Thought exercise: One ENT episode with an unlimited budget?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
- Start date
These Are the Voyages...
According to both Berman and Braga in their respective interviews on The Shuttlepod Show, they really wanted to cover the years the show should have run. To give us a glimpse of how it would have ended. Cram all that plot and character development and history leading up to the creation of the Federation into one last episode.
A delightful idea, genuinely.
A terribly, terribly executed delightful idea.
So, with unlimited budget, let’s do exactly that. Can we make it movie length? Evolution of a Filipino Family is a movie. That gives us 10 hours and 43 minutes, or thereabouts. Let’s wrap this up with style! Let’s tell that story you imagined! Get your viewers from 2155 to 2161. Show us all the character growth you had planned! The promotions. The new postings on new ships. The relationships. (*cough* For instance a psychic bond between two of them shouldn’t be glossed over never to be mentioned or mean anything narratively or romantically ever again.) Throw some battles in for those who like that stuff. Wrap up that looming war and reverberate some echoes into the future we know is coming. Let’s learn lots more about the four founding planets and their people. I want some Tellarite names that will go down in history and be brought up 20 years later as amazing characters people miss!
If you really, truly have to kill someone to fulfill your dream of a satisfying, emotionally resonant ending, give them a heroic death. Let them go out in a blaze of glory, against a force to be reckoned with. We should be fully cognizant of how skilled, knowledgeable and resourceful they are. We should be thinking, “Only a second or two more, they would have gotten the upper hand! They would have figured out a last minute save! It was so close!” Then let us see them be immortalized and mourned.
I’ll even let you add a TNG scene, give us a flash-forward to someone gushing about how cool the crew of the NX-01 was. (If you killed someone, we better see a textbook or statue or plaque memorializing their important sacrifice forever.) I get it though, you can wrap up your whole run with a little shout out to where you started. That’s cool.
End with our crew though. End with hope and give us something buoyant to take us through to Discovery’s premier.
According to both Berman and Braga in their respective interviews on The Shuttlepod Show, they really wanted to cover the years the show should have run. To give us a glimpse of how it would have ended. Cram all that plot and character development and history leading up to the creation of the Federation into one last episode.
A delightful idea, genuinely.
A terribly, terribly executed delightful idea.
So, with unlimited budget, let’s do exactly that. Can we make it movie length? Evolution of a Filipino Family is a movie. That gives us 10 hours and 43 minutes, or thereabouts. Let’s wrap this up with style! Let’s tell that story you imagined! Get your viewers from 2155 to 2161. Show us all the character growth you had planned! The promotions. The new postings on new ships. The relationships. (*cough* For instance a psychic bond between two of them shouldn’t be glossed over never to be mentioned or mean anything narratively or romantically ever again.) Throw some battles in for those who like that stuff. Wrap up that looming war and reverberate some echoes into the future we know is coming. Let’s learn lots more about the four founding planets and their people. I want some Tellarite names that will go down in history and be brought up 20 years later as amazing characters people miss!
If you really, truly have to kill someone to fulfill your dream of a satisfying, emotionally resonant ending, give them a heroic death. Let them go out in a blaze of glory, against a force to be reckoned with. We should be fully cognizant of how skilled, knowledgeable and resourceful they are. We should be thinking, “Only a second or two more, they would have gotten the upper hand! They would have figured out a last minute save! It was so close!” Then let us see them be immortalized and mourned.
I’ll even let you add a TNG scene, give us a flash-forward to someone gushing about how cool the crew of the NX-01 was. (If you killed someone, we better see a textbook or statue or plaque memorializing their important sacrifice forever.) I get it though, you can wrap up your whole run with a little shout out to where you started. That’s cool.
End with our crew though. End with hope and give us something buoyant to take us through to Discovery’s premier.
Probably just "Broken Bow." And it's the 90s so Tom Hanks is Archer, Ed Harris is Admiral Forrest, and at this point might as well bring in the rest of "Apollo 13" in roles, and Mykelti Williamson is Mayweather. And just really lean on the whole Starfleet/NASA Enterprise/Apollo comparisons they wanted to do, some more exploration of 22nd century Earth, and have some fun with the Klingon mission and TCW.
