As Billingsley explained:
“I will say, and this has been pointed out to me, that at the end of the third season, it was revealed that the Xindi, too, were being manipulated. And you could argue that there was a … I won’t say anti-capitalist viewpoint, but certainly, an anti-colonialist viewpoint being expressed, which is always the thing that I’ve appreciated about Manny. He’s an extremely smart guy, he had an episode that was clearly taking on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.’
The Israeli-Palestinian interpretation is interesting, but Billingsley, an atheist, seems to have taken the correct lesson, saying: “From an atheist point of view, say, a pox on both of your houses to the extent that religion interferes with your capacity to actually get along.”
Billingsley also feels that “Enterprise” finally found a good balance of the dark and the light in its fourth and final season. The first, second, and fourth seasons captured the overall pitch for “Enterprise,” which was that it was Starfleet’s first time at everything, and there was a lot of exciting uncertainty.
“I tend to kind of have complicated feelings about the third season. I think the fourth kind of found that sweet spot. My feeling about the show is … that it’s both joyful and confusing. The first ship, the first crew. I liked the fact that the weapons malfunction, I liked the fact that we were afraid to transport, I liked the fact that there was a sense of, ‘Should we go, should we stay? What do we do?’ I kind of felt they got away from that too quickly.
Sadly, “Enterprise” did not get a fifth season to continue to explore, and never quite found its footing in a post-9/11 world. However, it was fascinating to watch it try.
