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The Star Trek Enterprise appreciation and Season 4 discussion thread (this one's for the fans). (1 Viewer)

Nelson Au

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I thought I’d throw in the first attempt to have a peaceful thread for Enterprise and the struggling modern Star Trek franchise. I’ll start it with mostly information of the new Enterprise season. Comments of a critical nature of course are encouraged as long as they do not attack another poster's comments. All sides should comment. So here goes and be warned, some spoilers for S4 could be spilled.

A quick review of Zero Hour: Archer, Hoshi and Malcolm and some MACO’s successfully chased and got on board the Xindi weapon before it reached Earth with the assistance of the friendly Xindi from Degra’s ship and from our favorite Andorian, Shran. Meanwhile, on the Enterprise, T’Pol is in command and have a plan to attack one of the key Spheres that will take down the threat that the Sphere network poses to the Xindi as well as the rest of the Alpha Quadrant. With Hoshi’s help from her knowledge of the Xindi weapon interior and workings, Archer succeeded in sabotaging the weapon as it approached Earth. The weapon is destroyed. Hoshi, the surviving MACO’s and Malcolm get off the Xindi weapon in time. But it appears the good Captain does not and perishes on the weapon. But as Enterprise arrives back to Earth, they find that all radio communication with Starfleet is lost. So Trip and Mayweather take a Shuttle Pod down to San Francisco to see what’s up. As they approach the SF Bay Area, they are under attack by P-51 Mustang attack fighter planes from World War 2. Then cut to an Army medical tent and we see German doctors treating wounded. The camera pans and follows 3 Nazi officers who are shown a new patient with burns on his face. It appears to be Captain Archer, still in Enterprise uniform. The camera pans upward to reveal the lead Nazi officer, but he is some kind of Alien species that looks similar to the Remans. It’s not clear what he is or why Enterprise has come back to Earth in 1943 or 44, 45. To be concluded.

So what’s in store for S4.

There has been much information released recently and the following news is not new for the upcoming season of Enterprise. Here’s a quick summery, the new season is cut from 26 to 22 episodes; this would give the production staff a bit of breathing space to put out a higher quality product. Scott Bakula was rallying for this. The much-misinterpreted news that the price of Enterprise was reduced so that UPN would sign up for a fourth season is not indicative of a cut in the show’s budget. It just means that Paramount lowered the price for the show. UPN most likely will maintain the show’s budget. We should see the same level of production value of last season if the information and speculation is correct. (Interestingly, CBS/UPN president Les Moonves has been quoted in the press that had Paramount not lowered its price for Enterprise, the show likely would have been cancelled.) The show’s timeslot is moved from Wednesday at 8:00pm to Friday’s at 8:00pm, past reports indicated a 9:00pm time slot. The current premiere date for the new season is October 8, one month later then last year. The first show is called “Storm Front”.

Manny Coto is a new producer of this season and will run the show. Contrary to news and speculation, he will not replace Brannon Braga. Braga and Rick Berman stay on as producers. Coto, a long time Trek fan has been quoted that as the new head writer of Enterprise, he’ll steer the series with stories that link to TOS and other Trek series.

The new fourth season plan starts with the Xindi storyline done, so they will focus the first few episodes on sorting out the situation Archer and crew find themselves in and correct the Earth/Nazi timeline and finally, finish up the Temporal Cold War storyline. The alien last seen in “Zero Hour” is not Reman. What is he? What is the speculation?

Brent Spiner is coming to Enterprise as a descendant of Dr. Noonian Soong with a story about artificial intelligence. And the big news is that William Shatner is being actively wooed to appear on Enterprise as a guest star. If the Enterprise producers can work out a deal with ABC and his gig on the Practice spin off, then he’ll appear as Captain James T. Kirk, as he should be. There is no beating around the bush; the Enterprise producers are doing it for the stunt casting to bring in new viewers. They know that viewer ship is down, so they will do some things to bring up the ratings, this casting is one of them. Is this really a sin? Can you blame them? If sales are down, you do what it takes to bring sales figures up. Simple business. If it’s a great story line and Shatner feels it is and he does it, it could be a good thing. I sure hope if it’s done, they have a darn good reason for it.

StarTrek.com has a new 30-second promo for the new season that consists of action-oriented clips from S3 with new symphonic music. Perhaps this new music is indicative of a new theme song? Many who disliked the original and revamped title song may rejoice with this news. Also, the graphics for the promos have a new Star Trek logo using the Star Trek The Motion Picture font. This looks like another sign of further branding to bring this series closer to Star Trek proper.