Excellent ideas, @Sumire!
A few tweaks... I would skip The Thing, of course, since it was just a holoprogram that drunken Barclay used to punk Riker. And what the hey, I'd make Terra Prime 67 hours long, wheee! And do the rest of the 7 year run, including the Romulan War and the heroism of the ENT crew, which led to numerous promotions. And continue watching Trip & T'Pol's relationship grow and be a symbol for the Human/Vulcan alliance, and the E2 survives and makes it back to our timeline and joins the show. And one Movie Night the projector or whatever goes on the fritz and the crew fills the time in with an impromptu talent show (did you all see that MASH episode too?), and of course, Archer gets goaded into singing, yay! My dream!
And nope, no TNG anything, they had 7 years and movies and stuff, go away and don't be greedy. All ENT, all 67 gorram hours.
And I'd find some way to channel our dear departed Manny Coto to helm the whole thing from heaven, bless him.
@somebuddyX... love the "Apollo 13" cast in a reshuffle of the show, I adore that movie!
A few tweaks... I would skip The Thing, of course, since it was just a holoprogram that drunken Barclay used to punk Riker. And what the hey, I'd make Terra Prime 67 hours long, wheee! And do the rest of the 7 year run, including the Romulan War and the heroism of the ENT crew, which led to numerous promotions. And continue watching Trip & T'Pol's relationship grow and be a symbol for the Human/Vulcan alliance, and the E2 survives and makes it back to our timeline and joins the show. And one Movie Night the projector or whatever goes on the fritz and the crew fills the time in with an impromptu talent show (did you all see that MASH episode too?), and of course, Archer gets goaded into singing, yay! My dream!
And nope, no TNG anything, they had 7 years and movies and stuff, go away and don't be greedy. All ENT, all 67 gorram hours.
And I'd find some way to channel our dear departed Manny Coto to helm the whole thing from heaven, bless him.
@somebuddyX... love the "Apollo 13" cast in a reshuffle of the show, I adore that movie!
"These Are The Voyages..."
This episode needs a rethink, a rewrite, and a reshoot. And with an unlimited budget, a much better story could be told. In my mind, its a three part episode. But bare with me, its a super long post.
In the teaser set in 2155, in the aftermath of the Terra Prime incident, the NX-01 crew is parting ways as they've all been reassigned, with several of the receiving promotions. Hoshi has promoted to lieutenant & first officer on the NX-01. Reed is promoted and assigned as first officer to Columbia. Newly promoted Captain T’Pol and her newly promoted first officer Travis Mayweather are assigned to Challenger NX-03. Trip promoted to captain and assigned to Discovery NX-04 with Phlox. Minor NX-01 crewmembers are getting reassigned to Starbase One, which will be completed early next year. The NX-05, NX-06 & NX-07 are commissioned, also with a couple new starbases. Archer has been offered a promoting to commodore or even admiral, but turns them down as he’s not done exploring. Future Guy observes from the 28th century.
Then a new intro, inspired by the TNG S1 intro, with the TMP/TNG theme and the "Space, the final frontier..." bit.
A year later in 2156, the NX class is dealing with a variety of technical malfunctions (phase cannons, photonic torpedoes, small arms, shared technologies from the Vulcans that are meant to give them shields, tractor beams and holodecks, etc) along with transporter mishaps, resulting in the transporter being uninstalled. News breaks of Starbase One being attacked. The first four NX ships all decide to investigate when they are intercepted by Future Guy.
This would culminate in a major TCW battle with Future Guy. Archer would team up with the other captains of the Enterprise (from Kirk to Picard to the Ent-J captain), as well as Riker, Sisko, Janeway, Sulu, and Korath. Future Guy would be backed by the Suliban Cabal, the Krenim, Sphere Builders, and the Nak’uhl. Future Guy would be revealed to be Berlinghoff Rasmussen, a longtime friend of Archer (I know Braga said Archer was the intented reveal, but I'm choosing Rasmussen). He managed to escaped from the 24th century with the aid of the Romulans, and is trying to fix the corrupted timeline caused by the Borg in FC.
