Manny Coto Dreams of Cloud City...

[A l t e r E g o 9]

One person who has received much praise from the Star Trek fan base over the last couple of years is Manny Coto. In a recent interview with David Bassom for Star Trek Magazine Coto revealed that he and his team of writers had plenty of fresh stories left in the tank for what would more than likely have covered the whole of season 5.

 

When talking about the penultimate two episodes ‘Demons,' and Terra Prime,' Coto stated that he thought of those two episodes as more of a season finally, he amended by saying that to him Enterprise had two series enders. He also felt that season four for him started out with the episode home, and the xenophobia and prejudice towards Dr. Phlox in that episode was somewhat of a marker for the events seen in Demons,' and ‘Terra Prime,' So to Coto's mind it is kind of ironic that the series ended at a point where the grass roots were sawn for a ‘United Federation Of Planets'.

 

Coto revealed that had they got a 5 th year it would have followed directly on from the events in ‘Demons,' and ‘Terra Prime'.

 

“If we had gotten a fifth season, it would have been about the real meat of the Federation being founded,” he revealed to the magazine. “I would have melded that to a bit of a return to the exploration theme of the show. We would have found new members to join the Federation and watched it come together in a series of episodes that would have spanned the entire season.”

 

Season Four saw Coto able to fulfil two things on his personal wish list with the Mirror Universe story arc, had it come off fans would have had opportunity to see Cloud City again which was first introduced in the original series episode ‘The Cloud Minders'.

 

“Along with the Mirror Universe episodes, that was something I really wanted to do. I hoped to do it this season, but we just ran out of episodes! It's a pity. That probably would have been the opener to Season Five. It breaks my heart.”

 

When asked for some reasons why he feels that Star Trek: Enterprise did not perform to well in the US ratings Coto thinks that fans may have been looking for something new from Star Trek and feels that the formula for Trek may not have changes enough for the modern Science Fiction audience.

 

“Star Trek has been around for 18 years in this incarnation and it's the same old [format] – we're on the Bridge, here's the captain and the same kind of crew composition and interactions. When something fresher comes along like the new Battlestar Galactica, I can see the urge to tune in and see what else is new out there.”

 

One trend in Hollywood of late is re-imaginings, when Coto was asked about the chances of doing a remake of the original series he answered with the following.

 

“There's no doubt a re-imagining of the Original series would be fun, but it would close you off to a number of possibilities, and unnecessarily so. I would argue that the best thing would be to go to the 25 th Century. I would go foreword, and leave it open ended.”

 

In conclusion Manny Coto is proud of the work he managed to pump out on Star Trek: Enterprise and feels both proud and honoured to have been able to fulfil his boyhood dreams of working on a Star Trek show.

 

“Working on Enterprise really has been a dream come true,” he declares. “When I look back now, it seems like everything led me to Star Trek. Star Trek is the show that formed me as a lover of Science Fiction. So I don't regret working on Star Trek for a moment – I would actually be very open to working on Star Trek again, if that ever became an option. I've had a blast!”

 

You can read all of this interview as well as further comments on the future of Star Trek from David Bassom's brief Q&A with Manny Coto in the current issue of Star Trek Magazine.

 

By By Ian M. Cullen at Sci-Fi Pluse