Prequel Problems: Star Trek Enterprise and the Temporal Cold War

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this Article by @Thande here

 

[Skinny87]

you leave my temporal cold war alone, you hear me?

how else am I going to get time-travelling Nazi lizards in San Francisco?

 

[Charles EP M.]

This topic has somehow become controversial in recent years among people who apparently never opened their eyes and ears when watching any previous episode of Star Trek.

BOOM

 

[Redolegna]

How much money do we owe the people at TvTropes?

 

[Thande]

How much money do we owe the people at TvTropes?

I usually try to paraphrase at least, but sometimes their phraseology fits too well.

you leave my temporal cold war alone, you hear me?

how else am I going to get time-travelling Nazi lizards in San Francisco?

There were actually some interesting AH ideas in that episode which really deserves a separate discussion, but to my mind it was undermined by how it ended with "but apparently all the fans hate this so it is going away now".

 

[Matt]

Just pretend Enterprise never happened, or it happened in a different quantum reality! Like the one where Worf is Riker’s second in command and the Bajorans annihilated most of the Cardassians. How did that happen? Trip’s pregnancy annoyed the Bajorans so much, they all worshipped the Pah Wraiths after Archer got Phlox to blame them for offending the Bajorans. Makes sense to me.

 

[Thande]

Just pretend Enterprise never happened, or it happened in a different quantum reality! Like the one where Worf is Riker’s second in command and the Bajorans annihilated most of the Cardassians. How did that happen? Trip’s pregnancy annoyed the Bajorans so much, they all worshipped the Cardassians after Archer got Phlox to blame them for offending the Bajorans. Makes sense to me.

The best fan conspiracy theory of that type was "it's all a badly researched holovision period piece show from the future" which its creators were obliging enough to actually make real, more or less, in the final episode.

 

[Cydonius]

With the exception of the Temporal Cold War, I think your analysis comes pretty close to my feelings on the matter. I felt deeply let down as soon as they released the Akiraprise starship design instead of something more fitting with what felt like a proper design lineage, and that impression just got deeper as they repeatedly paid half-hearted lip service to the initial idea and in so doing buggered around ever more with what had, until then, been established ST history. Sparse though it was.

I do have to point out one little issue though - Leonard Nimoy was American, not Canadian. He was from Boston.

 

[M_Kresal]

Another fine read @Thande. I'm going to say up front that Enterprise is my second favorite Trek series, largely on the basis of its ideas and later seasons rather than its execution in those early seasons. That said, I think you're right about the Temporal Cold War by and large, especially with Berman and Braga having admitted subsequently in interviews (in particular on the eventual Blu-Ray release) that they went into the arc without a clear idea just where they were going with it. Always a bad sign from the outset, in my view.

As for not embracing the prequel idea, that's not entirely the fault of Berman and Braga. Indeed, as they talk about on the Blu-Ray release of the first season, they had firmer plans for it from the first pitch, including the fact that the first starship wouldn't launch until the finale. But it was UPN executives who slowly whittled away at the concept and some of the the more prequel ideas they had (the bare bones of which formed the basis for the second season episode First Flight). It's something that I think they regretted, especially as execs notes became odder and odder (at one point suggesting they feature a boy band of the week performing in the Enterprise mess in an attempt to try and woe in non-Trek viewers) and they felt they should have stood their ground far sooner than they did.

 

[Charles EP M.]

To be fair to the execs, I can't really see most people liking a Star Trek show where they don't do any trekking among the stars for a whole year. (DS9 still had the cast regularly taking runabouts off to alien planets or space stations while all the weird alien stuff came to them.)

 

[Matt]

But it was UPN executives who slowly whittled away at the concept and some of the the more prequel ideas they had (the bare bones of which formed the basis for the second season episode First Flight). It's something that I think they regretted, especially as execs notes became odder and odder (at one point suggesting they feature a boy band of the week performing in the Enterprise mess in an attempt to try and woe in non-Trek viewers)

Only if the boy band was performing “It’s been a long road, getting from there to here…” otherwise the idea wouldn’t work. Or said boy band better be a Xindi-Ferengi-Borg-Gorn-Trill boy band run by an unscrupulous Organian manager trying to rack up views on a holodeck network.

