"I have to be honest with you. For me as an actor, I guess because I'm involved in our world here, subconsciously I know everything is framed by 9/11 now," Bakula told the online magazine. "But when I got the script I wasn't thinking, "Oh, we're going to take advantage of the 9/11 disaster and use it to our advantage." This is really more about a direction for our series. ... But I hope that it's compelling, and I hope it gets the fans ... from what I understand, there's a tremendous interest and excitement in the fan base around the world, right now, about this final episode."

Berman and Braga intimate that they have long-term plans for the Xindi arc, saying that it will fit into the overarching STAR TREK history despite the seeming lack of knowledge about it in the previous, future-based series. Says Braga:

"These are things we play with as we develop the Xindi and their role on this Star Trek show. There may be reasons we've never heard of them. You know what I'm saying."

Berman continues, "By the time we're done with this arc, there's going to be a reason why the Delphic Expanse has not been discussed by Capt. Kirk or Capt. Picard."

Berman says the show's tone will take a dramatic shift next season.

"Gone are the days of the first two seasons where these people were getting their sea legs," he says. "Where these people were taking their first steps out in space. It think they're going to be a lot more self assured, and I think they're going to a lot more mission-oriented in terms of going out there and getting a very urgent job done."

Bakula says he thinks the arc will allow the show to really hook an audience.

"...it's not like I'm not a fan of the prior Star Trek franchises where it was kind of a planet every week," he says. "But ... it just feels like the right time to really get into something that has arc, that will survive not just the standalone episodes per se. That will have something for the fans to really hook onto every week and really get involved with. So I'm very excited about it."

Braga says despite the intentions, the coming arc will contain many more contemporary parallels.

"...what you have in this case is a series of preemptive strikes [where] Archer begins to unravel the mystery and it may very well be that you don't know where the first strike happened. It becomes an interesting question."

Jolene Blalock's 'T'Pol', who resigned her Vulcan High Command commission in the finale, will undergo a slight metamorphoses in the new season as well. Says Berman:

"She's going to stop wearing her, so to speak, her Vulcan High Command uniform. We're going to start seeing different outfits on her. I think we're going to see some slight changes in her hairdo. I think it's going to be fun to see a slightly less austere T'Pol."

Berman says the staff is always very conscious of so-called continuity issues and tries to respect all the previously established history.

"When we started with the concept of a prequel three years ago we realized that we had to pay great care to the Star Trek mythology. But we always did, because when you're dealing with science fiction you not only have to deal with the past, you have to deal with the future. Ever since we got involved with Star Trek: The Next Generation 16 years ago, we had to tread very carefully in waters that touched on things that dealt with the history of various species and various things that happened in Gene Roddenberry's original series. We've had to deal with that over the years in both movies and television series. We've had to deal with that more closely here because we're dealing with a time that precedes Capt. Kirk and Capt. Picard. It's really no different now. We treat Star Trek mythology with a great deal of respect. There are rules that we bend a little bit, but we try not to break them."

Bakula says the time is right for this change in attitude.

"I think it's a great opportunity for our part of the Star Trek history ... we parted ways with the Vulcans. We reached the point of being able to survive on our own and to make choices on our own and I think it's just natural that we're pushing that now."

You can read much more in the extensive interview, including remarks about the feature franchise, the Borg appearance on ENTERPRISE and much more here.