I Wish Enterprise Season 5 Got To Tell The Story Star Trek Hinted At For 59 Years

A big part of Star Trek's 22nd century history could have been answered if Star Trek: Enterprise season 5 had happened. United Paramount Network (UPN) canceled Star Trek: Enterprise after season 4 due to myriad factors, such as low ratings and a shift of network priorities. Enterprise's cancellation marked the end of executive producer Rick Berman's 18-year stewardship of the Star Trek franchise.

While the writing was on the wall regarding the fate of Star Trek: Enterprise, season 4's showrunner, Manny Coto, and his writing staff had preliminary ideas brewing for Star Trek: Enterprise season 5. Coto was a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series' Mirror Universe, and he planned to return to the alternate reality to follow up Enterprise season 4's "In a Mirror, Darkly" two-parter. Commander Shran (Jeffrey Combs) would also have become the first Andorian to join Captain Jonathan Archer's (Scott Bakula) NX-01 Enterprise crew.

Star Trek: Enterprise Season 5 Would Have Told The Romulan War Story Hinted At By The Original Series

T'Pol Could Have Also Had A Big Romulan Reveal

Star Trek: Enterprise season 5's central story might have been the Romulan War waged between Starfleet and the Romulan Star Empire. Star Trek: The Original Series season 1's classic episode, "Balance of Terror," introduced the Romulans and revealed that, in the 22nd century, a war between humans and the insidious aliens was fought "with primitive atomic weapons." However, Star Trek: Enterprise would likely have simply retconned this, placing Captain Archer and the NX-01 Enterprise on the front lines.

Star Trek: Enterprise season 4 already planted the seeds for the Romulan War. An arc set on Vulcan saw Captain Archer and Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) help T'Pau (Kara Zediker) reveal that Romulans had infiltrated the Vulcan High Command. Administrator V'Las (Robert Foxworth) and his government were set up as a puppet government by the Romulans, aiming to take control of Vulcan. T'Pau and Enterprise's heroes exposed the Vulcan and Romulan treachery, but there was certainly more of this story to be told.

Star Trek: Enterprise writer Mike Sussman also wanted to pitch the reveal that T'Pol's unseen father was a Romulan. This would have canonically established T'Pol to be half-Romulan, and it would have retroactively explained aspects of T'Pol's atypical behavior as a Vulcan in previous seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. However, since this Romulan story was never told because Star Trek: Enterprise season 5 didn't happen, T'Pol remains canonically a full Vulcan.

Star Trek: Enterprise’s Romulan War Story Would Have Had One Big Problem To Retcon

Enterprise Has Retconned Before

If Star Trek: Enterprise season 5's Romulan War story took place, the prequel would have had to retcon a major discrepancy from Star Trek: The Original Series' "Balance of Terror." Before Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) came face-to-face with the Romulan Commander (Mark Lenard), no human had ever seen what a Romulan looked like, according to Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Enterprise season 5 would likely have done away with this. Technically, Captain Archer and T'Pol already met a Romulan, Talok (Todd Stashwick), in the 22nd century.

Of course, retcons were nothing new to Star Trek: Enterprise. Captain Archer's NX-01 encountered the Ferengi in Star Trek: Enterprise season 1, centuries before Star Trek: The Next Generation's era, although Enterprise's crew never learned the name of the capitalistic race. Enterprise also brought in the Borg, who tried to assimilate the NX-01. Again, Archer failed to learn the name of the deadly cyborg race before destroying them.