Star Trek TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT - pre-Paramount+ TV Series

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

I loved the moment Data made the other guy quit in disgust!

Roy Brocksmith was an inspired bit of casting as Kolrami.  He really brought Kolrami across as the gleefully officious, bureaucratic, judgemental arsehole desperately in need of a big slice of humble pie and made the one-two punch of Riker exceeding all expectations and Data forcing him into a ragequit in his game of choice incredibly satisfying.

I love Worf's deadpan delivery of exactly how unfortunate it would be for the Hathaway's warp drive to fail to activate.  "Very unfortunate.  We will be dead."

[sh9000]

 

[pengbuzz]

42 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Roy Brocksmith was an inspired bit of casting as Kolrami.  He really brought Kolrami across as the gleefully officious, bureaucratic, judgemental arsehole desperately in need of a big slice of humble pie and made the one-two punch of Riker exceeding all expectations and Data forcing him into a ragequit in his game of choice incredibly satisfying.

I love Worf's deadpan delivery of exactly how unfortunate it would be for the Hathaway's warp drive to fail to activate.  "Very unfortunate.  We will be dead."

I cracked up when one of the crewmembers aboard the Hathaway stated they needed some optical cable, and Worf yanked down a lose one from the ceiling!

[Seto Kaiba]

Michael Dorn really was criminally underutilized on TNG.  

DS9 did amazing things with Worf's character.  Made him a lot more subtle, but also a lot more fun when he had another deadpan snarker to play off of in the form of Odo.

[derex3592]

All great points, and to this day "Where Silence Has Lease" is still one of my top 3 or so from Season 2. It was just....creepy good. Always wondered if a "Q" ever tangled with Negellum???!!! 

Edited July 15, 2022 by derex3592

[sh9000]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, derex3592 said:

All great points, and to this day "Where Silence Has Lease" is still one of my top 3 or so from Season 2. It was just....creepy good. Always wondered if a "Q" ever tangled with Negellum???!!! 

Now, I know in the novels that Q once used to run with several other less-powerful entities including a novel-original one named 0, the Beta XII-A entity, Gorgan, and "The One" (AKA the "God" from Star Trek V).  Dunno if he ever tangled with Nagillum, but considering how he bullies the Calamarain...

(That said, when Worf was busy insisting that there is "One Riker, One Bridge!" he turned out to be a bit wrong about that later on in "Second Chances".  Turns out there really were two Rikers.)

[derex3592]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now, I know in the novels that Q once used to run with several other less-powerful entities including a novel-original one named 0, the Beta XII-A entity, Gorgan, and "The One" (AKA the "God" from Star Trek V).  Dunno if he ever tangled with Nagillum, but considering how he bullies the Calamarain...

(That said, when Worf was busy insisting that there is "One Riker, One Bridge!" he turned out to be a bit wrong about that later on in "Second Chances".  Turns out there really were two Rikers.)

Good point on Q and the Calamarain, never thought about that. Wonder if Q could have had control over Nagillum's "not space" space. 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

Good point on Q and the Calamarain, never thought about that. Wonder if Q could have had control over Nagillum's "not space" space. 

Almost certainly.

If there's one thing that's been consistent about the presentation of the Q in decades of Star Trek official media, the novelverse, and other licensed/non-canon media is that the Q are either truly omnipotent or so close to it that there is no practical difference.  The only time that a Q has ever been depicted as struggling with something outside of scenarios involving them being deprived of their powers by others in the Q Continuum is Quinn's attempts to commit suicide in Star Trek: Voyager.  He seemed to be unable to bring enough force to bear on himself to end his life, but it's well attested-to that Q are perfectly capable of killing each other.  The only being ever hinted to have the power to actually resist or defend against a Q is Guinan, in a forgotten moment in "Q Who" in which Q seems to be on guard against her or even afraid of her.  The only thing stopping the Q from exercising their powers in ways that would have upsetting consequences for the fabric of reality is the Continuum's social conventions and the majority's holier-than-thou view of the Q as being the multiverse's highest form of life.

