Season 5 and beyond ideas, what would you have done?

As the 22nd century bits of "These Are The Voyages" was set in 2161, several years after "Terra Prime", I'd imagine season 5 would have just jumped back again and told stories in 2255.

 

Shatner's idea was alwful it's good that it wasn't done.

 

Just as well we got the "In a Mirror, Darkly" two-parter instead. Any idea involving Archer interacting with the Mirror Universe, before it was discovered in "Mirror Mirror", might have ran into some serious fan rage at the time. The approach they went for, an episode being beamed directly from that twisted reality, was best (albeit our Archer appearing as a psychotic figment of their Archer's imagination).

I think Shatner being revealed as the Chef, could've been fun though. Particularly since he was occasionally referred to every once in a while. One appearance and the rest would be in the audience's imagination - adding significance to business like "The Catwalk", where we glimpse this man in white overalls handing out their meals. His face obscured or just off the top of the shot. I guess it sort of works with Riker adopting that role, on the holodeck for the finale. Shatner was somebody they were always trying to get for the real deal, I suspect...

Archer already had moments where he would confide in Tucker (their late night drinking sessions like in "The Expanse") or him and T'Pol at the Captain's table. Phlox once or twice too. But a lighter episode where they got Scott to be the straightman for one of Bill's Boston Legal routines, that would've been hysterical. Almost a throwback to some of reactions Dean Stockwell got out of him during Quantum Leap.

 

Shatner's a funny guy. He could have made it work, I think.

But the chef thing was Berman's idea which Shatner turned down. Shatner's idea, with longtime collaboraters Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (the Shatner Trek novels), was to have Mirror Kirk found by Archer in an alien prison in 2154. It turned out the Tantalus Device from "Mirror, Mirror" didn't kill it's victims, it actually beamed them back in time, into another universe, and into this alien prison. Tiberius Kirk (mirror Kirk goes by "Tiberius" not "Jim") has been in the prison for 40 years. Archer rescues him and Tiberius tries to use the Enterprise's transporter to get back to his own universe and time (a la DS9). It doesn't work.

Turns out the mirror universe doesn't exist yet. Tiberius and Archer end up creating it somehow or other.

Sounds big, epic and fun to me. And far better than the (imo) pointless "In a Mirror, Darkly"

 

An idea I would liked to have seen is another throwback to early Starfleet like "First Flight" or the scenes in "Broken Bow" involving a young Archer and his Father. That would add deepen our understanding of his resentment toward Vulcans. Especially at a time when they are maybe refusing to join in the fight to defend Earth, Andoria and other allied worlds from the Romulans.

They could also have made more of the Romulan spy angle mentioned in "Balance of Terror". Having evidence crop up about an early disaster in the Warp 5 program being deliberate... with that pointing to the Vulcans. Malcolm Reed investigates on Archer's orders but also has his loyalty divided by Section 31 again. That's where a cover-up about DNA evidence pointing to the culprit having Vulcan heritage starts to happen. There's also a Terra Prime sympathesiser working alongside Reed when he uncovers the mystery and he has to kill him to prevent the truth being leaked. Nobody ever finds out about the murder until the end of the series when the consequences come back to haunt Malcolm.

Plus the illness from which Henry Archer eventually died, maybe turns out to be not entirely natural perhaps?

There's also the nacelle look of Romulan Birds-of-Prey a century later and some hints could be made that they had been stealing schematics for warp drive from Earth Starfleet drawing boards. Using it to closely parallel an evolution in technology until we them again in Kirk's era.

Another appearance from James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane, in the scenes involving Henry and young Johnny Archer.

It was also about time we saw what the Alpha Centurai system is like in the Star Trek universe.

 

I like the idea of making the Romulans the chief baddies but they should have shown restraint in some of the too-obvious twists, like Future Guy being a Rommie or T'Pol being half Rommie (tromping on T'Bonz's turf there.)

Seconded.

Seconded!

