Chris

I expect it sounded like a good idea in the pitch meeting but the reality is that many of the technologies invented for Star Trek were convenient storytelling devices, and devising a series in which they were at least partially absent was always risky. Photon torpedoes and deflector shields ensure you don’t write yourself into a corner every week, even if you’re creating stories with believable peril. The ability to blow stuff up while not getting blown up is very handy. Likewise, the transporter is the absolute classic example of simplified storytelling and many sequences especially in early episodes of Enterprise demonstrate just what an inspired device it was in the original series and how the writers struggled to maintain pace and interest in Enterprise.

Then of course, when they finally got bored with the restrictions of the period they themselves had chosen to write in, they threw in the towel and invented time wars as an excuse to bring in all the convenient high tech and spangly effects they thought they could do without.