In the novelverse, the Q are basically omnipotent.  They're almost never depicted as being threatened in any way, and on the rare occasion they are it'll be by a one-of-a-kind entity that nearly rivals a single Q for power.  That's 0, the ringleader of the gang of ne'er-do-well higher beings Q summons into the galaxy in prehistory for a laugh and who was sealed outside the galaxy by the great barrier the Q erected for his crimes.  Also Afsarah Eden, a one-of-a-kind anti-Q created by all the horrible things Janeway has done to the fabric of reality from "Endgame" thru the first half of the Voyager relaunch novel series (mainly Q Junior using his powers to bring Janeway back from the dead after she was killed off for real in the runup to Star Trek: Destiny).

[derex3592]

ALWAYS loved the 30 second interaction between Q and Guinan in "Q-Who".   REALLY wished they would have given us more on THAT little footnote somewhere in a later season of TNG.  Kind of wonder why they never did honestly, would have made a great one or two part episode. Perhaps leading up to the Borg destroying Guinan's planet...perhaps Q  was in some way responsible? 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, derex3592 said:

ALWAYS loved the 30 second interaction between Q and Guinan in "Q-Who".   REALLY wished they would have given us more on THAT little footnote somewhere in a later season of TNG.  Kind of wonder why they never did honestly, would have made a great one or two part episode. Perhaps leading up to the Borg destroying Guinan's planet...perhaps Q  was in some way responsible? 

I'd assume they probably forgot.  TNG's first two seasons had a fair few orphaned plot threads thanks to some concepts initially developed turning out to be unworkable and others simply being abandoned because the writers couldn't figure out what to do with them.  Guinan and Q are in a few episodes together thereafter and he never shows any fear of her in those except when she straight-up shanks him with a fork to prove that he's lost his powers.

The big one, of course, being that the aliens from "Conspiracy" were supposed to be the advance scouts of the species that was eventually reworked into the Borg.  The budget balked at the idea of the cost of practical effects for an insectoid race who used biotechnology, so they were rewritten into more TV-friendly cyborgs.

(Guinan gave Q astronomical amounts of sh*t in the novelverse and independent novels too... really, all the Q.  Trelane included.  In one book, Trelane attempts to buy drinks for the house and Guinan takes his directive of "Drinks on me!" quite literally.)

Guinan's been around for an unspecified but very long time... centuries if not millennia... I'd assume she and Q simply bumped into each other when Q was on his bullsh*t in one or more of those stunts that caused much of the galaxy to hate him.  If Vash's account is to be believed, quite a lot of planets have him as persona non grata for various reasons.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'd assume they probably forgot.  TNG's first two seasons had a fair few orphaned plot threads thanks to some concepts initially developed turning out to be unworkable and others simply being abandoned because the writers couldn't figure out what to do with them.  Guinan and Q are in a few episodes together thereafter and he never shows any fear of her in those except when she straight-up shanks him with a fork to prove that he's lost his powers.

The big one, of course, being that the aliens from "Conspiracy" were supposed to be the advance scouts of the species that was eventually reworked into the Borg.  The budget balked at the idea of the cost of practical effects for an insectoid race who used biotechnology, so they were rewritten into more TV-friendly cyborgs.

(Guinan gave Q astronomical amounts of sh*t in the novelverse and independent novels too... really, all the Q.  Trelane included.  In one book, Trelane attempts to buy drinks for the house and Guinan takes his directive of "Drinks on me!" quite literally.)

Guinan's been around for an unspecified but very long time... centuries if not millennia... I'd assume she and Q simply bumped into each other when Q was on his bullsh*t in one or more of those stunts that caused much of the galaxy to hate him.  If Vash's account is to be believed, quite a lot of planets have him as persona non grata for various reasons.

If they had played it smart in Picard (there's a term you'll never see associated witht hat series normally! lol ), they would have somehow tapped into that animosity between Q and Guinan before the end.

