What Could Have Been / Star Trek: Enterprise

Casting

• While producers behaved as if Scott Bakula was the only actor they had in mind for Archer, British actor Simon MacCorkindale said that he met with producers about taking the role.
• Vaughn Armstrong, who ended up in the role of Admiral Forrest, initially was selected to play Vulcan Ambassador Soval. This role ended up going to Gary Graham when Armstrong was cast as Forrest.
• Eric Close was one of the actors considered for the role of Tucker. Also considered was Joseph Will, who later was cast as the recurring character Rostov.
• Marjorie Monaghan was nearly cast as T'Pol.

Conception

Initial plans for the show that were changed before filming:

• Rick Berman and Brannon Braga wanted to allow Star Trek to rest from what they felt was "franchise fatigue." However, UPN wanted them to make a new series quickly enough to air alongside Star Trek: Voyager's last season. Berman and Braga agreed to make the series, but only if it aired after Voyager ended. One wonders what would have happened if UPN got its wish (or if Berman and Braga had gotten theirs).
• Very early on, the idea being toyed with was to finally explain the "ring ship" from the wall frescos in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (the USS Enterprise XCV-330). As this was the early 2000's and "looking cool" was of primary concern, the awkward-looking ship design was tossed in favor of something more sleek and sexy, which ironically brought complaints for looking too modern, as well as wedging in a ship that had never previously existed. The XCV-330 did make further "appearances"; twice in a painting and once as a model on a desk.
• The original concept for Enterprise as conceived by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga was to have the first season take place on Earth while the NX-01 Enterprise was being constructed, centered around a plot and setting inspired by the film The Right Stuff, and only actually launching Enterprise in the season finale (which would make the title Enterprise a bit of a pun, in fact). The season would have established and fleshed out the main characters as well as demonstrate how difficult the project was for the newly United Earth and recently commissioned Starfleet, all the while having the characters have to bypass controversy and fear over the mission being flared up by a rapidly xenophobic faction on Earth who wanted to stop it (an aspect which was revived for the final season in "Terra Prime"). The executives at UPN would have none of this, as it was too much of a departure from the typical Trek formula, and the last time a Trek series deviated from the norm (Deep Space Nine) it had performed weakly in comparison to the other series. Hence why the first two seasons are very similar to what had already been seen and done on TNG and VOY. The second season episode "First Flight" is a capsule of this rejected idea.
• The Klingon crash landing in Oklahoma in the pilot was originally supposed to be a Klingon attack on Earth (specifically Iowa) that would force the NX-01 out into space to find and neutralize the Klingon threat. This also probably served as the inspiration for the Xindi attack on Earth and subsequent story arc that started with "The Expanse".
• Another aspect axed by executives was the NX-01 mission being portrayed as incredibly dangerous and risky, with crew members getting killed off regularly, and the trauma of this making the characters wonder if it's all worth it. The show was originally to feature a far more dangerous mission, where not only hostile aliens but spatial anomalies and unexplained phenomenon prove deadly for Earth's first deep-space mission. Executives nixed this idea, and as such the first two seasons are some of the safest in Star Trek (even Star Trek.com criticized this by pointing out the NX-01 mission seems just as safe and comfortable in its first two seasons as the Enterprise-D mission 200 years later. When the official website of the franchise criticizes the show, you know there's a problem). This probably explains why, when allowed to shake things up, Enterprise gets a massive beating in Season 3, with several crewmembers dying.
