Why weren't the romulans given more Episodes in enterprise?

[Tyjos Azari]

I think they were great in Enterprise First showing up in "Minefield."


But then it's like they were never mentioned again until later on in the last season.

Why is it the Romulans just don't get all the attention like the other races do?

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Why weren't the romulans given more Episodes in enterprise?

In a nutshell: the show got canned.

There was a big buildup in Season 4 (The Forge/Awakening/Kir'Shara, Babel One/United/The Aenar), and subsequent seasons would likely have involved the Romulan War.

It would have been glorious. [/Kor]

 

[Yug]

I think they were great in Enterprise First showing up in "Minefield."


But then it's like they were never mentioned again until later on in the last season.

Why is it the Romulans just don't get all the attention like the other races do?

It's part in consideration of the era that Enterprise took place. That's the tragedy too, based on the episode "Balance of Terror" from TOS, Starfleet apparently were to never have seen a Romulan face, and therefore not making any ancestorial connection to Vulcans, even during the war between the Starfleet and the Romulan Star Empire until that episodes time in Trek lineage 100 some years later. It would of been interesting to see how Enterprise's writers would have stuck to, or gotten around, that fact. The use of Rommie remote drones that could disguise themselves as "friendly" ships and create chaos, and perhaps war, among the future Federations founding races was one way to introduce the Romulans while keeping them hidden. An incident that led to a truce between the Andorians and Tellarites to deal with this common and shadowy foe... something was being put into motion, too bad it couldn't play itself out.

It would have been glorious. [/Kor]

Indeed !!!
A series of novels is being put out to deal with some of these missed opportunities and the Romulan War itself.

 

[T'Girl]

Part of it might have been that between Nemesis and the other four series we were all sick and tired of anything remotely Romulan. They are cardboard thin, run of the mill, xenophobic, plug into the script, villains of the week.

Be honest, they're just not that interesting.

 

[Timo]

[Gaff voice] Then again, who is? [/Gaff voice]

Romulans aren't any better or worse than yer average Trek plot element; it all depends on the quality of writing. ENT writers didn't try and avoid Klingons, even though those are pretty cardboardish as well. They did seem to avoid Romulans for the "Balance of Terror" reason, although we can't be sure it was the only reason, or even the leading reason.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tyjos Azari]

Still Just watched TNG's "Neutral Zone" and was thinking that it's just a shame the Romulans just don't get enough attention in the Star Trek Series.


At least I enjoyed them in Enterprise for sure!

 

[RandyS]

I think they were great in Enterprise First showing up in "Minefield."


But then it's like they were never mentioned again until later on in the last season.

Why is it the Romulans just don't get all the attention like the other races do?

Finally, somebody other than me liked "Minefield".

As for why they weren't seen much, TOS established that the war between Earth and Romulus was fought in deep space and niether side had seen the other until "Balance of Terror". If the Romulans had appeared on ENTERPRISE, the fans would have screamed about canon violations, so their involvement had to be kept to a minimum.

 

[Treknut]

I was hoping they where saving them up for a full blown war arc in season 5 or 6.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Being a "faceless" enemy presents some problems. You cant do the usual face to face, mano a mano types of conflicts.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Because Enterprise wasn't about the Romulans, it was about the Suliban, Future Guy and the Xindi.

 

[DevilEyes]

Because Enterprise wasn't about the Romulans, it was about the Suliban, Future Guy and the Xindi.

Actually, it was going to be about the Romulans in season 5, leading up to the war. http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise#The_would-be_Season_5 They were building up to that in season 4, while having to maintain the 'they can't see their faces' continuity.

 

[mythme]

Being a "faceless" enemy presents some problems. You cant do the usual face to face, mano a mano types of conflicts.

Given the right writers, it can be done. Sauron in LOTR comes to mind - huge epic and we never really see the villian.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Being a "faceless" enemy presents some problems. You cant do the usual face to face, mano a mano types of conflicts.