[JB0]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The big one, of course, being that the aliens from "Conspiracy" were supposed to be the advance scouts of the species that was eventually reworked into the Borg.  The budget balked at the idea of the cost of practical effects for an insectoid race who used biotechnology, so they were rewritten into more TV-friendly cyborgs.

The bugs, of course, being themselves a DIFFERENT course correction when a multi-episode plot thread leading to a military coup by Starfleet was vetoed.

Surprised they didn't just completely abandon it and leave the thread dangling, honestly.

 

 

 

Guinan being terribly mysterious, but implied very powerful, winds up being hinted a few times. First example I can think of is Yesterday's Enterprise. She was the only person who recognized that history had changed, which shouldn't be possible. My first instinct is just that she can similarly perceive Q's futzing with the fabric of reality, and his actual actions being perceivable instead of just "my will is writ upon reality" unnerves him.

...

Though to my recollection, her response to Q was never tempered by knowledge of his power. She simply did not care he was Q, and that implies an ability to counter him in some way(or a complete disregard for her life).

I admit to being curious what they'd planned for her, but it is probably best left nebulous and undefined. Far more interesting.

 

[sh9000]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

The bugs, of course, being themselves a DIFFERENT course correction when a multi-episode plot thread leading to a military coup by Starfleet was vetoed.

Eventually rehashed as the Admiral Leyton's coup plot in Deep Space Nine once Gene was out from underfoot.

 

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

Surprised they didn't just completely abandon it and leave the thread dangling, honestly.

Some ideas are just too good to let go of... 

Unfortunately, the Relaunch novelverse's obsession with tying up loose ends from the TV series saw them revisit the parasites from "Conspiracy".  The big reveal there was that the parasites were...

Spoiler

... the ancient Kurlans, and one of what by this point had to be an even dozen major coverups and conspiracies by the Trill government.

The "Big Reveal" there being that Kurl's extinct and mysterious civilization was actually an early Trill colony.  The parasites are not native to Kurl either, but rather are mutated Trill symbionts that were products of a genetic engineering program aiming to develop a breed of symbiont that could be freely removed and exchanged without harm to the symbiont or the host.  The Kurlan experiments went horribly right in that they produced a new breed of symbiont that worked exactly as intended except for the fact that the symbiont ended up in total control of the host and were aggressively hostile towards normal symbionts.  The Trill government bombarded the site from orbit in a bid to wipe the mutated symbionts out and then covered the whole thing up.

The whole mess came out when a Trill official assassinated Shakaar Edon, who was later revealed to have been infested with a parasite as part of their second go at taking over part of Starfleet... with a long-term goal of using Starfleet to destroy the Trill homeworld.

(By that point in the relaunch novelverse, the Trill government had acquired a second "hat" to go with their "Planet of the Symbionts" one... that being "Planet of Government Coverups".  It's a miracle the Trill ministers got anything done when getting elected ultimately meant having to be read into a few million government conspiracies that were somehow maintained with near-perfect secrecy for centuries.)

 

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

Guinan being terribly mysterious, but implied very powerful, winds up being hinted a few times. First example I can think of is Yesterday's Enterprise. She was the only person who recognized that history had changed, which shouldn't be possible. My first instinct is just that she can similarly perceive Q's futzing with the fabric of reality, and his actual actions being perceivable instead of just "my will is writ upon reality" unnerves him.

"Q Who" really makes it out that Guinan is something much more powerful than just an El-Aurian.

Q actually warns Picard about her twice, and her reaction implies that she was aware of his abduction of Picard and that she can actually prevent him from "expediting [her] departure" or defend herself against his powers in some way.  

 

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

I admit to being curious what they'd planned for her, but it is probably best left nebulous and undefined. Far more interesting.

It's probably better that way, yeah... especially given the quality of modern Trek's writing.

 

3 hours ago, sh9000 said:

 

 OK there are a few ones there I've never seen before... especially that clip of Gene, Michael, Barrie, and Patrick singing.

One of the favorite things I've learned about the show's production is that Patrick Stewart was the one who wanted everyone to grim up and stop goofing around initially, and he ended up being one of the worst offenders when it came to goofing off on set.  I remember reading that The DS9 cast was aimilarly grim, until Michael Dorn joined the cast and became their patron saint of screwing around.  (TBH, I find that hilarious somehow... the actor behind the incredibly grim and deadpan Mr. Worf was Mr. Fun Times on set.)

(Right up there with learning at a convention from no less a person than Kate Mulgrew that Voyager's prankster-in-chief was Tim Russ, who at one point broke into her trailer to cover every surface with photocopies of his posterior.)

[sh9000]

 

[Tking22]

I'm onto season 3 of TOS, moving onto TAS after. It's been pretty fun so far! Some episodes are certainly better then others, and I'd definitely agree there's only a few really good episodes, some fun enough ones, and some stinkers. After TAS I'm onto the apparently fan-favorite TNG. I don't think I'll be bothering with Picard after TNG, I'll probably move onto DS9 or Voyager.

Also, I had zero idea Star Trek: Enterprise was a thing, I had no idea Scott Bakula was even in a Trek series, I just know him from Quantum Leap! Enterprise sounds interesting, being so far back in the timeline sounds like a pretty interesting setup, was the Enterprise in ST: Enterprise the first ship in the main timeline to reach the warp speeds necessary for all the Trek shenanigans that follow in every series taking place after? I'll definitely be checking it out too.

Should I even bother with Discovery, or as I've seen it labeled, Disco? It's so new and expensive looking! But I've heard almost nothing but negative things, particularly season 3. 

[derex3592]

@Tking22  Do TNG, then DS9 1000%.  Voyager...I mean sure, why not, it's not terrible, and sometimes pretty fun.  Enterprise was just getting good when it got cancelled. It's not everyone's cup of tea, for ummm...reasons, but give it a shot. Scott Bakula does pull off a good captain honestly, and there are other good points as well, Jeffrey Combs who plays in DS9 for example is outstanding in Enterprise as well playing Shran.

Disco???...well....Everyone has to make that decision for themselves.... Season 1 was doaaable...kinda, just KNOW that it's NOTHING like past Treks.  Season 2 apparently is/was the high point, I didn't ever finish it however, so I can't confirm, and pretty much everyone says 3 was horrible. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by derex3592

[azrael]

We have individual threads for the current shows (DIS, LD, SNW, PIC). You are welcome to look for those.

[Lolicon]

1 hour ago, Tking22 said:

I'm onto season 3 of TOS, moving onto TAS after. It's been pretty fun so far! Some episodes are certainly better then others, and I'd definitely agree there's only a few really good episodes, some fun enough ones, and some stinkers. After TAS I'm onto the apparently fan-favorite TNG. I don't think I'll be bothering with Picard after TNG, I'll probably move onto DS9 or Voyager.

Also, I had zero idea Star Trek: Enterprise was a thing, I had no idea Scott Bakula was even in a Trek series, I just know him from Quantum Leap! Enterprise sounds interesting, being so far back in the timeline sounds like a pretty interesting setup, was the Enterprise in ST: Enterprise the first ship in the main timeline to reach the warp speeds necessary for all the Trek shenanigans that follow in every series taking place after? I'll definitely be checking it out too.

Should I even bother with Discovery, or as I've seen it labeled, Disco? It's so new and expensive looking! But I've heard almost nothing but negative things, particularly season 3. 

TNG is probably the second best series, after DS9. Not counting LD or SNW as they're still running.

Agree with @derex3592 as Enterprise was starting to finally get good in season 4 when it was canceled.

Voyager is probably the worst Trek series, IMO. Again not counting the new shows as they're still going, but Picard is seriously giving Voyager a run for its money and will probably surpass it in awfulness unless season 3 is just amazing.

Discovery is a mixed bag. Some love it, some hate it. I stopped watching after season 3 because, while it's not the worst Trek show, it's not particularly good either. Of the many problems with the show, two of the biggest are the terrible pacing (nothing much happens for most of the season then everything happens all at once in the final 1-2 episodes), and the show's heavy focus on Michael, a character I simply do not give a flying f*** about. Apparently everything that happens in the galaxy always has to center around her.

