Star Trek: Enterprise had a very different concept than what was ultimately decided upon for season 1, reveals executive producer Brannon Braga, who co-created the prequel with Rick Berman. Originally titled simply Enterprise, the prequel was set in the 22nd century, almost 90 years after Vulcans arrived on Earth, as seen in Star Trek: First Contact. While Enterprise’s core mission was always going to be the pioneering voyages of the first Starship Enterprise commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), Berman and Braga had a totally different show in mind that they pitched to Paramount and the UPN Network.
Brannon Braga and the reunited cast of Star Trek: Enterprise gathered in 2012 for a session called “In Conversation: The First Crew” as part of the Star Trek: Enterprise season 2 Blu-ray special features. Braga described the original concept he and Rick Berman wanted for Enterprise, and how Paramount and UPN’s negative reaction forced them to make a more traditional Star Trek series. Read Braga’s quote below and watch the video with Brannon’s comments starting at the 13:24 time stamp:
The show originally… was supposed to be set on Earth. The show Rick and I pitched to the studio was a show set on Earth. The Klingons attacked Earth. Same things, general things, happened, but it was all about the building of the first starship and… the Vulcan thing was all there… It was about getting the crew together. It was about Archer putting a crew together to be the first people who went out. It was either the end of the season or somewhere midseason the ship was going to be launched. So it was a much more mud on the boots, gritty show set on Earth for the first large part of the season. So launching the ship was going to be a much bigger deal.
The studio said, ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re not in space? You should be in space.’ They didn’t even want to do a prequel. That’s how this Temporal Cold War thing came in. They wanted some futuristic element to be in the show. So we interwove that so it was kind of a prequel and a sequel. We did battle with them with this concept from the very beginning, so it’s a miracle we even got it there.
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An Enterprise comeback would have many difficult obstacles to overcome
Early during “In Conversation: The First Crew,” Brannon Braga mused about Star Trek: Enterprise coming back, and he asked the actors if they would return. While the majority of the cast said they would, the notion of Enterprise returning was already a pipe dream in 2012, and it’s even more difficult in 2024, despite Star Trek‘s current renaissance on Paramount+. Dr. Phlox actor John Billingsley spoke about how there are “too many issues” with an Enterprise revival to Screen Rant.
Among the challenges of a live-action Star Trek: Enterprise comeback are the daunting facts that Scott Bakula has moved on from Star Trek, and Jolene Blalock has retired from acting. Enterprise‘s 22nd-century time frame also makes reprising those characters in live-action a problem, as the closest Star Trek show to Enterprise‘s era, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is still set a hundred years later. While animated series like Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy could conjure voice cameos for Enterprise‘s actors, Paramount’s business is changing and the potential sale of the studio makes a Star Trek: Enterprise comeback even more unlikely.
- Seasons
- 4
- Streaming Service(s)
- Netflix , Paramount+
- Franchise(s)
- Star Trek
- Showrunner
- Brannon Braga
