefitted from a bit more thought and planning put into it. Maybe at least answering the questions that were raised instead of having Mr. Daniels dismiss them as "you wouldn't understand." They could have developed things better with the Andorians and the Vulcans, or even developed the concept of the Space Boomers more than they did. Instead we got episodes which were largely just retreads of storylines the other Treks already did about a dozen times before it all got shoved aside again by studio mandate for the Xindi story.

So the question isn't so much could Coto do better if he were in charge in the beginning but rather could he have done better under UPN's restrictions.

At the very least, season 4 did try to better utilize the entire cast, so maybe we wouldn't have had Mayweather become such a superfluous part of the main cast.

 

[eyeresist]

there WERE a few good things... like the Xindi -- a NON mono-species space empire, with non-human species to boot. Now, making them seemingly more significant than the Romulans....that part...not sure how it fit in

What does this mean, "more significant"?

 

[kevinb]

It's hard to say how it could have been, good or bad. It wouldn't be a surprise, perhaps, if more thought had been put into the stories in the beginning if Coto were on board at the time, but as others have said, a lot seemed to have been forced by the studio.

A great example of how they fucked shit up was, I always thought, "Dear Doctor," a great episode made just a little less great by the news that UPN (if I recall correctly) had the ending rewritten. Originally, Phlox was going to withhold the cure from Archer, which one can only guess would have given some exciting repercussions to watch in later episodes.

Brannon Braga also stated in old news articles here on Trek Today that he would have rather had 13-episode seasons, and despite all the vitriol that was spewed about him back then, I think he was on the money (and obviously, many shows have since run on the notion of shorter seasons). So, there's an example of the creator / head writer wanting, he's saying here, that more focus on every script, less deadlines, less bullshit filler episodes, would make for a better show. Make every episode count. But that's not how the network saw it. Who knows how many other cases of them wanting to do something really extraordinary and getting notes back from the studio or network saying the exact opposite?

Yeah, Berman and Braga may have been burnt out on Trek, but Goodman, Coto, Sussman, and a few others turned in some very good stuff -- even when it was a rehashed story (i.e. "Judgment"). The talent was there. The network and studio support of that talent didn't seem to be.

Even J. Michael Strazinsky said some 20 years ago -- that the Trek writers could come up with the best shit there is and that it's TPTB that fuck it up. It's the nature of the business I guess. I'm glad sometimes that, amid the shit, there were good stories as well.

 

[IrishNero]

The problem with these speculations about "could Manny Coto do better if he were in charge" is that it ignores the fact that UPN mandated a lot of what went on in the first two seasons. Things like the TCW and the Xindi storyline would still have happened regardless of who was running the show, they were forced onto the show by UPN or Paramount.

And although fandom jumps to readily to unfairly blame Berman and Braga, I'll admit that in some cases they kind of did squander the first two seasons, particularly the second with sub-par standalone episodes. The TCW, even if it were a studio-mandated storyline could have benefitted from a bit more thought and planning put into it. Maybe at least answering the questions that were raised instead of having Mr. Daniels dismiss them as "you wouldn't understand." They could have developed things better with the Andorians and the Vulcans, or even developed the concept of the Space Boomers more than they did. Instead we got episodes which were largely just retreads of storylines the other Treks already did about a dozen times before it all got shoved aside again by studio mandate for the Xindi story.

So the question isn't so much could Coto do better if he were in charge in the beginning but rather could he have done better under UPN's restrictions.

At the very least, season 4 did try to better utilize the entire cast, so maybe we wouldn't have had Mayweather become such a superfluous part of the main cast.

I didn't see that Season 4 used the entire cast. I saw Hoshi, Malcomb and Mayweather become a group of hotel lobby ivy plants (in the background). Though it's been awhile since I watched the series, I clearly saw these characters becoming relegated to minor roles in comparison to Season 1, per se.

 

[eyeresist]

I'll be watching season 4 in a month or so. I don't remember these characters being particularly downplay; Mayweather did get a feature moment due to his shifty girlfriend.

If they were downgraded to minor players, that would fit with the back-to-TOS approach that people praise Coto for.

 

[The Wormhole]

The problem with these speculations about "could Manny Coto do better if he were in charge" is that it ignores the fact that UPN mandated a lot of what went on in the first two seasons. Things like the TCW and the Xindi storyline would still have happened regardless of who was running the show, they were forced onto the show by UPN or Paramount.

And although fandom jumps to readily to unfairly blame Berman and Braga, I'll admit that in some cases they kind of did squander the first two seasons, particularly the second with sub-par standalone episodes. The TCW, even if it were a studio-mandated storyline could have benefitted from a bit more thought and planning put into it. Maybe at least answering the questions that were raised instead of having Mr. Daniels dismiss them as "you wouldn't understand." They could have developed things better with the Andorians and the Vulcans, or even developed the concept of the Space Boomers more than they did. Instead we got episodes which were largely just retreads of storylines the other Treks already did about a dozen times before it all got shoved aside again by studio mandate for the Xindi story.

So the question isn't so much could Coto do better if he were in charge in the beginning but rather could he have done better under UPN's restrictions.

At the very least, season 4 did try to better utilize the entire cast, so maybe we wouldn't have had Mayweather become such a superfluous part of the main cast.

I didn't see that Season 4 used the entire cast. I saw Hoshi, Malcomb and Mayweather become a group of hotel lobby ivy plants (in the background). Though it's been awhile since I watched the series, I clearly saw these characters becoming relegated to minor roles in comparison to Season 1, per se.

Season 4 did more with Reed, Mayweather and Hoshi than the previous seasons did, though admittedly it still wasn't that much. Ironically, the episode where they get the most attention was Observer Effect, in which they're possessed by aliens. And then in the MU, Mayweather and Hoshi are the ones still standing in the end.

As mentioned above, Mayweather did have his ex-girlfriend show up in the Terra Prime story, and Reed's involvement with Section 31 was revealed in the Klingon forehead story and revisited again in Terra Prime.

 

[eyeresist]

the Klingon forehead story