Star Trek Enterprise Season 5’s Mirror Universe Plan Explained

Star Trek: Enterpriseseason 5 would have returned to the Mirror Universe, among other ambitious ideas in the works before the prequel series was canceled. Starring Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer, Enterprise was a Star Trek prequel set in the 22nd century, but the series only lasted 4 seasons before it was canceled in 2005, despite fans writing to the United Paramount Network (UPN) to save Enterprise.

Although Star Trek: Enterprise got off to a rocky start and faced overall franchise fatigue at the tail end of the era that began with Star Trek: The Next Generation, followed by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and four TNG movies, the prequel series improved in its latter two seasons. Enterprise embraced DS9‘s serialized storytelling with an action-packed arc where Captain Archer’s crew fought diverse new aliens called the Xindi. Enterprise season 4 also brought back TNG favorite Brent Spiner and delivered a fan-favorite two-parter set in the Mirror Universe. (It was during the production of “In The Mirror, Darkly” that the cast was informed Enterprise was canceled.) Unfortunately, Enterprise is also remembered for its infamous series finale, “These Are The Voyages”, which shifted the focus away from Archer and his crew to TNG‘s Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis).

At VegasCon 2009, executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga revealed showrunner Manny Coto’s intriguing plans for Star Trek: Enterprise season 5. The Mirror Universe episodes proved so popular and creatively interesting, Coto planned for a multi-episode arc (a “mini-series inside the series” of four or five episodes) exploring Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) as Empress of the Terran Empire. (Braga also Tweeted there was talk about setting all of Enterprise season 5 in the Mirror Universe.) There was also a story pitched that would bring back Alice Krige and tell the story of how she became the Borg Queen as a sequel to the Enterprise season 2 Borg episode “Regeneration”.

The twin main stories Enterprise season 5 would have explored were the founding of the United Federation of Planets (Captain Archer’s role in the signing of the Federation charter was touched upon in the series finale) and the beginnings of the Romulan War. The Romulans would have been the main villains of season 5, and T’Pol’s (Jolene Blalock) father would have been revealed to be a Romulan agent who posed as a Vulcan. Retconning T’Pol as half-Romulan would have explained her affinity for humans and her experimenting with emotions.

The Temporal Cold War story that kicked off Enterprise season 1 would have continued and there was talk of making “Future Guy”, the unknown person who told Archer about the Temporal Cold War, a Romulan. However, Branon Braga later stated that the plan was for Future Guy to be Jonathan Archer influencing his younger self in the future. Meanwhile, the Temporal War has now become part of the fabric of Star Trek: Discovery season 3’s 32nd-century future. In addition, Shran, the popular Andorian played by Jeffrey Combs, would have joined the NX-01 Enterprise‘s bridge crew as an advisor.

Along with Romulans, Coto intended to reintroduce the Kzinti, who were warlike cat aliens that first appeared in Star Trek: The Animated Series. Coto also wanted to do a two-part episode in the Cloud City of Stratos, which would have been a prequel to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “The Cloud Minders”. Another link to TOS was the plan for Enterprise to show the construction of the first Starbase in the Berengaria system. Enterprise season 5 could have also visited Denobula, the homeworld of Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley). Sadly for Trekkers, these fascinating ideas for Star Trek: Enterprise were never realized.

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