PN's Star Trek prequel series, Enterprise, is heading into the final weeks of its second year, and producers and cast members feel that the show has finally found its space legs. Executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are also mining Trek lore for the season's remaining storylines, bringing back alien races that haven't been seen since the original series and exploring social themes in the same manner as The Next Generation.
The show has also given series regulars Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather) and Linda Park (Hoshi Sato) a little more to do this year. In particular, Park's character was the centerpiece of a recent episode, "Vanishing Point," and Montgomery's character will figure prominently in an upcoming installment.
Science Fiction Weekly took a moment at UPN's winter preview press event to speak with them about the second year of Enterprise's maiden voyage. Berman, who executive produced the 10th Trek movie, Star Trek Nemesis, also ruminates on that film's lukewarm reception last year.
Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, can you talk about what we can expect for the rest of the season for Enterprise?
Braga: We [just did] a really, very, kind of a classic Star Trek exploration of an issue-oriented show. ... "Stigma" [was] a ... metaphor [that] really touches on HIV and AIDS.
Berman: The analogy that we draw has to do with Vulcans and mind melds. It's kind of a complex story.
And then you're also bringing back Tholians, aliens that we haven't seen since the original series?
Braga: Yeah, the Tholians will make an appearance. ... We have another installment of the Temporal Cold War coming up, and the Tholians make a kind of a surprising appearance in that show. We hint that they might be involved somehow as another faction in the Temporal Cold War. So they're not just a species that we meet. They may play a bigger role.
They play a key role?
Berman: Well, we don't know yet.
Braga: And we have an episode that's going to be coming on ... that deals with the Temporal Cold War again, a certain element of it, the title of which we don't really have nailed yet.
We're also seeing a lot of the Andorians.
Braga: Yeah, we [had] another Andorian show ["Cease Fire," featuring] ... Jeffrey Combs [Shran]. We also [had] Suzie Plakson playing an Andorian, the first Andorian female, [Tarah].
Berman: Suzie has played a lot of stuff for us. She's played a Klingon in The Next Generation. She's played two or three roles for us over the years. And she's a great Andorian.
Scott Bakula's character, Capt. Archer, seems like he's going to be one of the founding fathers of the Federation. Was that always in the back of your minds?
Berman: I don't know about that specifically, but Scott's character was designed to be a little bit of a fish out of water in the first season, and now that he's got 26 episodes under his belt, he's a little bit more confident, a little bit more self-assured, which was exactly what we were trying to do with his character.
Are there things that didn't work in the first year that you've had to correct?
Berman: On Enterprise? No. I'm very pleased with the way the series is going. ... You develop episodes, and you have good ones, and you have ones that are OK, and you try to play on the strengths of the writers and on the strengths of the actors.
Last year you said one of the goals was to get people off the ship more. Do you feel that have you done that?
Berman: Yeah, I think we've been doing that. And to get them a little bit more comfortable about being out in space, which they're all becoming, which was our intention.
Can you talk about the feature film Star Trek Nemesis, how you feel about how the movie was received and how it's been performing?
Berman: Well, it hasn't performed as well as we thought, but the word seems to be that it's doing well in Great Britain, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.
Last time we talked about Nemesis, people were saying that the decision about the next Next Generation film depends on the opening weekend box office for Nemesis. Has Paramount given you any indication about the future of the film franchise?
Berman: I don't think it was a question of the opening weekend. I think it was a question of how the film would do over the long run. And that's still yet to be determined. But no, we haven't even begun discussing it.
What would be the time frame for another film?
Berman: Certainly not for the next couple of years. But it hasn't even been discussed yet, so Paramount will have their say about that.
Have the actors given you any indication of whether they're ready to hang it up themselves?
Berman: I think pretty much they're willing to come back. I haven't gotten any indication from any of them that they're ready to hang up their space suits.
Linda Park, it seems like you've had a lot to do this year
Park: Yeah, it's been really great to see. Especially "Vanishing Point," that was such a great script. It had this great internal conflict going on, but that wasn't realized until you realize all the external conflict was inside her head. So that was a great episode to do.
What's coming up for my character? I'm just kind of riding the wave of sophomore year for Hoshi. I really don't know what to expect as much as anybody else. And I guess that's kind of like in life, too, you never know what's coming. So that's good.
What's it like now that you're in the middle of the second season?
Park: I actually am having so much more fun this year, because I'm comfortable, not only with the people, but with the language and with the sets. So I really do feel like—as well as Hoshi does feel this year—like I'm a part of this crew. I know what I'm doing, and that allows me to kind of have more fun with it and stretch my acting muscles.
What's been most surprising to you this year?
Park: The most surprising thing about doing the Star Trek second season is really, it's off camera. It's how much of a family we really are, the cast and the crew, and how comfortable. Sometimes I joke to the hair and makeup people we might as well come in our pajamas, because there's like no internal dialogue. We say what we want. But that's been the biggest surprise and the best surprise for me.
What about the fans? Hoshi is one of the fan's favorite characters.
Park: I actually do read the e-mails, and a lot of times I see "Does Hoshi ever check the site out?" And I read those too, obviously. But yes, I do read them. I read them very often, and I just got my new Web site up.
Anthony Montgomery, what can we expect for your character, Travis Mayweather, as the season winds up? You've had a couple of good episodes this year.
Montgomery: Actually, I really haven't had any episodes that were for me, per se. But there is one coming.
I believe we're doing a Klingon episode ... [in which] you actually get to meet my mother, apparently. You get to meet a brother. You get to find Travis is kind of torn, they said, between some crisis with the family and with Enterprise. ... It's going to be a huge Travis episode. You're going to get to know a lot more about boomers. You're going to get to know a lot about what Travis has gone through.
Back to the top.
Also in this issue:
The cast and crew of Willard
