Enterprise Season 1 Hosted a Major Star Trek Crossover 23 Years Ago

23 years ago, Star Trek: Enterprise hosted one of the biggest crossovers of Rick Berman’s era that Star Trek fans need to see, or experience again. Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air in 2005 after four seasons on UPN (United Paramount Network), but the first Star Trek prequel series includes many treasures, like secret crossovers.

Star Trek: Enterprise‘s voyages of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the NX-01 Enterprise came at the tail end of executive producer Rick Berman’s stewardship of the Star Trek franchise, which lasted about 18 years. Enterprise faced issues like franchise fatigue as fans had been inundated with hundreds of hours of Star Trek.

However, Star Trek: Enterprise often pulled out all the stops, taking advantage of its ties to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager’s roster of actors and creative teams. Rick Berman and his executive producing partner, Brannon Braga, found ways to make Enterprise a forerunner to the TNG era that happens 200 years later.

Star Trek: Enterprise season 1, episode 19, “Acquistion,” not only revealed that Captain Archer’s Enterprise encountered the Ferengi two centuries before Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) made the official First Contact, but the episode was an ingenious crossover with Star Trek of years past.

Enterprise Season 1 Hosted One Of The Biggest Star Trek Crossovers Of Rick Berman’s Era

Star Trek: Enterprise season 1’s “Acquisition” was a subtle but still epic crossover with famous names from Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, all playing brand-new, greedy Ferengi.

Ethan Phillips played Ulis on Star Trek: Enterprise. Phillips played Neelix, the Talaxian chef and the USS Voyager’s ‘morale officer,’ for seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager. Phillips has also popped up elsewhere in Star Trek, like playing a holographic maitre d in Star Trek: First Contact.

Jeffrey Combs has played multiple roles throughout Star Trek, including Krem in Enterprise’s “Acquistion.” Combs alternated between playing Ferengi Liquidator Brunt and several versions of the Vorta, Weyoun, on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jeffrey also recurred as the Andorian Commander Shran on Enterprise.

Jeffrey Combs returned to voice the malevolent A.I., AGIMUS, in Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Clint Howard was one of the original Star Trek guest stars, playing Balok as a child in the 1960s episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver.” Howard plays Muk in Star Trek: Enterprise, and he returned for another guest role in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8, “Under the Cloak of War.”

Matt Malloy played Star Trek: Enterprise “Acquisition’s” fourth Ferengi, Grish. A veteran actor with dozens of movie and TV credits, Malloy is the only one of the four Ferengi actors who hadn’t appeared in Star Trek before or since.

Why Most Fans Didn’t Notice Enterprise’s Star Trek Crossover

Star Trek: Enterprise bringing in three major actors from previous Star Trek generations, and introducing the Ferengi into Enterprise‘s 22nd century canon, should have been a bigger deal than it was, or how it’s remembered by Star Trek fans.

A downside of hiding a gaggle of famous faces under Ferengi makeup and prosthetics is that it undermined the impact of having Ethan Phillips, Clint Howard, and Jeffrey Combs guest star on Enterprise together, no matter how recognizable their voices are.

Unfortunately for Enterprise, a considerable segment of Star Trek fans didn’t check out the prequel show during its first run on UPN, and Enterprise wasn’t highly regarded by hardcore Trekkers.

In recent years, however, with the advent of streaming and binge-watching, Star Trek: Enterprise has found a greater appreciation, with new audiences discovering the show, and older fans checking out and enjoying what they missed in the early 2000s.

To be fair to Star Trek: Enterprise‘s “Acquistion,” over 5.2 million watched the episode’s first run on UPN in 2002. It’s a respectable number, but far below Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s phenomenal ratings when it was in first-run syndication over a decade prior.

Star Trek: Enterprise Is Infamous For Its Finale TNG Crossover

Riker and T'Pol in Enterprise finale copia

The crossover Star Trek: Enterprise is most famous for is its reviled series finale, “These Are The Voyages…”. in which Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis guest-starred as Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi.

Star Trek: Enterprise‘s executive producers intended the series finale to be a love letter to the fans that tied Scott Bakula’s prequel to TNG, underscoring the importance of Captain Archer’s Enterprise to the greater Star Trek canon.

Instead, the endeavor badly backfired, as Enterprise‘s finale was really an ersatz episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation about Commander Riker, with Star Trek: Enterprise‘s cast merely appearing as holograms.

“These Are the Voyages…” is still looked down upon by Star Trek fans to this day.

Enterprise’s Biggest Star Trek Crossover Never Happened

Unfortunately, a crossover that would have been even bigger and more historic than Jonathan Frakes’s appearance as Commander Riker on Star Trek: Enterprise never happened, and it would have guest starred William Shatner.

William Shatner and writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens proposed an idea for Shatner to appear in Star Trek: Enterprise season 4 as his evil Mirror Universe counterpart, Tiberius Kirk. Tiberius and Captain Archer would have met in a pocket dimension in an epic event.

However, budgetary concerns over William Shatner guesting on Star Trek: Enterprise, and the die already being cast by UPN that Enterprise would end with season 4, nixed what would have been a monumental crossover. Instead, Star Trek: Enterprise did a two-parter set in the Mirror Universe without Shatner.

Meanwhile, Star Trek: Enterprise season 1’s “Acquisition” is a tremendously entertaining romp that’s well worth watching for a handful of famed Star Trek guest actors playing the Ferengi at their greediest and most gullible as they’re outwitted by Captain Archer, Subcommander T’Pol (Jolene Blalock), and Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer).