Berman Talks 'Shockwave Part II'

Rick Berman revealed recently how he and the Enterprise writing staff are already ahead of the game for the show's second season.

"We've already broken the story for part II, which is quite rare for us," Berman told Star Trek Monthly. "We usually wait until after the Summer, come back and figure out how the hell we're going to end the cliffhanger. But immediately after the show wrapped Brannon [Braga] and I kind of locked ourselves into a room for a week and came up with ideas for basically the first three episodes of the coming season. So I think we're a little bit ahead of the game."

The Executive Producer went on to chat about the way Enterprise has portrayed the Vulcans. "The Vulcan canon that exists is primarily in the 23rd and 24th centuries. I don't think we changed the Vulcans very much in going back to the 22nd century," he explained. "There are certain things that did change or were affected in some way, by going back in time another hundred years. We're suggesting that the nerve pinch is something not known by most Vulcans. There's a certain degree of animosity between the Humans and Vulcans, which we establish in the pilot.

"But I think T'Pol [Jolene Blalock] would be recognised as a Vulcan by any of the Vulcans you've seen on the shows set in the 23rd and 24th centuries. She fits the Vulcan model, as do the various members of the Vulcan High Council that we've seen so far and will continue to see. I think we've gone out of our way to be true to what we know about Spock and the other Vulcans we've seen in Star Trek."

Berman also chatted about the way 'Star Trek X: Nemesis' will explore the Romulans. "I think we will learn a few things about the Romulan Culture and we certainly will learn about the Remans," he said. "You'll see how the Romulans treated the Remans and why the Remans are the way they are. In fact, the Remans live on a world that makes just one rotation every revolution. It's like the way people used to think Mercury is, although it turned out it's not. But the idea is that one side always faces the sun, so people have to live on the dark side of the planet.

"And they're a rather horrifying looking group of people. We're going to learn how Remus is a sister planet to Romulus, but definitely not an equal sister."

More from Rick Berman can be found in the latest edition of Star Trek Monthly, out now in the UK. Extracts are available online here at Scifi Pulse.

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