• The Temporal Cold War plotline was introduced at the behest of executives worried that Enterprise didn't have sufficient ties to the TNG era (to rope in more viewers). The concept originated from a TV pitch made in the 90s by Brannon Braga that had nothing to do with Star Trek, which explains why the plotline feels so awkward and forced. Braga, Berman, and the rest of the writers have admitted to having no resolution or clear concept for the plotline, and even called it "strangulating," which explains why when given the chance, it's completely canned in the fourth season, never to be mentioned again.
• The EM Pistol shown in the pilot was supposed to be the main weapon of Starfleet, but the upper heads felt it wasn't "Star Trek" enough, so phase pistols were introduced as a replacement within the pilot.
• The Suliban, a not-so-subtle reference to the Taliban and terrorism in general, have a complicated history. According to internal documents, the Suliban were conceived as early as the 6th season of Voyager, and were slated to originally appear in VOY, complete with a backstory which explicitly explained why they never appeared in any other Trek series; the explanation involved being assimilated by the Borg in the 23rd Century, and a few being rescued via time travel. Braga and others wanted the Klingons to be the main villains in the early concept pitch, however neither that nor the Suliban foreshadowing in Voyager happened, and as such the Suliban appear out of nowhere in the franchise with no explanation as to why they're in ENT, until just being dumped for good with no explanation by the last season. A confusing chapter in the history of this franchise, which didn't endear itself to fans.
  • The Xindi in turn were conceived of after the failure of the Suliban to interest viewers and only after the Klingons (and later the Romulans) were again rejected as villains for season three.
• Andre Bormanis' original pitch for the character Phlox was that Phlox turns out to have not been a doctor but a veterinarian on Denobula, and was expressly forbidden from operating on humanoid life-forms. Rick Berman nixed this idea, preferring the franchise's standard approach of the hero ship being crewed by people at the top of their field, while someone else pointed out the similarities with the character of Dr. Zoidberg over on Futurama, which could have rendered Bormanis' idea unintentionally comedic.
• T'Pol was originally going to be T'Pau, who appears in TOS episode "Amok Time" as the priestess officiating at Spock's wedding. It was rejected due to issues with royalties and other legal reasons. T'Pau later appears in the fourth season as a young woman on Vulcan who is leading the Syrranites, reformers who want to re-establish Surak's anti-military, non-violent principles.
  • According to documents posted by TrekDocs on Twitter, Archer's backstory would have had the character spending a year on Vulcan as a young man, meeting T'Pol beforehand (with a sexual relationship strongly implied to be developed over the course of the series), learning about mind melds (which would have been common Vulcan practice right from the get-go) and feeling a close connection to Vulcan culture. Of course the series upon release did the exact opposite, with Archer being a barely constrained racist toward Vulcans, with pretty much every human sharing this same view until the last season.
• Travis Mayweather was originally envisioned as older and more seasoned, making him a valuable advisor to the comparatively rookie Captain Archer. He was ultimately re-written as green and desperate to prove himself, not unlike Wesley Crusher.
• Executives considered having a boy band featured in every episode, but this was (thankfully) successfully shot down by the producers.
• There were various designs of the NX-01 prior to the Akira-class look-alike, many of them resembling the old Constitution-class. One design even looked like it was mimicking the Phoenix from Star Trek: First Contact.
• A few character names ended up being changed. Jonathan Archer was originally Jackson Archer until it was found that there was only one real-life person named Jackson Archer in the United States, which could leave the show vulnerable to lawsuits; it was then changed to Jeffrey Archer before someone remembered there was a disgraced British politican-turned-author by that name. Travis Mayweather's first name would have been Joseph if the character had remained older. Trip Tucker's nickname was originally going to be Spike, which was changed to avoid comparisons to Buffy, then it was "Charlie" until someone had the idea of adding the "III" to his name.

