The Enterprise crew really didn’t like their finale
Anthony Montgomery has some serious issues with the finale of his Star Trek series, Enterprise. The final episode featured Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis as their Next Generation characters examining the last recordings of the Enterprise ship and crew as it stood. They watched historical documents, essentially play out, which included the death of beloved character Charles “Trip” Tucker, the ship’s Chief of Engineering and commanding officer when Captain Jonathan Archer was away. It was a pointless death, tacked on to give the finale gravitas.
The introduction of Frakes’ William T. Riker and Siritis’ Deanna Troi was meant as fan service, but as they were Next Generation characters appearing on Enterprise, a show set hundreds of years in the past, there was no good way to get them on, at least in the minds of the writers.
So the hologram idea was drawn up.
It was an idea so bad, that Frakes himself hated the episode.
Anthony Montgomery contends the series didn’t happen as presented
Anthony Montgomery was at the 55-Year Mission Star Trek with a few Enterprise co-stars and when the topic of how their show ended, Montgomery did not hold back from voicing his displeasure. He not only slammed the finale but brought up a horrifying possibility; that the entire show was some Newhart-like “dream”.
Only instead of it being a dream, the entire show was just a hologram being played by Riker and Troi.
Quotes courtesy of TrekMovie.com
"I love Jonathan [Frakes] and Marina [Sirtis]. They are wonderful people, but Scott Bakula is my captain… Archer. I would not have had them come on, because I didn’t even know that we were a part of the holodeck until I read those episodes. And it just made me go, “Wait, so those other 96 episodes never really happened?”More from Star Trek: EnterpriseWill we get an autobiography of Captain Archer?Is T’Pol really better than Saavik when you compare the two Star Trek icons?Star Trek: Lower Decks should avoid bringing in Enterprise charactersStar Trek: Enterprise had idea for evil Captain Kirk returnParamount shouldn’t pass up the opportunity for a Star Trek: Enterprise streaming movie"
Montgomery also brought up that he wished the show had gotten a two-hour finale.
"Give us two hours, like for the pilot. Give us a two-hour finale. That way we could have tied up a lot of things."
Even castmate John Billingsley agreed on that point.
"I do think we were all somewhat disappointed that the show didn’t have a multi-episode conclusion. It’s awfully hard to try and conclude a series in a single 15-minute segment, regardless of whether you like the framing device of Riker and Troi. I think the bigger question was, it just needed a bigger canvas. So I personally would have said to give it a three-episode out."
That’s not unreasonable, as The Next Generation (All Good Things), Deep Space Nine (What You Leave Behind), and Voyager all had two-part series finales. The 2004 Battlestar Galactica remake was created by Star Trek-alum Ronald D. Moore, and his finale for that series (Daybreak) was a three-parter.
As for the show not really happening, it’s unlikely that Montgomery really thinks the entire show happened as a hologram, nor was that what Rick Berman was trying to go for, but it does present a really depressing conversation. The fact that anyone has to ask or wonder if the entire show and not just the finale, was meant to be a holographic playback really does leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.
For the sake of the fanbase, let’s hope the long-running rumors of Scott Bakula returning to Star Trek are true, and the cast of the Enterprise gets to go out on top in a mini-series of sorts.