Set in the 22nd century, a hundred years before the events of The Original Series, it follows the adventures of the Enterprise, Earth's first starship capable of traveling at warp five, as it explores the galaxy and encounters various alien species.

Wanting a more basic, relatable, character-driven series, Berman and Braga concentrated on a core trio: Captain Jonathan Archer (played by Scott Bakula), Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer), and Sub-commander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock).

The first two seasons were characterized by stand-alone episodes that explored topics like humanity's early relations with the Vulcans, and first encounters with the Klingons and Andorians, aliens already familiar to franchise viewers.

It was renamed Star Trek: Enterprise, and was changed to focus on action-driven plots and a single, serialized storyline: the crew's mission to prevent the Earth being destroyed by a newly introduced alien species, the Xindi.

This has delayed human space exploration[2] and caused resentment in Starfleet test pilot Jonathan Archer, whose father developed the Warp 5 engine but did not live to see it used.

[16] Crewman Daniels (Matt Winston), introduced in the episode "Cold Front," was revealed as an operative from 900 years in the future who was fighting against the forces which included the Suliban.

Braga and Berman created the season-long Xindi story arc, which began with the second-season finale,[12] "The Expanse," and ran throughout the third season until it was resolved in the episode "Zero Hour."

While the fans online were suggesting that it could either be based on Starfleet Academy or the adventures of Hikaru Sulu, the producers took care that no information was leaked to reveal what the concept was going to be.

[44] The idea was for the series to portray the first deep space explorers in the Star Trek universe, with Braga explaining that everything would be new to the crew and that since the setting was closer in the timeframe to the modern day, their reactions to situations would be more contemporary.

[2] As part of this, they sought feedback from members of the submarine service of the United States Navy, which was reflected in certain design work on the series such as the Star Trek uniforms.

"[12] They sought to make Enterprise more character-driven than the previous series in the Star Trek franchise, and hoped that this would gain viewers who had watched The Next Generation but had lost interest with Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

[62] He brought writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens onto Enterprise,[63] who previously wrote books on the franchise's production, and worked with William Shatner on his Shatnerverse series of Star Trek novels.

[77] Randy Oglesby, Rick Worthy and Scott MacDonald had also appeared in a variety of roles within the franchise before taking on the recurring parts of Xindi council members throughout season three.

These teams were led by construction coordinator Tom Arp, who had previously worked on Deep Space Nine and a number of Star Trek films in the same capacity.

[85] At the time, this was cutting-edge for a TV show, allowing the production team improved low-light performance and enabling more shooting compared to chemical films.

[90] Other composers who worked on Enterprise included Paul Ballinger, David Bell, Jay Chattaway, John Frizzell, Kevin Kiner, Mark McKenzie, Velton Ray Bunch and Brian Tyler.

[101] The series was considered for cancellation at the end of the second season, with Paramount executives instead requesting a number of changes to renew it following a letter-writing campaign from fans.

[51][102] These included a change of name to Star Trek: Enterprise early in the third season; and a new action-oriented plot, which resulted in the development of the Xindi story line.

[68] Fans were resigned to cancellation at the end of the third season, but were surprised when the series was renewed,[51] due in part to a reduction in the fees Paramount was charging UPN per episode.

[109] Braga said at a talk to students in Los Angeles shortly after the news of the cancellation was released that "After 18 straight years on the air and 750-some episodes, the current run of Star Trek is over.

The producers also intended to bring Jeffrey Combs onto the series as a regular by placing his recurring Andorian character Shran on the bridge of the Enterprise in an advisory capacity.

[134] This was during the first full week of the new season on American television, and it was felt at the time that the combination of Enterprise alongside Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell would help to cross-promote each other due to the science fiction and fantasy genre links.

[136] After the first few weeks of episodes of Enterprise, the ratings were considered to be solid enough and the expectation was that the series would run for seven seasons in the same manner as The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

[160] Books released subsequent to the end of the series as part of the Star Trek: Enterprise relaunch covered topics such as the Earth-Romulan War,[161] and the initial years of the Federation.

[163][164][165] The film Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) references Enterprise with a model of the NX-01 in a collection depicting the history of flight in Fleet Admiral Alexander Marcus' (Peter Weller) office.

The pilot episode of Enterprise, "Broken Bow," was well received by critics, with Ed Bark for the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service saying that it all came together in an "impressive fashion,"[171] while Brandon Easton said in The Boston Herald that the cast was "impeccable" and the writing was "strong" despite the "limitations of a questionable premise.

"[25] Tom Russo proclaimed in Entertainment Weekly that "It's dead Jim – almost," attributing the lack of appeal of Star Trek: Nemesis and the dwindling ratings received by Enterprise as demonstrating that the franchise was tired.

One such criticism was from Gareth Wigmore in TV Zone who said that "Enterprise isn't so much reacting to current events as it is lazily picking items from the news to produce stories.

[51] Mark Perigard held a similar opinion in The Boston Herald, saying that William Riker "has no business walking the ship," and that the death of Tucker was "for no other reason than the show's creators realized at least one dramatic thing had to happen in the hour.

It also received sixteen nominations at the Saturn Awards, with the only wins coming following the first season, both being for Jolene Blalock in the Best Supporting Actress on Television and Faces of the Future categories.