Coto Looks Back on Season Four

Star Trek: Enterprise fourth season showrunner Manny Coto said that he was happier with the mini-arcs than standalone stories in the show's final season, noting that he made it a particular goal to try to bridge the prequel to the original Star Trek.

"The direction I really wanted to go in with 'Enterprise' this year was to...do stories that set up the days of Kirk and Spock," he told TV Zone. "I must admit I’m quite happy with how Season Four has unfolded."

Coto had been aware that the series was on the brink of cancellation at the end of the third season despite positive notices for the Xindi arc and "wanted to find a new way to tell our stories. Ultimately, we decided to do multi-episode arcs, which was a change from the season-long Xindi arc we did last year, and the stand-alone stories done in the first two seasons." He felt that the two- and three-parters played more like feature films than television installments and was delighted with the results.

"I think the whole Vulcan arc, starting with 'The Forge', were some the best stories we’ve ever done," he stated. "I was also very happy with the Andorian/Tellarite arc; 'United', in particular, was a strong episode."

Another of Coto's goals was to deepen the connection between Tucker and T'Pol. In the episode "Bound", which he wrote, Coto said that he wanted to "prove that they belong together by making them the only two who are able to resist the female Orions' allure." Last season he felt that their relationship "seemed to be based a lot on massage therapy, and I felt their relationship deserved to be something richer and more permanent."

Among stories with which he was less pleased, Coto again cited "Daedalus", one of the stand-alones where as previously he expressed unhappiness with the shooting script. Coto himself wrote "Home", which he said he considers the true start of the fourth season: "The two-parter that preceded it, 'Storm Front', really served to tie up the Xindi arc from last year."

The full interview is in issue #189 of TV Zone.

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