Manny Coto and others involved in the production of Enterprise have mentioned that they planned to make Shran a member of the bridge crew in season five. Their motives are pretty obvious: Make a popular guest star (and the excellent actor who played him) as involved as possible. In Coto’s own words, “get Jeffrey [Combs] Somehow.”
The question for me is, why would Shran have been willing to take up a (presumably subservient) position aboard Archer’s ship? Shran is frequently shown in command of Andorian Imperial Guard starships, which gives him significant practical and political power. He is clearly a man of action, and strongly dislikes feeling indebted to anyone. He certainly does not strike me as someone inclined to surrender a command position.
So, how could Shran’s intended presence on the bridge of the NX-01 be explained?
Every time I learn more about the cancelled seasons of ENT its super frustrating because it seems they kept the best things for later and then got canned.
I hope they deliver those seasons somehow, even if it’s just a shitty cartoon or animation series