Warp Five 47: A Horror Story Gone Wrong

Extinction Rewrite.

As much as we love Star Trek, not all episodes can be winners. Every series has a few stories that leave you wanting more. Often there's a great setup that goes unexplored, leaving you with thoughts of how it could have played out. That's when you rewrite. Enterprise fumbled on the third play of a long drive to find the Xindi superweapon in an episode called "Extinction." Director LeVar Burton has said he is embarassed to have been part of it, and exective producer Brannon Braga said it's the single most embarassing moment of his Star Trek career. But is the episode really that bad?

In this episode of Warp Five we're joined by Tyler Johnson to explore the seeds of a good story that can be found in this episode about a society that engineered a mutagenic virus as a last-ditch effort to preserve their civilization. We share what we like about the episode, what we dislike, and what we would do differently if we were sitting at the writers' table—and we do it all while enjoying a juicy Georgia peach.

Chapters

Worst Episode Ever? (2:37)

Episode Synopsis (7:01)

What We Like About Extinction (12:26)

What We Dislike About Extinction (16:22)

Chris's Rewrite (21:07)

Tyler's Rewrite (29:02)

Final Thoughts (39:16)

Closing (42:29)