The day before the announcement of the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, we talked with Manny Coto about the excellent fourth season and what we can expect to see in the lead up to the show's finale in May.

What can we reveal about the last few remaining shows to go into production, and/or the finale?

I'd rather hold off on the finale. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are writing it and if they want to spoil it I'd rather have them spoil it themselves! But I will say that it does not involve time travel. That's as much as I will say. And, it's a very cool story.

After we spent this season going to Andoria, Vulcan, seeing the Tellarites, the Romulans … the last two episodes before the finale bring us back to Earth. The first episode, "Demons," refers to our own personal demons. Humanity is having one last hurdle to overcome in forming the Federation, in fact we find that the last hurdle isn't going to come from Romulans, it isn't going to come from Klingons, it comes from our own last vestiges of intolerance. There is a charismatic leader on Earth, who is opposed to the forming of the Federation, who is a student of history and is taking his lessons from Colonel Green, who will be played by Peter Weller. Who, by the way, is perfect for this part.

When did you realize that the fourth season was going to be the one where you would have more creative control, and thus be able to do more tie-ins with the Original Series era aliens and plot lines?

I think I realized it fairly early on. I was on the show when Season 4 got picked up, and Rick and Brannon brought me in and said, you're going to be running the writing staff, which also means I'm the one coming up with stories.

And they were O.K. with the new direction?

Oh yeah, they were excited. They were very supportive and a lot of great ideas for this season actually came from them as well. They weren't just sitting back listening to what I was saying, they were throwing ideas out and enhancing the stuff [the writing staff] came up with.

How successul, creatively, do you feel this season has been?

It's hard to say. It's a different year. I'm not sure it's better than Season 3. I love Season 3, and I really love Season 1. I guess the only season I can say it's definitely better than is Season 2! But it's a different season and it goes in a different direction, which I think is more fun. The show has taken a different turn and I think it's not the same show you watched last season. It has different elements. As far as being better, I'm not so sure. But it's been the most fun for me because, creatively, it's really more what I would like to do.

Are there any storylines you weren't able to fit in this year?

There was one I really wanted to do set on Stratos, the Cloud City [from "The Cloud Minders"]. I really wanted to do a two-parter on that location, to see Stratos in its earlier stages. That was a wonderful location and wonderful setting for a great two-parter. I also wanted to do an episode about the foundation of the first starbase — we would have called it "Starbase 1." It would have been really interesting to see the origins of a starbase.

Fortunately, we were able to get the Gorn and the Tholians in when we came up with the mirror universe concept (for "In a Mirror, Darkly") and realized we could get these in without violating continuity, which is working out real well.

So far, what do you feel are some of the high points of Season 4?

I like first episodes of all the arcs. I love "Borderland," I love "The Forge" (one of my favorite episodes of the season) and I love "Babel One." I'm really happy with every episode. There's only one episode that I'm less happy with, "Daedalus." But most everything in Season 4 I'm really proud of.

"Daedalus" is very good TOS-type story, even though you have your reservations.

Some people loved it. I felt the episode was lacking in energy, it was slow paced. I felt that there were some choices, directorially, that made it a little distant and hard to get into. I just found the episode a little cold, not warm and involving. But again, that's my assessment. It was meant to be a more introspective episode. [It followed two, three-episode story arcs.]

"Home" seemed reminiscent of episodes like TNG's "Family." Was that a conscious choice, to take stock, to show the crew in a different light after the heaviness of Season 3's storyline?

Yes, very much so. We'd just spent a whole year out in the Expanse and before we got into the 'adventure' episodes, I thought the crew needed to decompress and take stock of themselves and assess what the impact of the Xindi arc was. And that's the genesis of "Home." Which brings us back around to the last two episodes ["Demons" and "Terra Prime"]; the setup in "Home" was kind of the aftermath of Xindi xenophobia that grew up out of it, and that's paying off later. So the season makes a full circle.