Enterprise actors Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating and director James L. Conway discuss the problems with the Star Trek prequel series.
Summary
- Enterprise’s failure to live up to its promise was due to it becoming just another Star Trek show, rather than something different and unique.
- The show’s direction and storyline were heavily influenced by the changing world post-9/11, which altered the initial goals and direction of Enterprise.
- Franchise fatigue and redundancy were contributing factors to Enterprise’s cancellation, as it struggled to offer fresh and original content after the success of previous Star Trek series.
Star Trek: Enterprise actors Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating, as well as director James L. Conway, discuss the reasons why the prequel series only lasted 4 seasons and struggled to find an audience. Enterprise was the fourth Star Trek series of producer Rick Berman’s tenure, and it was the only show not to run 7 seasons like Star Trek: The Next Generation. Enterprise‘s cancelation in 2005 concluded that era of Star Trek, and there would be no Star Trek TV series for 12 years until Star Trek: Discovery launched in 2017.
On The Shuttlepod Show, hosts Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating, producer Mark Cartier, and director James L. Conway, who helmed Star Trek: Enterprise‘s series premiere as well as other accilamed episodes, gave solid reasons as to why the prequel ultimately failed to live up to its initial promise. Check out their quotes and watch the video of The Shuttlepod Show below:
James L. Conway: I think the show didn’t live up to the expectation of it being a different show. It just became another Star Trek show instead of taking the whole idea of a prequel and new characters and doing something different. It just felt, I think, very familiar to the audience.
Connor Trinneer: I also think that our world changed so radically with 9/11. It changed our show. That maybe the initial goal for Enterprise had changed when everything changed. Our show changed. We had the Xindi. We had season 3 that was a serial arc for a whole season, which hadn’t been done…
Dominic Keating: It was in response to 24’s success, too. The one arc…
Mark Cartier: Well also, it was on UPN, which is not where I would want my show to be…
Star Trek Fans Want An Enterprise Renaissance
Times have changed.
The reasons Connor Trinneer, Dominic Keating, James L. Conway, and Mark Cartier gave for Star Trek: Enterprise getting canceled and not living up to its potential are valid. Another often-cited cause is franchise fatigue. After 7 seasons each of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as four TNG theatrical films, the fandom was burned out on Rick Berman-era Star Trek. Enterprise had some great episodes, but much of the show, especially in its first two seasons, did come off as redundant spins on stories TNG and the other Star Trek series had done before.
An idea to boost Star Trek: Enterprise‘s season 4 ratings by bringing in William Shatner was vetoed by UPN due to budgetary concerns.
However, Star Trek: Enterprise has gained a renewed appreciation in the last decade, thanks to its four seasons being made available on streaming for fans to binge. Fans now clamor for Enterprise characters to appear or some continuation of their story to be addressed on Star Trek on Paramount+’s shows. Shoutouts to Star Trek: Enterprise on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks are met with fan approval, especially since the story of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the NX-01 Enterprise was ended prematurely and left so open-ended.
