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Billingsley On Controversial Enterprise Finale
Star Trek: Enterprise’s Dr. Phlox shares his opinion regarding the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Many fans may not have been happy with the finale to Star Trek: Enterprise, and Billingsley himself had mixed feelings about it, but he urged fans to rethink their annoyance toward Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.
According to Billingsley, the finale didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the fourth season. “The last season had so much of [writer and executive producer] Manny Coto’s fingerprints on it that I think one of the things fans felt was a tonal and almost spiritual disconnect between the nature of the scripts throughout the fourth season and the final script. It was as if suddenly somebody from another cosmos dropped in and wrote the script, above and beyond the fact that the Enterprise’s story was swallowed up by the framing device. I think people had just gotten used to Manny’s voice. I missed it in the final episode. Frankly, it should have been a two-parter. Our storyline needed to wind up.”
But Billingsley felt that Berman and Braga were expressing their emotion over what they felt was the ending of Star Trek after years of hard work on the franchise. “There are obviously mixed feelings among the fans about the legacies of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga,” Billingsley said, “but they were largely responsible for shepherding the franchise through many, many years of shows that people loved and kept watching. So they deserve a lot of credit. I think for them, the idea that they were going to be saying goodbye to Star Trek had a tremendous emotional weight. So they felt, and I can understand this, that they wanted to write the last episode of Enterprise.”
The finale story seemed to trivialize the third and fourth seasons of Enterprise, according to Billingsley. “I’m all over the map on this one because I have a lot of different feelings about it,” he said. “My problem with the final episode, ultimately, was that by jumping ahead however many years we jumped ahead, it was as if anything we did in the third and fourth seasons had no real weight. It seemed like the third and fourth seasons were being dismissed, which I’m sure was not the intention, but that was one of the things that bothered me.”
The finale meant the last appearance of Dr. Phlox. Would Billingsley return as Phlox again if he could in a Star Trek project? “I’d be delighted,” he said. “But is there any chance that one could make a wager on the odds of it happening? I’d bet my house it won’t happen, but if it did, sure, I’d want to be involved. I enjoyed playing Phlox.”
New Trek T-Shirts To Debut
Hybrid Apparel will be unveiling a new line of Star Trek T-shirts at the Magic Marketplace show in Las Vegas this week.
The new collection will begin with t-shirts and in time other apparel will be added, all aimed at mid-tier and mass-market retailers.
“Star Trek fans love to connect with the brand,” said Liz Kalodner, Executive Vice President and General Manager of CBS Consumer Products. “This program with Hybrid Apparel will provide us with a great opportunity to bring innovative apparel design and products to the audience.”
“We are very pleased to be working with CBS Consumer Products on such an amazing franchise as Star Trek,” said Derrick Baca, Vice President of Licensing at Hybrid Apparel. “The customer base for this franchise transcends generations old and new. We are excited for the growing momentum that Star Trek continues to experience and look forward to adding value to the brand in the future.”
The shirts can be seen in larger photos here.
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Shatner: Aftermath, $#*! And Twitter
At seventy-nine, most successful actors might want to kick back and enjoy retirement in some pleasant locale, but that’s not the case for William Shatner, who is busier than ever with his established and new television shows.
Shatner spoke recently about his most recent show, Aftermath with William Shatner; a new show to debut this fall, $#*! My Dad Says; and his experience with Twitter.
In Aftermath, Shatner interviews people who became famous in the news, some of whom did things which landed them in prison. Why do such people want to talk to Shatner for his show? “They’re anxious to tell their story,” said Shatner. “They’ve had their fifteen minutes [of fame] and here’s an opportunity to present that story once again from their side. It may also be they know me in some manner and want to talk to me.”
His subjects soon find out that they’re talking to a regular human being, not just an actor. “…they get past [Shatner being an actor] and see that it’s not an actor, but a human being who is vitally interested in them.” Shatner has an “innate interest in them and what they’re thinking and feeling as a result of the experience they went through.”
Shatner’s new show $#*! My Dad Says, which debuts this fall, has already stirred up controversy due to the word “shit.” “We call it ’shit,” said Shatner. “I urge you to look at the word ’shit.’ It’s the vernacular, not the act of defecation. All you’re arguing is should the word ’shit’ be allowed in the English language in nice company. If you’re talking to a jazz musician and he says, ‘I’ve got to get my shit together,’ are you appalled, or do you say, ‘Yeah, I understand?’”
The modern age of communication has not passed Shatner by, although he needs a little help from those a little more technologically-savvy to participate. Shatner has his own Twitter account. “I’m quite active in it,” he said of the account. “I don’t know how to technically do it, but I have some young people who do it for me. I try to be a little informative, but mostly I try to instigate.”
