Star Trek: Enterprise Creator Calls Series Finale ‘A Slap In The Face’

The series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise ended Star Trek‘s 18-year television run on a sour note, and even the episode’s writer agrees.

Brannon Braga, the creator of Star Trek: Enterprise, wrote the series finale, “These Are the Voyages…” The episode followed Commander William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation (Jonathan Frakes) as he used the holodeck to learn about the Captain Archer and the Star Trek: Enterprise crew. In retrospect, Braga realizes that the concept sounded better on paper than in it turned out in practice.

“I thought it was the coolest thing ever when we were writing it, the idea of doing a ‘lost episode’ of The Next Generation, but they’re going to the holodeck to look back at Enterprise, [co-writer Rick Berman] and I thought was a great sendoff to Star Trek [the franchise as it existed in 2005], and it didn’t work out so well,” Braga admits during a panel at the Star Trek Las Vegas Convention (via Trek Movie). “It was a kind of a slap in the face to the Enterprise actors. I heard it from everybody, it was the only time Scott Bakula was ever mean to me. I regret it.”

It was an unfortunate end to a series that had finally seemed to find its way its fourth and final season under the stewardship of new showrunner Manny Coto after floundering through its first three.

“I think Manny had finally found the voice of the show, and season four should’ve been season one, and I think that the show should have continued,” Braga says.

Braga co-created of Star Trek: Enterprise, which took place 100 years before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series. He also served as the showrunner for the show’s first three seasons and once an integral part of the Star Trek franchise during its television boom of the 1990s and early 2000s. He’s now an executive producer on The Orville, Seth McFarlane’s comedic take on Star Trek.

The end of Star Trek: Enterprise isn’t Braga’s only Star Trek-related regret. He also co-wrote the movie Star Trek: Generations and isn’t entirely pleased with how that movie turned out especially Captain Kirk’s death.

Star Trek: Discovery, the first new Star Trek television series since Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air, will debut on CBS and CBS All Access in September. Like Enterprise, Discovery is a prequel, though set only a decade prior to Star Trek: The Original Series, where Enterprise was set a century prior.