Re-imagined: Star Trek: Enterprise

Let's start with some food for thought from some recent articles published by the SYFY channel regarding Star Trek: Enterprise, shall we?

• Article 1: Apparently, Enterprise S1 was supposed to be entirely Earth-bound  http://www.blastr.com/2013-8-21/apparently-enterprise-s1-was-supposed-be-entirely-earth-bound
• Article 2: Why Brannon Braga found early seasons of Enterprise 'strangulating' http://www.blastr.com/2013-8-19/why-brannon-braga-found-early-seasons-enterprise-strangulating

Interesting...

So, let's take those two thoughts, and re-imagine the series, as it should have been.

Picture, if you will, the entire first season of Star Trek: Enterprise if it had been structured similar to the first season of LOST.  The pilot would begin with the launch of the flagship of Starfleet's fastest vessel to date, the U.S.S. Cachrane or maybe the U.S.S. Zephram or something similar.  No need to name the ship Enterprise.  

Each episode of that season would tell a story with an equal amount of time as a flashback to the year prior to focus on the building of the ship, the recruitment of the crew and the internal and external politics, diplomacy and war posturing.   If they loosened the one-shot story directive, it could have been even grander.

Remember...LOST didn't premiere until 2004, while ST:E first aired back in 2001.  The format of story arc with flashbacks wasn't really used much, if at all, back then, but was done to perfection by LOST when it came out.  A few shows do a similar method of using flashbacks to allow the show to start in the midst of the action.  But really the technique goes back to the dawn of storytelling, as in Homer's Odyssey.  And in novels, regular narrative...not only fantasy or sci-fi, flashbacks are not even a second thought.

With the expectation that the viewers, at least have some knowledge of Star Trek lore, we have Season 1 documenting the year before the launch and the the first year of the Zephram's voyage, which would set up Season 2's ever increasing hostilities with the Klingons.  Season 1 and 2 would have room for Kirk-style planet explorations, while tensions are building.  Even with the jumping off, there is always opportunities to use the narrative to give enough exposition to at least get the uninitiated their Van Helsing-style exposition to explain the universe being presented to the audience.

Season 3 would erupt into full open war with the Klingons in the midst of the discovery (perhaps by Section 31?) as the secretive manipulative involvement of Romulans as instigators in the Klingon front.  This revelations would splinter the trust between the humans and the Vulcans with the revelation of their long secret cousins being involved with the very conflict.  Section 31's efforts to keep the lineage of the Roluman/Vulcans a secret for the sake of the fledgling tactical alliance could be a recurring plotline.

This eventually leads to full open hostilities with the Romulans.  A two fronted war now leads to Season 4 with a backdrop of active tensions impact on the scattered worlds that now need to form a solid Federation for defense against the overwhelming threats of the two expanding Empires at their borders.   Season 5 tells the tale of the steps and missteps of the fledgling unified Federation as it is forced to quickly consolidate power as world after world gets lost to their enemies.  More one-shot stores would be appropriate here, as the Zephram is sent to aid these distant worlds caught in the mighty struggles of the Quadrant.

Season 6 would be the pushback and re-taking of the worlds ending with the exhausted establishment of the Neutral Zones.  And Season 7 would be first forays into a galaxy in the tender balance as the dust settles and a new stronger Federation emerges to lick it's wounds and begin it's exploration of a still primarily untamed and unexplored galaxy that decades later would still reverberate in the time of Kirk and Spock.  The remaining neutral or undiscovered worlds would be vied for by remaining powers, and the new Federation worlds would be tested for their own resilience.  Season 7 could even have a flash-forward element to bridge the time between Archer and Kirk, to demonstrate the development of the Galaxy in the interim.

Ah...what could have been.