Berman: Season Four Not The Manny Coto Show

See Also: 'These Are The Voyages' Episode Guide

Star Trek executive producer Rick Berman recently defended himself against fan criticism, suggesting that he hadn't always been the person responsible for unpopular decisions, but that he should be getting credit for the quality of Enterprise's fourth season.

"There are a tremendous number of misconceptions we pick up from some of the more verbal fans," Berman said in the latest edition of Starburst Magazine (via the Sci-Fi Pulse). "They believe that when we took Manny Coto and we promoted him from co-executive producer to executive producer that he just suddenly took over and it became The Manny Coto Show. That's just nonsense. Manny was very involved in the third season as one of our three or four top people, and he remained the same in the fourth season. My involvement and [Brannon Braga's] involvement in the fourth season, in all the stories and scripts was really no less than it was before, but people perceive it as The Manny Coto Season.”

Berman went on to praise Coto, who he said he greatly respected and admired. The Trek head honcho went on to say that a lot of what internet fans write about him and Braga is pure fiction. He also seemed to suggest to the magazine that a lot of the things he had been blamed for over the past years, were actually beyond his control. "When you are perceived as the person in charge, which is not always necessarily the case, you're the person who takes the blame when there are problems."

One thing which Berman was apparently responsible for was the decision to feature TNG characters in the Enterprise series finale, "These Are The Voyages..." According to Berman, "[it] was a question of finding a way to put this group of [] characters into a historic perspective. In order to do that, the idea of looking back at a very crucial point in the lives of these people, right prior to the signing of a document that would lead to the foundation of the Federation, was what we decided to consider. And then there was the thought, ‘What if this were Riker being somewhat indecisive about something important in his life? And what if he goes back to this critical day to try to get some insight?"

According to Berman, the finale will be respectful of the cast of Enterprise. "I don't believe in any way that Enterprise gets lost. I believe this was a way to honour this show, to look at these characters in a perspective that wrapped them into the last 18 years of Star Trek. Everybody is so critical of us, and when I say everybody I'm talking about the usual people we see on the Internet.”

More from Trek's longtime executive producer can be found in issue 324 of Starburst Magazine. Alternatively, more excerpts are available at the Sci-Fi Pulse.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!