Seasons 1-4

• Writer David A. Goodman pitched the idea of a human spy being planted on Vulcan in the early days after First Contact, to see if the Vulcans were actually hostile invaders, but it never got off the ground. Years later, he'd feature a story similar to this in the reference book he wrote, Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years.
• "The Andorian Incident" was originally supposed to feature the Gorn as the antagonistic race, with the Vulcans and Gorn in conflict. This plan was scrapped due to issues with special effects (they didn't think they could do the prosthetic effects justice) and fears of violating continuity with the TOS episode "Arena." The Gorn would eventually appear in "In a Mirror, Darkly" albeit in CGI form.
• Jeri Ryan expressed interest in appearing as an ancestor of Seven of Nine, but for unknown reasons, nothing came of it.
• "Future Tense" was originally supposed to involve the Tholians capturing the USS Defiant, which had traveled back in time after the incident in TOS's "The Tholian Web." This was shot down for continuity reasons, but the idea resurfaced in the Mirror Universe two-parter in Season 4.
• J.G. Hertzler lobbied for his Klingon defense attorney, Kolos, to join the NX-01 crew. "They could use an old curmudgeon like me to balance all the hot young men and women on the show!"
• "Future Guy," who disappeared after Season 2, was to be revealed as a future Archer who was involved in a plot to correct the "timeline"...or something, at least according to Braga. Others claim he was planned to be a Romulan agent.
• Mike Sussman tried to get the Romulans to be the main villains in season 3, and the Xindi attack would have been the opening salvo for the Earth-Romulan War but this was immediately rejected for "not being original", hence the Xindi were created to fill the role.
• Mike Sussman's original idea for "E-Squared" would be the Columbia being thrown back in time instead, a result of trying to use Xindi vortex technology (likely salvaged from the crashed probe). The NX-01 crew would thus meet the NX-02 crew's descendants. Executives forced a number of changes that ended up making the episode highly resemble the DS9 episode "Children of Time."
• The network wanted to kill Archer off at the end of "Zero Hour," which would have been...interesting. Executives even considered a younger, "sexier" captain to take his place. Manny Coto later stated while tempted for a bit, it would have been the wrong thing to do.
• Originally, Arik Soong (Brent Spiner) was going to be Colonel Phillip Green, the mad eugenicist from "The Savage Curtain" (TOS). This explains why Archer and co. have to bust him out of prison. As the script developed, the writer decided that Green was just too evil, he couldn't be redeemed; so the character was retooled into an ancestor of Data's.
  • Judith and Garland-Reeves Stevens, the duo known for the Shatnerverse novels and other expanded universe Star Trek novels, were brought in as writers by Manny Coto in season 4, and they pitched a story about Colonel Green leading a fascist political movement surrounding genetic engineering called "The Optimum", taken directly from their novel Federation. It would have also revealed that Malcolm Reed's great-great grandfather had worked with Colonel Green during WW3, and involved the NX-02 Columbia. The plot was well received by Coto, who then pitched it to Braga, would immediately shot it down for being "too dark". However the Stevens believe it was shot down simply because the Augment trilogy was already being re-written to accommodate Brent Spiner, and it would have been difficult to do two story arcs regarding genetic engineering. Elements of the story clearly made it into Demons/Terra Prime, as the fascist genetic engineering movement was turned into a racist/xenophobic movement called "Terra Prime", led by Peter Weller's John Fedrick Paxton (Weller was supposed to play Green originally), who in the episode takes inspiration from Green's philosophy.
• "In a Mirror, Darkly" Parts I and II arose from plans for an episode to feature William Shatner guest-starring as an older Mirror Universe Kirk, with a reveal that the Tantalus field from his last appearance in "Mirror, Mirror" actually worked by sending people to the main universe and some 150 years into the past. Another idea, originating from Rick Berman, was for Shatner to appear as the previously-unseen chef of the NX-01 who becomes involved in a time travel plot involving Temporal Agent Daniels. Shatner was interested, but negotiations fell through and the idea never materialized.
• Manny Coto conceived of a story arc involving a Martian independence movement that would have threatened to crash comets into Earth with the use of a Verteron array unless allowed to secede in a sort of "Cuban Missile Crisis" scenario, with the NX-01 having to mediate. Apparently the story was considered too politically complex and was put on the backburner for season five, but with the show's cancellation it never came to be. Elements of the story, such as a political movement on Mars aiming a weapon at Earth, made it into Demons/Terra Prime.
• An episode featuring Starfleet's first contact with the Trill was pitched, where the NX-01 crew would not understand and actually be horrified by the discovery of the Trill symbiotes, and would have believed they were essentially real-life versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was nixed for continuity reasons, showing that continuity can be a block to good story pitches.
• "These Are the Voyages...": Mike Sussman had originally pitched an idea which was a take-off of "Shadows and Symbols" (DS9) and "Pathfinder" (VOY). It opens with Robert Picardo's EMH treating a patient inside a holographic re-creation of the NX-01. The patient, also played by Scott Bakula, is totally convinced that he is, in fact, the Jonathan Archer, and he needed the Doctor's help to get back to his own century. So the finale was originally going to be a glorified Voyager episode as opposed to a glorified TNG one. Sussman even admitted it wouldn't have worked as a finale, and it would have given Enterprise a sort of Gainax Ending. It would likely have received even worse reception than what we eventually got.
  • Mike Sussman pitched another ending for Enterprise, which would have featured Leonard Nimoy returning as Spock. It would have started with Spock in the 24th Century giving advice to a young Human/Vulcan officer in Starfleet, telling a story about how in the beginning of the 23rd Century, he received counsel on his life and career from T'Pol, who is a legend by the 24th Century. The story would have featured the entire NX-01 crew returning in age makeup, involving them stealing the NX-01 Enterprise to go on one last mission. Why this idea wasn't considered is baffling (perhaps because the William Shatner appearance fell apart, it wasn't even considered) as no doubt this would have been seen as a far more proper "passing the torch" and finale than Berman and Braga's attempt to make the finale a TNG episode (Berman and Braga were likely against anyone else doing the finale), and Mike Sussman is still frustrated his idea was not picked up.

