Question: Why was Enterprise cancelled after only four seasons?
Answer: The same reason any show gets canceled, low ratings.
Not all shows get cancelled because of low ratings. Some get cancelled because they're too expensive to make.
Don't know why it had low ratings. IMO it was close to the best of Star Trek franchise.
Question: During the opening title sequence, one of the future shots, there is a shot of a starship flying over the camera. The engines (3 large, with 2 sets of 2 small ones in between, glowing blue) and the ship's movement look very similar to the star destroyer from Star Wars New Hope's opening shot. The theme for the Enterprise's opening is pioneering and exploration, and Star Wars was a revolution in special effects (and ILM has done some shots for Star Trek). Is this a tribute or just coincidence?
Answer: It is likely just coincidence. The ship in question is designed to show the state of space travel about halfway between the flight of the Phoenix and the launch of Enterprise. It is flying over the moon, to highlight the fact that in the early 22nd century, mankind was just mastering the colonization of our own solar system.
Question: What does the acronym M.A.C.O. mean?
Answer: Military Assault Command Operations. The shark on their patches is presumably a mako shark.
Question: Are lithium crystal ever mentioned in Star Trek Enterprise? I stopped watching the show after the first season but am curious if this was mentioned. I know that the first few episodes of TOS mentioned the use of "lithium crystals" instead of dilithium crystals and am just curious if that was explained in Enterprise.
Chosen answer: No, they are referred to as lithium crystals in one episode of TOS and dilithium after that. The name was changed as producers wanted something that wasn't found on Earth.
Question: Does anyone know how old Zefram Cochrane is or when he was born? He seemed pretty old in Star Trek: First Contact which takes place in 2063, and "Broken Bow" shows him still alive about 60 years later dedicating the Warp 5 complex with Captain Archer's father Henry.
Answer: Acording to the Star Trek Encyclopedia Cochrane was born in 2030. His warp flight was in 2063, and he himself disappeared from Alpha Centauri in the year 2117 at 87. Kirk met him on a planetoid in the Gsmms Canaris region in the year 2267 making him 237. The first episode of Enterprise is in 2151, so Cochrane was missing for 34 years by that time and would have been 121 at that time.
Answer: While ratings did drop, there was a lot going on to cause the rating drops and cancellation. First, "Enterprise" was on UPN, which was dissolved a year after the show was cancelled. At the time of cancellation, it was UPN's highest rated drama. Because they were on at night, they were often preempted by local UPN broadcast of baseball games. And it wasn't even aired in every market. They also lost a major corporate backer early and it was difficult for them to over come that loss. Plus, for season 4, they switched to a Friday night line up, so they were competing against Fox shows, like "The Simpsons" whereas on Wednesdays they didn't have much competition.
Bishop73