Near the end, there would be two timestreams. The first would be unfolding in reverse showing different scenes. (showcasing Relativity, Ent-J, Ent-E, various events and people from VOY/DS9/TNG, Captain Garrett & Ent-C; Captain Harriman and the launch of Ent-B; events and people from the TOS movies and TOS; Pike, Number One, Vina and Talos. Plus new scenes in the NX-refit; Federation Founding Ceremony and Charter signing; Battle of Cheron; Battle of Sol; Romulan fleet; Daedalus class). The second timestream would be going forward and resetting with new events in the unfolding sequence; many of them scenes from ENT and other parts of the franchise, but some scenes would be completely new. Completly new scenes are bolded.
In the second last act, the story would return to San Francisco in 2156. The NX-01 crew are now strangers to one another and living very different lives from the ones lived on the NX-01.
Basically, canonically answer who is Future Guy, create a more satisfying ending to the TCW than the alien Nazi two parter did, show a bit of the Romulan War without making it the focus, show the early days of the Federation, use Rker and Troi better, let a character from the 22nd century see the culmination of the work from his era (Trip). Nobody from the crew dies. All while showing that a large number of various events in ENT still happened and there was a historical Archer, but reframing the events in the show in a new light, meaning the show is still worth a rewatch. A better sendoff for the Berman era.
This episode needs a rethink, a rewrite, and a reshoot. And with an unlimited budget, a much better story could be told. In my mind, its a three part episode. But bare with me, its a super long post.
In the teaser set in 2155, in the aftermath of the Terra Prime incident, the NX-01 crew is parting ways as they've all been reassigned, with several of the receiving promotions. Hoshi has promoted to lieutenant & first officer on the NX-01. Reed is promoted and assigned as first officer to Columbia. Newly promoted Captain T’Pol and her newly promoted first officer Travis Mayweather are assigned to Challenger NX-03. Trip promoted to captain and assigned to Discovery NX-04 with Phlox. Minor NX-01 crewmembers are getting reassigned to Starbase One, which will be completed early next year. The NX-05, NX-06 & NX-07 are commissioned, also with a couple new starbases. Archer has been offered a promoting to commodore or even admiral, but turns them down as he’s not done exploring. Future Guy observes from the 28th century.
Then a new intro, inspired by the TNG S1 intro, with the TMP/TNG theme and the "Space, the final frontier..." bit.
A year later in 2156, the NX class is dealing with a variety of technical malfunctions (phase cannons, photonic torpedoes, small arms, shared technologies from the Vulcans that are meant to give them shields, tractor beams and holodecks, etc) along with transporter mishaps, resulting in the transporter being uninstalled. News breaks of Starbase One being attacked. The first four NX ships all decide to investigate when they are intercepted by Future Guy.
This would culminate in a major TCW battle with Future Guy. Archer would team up with the other captains of the Enterprise (from Kirk to Picard to the Ent-J captain), as well as Riker, Sisko, Janeway, Sulu, and Korath. Future Guy would be backed by the Suliban Cabal, the Krenim, Sphere Builders, and the Nak’uhl. Future Guy would be revealed to be Berlinghoff Rasmussen, a longtime friend of Archer (I know Braga said Archer was the intented reveal, but I'm choosing Rasmussen). He managed to escaped from the 24th century with the aid of the Romulans, and is trying to fix the corrupted timeline caused by the Borg in FC.
Near the end, there would be two timestreams. The first would be unfolding in reverse showing different scenes. (showcasing Relativity, Ent-J, Ent-E, various events and people from VOY/DS9/TNG, Captain Garrett & Ent-C; Captain Harriman and the launch of Ent-B; events and people from the TOS movies and TOS; Pike, Number One, Vina and Talos. Plus new scenes in the NX-refit; Federation Founding Ceremony and Charter signing; Battle of Cheron; Battle of Sol; Romulan fleet; Daedalus class). The second timestream would be going forward and resetting with new events in the unfolding sequence; many of them scenes from ENT and other parts of the franchise, but some scenes would be completely new. Completly new scenes are bolded.
