Coto Outlines His Vision For 'Enterprise'

Enterprise co-executive producer and showrunner Manny Coto Tuesday night revealed some of the stories he plans to tell this season.

One of the first arcs after the two-part premiere will revolve around an ancestor of Dr. Noonien Soong, played by Brent Spiner (Data). But fans shouldn't expect the new character, Arik Soong, to be anything like his Next Generation counterpart. "This character is more of a Dr. Frankenstein," Coto told StarTrek.com at UPN's fall preview party during the Television Critics Association press tour. "He is not a benign individual. He has brought to life 20 embryos from the Eugenics era. So you have Soong who's leading a band of Khan Noonien Singhs, so to speak. He believes that genetic engineering was on the right track!"

The storyline will span episodes four through six, perfectly timed to coincide with the crucial November sweeps ratings period. When these 20 genetically-engineered relics from the Eugenics era threaten to incite war with the Klingon Empire, Enterprise recruits Arik Soong to help Starfleet track down the renegades. Their pursuit leads them all the way to a never-before-seen part of space called the Borderland between the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate.

"What I really wanted to do this season is make the episodes that I as a Star Trek fan would have to see," Coto said. "You know, as a fan of the original series, if I heard that they were doing the Orion slavers and the Eugenics Wars, I would have to be in front of that TV."

Later in season four, Coto said there will be a three-episode arc that will deal with a Vulcan civil war, a storyline that will explain the difference between the Enterprise Vulcans and those in later time periods. "Our Vulcans lie, our Vulcans are monolithic, our Vulcans are not pacifistic. What we've done is develop an idea: What if an individual appears on Vulcan who is saying to the populace that we have strayed from the teachings of Surak? This individual is like a Martin Luther. And he spawns a Vulcan civil war."

Coto plans to draw explicit parallels between the 16th century Reformation in Europe and the events happening on Vulcan. "I'm equating the Vulcan High Command with the Catholic Church, which in medieval times strayed from the teachings of Christianity; similarly, the Vulcan High Command has strayed from the teachings of Surak. This individual wants to bring us back to those teachings, but it causes instability on Vulcan because he's preaching pacifism, he's preaching pure logic, he's preaching a return to the old ways."

For further information on Manny Coto's plans for season four, head over to StarTrek.com.

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