 

[JesterBL]

I think the weakest parts of this are dealing with the editing of the NX-01 into past episodes- just because I think no series actually ends up caring about continuity as much as its fans (you make a fantastic point about fanon later that is in a similar vein).

Overall though, this is a great essay. As somewhat of an Enterprise fan, I agree with you on the Temporal Cold War and that the real failures were an inability to embrace the possibilities of a prequel and of the Temporal Cold War.

 

[Matt]

I think the weakest parts of this are dealing with the editing of the NX-01 into past episodes- just because I think no series actually ends up caring about continuity as much as its fans (you make a fantastic point about fanon later that is in a similar vein).

Overall though, this is a great essay. As somewhat of an Enterprise fan, I agree with you on the Temporal Cold War and that the real failures were an inability to embrace the possibilities of a prequel and of the Temporal Cold War.

I can’t find any proof of the NX-01 being edited into TNG or the Motion Picture. Does anyone have any proof of this claim?

 

[Thande]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

As for not embracing the prequel idea, that's not entirely the fault of Berman and Braga. Indeed, as they talk about on the Blu-Ray release of the first season, they had firmer plans for it from the first pitch, including the fact that the first starship wouldn't launch until the finale. But it was UPN executives who slowly whittled away at the concept and some of the the more prequel ideas they had (the bare bones of which formed the basis for the second season episode First Flight). It's something that I think they regretted, especially as execs notes became odder and odder (at one point suggesting they feature a boy band of the week performing in the Enterprise mess in an attempt to try and woe in non-Trek viewers) and they felt they should have stood their ground far sooner than they did.

That's definitely interesting - that's arguably more radical a prequel idea than I thought they'd consider (reminds me a bit of the Starfleet Academy proposal). I can see why the execs were a bit leery given that there'd already been concerns about DS9 not 'boldly going', hence the addition of the Defiant. (I wrote this before I saw @Charles EP M. said pretty much the same thing). All the same, I'd like to see someone try it.

With the exception of the Temporal Cold War, I think your analysis comes pretty close to my feelings on the matter. I felt deeply let down as soon as they released the Akiraprise starship design instead of something more fitting with what felt like a proper design lineage, and that impression just got deeper as they repeatedly paid half-hearted lip service to the initial idea and in so doing buggered around ever more with what had, until then, been established ST history. Sparse though it was.

I do have to point out one little issue though - Leonard Nimoy was American, not Canadian. He was from Boston.

Thanks and apologies for that last point, was sure I had read otherwise but am probably mixing two people up - a reminder to always check!

I think the weakest parts of this are dealing with the editing of the NX-01 into past episodes- just because I think no series actually ends up caring about continuity as much as its fans (you make a fantastic point about fanon later that is in a similar vein).

Overall though, this is a great essay. As somewhat of an Enterprise fan, I agree with you on the Temporal Cold War and that the real failures were an inability to embrace the possibilities of a prequel and of the Temporal Cold War.

Thanks. If you're interested in me discussing the fanon issue more, you may want to check out my article "The Romulan Straitjacket" here: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/prequel-problems-3-the-romulan-straitjacket

I can’t find any proof of the NX-01 being edited into TNG or the Motion Picture. Does anyone have any proof of this claim?

I'm pretty certain I've seen a screencap of it being edited into one version of TMP. I don't think it was ever explicitly edited into TNG, though the model did mysteriously appear among the others in Picard's ready room in "Nemesis".

I also recall fans making much of a planet in TNG being called Archer IV.

 

[Bruno]

Nice article. Only one tiny nitpick:

Finally, of course, Spock as an alien Vulcan was the ultimate outsider (though in reality he, Kirk and Scotty were all played by Canadians!)

Actually Nimoy was American, a proud Boston boy.