On losing the audience of 'Star Trek: Enterprise': "I don't know exactly when they tuned out, but they did, obviously, somewhere along season one or two. We had a great season last year with the Xindi storyline and we still weren't able to get them back. For network shows, it doesn't seem particularly important for them to publicize the science fiction genre, or it wasn't that important for UPN to publicize our show. They sort of let that go and I don't think we had a lot of momentum in terms of backing from the network. But they have their own concerns. So I think it was a combination of things. I think different camps weren't in sync at the right time to draw in people.
Someone said that Paramount went to the well one too many times and our show just happened to be that walk to the well. I tend to agree with that. I don't think our numbers were really that much worse than Voyager or Deep Space Nine -- they were all in the same ballpark -- but the cost-to-viewer ratio of Star Trek reached a point when we were making Enterprise where it was no longer satisfactory to the studio. Star Trek was no longer cost effective.
Ultimately, that was what they were looking for. There was no point to go five years -- if you were going to go five years you were going to go seven. There's nothing for them -- they were going to get their package.
The funny thing is, most actors are actors because they couldn’t do math. At least I am!
I did yeah, terribly so. But oddly, it skipped a generation, because my son is obsessed with math and science and physics and calculus. And it’s a remarkable thing to watch because he seems to have a sense of understanding that I guess I never had. The older I’ve gotten, the more I can appreciate it, but really, for me, in terms of getting through school, math was always just…agh…here it comes…an hour of THIS.
I don’t know what this guy’s speech is. I have a feeling that … there are so many things in culture, science, our lives that Star Trek really introduced, in a way. The way we communicate now, all these things that they were doing, especially in the original series, that didn’t exist, ways in which we can evaluate people in medicine, that I’m sure he’s going to cover. But what I think I’ll do is … one, give my brief history of math in my own personal life and share my son’s love for it, and really the parent’s joy in watching somebody do things such as … he’d wake up in the morning, and we have a blackboard in our utility room that he would just fill with these equations, and when he’d get out of the shower he’d do it on the mirror, in the foggy mirror. He probably didn’t understand the totality of the equation itself but it doesn’t matter, it’s the interest.
Well, I’ve heard for years, “You should play George W. Bush,” and I’m like, “Shut up.” And you know, when prompted, I can do him, and I went into this audition and sat down and did the scene, and the casting director said, “Do that again.”
I did it again, and she’s like, “Not all the time…” and she points at the tip of her nose: “You can look just like him.” And I said, “Yeah, I’ve heard that.” And she said, “It’s kind of uncanny. I don’t know what’s going to happen here but it’s kind of uncanny.” And I said, “Well, thanks.” You know, at any audition, you do your thing, you walk out, and you try to forget about it.
And then I got it, and was immediately terrified.
A couple of ‘em. Out of the gate, episode three, I was pregnant. One thing about playing a man who’s pregnant, you want to get that right as best you can. So I really spent a lot of time thinking about what I knew from some of the things that happen to women when they get pregnant. Some of them weren’t in the script and I had them put them in.
Well... when he got emotional when he was eating the breadsticks. That wasn’t in the script, that he starts to cry. And they also put in a scene where he’s talking about how it would be really dangerous for a little one, ‘cause there was an elevator that had been worked on, in Engineering, from one floor to another. And I’d expressed some things, like, “I want him to have real emotional concern for the unknown, such as ‘What if a little kid walked in? What if a little one walked in here and had to shut this hatch? He could cut his finger off!’” I’m not sure that’s the exact dialogue but it was something to that effect.
Yeah. I get asked a lot: what would you have liked them to do more with your character? I’m always at a loss for words because I always felt like they handed me so much. And I’d get asked by the producers at the beginning of every year and at the end of every year, what are you looking forward to, at the end of the year, how’d you feel about your character development. I was always so impressed with how they handled him. Because early on the series, I got handed some episodes that if I didn’t do them well, they were probably going to write less for me. I don’t know, but I did hear that pretty quickly, the writers heard my voice—the character—and that made it pretty easy for them to write for me. So at the end of every year, I was always impressed and humbled by the things that they’d thrown my way.
I forgot about it all. I was just out there, trying to tell a story. And that’s, at the end of the day, what you’re doing. I mean yes, there’s this outside pressure from the fandom, and the responsibilities for carrying on the message through the canon, but just tell the story. Because it takes care of itself, because it’s Star Trek.
I think it’s time to do another one. It’s been, what ten or eleven years, something like that, and from what I’ve heard, don’t write this in stone, each season will be its own thing in that it’s not going to go necessarily in a linear fashion like this happened and then this happened and then this happened, like most of them did. They may jump years, they may do all sorts of things. But the people involved, it’s such an important franchise for [them], that they’ve got a lot of fingers in that pie to get it right. Sometimes that can be a bad thing but I think that there’s enough people involved that know what they’re doing that they’ll be in good shape. I’m excited about it.
The conventions!
In all honesty, the work is the work. You’re an actor, you go in there, you put on your costume, you create a character, and you go do your thing. But it was the conventions that were the big shocker to me, I didn’t know what to expect.
I, in fact, didn’t do one until it was near my hometown. My first one was in Portland, Oregon—I’m from Kelso, Washington, which is about 44 minutes away—and I did that one because my parents would come and I’d feel like I’d have somebody in the audience that still loved me!
But immediately, I was embraced by the fans, and it was a wonderful experience, and that whole world of the Trekkers … I knew nothing about. Zero. Since then, of course, I’ve become pretty well versed in the whole thing, having done a bunch of ‘em, but yeah, it was the outside stuff of the show that I wasn’t prepared for.
The work is the work.
Yeah! I’d almost say equally as important as the show itself.
My favorite color is blue!
I got to play the right guy for me. I really believe that. I hit the lottery with Trip. He had so much going on with him as we went along throughout the series and so many things put in front of him. Real dynamic storytelling was the plate that I ate off of every day. I would not trade having played Trip Tucker for any other part.
I’d almost died a couple of times before that anyway. It’s science fiction, nobody ever really dies in science fiction.
Anything can happen! I’ve thought about this. I’m like, “Could I be like Obi Wan, or R2D2, or Princess Leia, when they do a little video presentation of certain things you need to know, and all of a sudden Trip’ll pop up?”
He’s dead at that point, but you know … I think it would be no problem whatsoever to incorporate the soul of Trip Tucker into something.
I am a fiercely proud American. I like most Americans descend from immigrants. I am the product of their dream. Today I feel such shame.
I had the profound honor of telling the story of Trip Tucker.
I think Alice is in trouble. Folks are going for it in Yakima!
I loved the last episode. I had the profound honor of telling the story
I wish I knew what the rest of this sign said...
Glad to be home but didn't think we'd drag race to touch down. The planes actually kept getting…
Really, what did you think was going to happen under Trumpcare? It would get better? The list of this shit show goes on and on.
All the episodes and tons of extras, all at a great price...sounds like a must have set for #StarTrek fans!
Yes it's April 1st in some parts of the world. You don't have Trader Joes. The Trader Joes bit was my point, not the world clock.
Thank you to all the veterans who've protected this great country of ours!!!
The Mother Fuckin chandelier at The Shrine Theater.......pardon my French.
We've moved. Went back to the old place to pick up some stuff. Thought this was a perfect reminder…
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