Prepare for Bakula to portray a stupid, petulant, and incompetent captain for most of Enterprise's run. I'm pretty sure he's the only captain who's been complicit in genocide. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Lolicon

[lechuck]

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I'm onto season 3 of TOS, moving onto TAS after. It's been pretty fun so far! Some episodes are certainly better then others, and I'd definitely agree there's only a few really good episodes, some fun enough ones, and some stinkers. After TAS I'm onto the apparently fan-favorite TNG. I don't think I'll be bothering with Picard after TNG, I'll probably move onto DS9 or Voyager.

Also, I had zero idea Star Trek: Enterprise was a thing, I had no idea Scott Bakula was even in a Trek series, I just know him from Quantum Leap! Enterprise sounds interesting, being so far back in the timeline sounds like a pretty interesting setup, was the Enterprise in ST: Enterprise the first ship in the main timeline to reach the warp speeds necessary for all the Trek shenanigans that follow in every series taking place after? I'll definitely be checking it out too.

Should I even bother with Discovery, or as I've seen it labeled, Disco? It's so new and expensive looking! But I've heard almost nothing but negative things, particularly season 3. 

If you are up for it you should try watching all of Star Trek in chronological order. I used The Star Trek Chronology Project in the lead up to PIC first season. As you have started with TOS you would have to fudge ENT, but you are still pretty much at the beginning of things so there is plenty to work with.

Personally I thought it was quite fun to watch a batch of episodes from one series and then switch over to another series or break for one of the later TNG movies.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I'm onto season 3 of TOS, moving onto TAS after. It's been pretty fun so far! Some episodes are certainly better then others, and I'd definitely agree there's only a few really good episodes, some fun enough ones, and some stinkers.

TOS was definitely a bit of a troubled production... thanks to a sort of low-key passive aggressive jockeying for creative control that was going on and culminated in much of the show's writing staff bailing for the third and final season.  It has its moments, though, and for the time it was pretty damned revolutionary.

 

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

After TAS I'm onto the apparently fan-favorite TNG. I don't think I'll be bothering with Picard after TNG, I'll probably move onto DS9 or Voyager.

Yeah, Picard is a best-skipped series... it kind of sh*ts all over everything the character was.  The only reason to watch it would be if you really desperately want to see the entire cast miserable.

TNG's first season and a half are TOS-level rough though, thanks to Gene Roddenberry maneuvering himself into a position to have full creative control over the series at that time before being ousted.  It really hit its stride in season 3, but season 2 was the first signs of its true potential.  That it coincided with the studio having Riker grow a beard led to the series finding its feet and taking off being called "growing the beard".  

 

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Also, I had zero idea Star Trek: Enterprise was a thing, I had no idea Scott Bakula was even in a Trek series, I just know him from Quantum Leap! Enterprise sounds interesting, being so far back in the timeline sounds like a pretty interesting setup, was the Enterprise in ST: Enterprise the first ship in the main timeline to reach the warp speeds necessary for all the Trek shenanigans that follow in every series taking place after? I'll definitely be checking it out too.

Enterprise was the prequel nobody asked for.  With Voyager's ratings falling and the showrunners protesting that audiences were burning out on Trek after being on the air with at least one series continuously for over a decade, the production crew all wanted to give the franchise a few years off before trying again.  But the network insisted, so what we got was a kind of very halfhearted prequel that quickly dismisses a lot of the non-cosmetic trappings of being a prequel.

It got dragged pretty hard by fans when it was new.  Partly because of its retcons and the Vulcans being incredibly out of character until the end of the series, but mainly because the writing was incredibly uneven and there was a massive multi-season plot tumor called the Temporal Cold War hanging over it all.  Audiences are a LOT kinder to it now after new shows like Discovery and Picard proved to be SO MUCH WORSE.  Sadly, Enterprise didn't really hit its stride until its fourth and final season, by which point it had cut its way free of the whole "Temporal Cold War" mess audiences so hated and started doing some proper Boldly Going.  Its ratings had already fallen too far, though, and the network cut them off while season five was literally on the drawing board, making it the first Trek series to be cancelled rather than end on its own terms since TAS.