As for character development, Jolene Blalock has stated in the press of her concern for how T’Pol has been treated as a “Floozy” and her “wacky” emotional and sexy behavior with Trip this past year. She has been pleased to read the first few episode scripts and she appears to be very excited for the new season’s shows. Could be a good sign for her. More can be found on Trekweb if you care to read more. As for Archer, he is supposed to be dealing with the consequences of his actions to defeat the Xindi weapon.

The Film Series effect?

Like Bond 21, it’s not clear what it will be and who will star in it. Conflicting reports place it right before Kirk’s time in a Starfleet Academy like story and the other reports it about the Romulan Wars. This from Brannon Braga’s mouth, so it can effectively say Enterprise is not going to cover the Romulan Wars. But that doesn’t mean Enterprise will not cover the formation of the Federation, just my speculation. I don’t think it’s spelled out in TOS that the Romulan Wars takes place before or after the formation of the Federation.

That’s all I have to start with, there’s more info out there and spoilers I’ve avoided. If someone has a better idea for a title in the "Buffytastic" mold for this thread, please suggest one.

Nelson
 

Rob Gardiner

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Thank you, Nelson, for the excellent summary.

If I may correct one fact:


I understand season 4 is to be shot on digital video rather than 35mm film. This would represent a significant cost savings. I had assumed that the budget was cut and the change from film to video would allow all other production values to remain the same.

EDIT:

How about "Vulcanrific" or "Cochrantacular"? :)
 

Mike Broadman

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Interesting. Some of it looks quite promising, particularly the rush to end the existing (lame) storylines, bringing T'Pol back to relative normality (they can still keep her emotion, just not make it as absurd as it was), and linking the series with Star Trek proper.

I was on the fence about whether or not to continue watching, and I think I will now.
 

Tony Whalen

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I'll continue watching, and the upcoming season does seem mostly interesting. I'm really not crazy about the whole Vulcan "civil war" idea...seems pointless to me. Other than that, some interesting ideas.

I'm looking forward to it. :)
 

Moe Maishlish

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I'm really looking forward to season 4, now that they've wrapped up the whole Xindi storyline and are looking to put an end to the whole Temporal Cold-War arc.

Speculation on who the future-guy is who has been guiding the Suliban? Who do y'all think he might be revealed to be? Do you think they'll even reveal his identity, or keep it a secret? I keep expecting to see Wesley Crusher emerge from the future... (they never really did resolve his Traveller'esque transformations).

I think that, even were the production values diminished for the series, Enterprise would be able to stand on it's own two feet.

Nelson, can you post a link to the trailer with the new theme music? I'm intrigued!

Moe.
 

Bill Williams

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The one question I have is, when is UPN planning to rerun "Harbinger" and "Doctor's Orders"? The way the schedule is currently set up, the next one to be re-broadcast is "Hatchery", so the UPN has jumped over "Harbinger" and "Doctor's Orders" apparently. Or are they going to be re-broadcast before the seven-episode final arc? The reason I ask is that I'm missing "Harbinger" for my collection.
 

Daniel Kikin

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"Doctor's Orders" is on in the NYC area at 7 PM this coming Sunday, so it might be on in the second showing timeslot by you also. I haven't seen "Stratagem" yet but I doubt that will be on again since they reran it last week (which I missed too). You might want to check the Enterprise Schedule page at Psi Phi every now and then in case they decide to slip a couple of random reruns in at some point.
 

Jason Seaver

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I hope not, though. I really think the theme worked, and thought what they did to it for the third season (speeding it up, remixing it) was pretty symbolic of what was wrong with the season as a whole - the producers knew changes had to be made, but didn't have much idea of what was working and what wasn't, and "fixed" the wrong details.
 

Nelson Au

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Moe-

Sorry, I should have posted that link, it was lost. Here is the link.

I re-watched it and it seems like maybe the story on trekweb may have oversold it as it sounded a little generic. But not bad as a place holder.

I had forgotten about the Vulcan Civil War thing. Let's see where that one goes. Also the story about the Eugenics Wars could be interesting to see when Brent Spiner's episodes air. What's interesting is that Manny Coto addressed the question of how he will deal with the time frame of the show and how he has "altered" the date for artistic reasons since his story will take place after the 1990’s, if I read it right. "Artistic" is my word for what he's done. Essentially he addressed the question in an interview where he was explaining that the Eugenics Wars occurred in the 1990's according to Space Seed. Since we live in 2004, we haven’t seen a Eugenics War. So his justification is that it’s still in the past by Enterprise’s time frame. I guess you can argue which time frame to place the story in, our real world verse the timeframe in the imaginary world of a fictional television show. He chose to use real world timeframe and tweak the imaginary one a bit. And he knows we know about Space Seed but he felt that producers of Star Trek TOS, when they made it in the 1960’s, the 1990’s was years ahead. How would they know what Star Trek has become.

Nelson
 

Moe Maishlish

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Thanks for the link Nelson!