How does Shatner keep up with so many projects? “I’ve discovered the answer,” he said, “which is to get up a couple of hours earlier. You can get anything done if you’re up early. That and Omega-3s.”
Greenwood: Pike Essential To Trek
Bruce Greenwood, who played Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek XI, would like to see more of Pike in future Trek.
Greenwood would love to return to Trek, and he couldn’t resist giving his tongue-in-cheek opinion of Pike’s importance to the Star Trek franchise in a recent interview. “I think Captain Pike is an essential component to the whole franchise,” he said. “I think there should be a whole offshoot of Pike’s adventures.”
But what about Pike’s physical impairment? Would that make a difference? Not according to Greenwood. “There’s nothing that says Pike can’t get up and out of that wheelchair, get his own ship and go off on some adventures of his own. I’m now an admiral, but I want to get out of the wheelchair.”
It is not known if Pike will be back in Star Trek XII, but fans, as well as Greenwood, can only hope.
Takei on Gay Marriage
For George Takei, being able to say that he is legally married has influenced how others perceive his relationship.
Takei, a strong proponent of gay marriage who opposes California’s Proposition 8, which would only recognize marriage in California as being between a man and a woman, spoke about the controversial proposition and what legal marriage has done for himself and his husband Brad Altman.
Being legally married, aside from any legal rights, made a difference when it came to something so simple as being introduced to new people. “What it did,” explained Takei, “I think it affected the people we know, acquaintances, more when introducing us, there was some awkwardness in introducing us as a couple. Now they introduce Brad as my husband or me as Brad’s husband because it’s legal. I think legality adds a whole different standard to our relationship.”
Takei has received warm support from the Trek community when he’s spoken to them in person, such as at conventions, which contrasts with some emails that people have sent to him that are not supportive. “Last week, I did a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas,” he said, “and when I talked about our marriage — thunderous applause! … None [of the negative feedback e-mails] stick out. They’re all very alike, very similar. It’s all, ‘The Bible this,’ and, ‘tradition that.’ … It’s not worth responding to. They will pay attention to current events, and ultimately they will be educated. Because that’s the same kind of letters that my aunt got when she got married to my uncle.’”
In September, Takei and Altman will celebrate their second wedding anniversary.
Billingsley: Star Trek: Enterprise Days
John Billingsley recently answered fan questions regarding his time on Star Trek: Enterprise, including what he considered to be the best and worst episodes of the series, his attempt to provide story material for Phlox and more.
Playing the cheerful and amiable Dr. Phlox was a nice change from the actor’s usual roles and reflected more of Billingsley himself. “Because I’d played so many psychopaths and sociopaths and serial killers and tormented souls and drug addicts and lunatics,” said Billingsley, “Dr. Phlox is perhaps my favorite part if only because it was a chance to be giddy and delightful for four years. I rarely have the opportunity to be that kind of guy.”
Billingsley had a favorite and a least favorite episode of Enterprise. His favorite episode was one that featured Trip, Similitude. “I thought that was the best episode for a lot of reasons,” he said. “Everyone in the cast was involved and everyone had an emotional through-line. Some episodes, of any show, actors are used to convey information or they’re shunted aside. That episode, I thought it was the best of our ensemble pieces and it did what Star Trek does best, which is to deal with a topical question that has some sociological significance in a way that brings humanist values into play. And I got to handle a baby.”
The worst episode, in his opinion, was Precious Cargo. “[Padma Lakshmi as an alien princess] and Trip were on the run from whoever was pursuing her,” Billingsley explained. “I don’t remember all the details. I thought that was an unfortunate episode all around. It just didn’t work. Again, no fault of the actors. It just didn’t come together. And it was at a touchy point in our second season. We were holding on to not-great, but adequate audience numbers and after that episode our numbers just plummeted and we never got the audience back again.”
Unlike Bob Picardo (EMH) on Star Trek: Voyager, Billingsley didn’t really get the chance to have his story ideas incorporated into Enterprise, but had he been able to do that, he had definite ideas on what he would have liked to have seen for his character. “Bob Picardo, I think, did a wonderful job on Voyager of asking them for stories and suggesting plot ideas,” said Billingsley. “I did a little of that in the first couple of years, but didn’t make any headway, so I let that go. But for me it would’ve had to do with the Denobulan culture. I would have been interested in finding out more about Phlox’s species and his people and what their belief systems were. Any time I got a little information about Denobula, that was wonderful. It helped me flesh the guy out. Any story that moved in that world would have been great.”
