Warp Five: A Star Trek Enterprise Podcast

Enterprise Awards and Nominations. Over the course of five decades, Star Trek has raked in awards and nominations from the Saturn to the Emmy and beyond. Four of the five live-action series were recognized by the prestigious Hugo Awards—and one of those series was Enterprise. While Star Trek is more often than not honored for technical achievements, the franchise's dramatic presentation is also he...

Vulcans on Enterprise. When jumping backwards a century—or even two—you would expect that races and societies to be different. Yet one thing about about Enterprise that ruffled the feathers of Star Trek fans the most was the portrayal of Vulcans. Despite having gotten to know very few Vulcans over the course of four series and nine films, fans had a preconceived notion of what they all should be l...

In-Universe Connections. Enterprise wasn't just a prequel to The Original Series, it was a prequel to all of Star Trek. That meant that we saw some familiar races and themes "for the first time," and some were more obvious than others. Andorians and Vulcans are major connections to the "future," but there were also many more subtle gems dropped into four seasons of 22nd-century adventures. In this...

Unexpected. As a prequel series, Enterprise promised to show us how humans would react to truly alien encounters. Trip certainly experienced one when he left the ship on a simple mission to help some aliens fix their engines, but came back with a baby. Or at least a wristnipple. In this episode of Warp Five we bring you a replay of a past Ready Room discussion with Enterprise associate producer Da...

Degra. Throughout Enterprise 's third season we see the Xindi Council debate their plans to destroy Earth. Each species has its say, but the central focus is on Degra, father of the Xindi superweapon. Modeled after J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, Degra is the Xindi with whom we can most easily identify because he represents the primate lineage of evolution on Xindus. He also mirr...

Crystal Allen and D'Nesh. Enterprise brought back Orion slave girls, which we had not seen since the Original Series in "Whom Gods Destroy." And as Enterprise did with so many things from TOS, this appearance put a very interesting twist on a familiar theme. In the fourth-season episode "Bound" we're introduced to three Orion slave girls, the sisters Navaar, D'Nesh, and Maras. Through their intera...

Archer's Lost Loves. Star Trek has generally shied away from letting its captains become involved in serious long-term relationships. This  certainly applies to relationships with fellow Starfleet officers. Many fans wish this wasn't the case. Voyager fans famously wanted (and still want) Janeway and Chakotay to become an item. Long before that, there was angst over the song and dance of Picard an...

Romulans on Enterprise. First introduced in the Original Series episode "Balance of Terror," the Romulans became a lengendary villain within Star Trek lore. The conflict between humans and Romulans is also lengendary despite never having been played out on screen. When Enterprise decided to bring Romulans into the show in the second-season episode "Minefield," they faced a huge challenge in keepin...

Phlox. Star Trek wouldn't quite be Star Trek without an alien on the crew. That outside voice to comment on humanity is key to examining ourselves through science fiction. With the Vulcans being portrayed differently from what we were accustomed to during Spock's time, Enterprise had to turn elsewhere for someone who could comment on events that were new to human explorers. Enter a new race, the D...

Dead Stop. Enterprise did not always capture the spirit of the unknown as throughly as its prequel nature promised. But in "Dead Stop" we're reminded that there are some very strange things out there, and some people far more advanced than us. In what is essentially a sequel to "Minefield," the NX-01 puts in for repair at a mysterious facility that provides near-magical services for a bargain pric...

Alternate Outcomes of the Xindi Crisis. Nearly one year after the Xindi weapon probe first cut through Florida, Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 prevailed in their fight to save humanity—and we never doubted that they would. But what if the Xindi Crisis had turned out differently? We caught a glimpse of one other possible future in "Twilight," and the Xindi-Reptilians attempted to cut mank...

Hobbies of the NX-01 Crew. Every crew needs to relax from time to time. Fighting aliens and repairing the ship can be a drag. So just how do Starfleet crews unwind? In the 24th century exciting vistas, interactive literature, and even a racy evening on the town are just a holodeck program away. But in the 22nd century, quarters are cramped and technology is more modest. In this episode of Warp Fiv...

