The One Thing You Could Change, ENTERPRISE Edition...

[Farscape One]

I decided on a thought exercise for myself, and wanted to see what other people would come up with. I am going to do this for each series, except DISCOVERY and PICARD, as they are still currently in production.

Come up with only ONE thing you would change about a series. It can be something about a character, a storyline, or even something physical, like a different ship design. It can be anything you like, provided it would be used for more than just one episode.


For ENTERPRISE, my answer is very easy. NO TEMPORAL COLD WAR!

I hated that storyline, and I feel it brought the show down. I think it is the single storyline I despised the most in the franchise.

How about you all?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Another vote for no TCW.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Not cancelled. Ended after seven seasons instead, as per TNG, DS9 & VOY.

Okay, a glib answer. So I'll go with a plan to reveal who Future Guy was from the start.

 

[Tenacity]

Set the show only a few decades after Cochrane's first warp test flight.

Losing the whole "the Vulcan's held us back" bullshit.
Archer remembers the first flight from when he was a teenager.

 

[Vger23]

More of a pioneering, "age of adventure and wonder" approach, taking advantage of the 22nd century timeframe, rather than just TNG rehash during seasons 1-2 or DS9 arc rehash in S3.


...and I LIKE ENT quite a bit. But I do wish they had been a bit more bold about the format.

 

[Orphalesion]

There is a lot I would change about Enterprise, because I really don't like it.

But yeah, another vote for "No Temporal Cold War"
You'd think humanities first steps into space, slowly establishing the Star Trek universe, the Federation and possibly the Romulan War would be interesting enough, without all that "Future Guy" crap.

 

[Danny99]

I can't choose just one:

- Obviously, no Temporal Cold War.
- Archer remains very naive to start, but takes a harder fall when he realizes that the universe isn't as fridenly as he had thought.
- Expand Reed, Mayweather, Phlox and Hoshi.
- While I liked the Season Three arc, I wouldn't have created the Xindi nor would there would have been an attack on Earth.

 

[Tribble Threat]

More of a pioneering, "age of adventure and wonder" approach, taking advantage of the 22nd century timeframe, rather than just TNG rehash during seasons 1-2 or DS9 arc rehash in S3.


...and I LIKE ENT quite a bit. But I do wish they had been a bit more bold about the format.

I suspect they would have had time for an "age of adventure and wonder" approach, if they didn't spend any time on the Temporal Cold War.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Kept with the original concept of having the first season be The Right Stuff Trek Edition with the building of the NX-01 and the competition to be its captain. Kinda like "First Flight."

 

[FederationHistorian]

I agree with there being no Temporal Cold War. There isn’t a single thing that isn’t improved by its absence.

Suliban Cabal

- instead of being led by Future Guy from the 28th century, they are led by Romulans in the 22nd and are the proxies of the Romulan Star Empire.

- Conflicts with the Klingons, Tholians, Tandarans, Suliban renegades, United Earth and Vulcan still make sense, from an astropolitics perspective, since the Cabal is seen as destabilizing force. Although all are unaware their actions are on the behalf of the Romulan Star Empire until later on.

- the fallout from "Shockwave" becomes more interesting if the NX-01 crew is recalled back to Earth and benched indefinitely, resulting in an Earth-centric S2. Resulting in a chance for better character development for Reed, Phlox, Mayweather, and Hoshi.

Xindi/Sphere Builders arc

- Sphere Builders are still considered religious figures, by both the Xindi and the Triannon
- Sphere Builders still try to remake the Delphic Expanse
- Sphere Builders encourage Xindi attacks on not just Earth, but the other three founding members of the Federation and Denobula, making the Xindi crisis a far more urgent matter. And giving the Andorians another reason to be involved.
- Could have been more about religious fanaticism instead of time travel

Na’kuhl

- A species from the 29th century that uses time travel to improve themselves and decide to improve another species (humans). They basically remain the same.

Daniels

- One of those futuristic Federation historians we hear about in TNG's "A Matter of Time", but rom the 31st century instead

USS Enterprise-J

- Could have had an episode dedicated to a joint mission involving the NX-01 and Enterprise-J

United Federation of Planets

- No anticipation for Archer’s speech, meaning possibly no TATV either, at least not the way it unfolded

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Not cancelled. Ended after seven seasons instead, as per TNG, DS9 & VOY.