- prehistoric to 19th century (largely unchanged from the alien Nazi two parter aside from the inclusion of Surak and Samuel Clemens)
- 20th century (newly added: Denning, Wianwright, Garland and Jeff dealing with the Roswell Incident, Sputnik, T’Mir/Mestral/Jack, Gary Seven, Gillian Taylor at the Cetacean Institute, Khan, Henry Sterling)
- 21st century (newly added: the Millenium Gate, Jackson Roykirk, Brynner, Bell Riots, the launch of the OV-165 space shuttle, John Kelly & the Ares mission, the nuclear exchange, Cochrane and Lily Sloane, Pheonix launch, Vulcan first contact, Kzinti ships, SS Valiant launch, Friendship One probe, SS Conestoga launch, Terra-class space ark launches, post-atomic horror, cancer cured)
- 2100 to 2150 (newly added: Henry Archer, breaking ground at the warp 5 complex, Arik Soong and his Augment children, T’Pol chasing Jossen on Risa; A.G. Robinson, Trip Tucker, Ruby, & the NX-Alpha; Ambassador Soval)
- 2151 (newly added: Hoshi teaching in Brazil, the Rigel X Complex, Klaang & the Klingon Chancellor on QonoS, Terra Nova, the Andorians discover P’Jem, the Akaali from orbit, ECS Fortunate, the “Silent Enemy” aliens, Valakians & the Menk, debris from the first Warp 5 ship after flying apart)
- 2152 (newly added: Ambassador V’Lar, Romulan first contact, the automated repair station, battle between the Suliban and the Tholians, conflict on Weytahn/Paan Mokar, Phlox and Feezal Phlox, General Gosis, Charles the Cogenitor, Kolos in the court room on Narendra III, Kolos on Rura Pethe in the 22nd century)
- 2153 (newly added: ECS Horizon and the Mayweather family, the Tellarite bounty hunter Skalaar, Elizabeth Tucker in Florida, Captain Carlos Ramirez, Major Hayes, Ossaarian pirates raiding cargo bays, the Skagarans, the Triannon and the ruins of their homeworld, the MACO raid on the Illyrian ship)
- 2154 (newly added: Orion interceptors in the Borderland, Cold Station 12 & Dr Jeremy Lucas, the bombed United Earth Embassy on Vulcan, the Vulcans discover Kir’Shara, Emory & Danica Erikson, the Romulan drone ship and the human/Vulcan/Andorian/Tellarite fleet, a Denobulan being abducted by Rigelians in San Francisco, Trip giving instructions to the NX-02 engineering crew, Captain Erika Hernandez, Harrad-Sar and the three Orion sisters)
- 2155 (newly added: Paxton & Terra Prime, Reed meeting with Harris, Minister Samuels and the Coalition of Planets conference, Paxton destroys Starfleet Command)
- 2156 (Starbase One, United Earth convoy of Starfleet & cargo ships, a bunch of crewmen and centurions injured or dying in battle)
In the second last act, the story would return to San Francisco in 2156. The NX-01 crew are now strangers to one another and living very different lives from the ones lived on the NX-01.
- Phlox is treating Archer and regularly reports to Admiral Forrest (who is no longer dead in the reset timeline) as well as a concerned girlfriend of Archer’s.
- Meanwhile, Archer in a ward and is convinced he’s the real historical Archer and not the person on the monitor the newsreel claims is Archer, even though they both own a beagle named Porthos. Its very strongly implied in these scenes he’s actually Sam Beckett and has been leaping through time for decades, having leapt into historical Archer and experienced those events.
- Trip teaches warp theory on both Earth and Vulcan, has struck up a romantic relationship with T’Pau and writes letters to his sister in Florida.
- T’Pol is married to Koss and expecting a son she’ll name Lorian. She works in Vulcan Intelligence, and is focused on the Romulan threat.
- Hoshi has never left Earth, and is working two jobs, one teachings linguistics in Brazil, and the other as a comms officer at UESPA. She is engaged to a MACO named Takeshi Kimura that’s about to be sent to war against the Romulans.
- Travis remains a space boomer living the freighter life, and is captain of the ECS Horizon. He is more worried about Orion pirates, his relationship to Gannett and maintaining his standing with the Earth Cargo Authority than the pending Romulan War.