 

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Should I even bother with Discovery, or as I've seen it labeled, Disco? It's so new and expensive looking! But I've heard almost nothing but negative things, particularly season 3. 

It has its own thread... but the short version is that Discovery is probably the single most polarizing series made under the Star Trek banner.  So much so that many fans, myself included, struggle to call it a Star Trek series in light of how dark, depressing, and downright miserable it all is.  It completely lacks Star Trek's optimistic future and light hearted camaraderie among the Starfleet crew.  So much so that the show was radically retooled to get it the hell out of the actual Star Trek setting by jumping almost a thousand years forward into a setting that is somewhere between Star Wars and Mad Max for themes and content.

[Rhubarbarian]

4 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I'm onto season 3 of TOS, moving onto TAS after. It's been pretty fun so far! Some episodes are certainly better then others, and I'd definitely agree there's only a few really good episodes, some fun enough ones, and some stinkers. After TAS I'm onto the apparently fan-favorite TNG. I don't think I'll be bothering with Picard after TNG, I'll probably move onto DS9 or Voyager.

I know a lot of people don't share this perspective, but I actually like the animated series a lot. The animation is admittedly extremely limited and the pacing can be goofy, but I'm a real sucker for the '70s sci-fi background paintings. It's a fun watch in a way that some later Trek series are not (casting shade directly on Picard here).

[sh9000]

 

[azrael]

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... and the network cut them off while season five was literally on the drawing board, making it the first Trek series to be cancelled rather than end on its own terms since TAS..

Season 5 was never even on the drawing board; more of "We'll be lucky if we even get to think about it". In the Blu-ray commentary, the network was ready to cut the show by the 3rd season, but the network, essentially, gave it a chance to finish off with a Season 4, reduced budget/episode, moved to Friday nights and all. Most of the cast and crew knew by January 2005 before the official word announced in February 2005.

One aspect of Enterprise and even the jump from TOS to TNG-eras I do like, in retrospect, is watching society and cultures change. Yes, that retcon with the Vulcans but whose to say these little things didn't happen; slightly more antagonistic mixed in with that stoic logic before toning down the antagonist. As Janeway said, things were much different in Kirk's era compared to when Janeway became captain. It's interesting watching societal changes in story.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, azrael said:

Season 5 was never even on the drawing board; more of "We'll be lucky if we even get to think about it". In the Blu-ray commentary, the network was ready to cut the show by the 3rd season, but the network, essentially, gave it a chance to finish off with a Season 4, reduced budget/episode, moved to Friday nights and all. Most of the cast and crew knew by January 2005 before the official word announced in February 2005.

I'm not sure if that's a difference of perspective among staff or what, because there was a modest amount of material they produced while "thinking about it".  The most prominent piece being their rough draft and early CG model for a Kzinti spaceship.  They've also talked about some proposed and draft scripts that were tentatively slated for season 5, like an arc about T'Pol's father that would've explained her unusually emotional behavior.  IIRC, the Columbia-class that appeared in the Ships of the Line calendar and became Federation Starfleet's first (human-built) prestige class in the Relaunch novelverse was originally designed as a potential major retrofit the Enterprise would undergo in a future season as well.

 

2 hours ago, azrael said:

One aspect of Enterprise and even the jump from TOS to TNG-eras I do like, in retrospect, is watching society and cultures change. Yes, that retcon with the Vulcans but whose to say these little things didn't happen; slightly more antagonistic mixed in with that stoic logic before toning down the antagonist. As Janeway said, things were much different in Kirk's era compared to when Janeway became captain. It's interesting watching societal changes in story.

