10 Star Trek Production Secrets Behind These Cliffhangers
8. Space Nazis
When all else fails, Vampire Space Nazis should make for an interesting ending!
The third season of Enterprise raised the overall quality of the show. The Xindi Arc was a daring move by the producers. They introduced a season long story which was the first time that Star Trek had committed so many episodes to a single plot thread. The writing became darker and the stories, overall, became far more intriguiging.
When the final episode of the season, Zero Hour, arrived, there was a problem. Although the show was getting better, the viewers were dropping off. Cancellation seemed imminent. This, Connor Trinneer reflected on the Season 4 DVD extras, led to the decision to introduce a very confusing ending to the episode.
With the Xindi and Sphere Builder threats taken care of, Enterprise returns to Earth to find that Starfleet is not responding to any of their hails. Tucker and Mayweather take a shuttle pod to the surface, only to be fired upon by old-style WWII era aircraft. The scene then cuts to a hospital tent, where three Nazi officers look down at the burnt form of Captain Archer. Out of the dark, a Vampiric face looms forward and the episode ends.
Zero Hour makes zero sense, on its own. Trinneer believed that the ending was included as a warning to the studio. It was so unsatisfying that, if the show was cancelled, fans would blame them for such a wildly left of center plot to be abandoned.
The show was renewed for a fourth and final season, one that saw this Nazi threat dealt with in the opening two-parter.