Unfilmed Season 5

Plans for a fifth season, which was never made due to the show being cancelled:

• The NX-01 would have been refitted with a secondary hull underneath the warp nacelles, ceramic plating, and a deflector dish, making it look very much like the prototype for what would become the Constitution class in TOS. The new design appeared in the 2011 "Ships of the Line" calendar. Doug Drexler claims the staff was not totally sold on this idea, however. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment from Star Trek: Picard season 2 makes this refit canon — a flashback shows young Jean-Luc Picard playing with a model of the upgraded NX-class. Eventually the upgraded NX-01 herself appears as a background ship in the Starfleet Museum in Picard's third season.
• Shran would have become a main character and joined the NX-01 in an advisory capacity. No doubt foreshadowing Andoria's co-founding of the Federation along with Vulcan, Earth, and Tellar. Jeffrey Combs had been bucking to become a Trek regular since the eighties, and compared his perpetual b-status to watching a baseball game from the outfield.
• Jack Trevino, who pitched the story behind the popular DS9 episode "Little Green Men" and later wrote for the fan series "Star Trek Continues", pitched a number of well-received Enterprise stories that were in the works for the fifth season, such as one involving Phlox being compelled by some power to create a Frankenstein monster, and another involving the NX-01 crew encountering Tan Ru, the probe that Nomad would later merge with in TOS.
• Plans were in the works for a Borg Queen origin story, with Alice Krige returning, explaining that she was a Starfleet technician assimilated by leftover Borg from "Regeneration".
• An episode titled "Kilkenny Cats," featuring the Star Trek version of the Cat-like race of the same name that is seen in Larry Niven's Known Space, was in the works. The episode was intended as a prequel to the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon". It was the product of Jimmy Diggs, an intern on TNG and later freelance writer on DS9 and Voyager, who had tried to pitch a Kzinti episode for TNG in 1994, and then later on DS9 and VOY. He was so adamant in his pitches that Brannon Braga referred to the Kzinti as "Jimmy Diggs crazy cats". No one else involved in the franchise at the time were interested in their return, so he later wrote a script for a proposed CGI film starring Captain Sulu of the Enterprise-B fighting an invasion of the Federation by the Kzinti, titled "The Lions Of The Night". It too never got off the ground; however, he finally got his luck when Enterprise got new management in its final season, with Manny Coto expressing interest in the return of the Kzinti. Working with Neal and Jana Hallford, he wrote a new story about the NX-01 bringing a Kzinti child on the ship. Designs for a 22nd-century Kzinti spacecraft were made, and models of re-designs of the Kzinti were made as well. Jimmy Diggs even expressed the belief that three episodes with the Kzinti would be made. However Manny Coto in a 2022 interview claimed the episode was not being developed when cancellation came around.
• There would have been more stories set entirely in the Mirror Universe, following up on "In a Mirror, Darkly." They would have consisted of several standalone episodes interspersed throughout the season. (An idea to set the entire fifth season in the Mirror Universe was rejected.)
• Tensions with the Romulans would have escalated as a prelude to the forthcoming Earth-Romulan War. The Romulans, furthermore, would have been explored more culturally than they had been in previous shows, and the writers planned to incorporate aspects of Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels into the worldbuilding.
• More would have been revealed about T'Pol's father, specifically that he was a Romulan sleeper agent, leading up to the reveal that T'Pol was half-Romulan, explaining her inherent difficulties with emotion and affinity with humans. This also would have made her and Tucker's daughter, Elizabeth, part Romulan.
• Terra Prime would continue to have been a threat in the fifth season, with the Romulans supporting them behind-the-scenes to destabilize the nascent Federation forming.
• Peter Weller would have directed a few episodes, as part of the deal he made for his guest role in Season 4.
• Manny Coto wanted to invite veteran science fiction writers to write episodes in an effort to get the show to explore innovative sci-fi themes like in TOS and TNG.
• Coto also wanted to devote considerable time to Earth's history in Trek, and how it became the post-scarcity near-paradise bragged about in the other series.
• And, of course, in general, the fifth season would have been in the vein of the fourth season in terms of structure and tone. Given that it is nigh-universally agreed that Season 4 was vastly stronger than the other seasons, it seems very likely that a Season 5 and even 6 would've salvaged the show's reputation with the wider viewing public in the same way TNG is considered to have improved dramatically after its rocky start.