I watched the trailer, and I hate to say it, but I don't think the soundtrack is going to be used for Enterprise... and I swear I've heard it some place before! It sounds very familiar... :)

Moe.
 

Glenn Overholt

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Gee, we've got like 2 months until the next episode?

Nelson, an excellent recap, and then some!

I had to watch the season finale' again today. There isn't really much in it to talk about except for the last five minutes, though. It looks like the rest of the universe is ok. The thought did cross my mind that the Xindi's planet may be no more soon, and would account for why we haven't heard of them before.

I did notice Trip saying 'It looks pretty normal to me' when he looked at San Francisco, and if that was the 1940's it would be without any skyscrapers. Ok, I am assuming that some would still be up in Enterprise's day, but it would be easy to pick out changes a few hundred years later.

Having the captain in New York is really beginning to bother me too. The Commie's - oh wait, the Nazi's have a foothold there, which would be a little hard to do without alien help, and if that is all the help they gave them, it was piss-poor.

I did say only a foothold because if they had a portion of the city they'd have hospitals, and wouldn't have their own wounded in tents - which would lead me to ask - where in NYC are they?

Sure, it isn't a small town, but they would have to be hiding pretty good, especially wearing the uniforms that they have on. I can't recall any Nazi aircraft carriers so at best, it just might be a U-Boat that snuck in. Interesting, at the least.

Glenn
 

Tom Brennan

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Glad to see a non Enterprise bashing thread! I love the show...especially this past season. When does the new season kick off?
 

Nelson Au

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Welcome Tom!

The new season will premiere on October 8th. The fourth season starts a month later then last year in the new timeslot of Friday at 8:00pm. As to why a month later start date, we can speculate. Could be due to the reduced number of episodes or the way they wanted to schedule things. The first episode is called Storm Front and is a 2 parter that concludes the events at the end of Zero Hour of last season.

As Mikel pointed out in the other Enterprise thread, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens has joined the writing staff of Enterprise for this year. That's pretty significant if they are really going to be contributing. Though I can't comment the only book of theirs I read is Ashes of Eden and The Return with William Shatner and the Art of Star Trek. They were good books that read well. Anyone have thoughts about this news? If they or Manny Coto are open to bring in help from the outside, that says either they're really in trouble or Coto is very open to other sources of input and is secure enough in his own talents to do it. I choose to think it's the later.

News continues to come out saying that new head writer Manny Coto is pushing for more references and respect for TOS Star Trek. And other news out of Trekweb continues to send out a rosey picture of how the cast are happy to see the new stories by the writers. I sure hope so and the new year is going to be great. Can't have this thread dying!:)

One thing I'm not sure about is whether UPN is doing anything to promote Enterprise's move to Friday's? I don't watch UPN, other then Enterprise so I don't know. I happen to tune into UPN Wednesday night to see what they were going to repeat on Enterprise and I see Amish in the City there. So I figured it was a tempt to promote that show, but it looks like this new smash show (Whatever) is taking the slot and that Enterprise has indeed moved to Fridays. It will be interesting if the ratings show any change on Fridays during the summer.

Nelson
 

Rex Bachmann

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Maybe not, but I believe it is referred to in "Balance of Terror" only as the "Earth-Romulan War", and Mr. Spock is as surprised as the humans in the crew to find out that Romulans look like Vulcans. (Note that Spock goes on to speculate about the Romulans' historic genealogical connexion ("offshoot"?) to Vulcans.) To my mind this would seem to imply that the Vulcans, cofounders of the Federation, had had no direct contact---including hostile contact---with the Romulans for some time (centuries).

Of course, it is also possible that the humans fought a war outside of Federation jurisdiction even after the Federation had been founded, but, given how we've seen the Federation work from Kirk's time on (as unitary body with a combined military (a.k.a., Star Fleet) used to address "problems" with both member and nonmember states), I think that's highly unlikely.
 

Jason Seaver

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Gar and Judith are solid hacks (using the term to mean people who do plentiful work-for-hire) who have always seemed to have an affinity for the Trek environment. If B&B are going to let them and Coto run the show with minimal oversight, they could drag the show out of mediocrity.

In that way, the move to Friday could work in the show's favor - with no major pressure from UPN to be the network's flagship, they could wind up recreating the environment where DS9 thrived - Paramount's attention elsewhere and a bunch of lifelong Trek fans given a chance to basically play in the sandbox without supervision.

It remains to be seen whether Coto & company will be as willing to flat-out lie to Rick Berman as Ira Behr was ("we're looking at the Dominion War as a two or three episode arc"), but things are looking up.
 

Nelson Au

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Jason-Glad to see your input here. That's an interesting point you make and if the DS9 scenerio is at play here, things are indeed looking up!
 

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