Andre, recent reports have named the season finale "Shockwave." Can you confirm this title, and without spoiling the episode, can you give us any general story tidbits about ENT's first season finale?
I probably shouldn't try to confirm or deny anything -- and certainly you wouldn't want me to spoil all the surprises coming up in future episodes!
Will it be a cliffhanger, and can you tell us anything about the guest cast in the finale?
Even if I gave away that much, Paramount might try to take away my phase-pistol.
Have we seen the last of the Andorians this season?
I think so. I get a little confused about what's been aired vs. what we've written, but I don't think the Andorians are coming back this season. Wouldn't count them out for next season, though. Shran is great.
Mayweather has been largely absent since "Fortunate Son." Will he see more prominent action this season?
Yes, he has prominent roles in a couple of upcoming episodes.
So far you've written the script for "Silent Enemy," a very well received episode. Do you have any additional scripts coming up before the end of the season?
I wrote the script for episode 24, based on a story developed by Rick and Brannon. We did a couple of days of location shooting out in the desert, which looks great. Without giving away too much, I suppose I can tell you that the episode explores the impact of some of Archer's earlier decisions in his dealings with certain alien cultures.
Would that be "Two Days and Two Nights" (possibly no longer the title) or "Vox Solis?"
Think Desert...
Desert Crossings?
Ding Ding Ding!!!
The pleasure planet Risa will be making an appearance later in the year and TNG star Michael Dorn has commented that he will be directing (or has already done so). Along with this week's Ferengi and the Klingons, ENT has not hesitated to re-use elements from previous series. Can you tell us the reasoning behind using Risa or does the location of "Two Days and Two Nights" (possibly no longer the title) have little relevance to the overall story?
The Ferengi episode is lol funny. And I think "purists" will appreciate the way we preserve the idea that Picard was the first "Captain of record" to make contact with the Ferengi. Michael Dorn is directing for us, and the episode does invovle a planet familiar to Trek fans. It's fun for us to take some established elements from other series and weave them into our episode, because the audience gets to see those elements through the eyes of Archer and the rest of this crew, who have a much different perspective, being the new kids on the block.

Rick Berman indicated in a recent interview that the decision has been made to introduce the Romulans on Enterprise. When will we see them and has the writing staff begun discussions about the Romulan appearance?
We haven't talked about it yet, but if that's the case, I'm looking forward to it.
First off, I would like to say that Silent Enemy was one of the best Enterprise's to date. The enemy seemed Romulan, until we saw our CGI friends. Was this ever planned to be a Romulan entrance, or am I too much of a fan-boy?
Thanks for the compliment. I wondered whether they might be Romulans until we decided to do a CGI alien effect. I think the technology of their ship, though, was too sophisticated for Romulans in this era, so that argued against making them Romulans too.
Great job on "Silent Enemy." Do you have a long term plan for the second season in terms of the continuing development of the temporal cold war, the Vulcan relations with Earth, the founding of starfleet (how the various militaries and space programs came together), or the founding of the Federation?
We don't have a long term plan per se, but we certainly plan to explore all of those questions over the course of time. Those are all (dare I say) fascinating questions in the history of the Trek universe, and I think we want to make at least some of that history come about in ways that are unexpecting and surprising for long-time fans, but still consistent with established Trek history.
Do you anticipate that Enterprise will have a fairly tight episode to episode continuity -- ala Babylon 5 -- or feature mostly bottle shows like Voyager often did?
I doubt we'll ever be as tightly plotted over the course of a season as B5 was. Most of the episodes we write are self-contained -- literally episodic. But later in this season you will begin to see some story arcs that bridge over more than one episode.
I know many fans feel that further serialization would help make ENT stand out more as a contemporary show and forge a core group of dedicated viewers who want to tune in week to week. Do you think Paramount should loosen the restrictions on serialization (for the sake of preserving syndication)?
(for instance, almost all major successful shows except Law & Order are more serialized than ENT).
That's a tough call. I'm not sure if that would be a better direction for the show or not. It isn't clear to me that it would have much impact on syndication one or the other (look at ER for example), but I suspect that for the time being most of our episodes will be stand alone, as The Original Series was.
What are the chances of us seeing Tobin Dax (Dax host at time of ENTERPRISE) on Enterprise? Also, will you ever attempt to slip in a reference to DS9 in one of your scripts?
Right now we're steering clear of characters that were establised on other series (for the most part). Certainly Tobin Dax and some others fit into the mid-22nd century chronology. It might be fun somewhere down the road to run into some of the people who have been know to haunt the Trek universe in this era.

I noticed that the Vulcans have tractor beams and the klingons have photon torpedoes. I am hoping that other alien civilizations don't have more technology that the future Federation has. I would like to know if the Federation came up with its own tech or did they get their tech from other civs? I think it would be better if Starfleet actually came up with their own tech ather then to see it with other aliens.
It's probably a bit of both, but for the most part, other alien races don't seem to be all that interested in sharing their tech with humans. We're going to just have to fugure out on our own.
A lot of fans have wondered how, in "Broken Bow," the Enterprise could get from Earth to Qu'onos so quickly - only four days, which puts it about a light-year away. Are you using a new warp speed scale, or is there some other variable - space dust, subspace, etc. - that affects travel times?
That's a good question. One could also ask how Enterprise 1701-A got to the center of the galaxy (30,000 lightyears away) in just a few days. With respect to Kronos, perhaps there is a subspace eddy or some other phenomenon that effectively boosts speed and reduces travel time on certain courses. My guess is that Kronos is probably no more than a couple of dozen light years from Earth.
Enterprise seems to be displaying a lack of comprehension and depiction of real science in recent episodes. Comets with Earth gravity in "Breaking the Ice"; geologically-active planets with no Sun to create tidal forces and big leafy forests on the same sunless world in "Rogue Planet." Watching Star Trek is all about accepting far-flung concepts like warp drive, transporters, time travel, even holodecks. As the former science consultant, can you explain how this interpretation may be incorrect, or if accurate, how these problems made it into the final script?
The high surface gravity of the comet was unrealistic, but I hope you'll give us a little dramatic license there. It's very hard to produce convincing low gravity effects given the time constraints on our show. The rogue planet, on the other hand, is on much firmer scientific footing. There are rogue planets in our galaxy. Geologic activity has very little or nothing to do with tidal forces; it's driven by a planet's internal heat, which comes mostly from radioactive decay in the planet's core, and to a lesser extent from residual accretion energy (energy of formation).
As far as the leaves go, they could be big in order to gather photons from starlight (if you've ever been somewhere completely isolated from artificial light, you know how much light there can be from the stars and Milky Way), or the leaves may have nothing to do with photosynthesis. Leaves are also important for respiration in plants. One of the things I hoped that episode would do is stimulate discussion among science-oriented fans of the show about whether or not a class-M environment could be sustained on a rogue planet. It's a very interesting question with no cut-and-dried answer.
Was there ever consideration of making that the central premise for investigation in the episode rather than the character-oriented Archer plot?
I think it was always the main reason Archer wanted to go down there. He's an explorer, and a rogue planet with class-M "oases" would be impossible for him to resist.