In hindsight, that makes a lot more sense. It would have allowed for more exploration of Andorian honor, instead of Klingon honor which has been done to death. And it gets around Archer being the first to break out of Rura Penthe by having him break out of an Andorian penal colony instead. It would also allow a peak into which worlds are subjects of the Andorian Empire, and maybe the freedom of these subject worlds becomes a contentious issue when forming the Federation.
I like the idea of Enterprise going into a really deep dive on the Andorians, much like how DS9 fleshed out and developed the Bajorans, Cardassians, Ferengi and Klingons.
I wonder how the show would have changed if the token bridge alien was an Andorian, instead of a Vulcan?
Love all the references to Mayweather being literally the most experienced spacefarer on the bridge, possibly even more than T’Pol, who was, IIRC, a diplomatic aide, not crew on a Vulcan ship. Would have definitely liked to see more of that.
Less of Hoshi’s plethora of neuroses. Yikes, every other episode of first season she seemed to have a new phobia or hang-up, and that was not a good look for her, the captain who argued for her presence on the ship, or, most importantly, the writers who thought that wasn’t weird and vaguely misogynistic.
Less distractingly shiny lip gloss on Reed.
