from Scifi Wire
Enterprise Ends Cold War
Manny Coto, writer and executive producer of UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise, told SCI FI Wire that he found a real challenge bringing the series into its fourth season after the third's cliffhanger ending. "It was a difficult episode to write, because there was a wild twist at the end of season three," Coto said in an interview at a screening of the season-four premiere. "It necessitated a lot of elements that had to be woven together and tell the end of the Temporal Cold War, and kind of launch the stories for season four." Last season's Xindi war story arc ended back on Earth during World War II, with an alien in a Nazi uniform.
Coto, who joined the series last season after serving two years as writer and creator of the Showtime series Odyssey 5, said that his goal for season four of Enterprise was to reveal some of the origins of character developments and storylines from the original Star Trek series. "I think by now people know I'm a big fan of the old series, and I think what's going to be fun is that we'll be seeing a lot of touchstones from the old series, starting with the Orion slave girls," Coto said. "What's most exciting for me is this story that takes place on Vulcan, which I've nicknamed 'Vulcans of Arabia.' It's a sweeping tale that kind of expands and deepens the Vulcan mythology, and what season four will be is kind of exploring and illuminating parts of the Star Trek universe that perhaps we haven't seen so clearly in the past, in older incarnations and new incarnations."
Coto said that the illustrious history of the series puts enormous pressure on him, as does his previous success with season three. "It's a huge responsibility, and it's a terrific show," he said. "The responsibility is to make it as good as last season, which was tremendous, and to make season four even better. That's what's most scary. Trying to write stories that live up to that and take advantage of that is very challenging." Season four of Enterprise premieres Oct. 8 in the show's new 8 p.m. ET/PT Friday timeslot.
Enterprise Gets Epic
Manny Coto, writer and executive producer of UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise, told SCI FI Wire that the fourth season of the show will feature several self-contained storylines instead of one that spans the entire season. "This season is like a series of mini-24s," Coto said in an interview at a screening of the season-four premiere. "We have three-episode arcs and four-episode arcs, and what I think is that it gives you the best of both worlds. I didn't want to do one season just on one subject. The [premiere] episode is a two-episode arc, but the other ones are both three-parters, and they really have a kind of great, epic feel. It will be fun to watch on DVD to see from beginning to end."
Coto, who joined the production team during last season, said that he is eager to unleash his ideas for the series and won't be holding back storylines for future seasons. "I wanted to be able to do stories on eugenic supermen [and] on Vulcan, and what this has allowed us to do is create long, epic movies that play out over a series of three episodes," Coto said. "We aren't really doing it thinking what the ratings are going to be, frankly. People will either tune in, or they won't. And if they don't, we won't be around next year. But we'll have a great season this year. With this season approaching, what we're doing is what would we love to do, as fans and as people who love Star Trek. We're just throwing out ideas as they come up."
Coto said that executive producer Rick Berman gave him and the writing staff carte blanche to come up with concepts that play upon material from other Star Trek series. "I've been given this great opportunity where Rick has said, 'Go do whatever you want to do with the old series,'" he said. "Now we're working on this terrific story about the Andorians. It's a three-episode arc that finally incorporates Col. Green, the Andorians, a race of Andorians that we previously had never heard of and the Tellorites."
Coto also said that the disparate plots and characters will lay the groundwork that brings the series up to the beginning of the original Star Trek series. "All of these meetings with the various races evolved from the Tellorites, and the Andorians are going to be taking us to the end of the season, where we will weave this together for the beginnings of what we will know as the Federation." Season four of Enterprise premieres Oct. 8 in its new timeslot, Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
