Star Trek: Enterprise’s Horrible Ending Has Been Fixed
Back in 2005, Star Trek: Enterprise flew into ignominy with what is widely regarded as the worst series finale in all of Star Trek (disregarding The Original Series, which did not have a planned finale). “These Are the Voyages…” should have been the triumphant conclusion of Jonathan Archer’s journey toward the founding of the United Federation of Planets, but instead was reduced to a holodeck program being viewed by Will Riker and Deanna Troi.
But Enterprise fan and YouTube creator John DiMarco has made a new edit that works with the footage available to create a more suitable ending for the series.
The edit takes scenes from “These Are the Voyages…” and the previous episode and stitches them together in a way that solves some of the problems fans have long had with the ending of the series. First, it cuts out all of the events that led to the death of Chief Engineer Charles “Trip” Tucker, whose demise has even been written out as faked in Star Trek novels just to rescue the beloved character. While Trip is not in the final scenes, he is still seen alive at the end of this new version.
The new edit also does Star Trek: Enterprise the favor of ending the series with a focus on the characters fans have spent the previous four seasons getting to know, not chopping up their story into fragmented bits interspersed within a less-than-compelling narrative about Will Riker.
The idea of bringing Riker and Troi back was conceived at the time as a bit of fan service that would be exciting for viewers who had not seen characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation in a few years. Instead, it seemed to betray a sense that the main characters of Enterprise could not be trusted with the conclusion of their own series, as though they needed help from legacy characters to give their narrative a meaningful ending.
Granted, Star Trek: Enterprise had been cut short, having been planned to run for the seven seasons that, by that time, was the standard length for a Star Trek series. Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager had all run seven seasons, but they had also all been syndicated series, which had allowed them to maintain good ratings throughout those seasons.
As the first Star Trek network show since The Animated Series, Enterprise failed to keep good ratings and, as producers and writers scrambled to fix the series, the changes resonated less and less with its dwindling audience.
This left Star Trek: Enterprise in the unfortunate situation of being canceled early while still needing to fulfill its series mandate of showing the founding of the United Federation of Planets. Even in this newly edited version, we still have to skip ahead six years in the future to see Archer stepping toward the stage where he will officiate the monumental occasion.
While we are still not given the opportunity to see the moment itself, the ending is much more satisfying this way than when it ends with Riker pressing the pause button, not allowing us to see more because he has some dialogue to say.
There is still a devoted fan base for Star Trek: Enterprise, which stands as one of the franchise’s most overlooked entries, even though it has been importantly influential on subsequent films and series. Those fans have long wished to see their beloved crew get the ending they deserve, and this edit is likely as close as we will ever get.
