In Fifth Season 'Enterprise', Shran Might Have Come To Stay

"Season Four of Star Trek: Enterprise was the best year I had on Star Trek," declared Mike Sussman, who worked on Star Trek for nearly ten years after joining the staff of Star Trek: Voyager. He credited executive producer Manny Coto, who like Sussman was a fan of the original series, for making the final season of Enterprise so enjoyable.

"Manny really brought a different perspective to Enterprise," Sussman told Star Trek Magazine (via Sci Fi Pulse). "There was something really fun about having a guy who is an unabashed fan of the original series and the other Star Trek shows running the writing room."

Though Sussman acknowledged that several "incredible writers" have been in charge of Star Trek's story development, including Brannon Braga and the late Michael Piller, they all "came to Star Trek later in their lives", whereas with Coto, "it was great to get the opportunity to kick around some very specific ideas which had their roots in the earlier shows."

Sussman appreciated the three-episode Vulcan arc that explored the differences between Enterprise and original series Vulcans as well as the opportunity to explain why original series Klingons had different foreheads than the Klingons on The Next Generation and later shows. He particularly enjoyed the "Through A Mirror, Darkly" two-parter, which let him explore the Mirror universe of the original series and Deep Space Nine.

"I knew when I was writing them that they would almost certainly be the last episodes I would be writing for this particular incarnation of Star Trek, so I really treasured the experience," said Sussman. "I got an opportunity to put my stamp on Archer and Hoshi and figure out what happened to them in the future by putting their biographies on screen in a scene. So I decided that Archer became the Chief of Staff at Starfleet and was later elected President of the Federation, and that the planet Archer IV that was mentioned in a Next Generation episode was named after him."

Sussman said that he was also responsible for the closing montage for "These Are the Voyages..." in which all the Enterprise captains recited the "Space...the final frontier" monologue initially from the original series' opening credits. Had there been a fifth season, he would like to have explored the new relationship between Earth and Vulcan and the Romulan threat. He also revealed that Coto had talked about bringing the Andorian Shran [Jeff Combs] onto the series as a regular.

The full interview with Sussman can be found in Star Trek Magazine. These excerpts are from Sci Fi Pulse.

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