I dunno, I think of MU eps as being inherently campy, and issues of quality or good taste are not so important. Having Shatner play a fat, degenerate old satrap from the MU might have been a lot of fun. However, what they describe doesn't sound as fun as simply having Shatner be his already-established MU character (who we barely got to see at all in the original episode).

Also - maybe this happened in lieu of the Shatner MU idea - but the MU existed as of the sailing-ship era - ENT itself established that - and if they want to undo their own canon, they should have COTEOF be the jumping off point, like everybody wants.

 

Everything in here is genius

It actually makes me sad that Enterprise never had a chance to explore some of the ideas that Manny Coto outlined. I think it is every trekkie/trekkers dream to see the much fabled "Romulan War" in episodic form.

A couple of years ago I remember reading somewhere that there were plans to release some TV films to wrap up the series and include the Romulan War. Obviously this hasn't happened and it would be difficult since Paramount coldly had the sets destroyed. I'm pretty sure all of the actors from ENT would return to a few feature length TV movies, given the friendly and enjoyable vibe that was going on during the show.

 

God a hell lot less fan wank.

One of the drawbacks of season 4 was that it felt like lets throw everything into the blender including the kitchen sink. Typically that isn't good story telling.

Now that's not to say I didn't like a lot of season 4 (in fact I think its ENT 2nd best season), but I didn't feel any natural progression.

Take season three I never wanted to see the Xindi (really couldn't care less), but in the end I really like that season because its got a fairly solid narrative structure.

Season four would have been even stronger (or could have been) if the writers cut out about half that material and really delved into the material in a lot more natural flowing way.

Oh and drop the stupid TOS color scheme. Seriously, the one place ENT excelled over any other televised Trek is its interior design. Those colors (as much as they work for TOS future) they don't work here, and its terrible jarring.

 

I think a big reason for that "everything including the kitchen sink" feeling in Season 4 was because they knew it was more than likely going to be their last season. If they'd had a guaranteed Season 5, I think the "fanwank" (I hate that term, but whatevs) would have been spread out a bit more.

 

Shatners idea was awful. He comes up with crazy stuff to bring his character back. He must have really regretted Generations.

 

He's his own worst enemy. He should just accept the decision he made. He took part in the first TNG movie, ultimately agreeing to a death without Bones or Spock around to see it.

Fast-forward 10 years later, to the current producer of Star Trek asking him to take part in a storyline, that brought him back. But not as Kirk. It would've been fine. Still would. On Enterprise OR in the Abramsverse. The fact it's Shatner would be enough of a knowing wink to the audience. Bill is also not simply Kirk. He's changed over the years. He's T.J. Hooker. He's Denny Crane on Boston Legal. He's the Big Giant Head on Third Rock from the Sun. He's the Dad in $#*! My Dad Says. I could go on.

The irony behind that alternative option on Enterprise would've been, he was offered the chance to have his cake and eat it. He's the NX-01's mysterious Chef, a guy mentioned a lot (but never seen)... Somebody as far from Kirk as it's possible to get (the Shat playing himself), who is taken out of the past to be James T Kirk, at a critical moment.

He would've been Ace Rimmer, if anyone know's what the deal was with that on Red Dwarf.

Or more seriously, he's Churchill's double. A decoy and the twist is, he ends up becoming the real deal.

I think with some care, that would've been the funniest thing ever, with some drama about a legend being more important than just one man. Maybe more than writers (who are also his fans) just blowing smoke up his ass too.

 

An open door story submission policy that brought much to TNG's make or break seasons.

You know, even IF that resulted in another "Yesterday's Enterprise", which it took four or five other writers to take it from an idea, to a shooting script... it would have been totally worth it.

99.9% of submissions ended up in a reject letter or no reply at all, but good on that slight percentage who beat the odds... got the chance to sit in the writing room long enough to pitch something.

Basically answering a similar challenge to Pike's in the last movie, because they wanted better...

 

Would've been even funnier if he ended up being future guy.

As to what I'd like to have seen?
Well, we never did know exacly when first contact happened with the Cardassians eh?
Judging by all the talk in TNG when they first showed up, the wars they'd fought and everything that'd gone on between the two powers, it was hardly like they were new to each other eh?