The issue with the Vulcans was probably the number one complaint with Enterprise... or at least the longest-lasting, most consistent one.  The complaints were strident enough that they attempted to band-aid the problem late in season four with the Kir'shara story arc, but too little too late.  

 

[sh9000]

 

[azrael]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm not sure if that's a difference of perspective among staff or what, because there was a modest amount of material they produced while "thinking about it".  The most prominent piece being their rough draft and early CG model for a Kzinti spaceship.  They've also talked about some proposed and draft scripts that were tentatively slated for season 5, like an arc about T'Pol's father that would've explained her unusually emotional behavior.  IIRC, the Columbia-class that appeared in the Ships of the Line calendar and became Federation Starfleet's first (human-built) prestige class in the Relaunch novelverse was originally designed as a potential major retrofit the Enterprise would undergo in a future season as well.

It may have been "thought of" before 2005 (like sitting in the back of their head but never coming out unless given the OK). Doubtful once they were told the show was cancelled. But like them I think about a lot of things that take years to maybe or maybe not come to fruition. Doug Drexler, who designed the NX-refit, did state there was never any official plans to refit the NX-class for the show and that it was a wish-list-item for him, personally.(Seeing that it took 5 years for it to reach print from an idea is quite a ways.) Same for the writers. The writers, in the commentaries, planted lots of seeds in their stories that they hoped to develop. But I think every writer on any show would try to do that.

[Mog]

By the time Enterprise rolled out, there was definite fatigue and diminishing returns.

Seriously, the only major change was that instead of “Shields down to 30 percent,” it was now “HULL PLATING down to 30 percent.”

I got spoiled with DS9, where even recurring characters get well developed.

Voyager had a great starting premise but was too episodic.  Some main cast characters are just sorta there, but don’t really develop much over the seven seasons.

And Enterprise just didn’t do enough to develop some of its lower ranking, main cast characters.

[Mommar]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The issue with the Vulcans was probably the number one complaint with Enterprise... or at least the longest-lasting, most consistent one.  The complaints were strident enough that they attempted to band-aid the problem late in season four with the Kir'shara story arc, but too little too late.  

 

Even Jolene Blalock on several occasions argued on set the things they were asking her to do weren't canon to Vulcan behavior.

[Mommar]

11 minutes ago, Mog said:

By the time Enterprise rolled out, there was definite fatigue and diminishing returns.

I don't know about that.  Was the fatigue that Star Trek fans weren't interested in Star Trek or was it that Voyager was watered down and didn't live up to the original premise due almost entirely to studio meddling and there were four pretty awful movies in a row (I don't agree First Contact was good, it was only the least bad.)  Trek fans were fatigued with bad Trek and then along came Enterprise where, guess what, they mess it up for a sixth time.

 

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm not sure if that's a difference of perspective among staff or what, because there was a modest amount of material they produced while "thinking about it".  The most prominent piece being their rough draft and early CG model for a Kzinti spaceship.  They've also talked about some proposed and draft scripts that were tentatively slated for season 5, like an arc about T'Pol's father that would've explained her unusually emotional behavior.  IIRC, the Columbia-class that appeared in the Ships of the Line calendar and became Federation Starfleet's first (human-built) prestige class in the Relaunch novelverse was originally designed as a potential major retrofit the Enterprise would undergo in a future season as well.

That NX-1 Refit was an idea Doug Drexler had basically from the beginning of the show.  He used to add in the bottom hull from the original 1701 just to make sure the design was already balanced for it.  Even though it wasn't there you could picture the lineage.  He never did more than have some talks with Manny Coto about its potential in a later season but after Enterprise ended he decided to fully render it just for fun and then it happened to have a place in his Calendar series after that.

[sh9000]

 

[Mog]

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

I don't know about that.  Was the fatigue that Star Trek fans weren't interested in Star Trek or was it that Voyager was watered down and didn't live up to the original premise due almost entirely to studio meddling and there were four pretty awful movies in a row (I don't agree First Contact was good, it was only the least bad.)  Trek fans were fatigued with bad Trek and then along came Enterprise where, guess what, they mess it up for a sixth time.