Okay, a glib answer. So I'll go with a plan to reveal who Future Guy was from the start.

My immediate One Thing would also be seven seasons. Not glib, either. 3 more seasons to develop characters and follow up on long storylines. 3 more seasons to AHEM develop (not scuttle after all that buildup, after Similitude for crying out loud) the first human/Vulcan relationship as a precursor to Sarek/Amanda, not to mention a metaphor for human/Vulcan relations. And 3 more seasons to RELAX because they'd know they had seven seasons, and time to open the box and do offbeat stories, like comedies, maybe some singing (not kidding, considering Bakula's voice), a Movie Night episode, stuff like that. [See Buffy the Vampire Slayer for sublime open-box creative genius when it got 2 more seasons.]

And okay, for the more conventional structural One Thing - I wish the writing staff would write Archer as if they loved him, not as if they didn't give a rip whether he was consistent from one storyline to the next. Clearly Bakula loved Archer more than most of the writers seemed to. Hell, I loved him plenty more than they did. If a writer doesn't truly love and care about a character, any character (even the villains), it really shows in the execution. I mean c'mon, they couldn't even decide when his father died. I didn't mind when he made mistakes, because that was part of his evolution and maturity from a starry-eyed explorer to a seasoned space veteran. But they made him look like a dope sometimes, and that was unacceptable. Archer was a Star Trek Captain, and should have been treated as such, and developed and written better overall.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Have the series begin in 2161, with the Federation and Starfleet newly created, as such the ship would have a fully integrated crew (the first of its kind) as they were sent out on a mission of peaceful exploration--as much of a PR stunt than anything else after the Romulan War. This would of course change pretty much everything else in the show

 

[lazarus+]

No doggo in trouble story and no Sim story. It was, when I think about it, fairly disgusting as well as exploitative in terms of writing

 

[garakvsneelix]

A strong explanation, why the Xindi were that dumb, that their weapon test alarmed the earth... really, while watching, I was expecting, that this would be explained by a time-travelling Degra, who wants to make sure, that Archer really can make its way to the Expanse...

 

[Tenacity]

- Switch the actors around so that Trip is the captain, and Archer the chief engineer. Trip was the far more interesting character.

 

[STEPhon IT]

I decided on a thought exercise for myself, and wanted to see what other people would come up with. I am going to do this for each series, except DISCOVERY and PICARD, as they are still currently in production.

Come up with only ONE thing you would change about a series. It can be something about a character, a storyline, or even something physical, like a different ship design. It can be anything you like, provided it would be used for more than just one episode.


For ENTERPRISE, my answer is very easy. NO TEMPORAL COLD WAR!

I hated that storyline, and I feel it brought the show down. I think it is the single storyline I despised the most in the franchise.

How about you all?

What pissed me off throughout that waste of a series, stop trumping everything TOS had done. I mean, Jesus! Kirk and McCoy took audiences through the viewing of a Klingon court something new, fresh and something special for their era, but alas, ENT did it first! Fucking annoying.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

While ENT has its fair share of problems, I’d pick a central one (at least IMO):

Recast Archer - NOT Scott Bakula.

Nothing against Scott Bakula himself, he seems like a nice person... but (to me) he just didn’t have the gravitas to be a starship CO, let alone a ‘heroic’ one. Toss in Archer’s whining and petulance and... ick.

YMMV, of course.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Tenacity]

Lose the Romulan cloaking device, want to give them advanced stealth okay. But no invisibility.

And the Romulan drone that easily avoids enemy weapons fire by rolling over and moving a couple of hundred feet to one side. Just fire a nuke at it
already.

Add a slow movement towards the Earth/Romulan war, rumors of a unknown species engaging in attacks, ships going missing. At first small mentions in a script every third episode in the first season, second season the occasional full story, massacre of a out laying colony, So on. Do Minefield in the early fourth season and we see a ship.

The audience can see the Romulans in scenes aboard their ships and the Romulan worlds, but Humans and their allies never do at any point in the series.

 

[Tenacity]

Recast Archer - NOT Scott Bakula.

Wouldnt simply rewriting the scripts and having Bakula take his acting in a different direction accomplish the needed changes in the character? The problem always was how Bakula was playing the character and how Archer was written, not anything intrinsic to Bakula himself.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Better wardrobe for T'Pol