A season 4 style multi-ep arc dealing with the ramifications of that meeting would be interesting, particularly if they were already supressing the Bajorans and that is what soured Starfleet against them.

Or failing that, the Bajorans were shown to be a spacefaring race way before they ever met the Cardassians, indeed it was implied in the solar ship ep of DS9 that they were flying spaceships during our Medieval period, so surely they should've bumped into a Bajoran ship at some point...

 

I wouldn't have minded seeing that. Cardassians were a decent, sophisticated culture in the past, into high art and literature. So naturally your twist is to make Bajorans an agressive Viking-like race, arriving on Cardassia to rape, plunder and pilage. Two centuries later, they returned the compliment...

Season Four's "Observer Effect" namechecks Cardies as being a race who crashed on that planet Hoshi and Reed were returning from, before the Klingons did. Experimented on by the Organians

The problem really was fans who had already hated other modern era Trek races showing up.

The Naussicans (which I didn't have a problem with, but for "Fortunate Son" they could have been interchangable with Klingons.)

The Ferengi

Risa, the planet of pleasure from TNG/DS9

The Borg

"Regeneration" actually turned out to be one of their best appearances since TNG but few will admit that because of an obsession with canon. They also work better as they originally were. A force of nature... or a disease. Without a leader. Without a Queen, who you can basically cut somekind of a deal with. They were zombies. Then they became zombies who would elect a spokesperson. Finally zombies who had a leader, apparently lurking in the background all along.

Regarding the Romulans, I think in a war with a secretive race, who don't want to be seen (and you can't tell me some of that didn't happen, only to be removed from the history books), the Betazoids would have to had been around (or some race with psychic abilities) to negotiate for peace over subspace.

 

That never been my inpression, from all my reading of various sources. If Nemesis had pulled in good revenue, there very likely would have been another TNG movie. TNG movies were stopped solely because of the bad box office, not because it was in any way "planned."

In the teaser of seasons five's first episode, Archer wakes up in bed, in his quarters, walks into the bathroom (the shower's running) pulls back the shower curtain and tells Trip that he just had the strangest dream.

Give Shatner a reoccurring role as either the head of Earth Starfleet, or perhaps the United Earth President (who's Canadian), he would take over in Admiral Forest's role on the show, as the whoever that give Archer instructions.

I love the chef idea as well.

**********

Another of my ideas would have been a play on the Gary Seven aliens, specifically the alien woman who can assume the appearance of a cat. During a crisis, either on or off the ship, it revealed that the aliens, wanting the help the captain of Earth first interstellar explorer, inserted into Archer life one of their agents,. Porthos. During the course of the story, Porthos is forced to take humanoid form (male or female) to assist Archer with the problem. Porthos tells Archer that she (she?) had been helping Archer along, but Archer doesn't remember.

Porthos is never again seen in Humanoid form and Archer doesn't remember the incident ... but the fans will remember every time Porthos is seen.


.

 

Apparently (maybe unbelievably) they were thinking of doing an episode, in which Porthos is the only person on Enterprise able to communicate with some aliens.

That's a point actually. With Dallas being rebooted, I wonder whereabouts they've gone back to, before starting again?

Maybe all the stuff with Bobby Ewing alive might also be a dream too!

Depends on how much Patrick Duffy's asking to do a cameo I guess.


I'd think about suggesting the TNG scenes from "These are the Voyages..." were actually from "Parallels"

and NOT "The Pegasus."

There were an awful lot of Enterprise Ds on that viewscreen, that Data said would be filling the sector.

 

To me the 5th season that was planned but never was was the great LOST season/episodes of the whole ST franchise, replacing the 1970s aborted TV show. Its one of the saddest parts ever of my ST fan existence.

RAMA

 

And I believe that would be the episode that would forever be known as the one in which Enterprise jumped the shark.

 

Suddenly Scotty doesn't look so bad for killing Porthos now, does he?

 

I'm not really an Enterprise fan, but this is awesome. I love the Earth, Vulcan and Andorian ships flying together at the end.