Believe it or not, next year is the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: Enterprise. This was the final Star Trek series of the “Berman era,” and final Trek show made for broadcast TV, wrapping up in its fourth season after being cancelled by UPN in 2005. At the STLV: Trek To Vegas convention earlier this month, five members of the cast (in two separate panels) weighed in on the highs and lows of the show, even getting a bit political.

Enterprise: the last of an era

One of the more entertaining panels at STLV tends to be the gathering of the “Enterprise Boys” with series stars Connor Trinneer, Anthony Montgomery, Dominic Keating, and John Billingsley showing off a boisterous and fun chemistry on stage, with tales ranging from the reflective to the ribald, such as Billingsley teasing Montgomery about the “tremendous sexual tension” between Travis and Phlox.

However between the innuendo and joking around there were some more serious moments, often responding to fan questions. One fan noted how the series was the favorite of her late husband and as she watched it with him she thought “Maybe Enterprise was a man’s man’s Star Trek.” When asked to weigh in on that hypothesis, Dominic Keating agreed, saying:

Dominic Keating: “I think there was a certain boys club-ishness to it, I agree. And I think it was the last sort of hurrah of that – you know, it was pre-“Me Too.” Everything was changing. We didn’t know it was changing. But it was all changing as we were literally shooting our show, the whole landscape of TV, and how you were going to watch TV, and how you go you were going to react to what you were watching on TV. It was all changing at that time. We just didn’t know it, and that’s why we were only four years.” [laughs]

Co-star Anthony Montgomery also jumped in, saying:

Anthony Montgomery: “I don’t know if it was the man’s man concept, but ultimately, I feel like people may have connected with it because it was closer to who we were at the time. It’s closer to who we are, unfortunately, now… And he’s right, with the Me Too movements, and clearly it’s not had the effect that it should, but that’s another subject for another day. Everything has shifted. And so for us, I feel like maybe people connected with it because they saw in us, more of themselves, rather than the perfect humans and Kirk and everybody else. That’s my thought, because we’re definitely flawed man and people, this society we’re in now.”

Later, Billingsley weighed in on how the series ended with four seasons, as opposed to the previous three Trek shows (TNG, DS9 and Voyager) getting seven each:

John Billingsley: “I would say, when you consider the reality, the fact that we were on UPN, that the network itself was dying, that it didn’t have great market penetration, yada yada yada. The fact that we got four [seasons] is kind of a miracle. Having been on a number of failed series that didn’t go 13 [episodes]… But four seasons on a network television show ain’t nothing to sneeze at.”

Connor Trinneer, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery and John Billingsley at STLV 2025 (Photo: TrekMovie.com/Jon Spencer)

Changing direction in season 3

The first two seasons of Enterprise were structured very much like the previous Star Trek shows, with an episodic structure to ensure the show would work best in syndication. However, as noted earlier, television had been changing in the 1990s and into the early 2000s with more serialized shows like the X-Files and especially 24. And there were also major events happening in the world. The series debuted just weeks after the horrific September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks, which had a huge impact on society. When a fan asked about how the show “hit its stride” in the third season, Keating and Billingsley weighed in:

Dominic Keating: “Season 3, for my money, it’s not my favorite season. But it was in response to 9/11 and also the success of 24 which had become this arc of 24 episodes or 22, but it was a storyline. And that they were taking a leaf out of that success, which is why we now became not standalone episodes.”

John Billingsley: “One thing I think it did do – aside from the politics, and I think we, a lot of us, have different opinions about whether or not it should or should not have been a comment on 9/11 – but it did introduce propulsion into our story lines. And I think a lot of criticism of season 1 was that it was a little inert. For us to be out there exploring, it kind of felt like, ‘Where’s the where’s the drive?’ So I think it did create an impulse in that third season that was kind of missing a bit.”

In a separate solo panel, series star Scott Bakula also weighed in on the third season and the Xindi arc, saying he “loved it” and how he thought it had “great writing.” But he also noted how he personally he differs from Jonathan Archer the character, and this became especially true during the third and fourth seasons:

Scott Bakula: “Archer took a couple of dark turns on his way. I’d like to think that that’s not something that I have necessarily inside of me, and I haven’t been tested in my life to know the answer to that. But the stuff that happened the last couple of seasons that he had the pedal to the metal, were things that were… kind of fun to play, but to imagine to go to those extremes is something I haven’t gone through.”

Scott Bakula at STLV 2025 (Photo: TrekMovie.com/Jon Spencer)

Fun on the set

When an audience noted how much fun they were having watching the “Enterprise Boys” panel, Keating noted how their on stage antics are just an extension of what life was like on set when they “laughed and laughed and laughed,” still shocked series star Scott Bakula never took them to task for all the goofing off, “He never once did and it was a joyous time in our lives.”

And like with any good Trek panel you got some fun insights into what it was like shooting the show, including Connor complaining about how he was “pulling KY out of my hair for weeks” after reshoots for the episode “Vox Sola” where Trip and Archer were trapped in space goo. Of course Billingsley took it to a different place, talking about how he was “shocked” that the editors left a scene in “Two Days and Two Nights” when Phlox woke up from hibernation and immediately lifted the covers to check on his (um) lower region, noting “I was clearly suggesting…”

John Billingsley checks things out as Phlox in “Two Days and Two Nights”

In his solo panel, Bakula was much more measured, talking up what it was like for him and the crew shooting the episode “In A Mirror, Darkly” which featured the recreation of the classic Star Trek bridge and sets (for the USS Defiant). Bakula told the packed Vegas crowd:

Scott Bakula: “It was great. We had so much fun with that episode. It’s one of my favorites. Michael Sussman wrote it… and it was great. It was really great to see everybody on the lot just come and congregate around that stage and come in and get people from accounting, from wherever, and they came in and they got their pictures taken. It was just kind of magical. As magical as it was every day being on a starship as your set… Being back in that old set that I remember from my childhood that hooked me on the show was really fun. And then playing the kind that altered state of it all was one of my favorites. It was great.”

Scott Bakula as Mirror Archer in “In a Mirror Darkly, Part II”

BONUS VIDEO: Billingsley crashes Bakula panel

Just to show how these guys get along, here is a video featuring John Billingsley asking a provocative question from the fan line during Bakula’s solo panel.

More STLV 2025

STLV is now over, but we have much more to report from the 5-day Star Trek event, including more from Scott Bakula talking about the “Star Trek: United” pitch to return to Star Trek as Archer. Check out our STLV tag  on social for all of our coverage so far.

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating at STLV 2025 (Photo: TrekMovie.com/Jon Spencer)

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