JUST KEEP TREKKIN': Last season, "Star Trek: Enterprise" hit a creative high point with the lengthy Xindi arc, and there's been just as much energy this season, which has so far featured a zingy guest stint by "Next Generation" star Brent Spiner and a swell three-parter set among battling Vulcans. Yep, there's plenty of life left in the old spaceship.

According to executive producer Manny Coto, the next upcoming mini-arc will focus on Capt. Jonathan Archer's attempts to forge an alliance among the cranky Andorians (they're the blue guys with wiggly antennae on their heads, whom the Enterprise has already met several times), the Vulcans and a species called the Tellarites, in a bid to thwart the wily Romulans.

"The Tellarites are a species who basically interact through insults. So there's some fun stuff there," Coto says. "After that, we'll be doing a two-parter with Klingons, which will begin to explain why the Klingons in the original [`Trek'] series are different than the Klingons in the later series," though the Klingon two-parter deals with much more than just the fierce race's appearance.

Coto says that at this stage, there are still no concrete plans to bring William Shatner to "Enterprise" this season, though he'd love to make that happen if possible. "I'm not sure what's happening there, it's probably a combination of money and scheduling and all that," Coto says of Shatner, who just received a Golden Globe nomination for his work on "Boston Legal."

Could Spiner return before the year is out? Coto says he wouldn't "rule it out."

Season 5 of "Enterprise," if there is one, will explore the founding of the multi-planet Federation, Coto says. But will "Enterprise" come back next year, given that fewer total viewers are tuning in to see the show now that it's been moved to Fridays?

"Enterprise's" renewal won't be decided until May, UPN head Dawn Ostroff says, but she adds that "We've gotten great feedback from fans. … The show is at a great place [creatively] and we're very happy with the ideas and execution."

Coto talks more below about where the show is now and where it's headed:

On whether having Brent Spiner on the show was partly a bid to bring "Trek" fans back to "Enterprise": "Absolutely. We had Brent coming in and that was a great opportunity to get people who hadn't tuned in a while to come back. And a lot of those people stuck around for the Vulcan arc, from what I've read on fan sites."

On feedback from UPN regarding ratings this season (on its new night, "Enterprise" has fewer total viewers than it had last season, but UPN is now getting higher ratings than it was last year on Fridays): "I don't even know the answer to that. I haven't spoken to anyone at the [ratings] performance, so I'd be talking in the dark. I don't know if they're happy or not. It's still pretty much up in the air [whether there will be a season 5]."

On his goals for the show: "We consciously set out to make this season a real prequel, to really embrace the prequel concept. We've got a great stories coming up, and I think there's a whole seasons' worth of great stuff, the founding of the federation.

"That's not something that can happen in three episodes at the end of the season – but we'll be headed toward the founding of the Federation [toward the end of season four]. I would love to make that a season-long arc, what's great about it is that it's a positive arc, instead of a story of pure conflict [like the Xindi arc]. It becomes an arc about trying to bring different cultures together.... which is a really resonant idea for our time. I would love to come back and we would do some serious research on the founding of the UN, how that came together."

On the final multi-episode arc of the season: "We'd like to bring our sights back to earth, to feature areas or landscapes of Starfleet we haven't seen, the Martian colony, the moon colony, our own solar system. The final story [of the season] will be mankind overcoming its own prejudices, to begin this process of [founding] the Federation. The last challenge will be our own solar system. The final obstacle will be ourselves."

On Trip and T'Pol's romance: "We are going to revisit that and scale it back so it won't be so prominent. I will say that they're heading toward an interesting culmination to their story this season."

On working with Jeffrey Combs, who plays Shran the Andorian (as well as several other memorable characters on various "Trek" series): "Jeff as Shran and Archer are so great together. [Shran] quickly became a favorite character on the show, so we knew we had to bring him back. [On set, Combs] has this incredible energy, he's like a pit bull with antenna."

On an upcoming "mirror universe" episode: "We're really excited about that one. It'll be as if you changed the channel to `Enterprise' and you get the mirror universe version of the show. We're even going to change the title sequence. People will be wondering, what show is this?"

Other tidbits:
"We'll see the return of the Orion slave girls. We're going to find out something very interesting about Orions and who rules their society. [Will this episode will include a love interest for Archer] Perhaps."
"The heart of the [upcoming] Klingon story features a conflict between Archer and [crew member Malcolm] Reed and the beginnings of [covert Starfleet intelligence group] Section 31."

The ideas sound terrific. If only Manny had gotten started earlier...

which is a shame, since I'm guessing viewership will probably pick up some once they start releasing the DVD sets.