There are a lot of great Star Trek episodes made over the decades, but most fans would agree that the Star Trek: Enterprise series finale is not one of them. That’s certainly how I felt after watching “These Are The Voyages…” for the first time last year with my Paramount+ subscription. It’s been 20 years since that episode aired, and Enterprise creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are now hitting back against those who criticized the Next Generation tie-in aspect of this story. At the same time, they also admitted that there is one regret they have with how the Enterprise series finale turned out.
Why The Enterprise Creators Stand By That Next Generation Decision
Berman and Braga stopped by The D-Con Chamber to speak with hosts Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating, who respectively played Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise. The primary topic was about the Season 1 episode “Shuttlepod One,” but later on the conversation turned to discussion about “These Are The Voyages...” One of the main critiques of the episode is how it’s all just a holodeck simulation. Being looked at by Next Generation characters William Riker and Deanna Troi. As Rick Berman explained:
We can’t get ourselves from the 97th episode to the 98th episode, story-wise. There was no way we could do it. So the idea of doing a flashback, from the future, looking back with the help of a holodeck to see what happened. What the culmination was with Jonathan Archer and the United Federation of Planets. And there was no way doing that other than seeing it as a flashback, And we had holodecks that could do realistic flashbacks, unlike other kinds of television series. And somebody had to be looking at it, so the fact that we chose Marina and Jonathan’s characters from The Next Generation was just a convenience for us.
The Next Generation portion of this episode took place during the Season 7 episode “The Pegasus,” while the Enterprise-focused holodeck simulation picked up six years after that show’s penultimate episode, “Terra Prime.” Berman and Braga felt the simulation was the best way to jump forward and show the United Federation of Planets being founded. Braga also explained how “These Are The Voyages…” was meant to double as a farewell to the nearly two-decade uninterrupted Star Trek TV run that began when The Next Generation premiered in 1987:
I think the Enterprise fans would see it as a disappointing finale of Enterprise, but Rick and I, for right or wrong or otherwise, Rick had been with this franchise for 18 years, and I had been there for 15, and we wanted to send a valentine to the franchise. And I still stand by the concept of the episode, which is it’s actually an episode of Next Generation where they’re looking back at Enterprise on the holodeck, which I think is a cool idea.
Braga added that their “intentions were not in any way meant to be dismissive or disrespectful” with Star Trek: Enterprise’s final episode. That may be, but it wasn’t just fans who disliked “These Are The Voyages…” Members of the cast also voiced their displeasure, including T’Pol actress Jolene Blalock telling The Boston Herald in 2005 (via TrekToday) that she was frustrated that the series finale ended up being more of a Next Generation episode.
The One Regret The Enterprise Creators Have About The Series Finale
One thing Rick Berman and Brannon Braga can agree on with fans is that they shouldn’t have killed off Trip Tucker in the final episode. They admitted to Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating that they didn’t know what they were thinking, but then Braga shared what their reasoning was at the time:
No doubt we were after what emotional impact it would have. And we felt that the flashback needed some power, some emotional potency, but I can see why that might have been upsetting to people to find out indirectly that Trip died.
Ironically, Trinneer was actually “really satisfied with the fact Trip died” and pleased with the overall episode. Trip was mortally wounded when he overloaded two conduits to save Jonathan Archer’s life from kidnappers that had boarded the Enterprise. That was one of the other major things that bothered me about the series finale, as Trip being killed off felt convoluted and forced.
Reading these new comments just makes me all the more hopeful that the hypothetical Captain Archer series might happen someday in order to give these characters another chance to shine, just like Picard did for The Next Generation. It’d get bonus points if it also found a way to either resurrect Trip or reveal how he never actually died in the first place. Don’t let “These Are The Voyages...” continue to be the last hurrah for the Enterprise cast. They deserve better.
