Summary
- Scott Bakula's decision to play Captain Archer was based on the series being set 100 years before Captain Kirk.
- Bakula, along with Keating and Trinneer, discussed their time on Star Trek: Enterprise on The D-Con Chamber podcast.
- Despite not having dreamed of being on TV, the concept of being in a Star Trek series set before Kirk hooked Bakula.
Scott Bakula explains the hook that got him to sign on to play Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. Bakula headlined Enterprise ('Star Trek' wasn't added to the title until season 3) for four seasons on UPN. After Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled in 2005, Bakula continued his incredibly successful acting career, starring in Men of a Certain Age and NCIS: New Orleans. Bakula rarely discusses his experience as the Captain of the final Star Trek series of the Rick Berman era.
However, Scott Bakula joined his fellow Star Trek: Enterprise actors, Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, as the special guest of The D-Con Chamber podcast's season 1 finale. Bakula, Keating, and Trinneer's far-ranging discussion about Scott's life and career, of course, touched upon Enterprise, and Bakula told the story of why he accepted the role of Captain Archer despite not having an interest in starring in Star Trek. It was simply the idea that Enterprise was set 100 years before Captain Kirk (William Shatner). Read Bakula's quote and watch The D-Con Chamber video below:
Scott Bakula: They called me the next day and said, “But… Do you want to come and do our next Star Trek? The next version of Star Trek. And I said, “Um…” And in the pause…[they said] “It’s a hundred years before Kirk”. And in my head, I said, ‘I’m in.’ I didn’t want to follow [the previous shows and captains]... I didn’t know what that could be. And being a huge fan of the franchise, and especially the original show because that was more my era… Because people will say…
You know, you’ve run into a lot of people that have done this franchise, and so many would say that they always dreamed about… Wouldn’t it be great to be… If I could only be on Star Trek… And I never had that dream. Where I grew up, I never dreamed about any of that stuff. I love the show, it’s great, but I’m not ever gonna be on television, so I didn’t even entertain a thought like that. But immediately, on ‘a hundred years before Kirk…’
Dominic Keating: That was the hook.
Scott Bakula: Yeah, yeah. I’ll do that.
Scott Bakula Calls William Shatner Amazing
Bakula is a fan of Star Trek's original Captain of the Enterprise
Scott Bakula has tremendous respect for William Shatner. Not just what Shatner achieved as the first captain of Star Trek, but also how Bill, at 93 years old, has sustained a 70-year-career with no signs of slowing down. Bakula praised Shatner to Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer on The D-Con Chamber:
[William Shatner] is amazing. He always has been amazing. He really is. He has something burning inside of him that [I wish] we could market that thing and spread it around, because he has a passion for everything… I haven’t seen him in a few years, but the last time I saw him, my head was spinning. He was getting ready to open the Broadway show, and he wrote the book, and he was doing a thing, and he was recording an album…
William Shatner recruited Scott Bakula to join him in his 2011 documentary, The Captains. Unfortunately, Bakula and Shatner never got to share the screen on Star Trek: Enterprise. An idea for Enterprise season 4 that would have had Shatner guest star as the evil Tiberius Kirk from the Mirror Universe never came to be. Still, Scott Bakula's Captain Jonathan Archer has become a legendary Star Trek Captain in his own right as Star Trek: Enterprise continues to gain a renewed appreciation nearly 20 years after it was canceled.
