Jonathan Frakes may have joined the Star Trek franchise as an actor, playing William Riker. But he will forever be attached to the franchise due to his contributions as a director too. Along with his The Next Generation co-star LeVar Burton, Frakes directed multiple episodes of the franchise, with his work being as recent as Strange New Worlds.
Frakes also reprised his role as Riker in several other shows, including the ill-fated series finale of Enterprise. The prequel series’ premature cancellation led to a hiatus in the franchise that lasted more than a decade, and the ending was quite controversial. Frakes agreed and mentioned that his appearance was unnecessary.
Star Trek: Enterprise wanted to please fans and brought in Jonathan Frakes in the finale
When the going gets tough, a good cameo can fix anything (just look at the MCU). After the original series’ cancellation in the ‘60s, Star Trek was revived in the ‘80s by original films and new spinoffs that lasted till the mid-2000s. While shows like The Next Generation became a global phenomenon, others like Deep Space Nine and Voyager had their own following.
However, the least popular of the ‘90s Star Trek shows was Enterprise. A prequel to the original series, Enterprise focused on the first Starfleet crew with warp 5 capabilities to travel the stars. Many origin stories of the world fans knew well were established and explored, but the series never found its footing and was cancelled after season 4.
The series finale, titled ‘These are the Voyages…,’ was controversial due to the death of a key character and its structure. The episode sees TNG’s Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reprise their roles as William Riker and Deanna Troi, and look to the past to solve a present problem.
Frakes mentioned to Variety that he was not happy with the direction,
We didn’t quite fit. It was sold as, ‘Oh, come on and do the episode, it will be a Valentine to the fans’ — it wasn’t a Valentine to the fans. The fans didn’t want to see us…And the inherent insult in having characters from another series that had done well come in to essentially close the books on his episode — it just felt so wrong to me.
The series was the first show since the original series to be canceled early, as TNG, DS9, and Voyager went on till season 7.
Jonathan Frakes felt Enterprise cheated its fans
Despite having an interesting premise, Star Trek: Enterprise struggled to get the ratings required to sustain itself and constantly had to undergo creative changes in its direction. While it was initially conceived to be episodic, by season four, it had become a serialized storyline focused on the main trio: Archer, Tripp, and T’Pol.
However, the series finale chose to open with TNG’s Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis, which seemed to take the attention away from actor Scott Bakula and the gang. Frakes said that while Bakula was graceful in accepting this decision, there was no way the fans would. He said,
I mean, it was a good episode. We had a blast doing it in many ways. The more I think about it, the more I hear from fans about it in particular, it may not have been the best choice we’ve made on ‘Star Trek.’ Again, they’re not all home runs. It’s just unfortunate that that was the last episode of that show.
The cancellation of the show led to the franchise taking a hiatus and concentrating on its big screen efforts, until 2017’s Star Trek: Discovery.
Star Trek: Enterprise is available to stream on Paramount+.
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