These are the voyages...
- Thread starter Papermoon
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They were giving the finger to the fans.
TATV or as it's better known: "This Ain't The Valentine" (to the fans). 
I don't think you need a spoiler for an episode that was shown 12 years ago.
The real answer: Berman and Braga legitimately thought killing Trip would provide good drama. It wasn't a "finger to the fans" or some such nonsense. They actually thought TATV was a good sendoff. It was only much later that they realized just how wrong they were.
I know it seems like it has nothing to do with TATV, but I promise this is related:
Pick up this book. You'll be glad you did. And the Enterprise Relaunch books that followed were equally excellent, including the wonderful Rise of the Federation series by @Christopher Bennett which came after.
ETA: Oh, I see there's a new Rise book coming out next month. I'm so excited.
Thing about TATV, is that it originally slated to be a season 3 episode. The idea was (as Berman described in an interview) to have the TNG characters look back on the past and see things through their eyes. However, the Xindi arc was in full swing and the threat of cancellation was hanging above their heads. Doing an inconsequential episode to the current arc would've been bad. However, the episode was still slated to be inconsequential. Berman said he planned to ignore the forecasted future events (Trip dying) had ENT gone on to a 5th, 6th and 7th season. Just use time travel or some other method to change Trip's fate, so he made it all the way to the end.
Things didn't go that way, unfortunately. Berman and Braga still decided to close on killing off Trip. This after killing his sister in season 2 and killing his daughter in the preceding episode of TATV. The Tucker family line died, with no one to carry it on.
What were they thinking?
#valentineforthefans
Things didn't go that way, unfortunately. Berman and Braga still decided to close on killing off Trip. This after killing his sister in season 2 and killing his daughter in the preceding episode of TATV. The Tucker family line died, with no one to carry it on.
What were they thinking?
#valentineforthefans
is a really good book. There's several mentions of different tv episodes mentioned in the book and characters you'll recognize when you read the Relaunch books.
1. It's not going to be retconned. You'll have to deal with it just like the rest of us do.
2. Paramount will never, ever make a Star Trek novel into a film.
For some reason, they thought randomly killing off their most popular character in a finale centred around characters from another series that was popular a decade or more earlier was a good idea.
An opinion that I'm still trying to make sense of. I've listened to / read all the interviews on the subject that I can get hold of, and somehow I still can't get my head around it. It would make more sense if anything in the plot even referred to Riker's dilemma in 'Pegasus', or even if the ten years weren't so painfully obvious in both Riker and Troi. As it was, the whole thing was just agonisingly inept. I don't know whether there was any malice intended to the fans or not, but if anyone can explain to me how making the Enterprise characters bit part players in their own show finale could possibly be interpreted as other than incredibly insulting to them, I'd be edified.
For me, the worst thing of all was that it followed an episode that was one of the best in the series, and showcased what Enterprise could have been. There, but for a combination of fatal circumstances, went a show that at its best really did have some enormous potential.
I think they just had this interesting concept for an episode that kept getting pushed back, and then at the end they wanted to have that tie in to mark the end of their tenure. Star Trek was going off the air for the first time in almost 20 years. Rick Berman was saying goodbye to a big chunk of his life.
I heard an interview with the actor who plays Lt Reed, and he thought it was awesome getting to have scenes with Frakes.
I heard an interview with the actor who plays Lt Reed, and he thought it was awesome getting to have scenes with Frakes.
Yes. I've heard Dominuc mention that - several times. He also is apparently friends with Sirtis. But I've also heard him say, on the heals of stating how great it was working with TNG cast, that the show was rather "clunky". And he uses that very word in several interviews, making me think it's his standard "go to" polite answer. How he really FEELS about the finale literally making his crew secondary to TNG may remain a mystery. I'm actually am okay with the cast not making disparaging or angry comments about a series that was a boost to their careers. (And, as Dominic says, he continues to "draw annuities " from that gig in the form of the Trek Cons)
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