- Reed does intelligence work for Starfleet looking for Terra Prime subversives and is dating Ruby.
- Shran is residing on Earth teaching MACOs new battle tactics alongside Talas (who is also no longer dead in the reset timeline).
- Chef serves food in a San Francisco restaurant alongside his husband, who happens to be Daniels.
- Soval and Nathan Samuels are working to rebuild the Coalition of Planets; only Vulcan, Andoria and Tellar, along with the human colony Alpha Centauri, are receptive to returning to the table and forming an alliance with Earth in the aftermath of Paxton destroying Starfleet Command.
- Daedalus class ships and XCV ringed ships replace the NX-class, though the Warp Deltas and Intrepid-types remain, as do the shuttlepods and maintenance pods.
- There is a news report of Berlinghoff Rasmussen going missing from New Jersey, and the transporter not being approved for use on organics.
Basically, canonically answer who is Future Guy, create a more satisfying ending to the TCW than the alien Nazi two parter did, show a bit of the Romulan War without making it the focus, show the early days of the Federation, use Rker and Troi better, let a character from the 22nd century see the culmination of the work from his era (Trip). Nobody from the crew dies. All while showing that a large number of various events in ENT still happened and there was a historical Archer, but reframing the events in the show in a new light, meaning the show is still worth a rewatch. A better sendoff for the Berman era.
I'm sure most answers to this question will be "These Are the Voyages." But like @somebuddyX , I'm going to go with "Broken Bow." But I wouldn't even call it "Broken Bow," because the story would not be about a Klingon who crashed in a corn field in Oklahoma and having the barely-developed crew of a barely-designed ship take him home for no real good reason. The show would have had a completely different premise, would not be about the formation of the Federation, and would not even be about the crew of a ship. I would have completely changed that tired formula and done something original and unique to a Star Trek show.
I like the idea of what German/Braga claim was nixed by the executives. An Earthbound show about getting the NX-01 off the ground for the first season. A lot of Human/Vulcan politicking.
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Same as @Sumire and @HopefulRomantic: more Enterprise.
Since people have said Broken Bow and These Are the Voyages, I wanted to bring in another episode that could have worked with a big budget.
The Expanse
The episode starts with the Xindi weapon, and it ends with the Enterprise being attacked by the Klingons as they enter the Expanse. Just think what they could have done with a bigger budget. I think they could have made the barrier even more weirder, maybe the weapon be bigger and we can see some of the devastation, and the battle sequences would have been much cleaner. I love Azati Prime for it's battle sequences and the desperation of the crew, but just think if we could have gotten some of that to start the arc as well.
The Expanse
The episode starts with the Xindi weapon, and it ends with the Enterprise being attacked by the Klingons as they enter the Expanse. Just think what they could have done with a bigger budget. I think they could have made the barrier even more weirder, maybe the weapon be bigger and we can see some of the devastation, and the battle sequences would have been much cleaner. I love Azati Prime for it's battle sequences and the desperation of the crew, but just think if we could have gotten some of that to start the arc as well.
I've always thought the episode First Flight would've been great as an expanded two-parter. More of the ground based politics where the Vulcan side of the argument could be more fleshed out. Also really amp up the Right Stuff bits too to balance the politics with some excitement.
If the execs shot down the idea of a ground-based season one, I'd gladly have watched something like an extended First Flight type two-parter.
My main issue with that episode have always been:
- Cutting Archer’s scenes on Earth, which showed how down to Earth Archer was and was important to humanizing him. And Archer’s scene with Hoshi Sato, think she was going to departure when she wasn’t.
- Not having the Xindi attack other worlds (Alpha Centauri, Denobula, Vulcan) alongside Earth
If the episode was expanded by another 30 minutes to include all of that, including the devastation, it would work much better.
The unmade 5th season Romulan War episode(s).
Yes, that would be great.
My idea is to make the episode Home a two-parter. With much more about the situation of Earth (introduction of Terra Prime, as a threat looming in the background of season 4), more about the crew recovering from the Expanse, meeting their family and friends, more Vulcan background, more about how T'Pol is being blackmailed into marrying Koss. (I would like a different ending to Home with T'Pol not marrying Koss and seeing the effects of her decision).
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