Other projects

• Russell T Davies, who was writing Doctor Who at the time of ENT, was planning on making overtures to Paramount for a story in which the TARDIS showed up on the NX-01, but Enterprise was canceled before he could do so. He admitted it probably wouldn't have happened (for obvious reasons), and certainly not in a way that the two creative teams would have liked. But still, the two longest-running SF Franchises in history...
  • Doctor Who and Star Trek would eventually cross over via a comic book miniseries, however it was the TNG crew who'd end up meeting the Doctor.
• There exists an interview with Scott Bakula conducted in the run-up to the release of Star Trek: Nemesis in which he says, with utmost confidence, that the next Star Trek movie would be about him and his crew. This may have even been alluded to in the Nemesis advertising, which proclaimed it was "a generation's final journey", implying that any subsequent Star Trek feature films would feature an alternative cast and crew. Come 2008 (later delayed to 2009, but close enough), after what would have been the customary seven years, we did indeed get a new film...about Captain Kirk. Presumably, if both Nemesis and Enterprise hadn't both bombed and nearly killed the whole Star Trek franchise dead in its tracks, we would have seen Captain Archer on the big screen instead.

Related

• After the series was cancelled after four seasons, a fan-driven effort was launched to raise money to pay for either a fifth season or a wrap-up TV movie. Dubbed The Enterprise Project, the effort did manage to raise more than $150,000 before it was shut down, with Paramount and other authorities saying it was a waste of time, effort and money to attempt this. This was in the spring of 2005, before the concept of Kickstarter or crowdfunding was widely understood and before there was actually an online infrastructure to support it. Had this happened only a few years later, it might have been possible for fans to, if not raise enough for a full-length season, at least raise enough for a movie. Ironically, only a few years after this failed attempt, fans of a fellow cancelled UPN series, Veronica Mars, successfully made use of the then-new Kickstarter to partially fund a theatrical movie.

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