Ever since I stumbled across the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The 37s” on Spike TV, now known as the Paramount Network, back in 2007, I’ve been a big fan of this sci-fi franchise since then, with shows like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Picard and Strange New Worlds being among my favorites. But going into 2024, I’d never seen an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. It wasn’t like I was actively avoiding the show starring Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer, captain of the USS Enterprise NX-01. It’s just that I never caught reruns of it in the early years of my Star Trek fandom, and in more recent years, I was too busy finally watching Deep Space Nine for the first time and getting into the current era of Trek shows.
So a few months back, I decided to fire up my Paramount+ subscription and fix this. For the most part, I enjoyed my Enterprise experience, although as with any Star Trek series, not every episode was a winner. But then I ended this TV journey with the controversial series finale, “These Are The Voyages…”, an episode widely considered to be one of the worst episodes in the entire franchise. After finally watching it for myself, I wholeheartedly agree with that opinion, and much of it has to do with how poorly the death of Connor Trinneer’s character was handled.
Trip’s Death Felt Convoluted And Forced
To provide a little context, Paramount Television announced in February 3, 2005 that Star Trek: Enterprise would end after four seasons, and filming on “These Are The Voyages…” began on February 25. So to a degree, I can understand how the writers could only do so much with turning what had originally been conceived as a season finale into a series finale. There’s only so much that can be done in such a short amount of time.
And yet, it feels like Trip was killed off purely for shock value rather than because it was narratively compelling. He sacrificed himself when he triggered an explosion by overloading two conduits aboard the Enterprise to kill the bad guys who’d kidnapped Shran’s daughter and snuck back onto the ship to seize the girl again. But as Connor Trinneer during his appearance at the 2005 DragonCon (via TrekToday), Trip had gotten out of “much worse scrapes than that.” So it’s not to say that Trip could never have been killed off during the show’s run, it’s just that the way in which it was done here wasn’t worthy of the character.
The events explored in “These Are The Voyages…” occurred 10 years after the pilot “Broken Bow”, and roughly six years after what went down in “Terra Prime”, so naturally Enterprise had been improved in various ways and become more heavily fortified. You’re telling me that Shran’s enemies were able to board the ship effortlessly? You’re telling me there was no other way Trip could have dealt with these invaders without having to die in the process? It was all too convenient and definitely forced for the sake of making sure Trip was taken off the board by the time the episode was over.
The Crew Hardly Expresses Any Grief Over Trip’s Passing
As previously mentioned, the main Star Trek: Enterprise characters had been together for 10 years by the time of “These Are The Voyages…”, so it’s reasonable to assume they’d grown even closer in the six years that followed “Terra Firma”. Which made it all the more surprising to me that when Trip died, there was barely an emotional reaction from his cremates. It’s not like they felt indifferent about his passing and went about their business as usual, but I was expecting a little more sadness and grief to be expressed.
Trip was the Enterprise’s chief engineer for all of its time exploring space minus that brief period where he transferred to the USS Columbia. He’d already been close with Archer before boarding the ship, and that connection only became tighter over the course of this show’s four seasons. He formed a solid friendship with Malcolm, even if the two would often get annoyed with one another. He had plenty of good times with Travis, Hoshi and Dr. Phlox. But onscreen at least, Trip’s death wasn’t shown to hit them that hard aside from Archer struggling with giving his speech for the signing of the Federation Charter soon afterwards.
And then, of course, there’s T’Pol, who was Trip’s main love interest in the series. Considering the special bond they shared with one another, plus having more difficulty controlling than the average Vulcan, I would have thought we’d seen her emote more over Trip’s death. We’d seen her shed a tear before, surely the passing of the person she was most closely connected to on the ship would have warranted a few more, right?
Riker And Deanna’s Appearances Largely Overshadow This Plot Twist
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the events of “These Are The Voyages…” where depicted as a hologram simulation being played during the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Pegasus”, with Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reprising William Riker and Deanna Troi, respectively. Riker was using the simulation to help him decide on how to handle his dilemma involving the recovery of the USS Pegasus, but having the Enterprise characters being presented on the holodeck was completely unnecessary. Even if the main beats of the Enterprise series finale had to unfold the way they did without question, dropping the TNG element would have allowed extra time to improve this story,
Instead, the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise had to balance out saying goodbye to its starring characters with giving fan service to a series that had ended 11 years earlier. It reminded me of how Arrow’s final season was comprised of just 10 episodes, and the penultimate one, “Green Arrow and the Canaries”, functioned as a backdoor pilot for a show that was never even ordered. It’s also worth mentioning that back in 2017, Brannon Braga said that he and fellow Enterprise creator Rick Berman wrote the finale as a way to say goodbye to the Star Trek franchise in its then-current form. However, Braga also said he regretted doing this, especially as this resulted in the only time that Scott Bakula was “mean” to him.
While it’s extremely unlikely that Star Trek: Enterprise will ever get a proper finale, I do hope one day that some of the actors get to reprise their roles in other shows or movies so that “These Are The Voyages…” doesn’t remain the final time their characters are seen onscreen. But as for you, Trip Tucker, you deserved so much better. I can only hope that Enterprise ended on a more positive note for you in another universe.