 

Well, four TV shows, 24 seasons of stories from the previous four series, it’s hard to come up with something “fresh” with that much backstory.

Add in that Rick Berman was still helming the franchise, and did NOT have the ridiculously good cadre of writers to lean on anymore (Moore, Behr, and Wolfe).

Plus, throw in that Enterprise was being used to prop up the old United Paramount Network.

And yeah, Enterprise had some issues facing it.

Not disagreeing with any of the points you bring up.  But burnout did play a part in me skipping Enterprise after a season or two.  It became an obligation to watch, rather than a joy.  And even after Manny Coto came in and a buddy pointed out how better the show became, I just wasn’t as motivated to tune in each week.

[sh9000]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Mog said:

By the time Enterprise rolled out, there was definite fatigue and diminishing returns.

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

I don't know about that. Was the fatigue that Star Trek fans weren't interested in Star Trek or was it that Voyager was watered down and didn't live up to the original premise due almost entirely to studio meddling and there were four pretty awful movies in a row (I don't agree First Contact was good, it was only the least bad.)  Trek fans were fatigued with bad Trek and then along came Enterprise where, guess what, they mess it up for a sixth time.

Quality issues aside, audience fatigue was the (counter)argument the Star Trek showrunners made to the UPN executives when the network insisted on another Star Trek series to fill the void Star Trek: Voyager's imminent conclusion was going to create in the broadcast schedule.  Star Trek had been on the air with at least one series for nearly fourteen years in a row and it was starting to get stale.

 

1 hour ago, Mog said:

Seriously, the only major change was that instead of “Shields down to 30 percent,” it was now “HULL PLATING down to 30 percent.”

That was a recurring problem with Enterprise.  I really liked how aesthetically primitive they managed to make it.  Especially with the shipboard sets being strongly reminiscent of submarines with the low ceilings, exposed conduits, visible rivets on the bulkheads, and actual mechanical switches for controls.  The writers introduced upgrades too quickly in the series.  The EM-33 plasma pistol didn't even last the entire pilot two-parter, for instance.  Apart from a few minor glitches and goofs, the transporter quickly became the norm for certain uses.  The ship sprouted phaser cannons just a few episodes into the first season.  The spatial torpedoes lasted only until the end of the second season before being replaced with photon torpedoes.  The only things that really remained primitive was they kept preferring the shuttlepods over the transporter, and force fields never really became a thing.

 

1 hour ago, Mog said:

Voyager had a great starting premise but was too episodic.  Some main cast characters are just sorta there, but don’t really develop much over the seven seasons.

That's the consequence of the show getting hijacked by the executives... a lot of characters got radically retooled when the show's original, much darker, premise was abandoned in favor of a more episodic format.  Robert Beltran kept trying to get himself released by demanding outrageous salary increases because he loathed his character's Hollywood Indian new age BS tendencies (inspired by Native American consutant and charlatan Jamake Highwater), and how his character who was supposed to be Janeway's rival ended up as her yes-man instead.

 

1 hour ago, Mog said:

And Enterprise just didn’t do enough to develop some of its lower ranking, main cast characters.

Oh yeah... it was pretty much the Archer/Tucker/T'Pol/Phlox show for a good while.  Not that anyone particularly minded not hearing from Hoshi after she was introduced as such an obnoxious whiner.  Travis really got it in the shorts, though, since he never got developed past "wide-eyed kid" and they backed down on making Reed openly gay.

 

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

That NX-1 Refit was an idea Doug Drexler had basically from the beginning of the show.  He used to add in the bottom hull from the original 1701 just to make sure the design was already balanced for it.  Even though it wasn't there you could picture the lineage.  He never did more than have some talks with Manny Coto about its potential in a later season but after Enterprise ended he decided to fully render it just for fun and then it happened to have a place in his Calendar series after that.

Ah, I don't recall where I read it, I think it might've been in something associated with the novelverse and its adoption of a lot of unused concepts and story outlines intended for later in the series.