Given the right writers, it can be done. Sauron in LOTR comes to mind - huge epic and we never really see the villian.

I agree. ENT did a few Romulan episodes where they didn't meet face to face. I'm just not sure a long term story arc can work with those limitations

 

[Therin of Andor]

They did seem to avoid Romulans for the "Balance of Terror" reason, although we can't be sure it was the only reason, or even the leading reason.

We can, because Brannon Braga did several interviews, IIRC, where he said that putting the Romulans in any ENT episodes was tricky because anyone in Starfleet who saw their faces was probably doomed to die before the end of the episode.

 

[DarKush]

I disagree with T'Girl. I for one never tired of the Romulans and I don't think they got much focus even on TNG, which arguably had the most Romulan episodes of any Trek series. There was much of their history and culture not explored, and they were mainly used for stock villains. Even in NEM, a movie that was touted to be about Romulans, they took a backseat.

I had high hopes that ENT would correct that but they didn't. They instead decided to create new villains which had less appeal, nostalgia or otherwise than the Romulans. By the fourth season I think ENT was getting it right though. I think the Romulans being faceless presented a unique challenge but not an insurmountable one. Similar to how they used Future Guy, the Romulans could've used surrogates or proxies, like the Orions or even the Suliban to do their dirt for them. And the writers came up with the use of drone ships and spies like Talok. Also, they could just show scenes on Romulus where the audience knew who was really behind things, but the characters didn't. Or the identity of the Romulans could be top secret and not something widely known, sort of like it is in the ENT novels. Revealing the identity of the Romulans didn't have to be an automatic death sentence.

If anything, the 24th century Trek series overdid the Klingons, and ENT followed suit. As much as I liked them, I thought they didn't need to be in ENT.

 

[Spork111]

I seem to recall Brannon Braga addressing this in the build-up to season 3. When asked why they were creating a new adversary (the Xindi) instead of using the Romulans, I think he basically said that the Romulans had been done in other shows and that a new species gave them a more interesting and open field to play with (that also wasn't constrained by continuity).

I remember being disappointed to hear that. From day one of ENT I was anticipating the Romulan War, and even though Minefield gave us a sneak peak at the Rommies, once I heard about season 3's new direction and the Xindi, I knew in my heart of hearts we would probably never see it. It was really cool to see a bit more of them in season 4, however.

This is coming from a guy who actually liked the Xindi as an adversary and season 3 overall, but in the big picture it basically derailed any chance of covering the Romulan War in any meaningful detail.

 

[DarKush]

I agree. I think Braga and company just copped out. The Romulans had exposure and the name was recognizable, but they had very little development over the decades, as opposed to the Klingons, who IMO had been overexposed, and there was little that ENT did that added to them, except for the forehead origin, which I didn't have a problem with to be honest.

I think there was this reliance to go back to the most popular species, Klingons and Borg, by B & B, but in doing so they went to the well one too many times and actually made me tired of seeing them. Whereas the Romulans didn't seem to hold that much regard for them, though they were also a popular species. I figure that B & B just didn't get the Romulans, didn't find them interesting, and then projected their lack of interest onto the audience.

I liked the Xindi, I thought the Suliban were interesting, and it is true that you could do more with them than you could with established races like the Romulans. But to be honest, what exactly did they do with the Xindi or Suliban that couldn't have been done with the Romulans or Orions, for example? Its not like they wiped either race out, both were left standing by the end of the series. B & B didn't really get radical with either species, they played pretty safe with them, so why not go with established races that would excite a good portion of your fan base. I really enjoyed the Romulan episodes and the Orions from the Augment arc. I thought the Orion female episode was weak, but I still enjoyed seeing them. Same with the Andorians and Tellarites. I think ENT made a mistake by not using their time period to really show us more about Andorians, Tellarites, Orions, Romulans, and Earth. They did focus on Vulcans though and Klingons.