Star Trek: Enterprise executive producer Rick Berman told the official Star Trek Communicator magazine that he's confident UPN will pick up the ratings-challenged series for a fourth season, according to a report on the TrekToday Web site. "I am confident ... that we are going to get a season four from UPN," Berman told the magazine after the filming of this season's final episode, "Zero Hour." The magazine asked whether Enterprise would be shopped around to other networks if UPN declined to pick it up. "I would think that, just for the general sense of stability, our primary goal is to keep the show going on UPN," Berman said. "If it is not picked up on UPN, and it could be picked up elsewhere, that would be a terrific thing as well."

Berman said that rumors of the show's potential demise have made things "difficult at times." "TV is a business that relies on yearly pickups, and we have been very blessed that we have had lots and lots of those," he added, referring to the regular renewals of previous Trek series. "To have to deal with the anxiety of not knowing whether a show is being picked up or not is par for the course in TV production."

Berman added that he appreciated fan efforts to keep the show alive, including the Hollywood Reporter ads placed by the Enterprise Project. "I never know whether it helps, but it certainly is appreciated by everybody on the crew and the cast of the show," he said. "I have seen that the fans of Angel have been doing the same kind of thing on a regular basis now. I know that it was fan protest that brought the original series back for its third season, so I have no idea. We appreciate it, though, and every little bit helps."

Despite Enterprise's being "on the bubble," Berman and his writing staff have already begun planning for season four. He said the the final episode, "Zero Hour," will set up a mini arc for the beginning of the new season. But, he added, "If I tell you more right now, I will give away the ending of the season. ... My feeling is that Enterprise will probably not go back to the first and second season job of simple exploration of space. I think there will be missions, but not missions that are anywhere as lengthy as what we have done with this 25-episode Xindi arc. I think that we will probably be dealing more with smaller arcs, maybe arcs of three, four or five shows. We see season four [as] being as different from season three as season three was from season two." Enterprise airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

And now Berman concedes that time migh be up on Enterprise (taken from todays USA Today):

Not a good sign when the head of the franchise comes to the same conclusion as us, only several months later...... :(

I'm confused with these dates being thrown around - weren't we supposed to getting an Enterprise-future based announcement today?

The 12th was one of the dates being banded about. That was the day that construction of the season 4 sets was due to begin.

We'll know for definite though on the 20th, that's the day UPN breaks their Fall schedule.