The NX Program. Although Enterprise falls earlier on the timeline, it owes much of its premise to The Next Generation. Specifically, its central non-living character—the Warp Five engine—was born of the film First Contact and the work of Zefram Cochrane. Captain Archer's father, Henry, worked with Dr. Cochrane, and this would shape much of Jonathan's view of space exploration and the Vulcans. Afte...

Undeveloped Stories. When it comes to the stories we didn't get on Enterprise, the discussion usually focuses on the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. But just like its sister shows, Enterprise also had a number of story ideas that were considered—some more more seriously than others—but for one reason or another were left on the drawing board. Unlike "Season Five" stories, these are episodes tha...

Organians on Enterprise. Enterprise is known for bringing back alien races from The Original Series that were more or less ignored by the rest of Star Trek. Andorians, Orions, Tholians, and Gorn all come to mind. But these aren't the only classic races to make an appearance in the 22nd century. The Organians, those energetic agricultural pacifists from "Errand of Mercy," also paid a visit to the N...

TOS Impressions of Seasons 1 and 2. When announced, the basic premise of Enterprise was a trip back to the 22nd century for a story that would set up The Original Series. In actuality, the first season of Enterprise delivered a weaker than anticipated connection to Kirk's time, and this continued in the second year. This is not a bad thing—it gave the show an identity of its own—but it did leave m...

Prequel Design. How do you imagine a future that’s closer to our reality than what Gene Roddenberry was imagining for a show set three centuries from now? And how do you remain true to the franchise and all those elements created for The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager—whilst still making it mesh with what is to come later on the timeline? This is the challenge t...

Malcolm Reed. Like The Original Series, Enterprise established a triumvirate at the top. In TOS that was Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. On Enterprise it was Archer, T'Pol, and Trip. At the same time, Enterprise took a cue from the other post-TOS series and created a deep cast of supporting characters. One of those was Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, the NX-01's armory officer who redefined the role that we had...

The Borg on Enterprise. For a series set two hundred years before the TNG era, Enterprise at times dipped into the familiar-alien well prematurely. The Borg are amongst those aliens cited by many fans as not belonging on the show. But the events of First Contact presented the writers with a unique opportunity not only to bring these popular cybernetic villains onto the show, but to create both a s...

Enterprise Season Five. Like all the modern Star Trek series, Enterprise was firing on all cylinders by Season Four. Under the guidance of Manny Coto, the show was creating a stronger connection to TOS and was planting the seeds of some amazingly rich storylines for the final three seasons. Unfortunately, those seeds were left behind in the soil of cancellation. In this episode of Warp Five, Chris...

Prequel Technology. As Star Trek fans we take things like transporters, phasers, and photo torpedoes for granted. But these futuristic devices weren’t always available to the people who built the Federation. While we can theorize on how we might build these technologies, actually doing it is beyond our grasp. So how do we get from here to there? That’s a question that the writers and designers of...

Andorians. Thanks to the Original Series episode “Journey to Babel,” Andorians became one of the most beloved alien races in Star Trek. But prior to Enterprise we really knew very little about them. Their popularity stemmed more from appearance—blue skin and antennae—and their reputation for feistiness. But Enterprise changed all of that by not only bringing the Andorians back to the screen, but b...

Season Three. Few aspects of Enterprise—and perhaps of Star Trek as a whole—have been more controversial than the show’s third season. The 26-episode arc is an outlier in a number of ways. It was the first (and only) time a season-long arc was attempted in Star Trek, and it also focuses on aliens and events with no connection to the rest of the franchise. Some fans love it. Some fans hate it. In t...

Xenophobia and The Coalition of Planets. When Enterprise began we all expected that—as a prequel to the Star Trek we already knew—the series might end with the founding of the Federation. Unfortunately the story was cut short and we never got to see those events play out. We did, however, get one step closer with the final two episodes set in the 22nd century, “Demons” and “Terra Prime.” In the af...

Xindi Evolution. The third season of Enterprise brought us not only the first true season-long arc in Star Trek history but also one of the most unique races we had ever seen—the Xindi. Unlike most alien worlds encountered by Starfleet crews, the planet Xindus gave birth to six different sentient races. It raised many scientific questions, but also gave the writers a virtual toy box from which to...