See Also: 'Judgment' Episode Guide

Star Trek: Enterprise writer David A. Goodman has provided commentary on the second season episode "Judgment" to promote the release of season two on DVD.

In the podcast, Goodman discusses the storyline with with StarTrek.com editorial director Tim Gaskill, stating that he wrote "Judgment" to provide "continuity porn" for Star Trek fans. He mentions the use of the original gavel glove from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country for the Klingon courtroom, saying that the set resembles the one from that film, using computer graphics because they could not build a three-story set. He joked that he thought executive producer Rick Berman wanted to fire him after "Precious Cargo", saying "the piece of crap that aired was not the piece of crap that I wrote", but Brannon Braga kept him on and he wanted to write a Klingon episode.

"I wanted to do something that I was more passionate about," said Goodman, mentioning that the episode is set on the episode where "Yesterday's Enterprise" was set because Braga felt that with the Enterprise moving out into space, it should not be set on the Klingon homeworld. A fan of J.G. Hertzler as Martok on Deep Space Nine, Goodman felt that the actor brought a very different quality to the intellectual Klingon advocate Kolos in "Judgment."

The writer included references to the Duras family from The Next Generation for the fans, but Prosecutor Orak was named for his own interests after a character on Blake's 7. Though he wanted a more exciting Klingon ship explosion than aired, he said that for reasons of simplicity they settled for igniting plasma.

"I wanted to write something, after 9/11," he said. "It was kind of scary, we were going to war everywhere, and I thought that that might be an interesting backstory for the Klingons. The problem with Klingons is that they can't all be warriors; you can't have warrior accountants...you need people to do something in society but the warriors are out in space, so that's who we know." He wanted to show the trend in Klingon society toward more deviousness and suspicion.

The podcast has been released to go along with Star Trek: Enterprise: The Complete Second Season on DVD. It can be downloaded at StarTrek.com or from iTunes Podcasts.

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