That wasn't antimatter causing the smoke and flames if it had been antimatter NX-01 would have been destroyed my guess is the flames are ignition of cooling agents such as hydrogen .or a power overload causing electronic systems to fry and short circuit.

Naw it was just trying to be dramatic. No need to make excuses for the producers/directors/etc. TOS was able to convey those same messages without the nonsense.

It was explained as an overload and some components were burned or fused because of it and yes it was done for dramatic purposes plus the Warp engines of NCC 1701 are of a generation almost a hundred after those of NX-01 plus Warp drive and a Warp five engine were still in their infancy so you would expect the later Warp engines to be much faster, much better ,more efficient,more reliable and more safe.

Current-day nuclear powered ships/submarines/etc, can have just STEAM LEAKS that can decapitate, sever limbs, etc, if walked past. And that's just a leak, not some kind of "overload" or whatever. I just don't think they took that stuff seriously enough.

Like a said before it a science fiction tv show made to entertain not some PBS science special otherwise you should watch Netflix they have plenty science documentaries over there.It was done because of "dramatic license"

Okay, but flames and smoke and steam on an antimatter-powered starship seems like something from Irwin Allen a la "Lost In Space" or "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" etc. If anything, that might have been forgiven on a contemporaneous show like TOS, not almost four decades later on Enterprise.

I don 't hink it was steam but rather gasses being heated too much ,gasses probably used as a coolant for the super magnets to create a force field to contain the anti-matter.Hey at least it's not a spore drive ,driven by microscopic bug

Well there is that, yes. The "spore drive," and large teddy bears that can cross the universe pretty much instantaneously while somehow surviving in a vacuum at temps approaching absolute zero, just by THINKING about it, was serious BS claptrap nonsense. But like one of the many things that put me off the "reboot" Trek movies - having Scotty (I think it was) materialize inside the cooling system of an antimatter-powered starship but it's just a "hahahah" moment and he's not instantly killed - I don't believe any kind of coolant for an antimatter-powered starship leaking out in clouds, would NOT be quite fatal. (Like the phaser coolant in "Balance Of Terror".) Here's another example: liquid sodium used for cooling just regular (not antimatter) nuclear reactors. If that leaks, it explodes on contact with the moisture in the atmosphere. You don't get clouds. You get BOOOOMMMM!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnR3Tyrg_10

But it wouldn't be "boom tomorrow." It would be "boom RIGHT NOW!"

Yes one has come in contact with sodium quite often during a past time job and is very familiar with it's properties it reacts instantly with water forming hydrogen gas and sodium hydroxide.But one was thinking about cooling superconductors to power the electromagnets that contain the antimatter in a magnetic field (Enterprise has those magnetic field in that episode where Scotty trying to stop the Warp engines where he has to change the polarity of a tool to work in those magnetic fields)gasses like nitrogen or helium .

But it would have to be LIQUID nitrogen or helium. And then you have those other problems, like the liquid metal Terminator in "T2," and of course Christian Slater in this posted-elsewhere clip from "Mindhunters:"

https://youtu.be/k_FMGQcSLJ8?t=126

yes liquid until it is heated and becomes a gas hence the "steam" but maybe not nitrogen but helium (but then they would talk with these Donald Duck voices)but hey it looked dramatic and that was it's purpose

But when it turns from liquid to gas, as in that clip, it's still freakin' COLD. As with the steam leaks on a nuclear-powered ship. It's not just "oh yeah, it's steam, so what" like you get from a pot of soup or a tea kettle. It's SUPER-HEATED steam, and also under incredible PRESSURE.

Well because it was probably CO2 gas they used because actor's union laws and labour safety rules don't allow actors to be subjugated to dangerous situations you just have to use your imagination I guess