It's Trek, Jim, but not as we know it
Enterprise steps back in time and into new territory
Scott Feschuk - National Post - July 18, 2001
LOS ANGELES - I am on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, sitting in the captain's chair, pondering my next manly move: Should I bully some sinister, thick-skulled space brute? Suavely seduce a voluptuous interstellar hottie? Or maybe embark on a heroic adventure with my gallant crewmates, after which we could engage in some delightfully witty banter?
I scan the bridge with captainly aplomb and assess the calibre of my personnel: three dozen television critics, most of them male, most of them paunchy, many of them balding, some of them crankily muttering things like, "Hey, the friggin' buttons on the science station don't even press down!" or "Are you almost done in the chair? I'd like to get some time in the chair."
My childish attempt to foil this mutinous rogue by initiating the ship's self-destruct protocols is interrupted by a command from the voice that represents an authority far superior to that of a humble starship captain: It's the guy from the UPN network. Out of the chair, he says. Our tour of the set of the new Star Trek series, Enterprise, is moving on.
We are on the Paramount lot in L.A., standing inside one of the three sound stages devoted to Enterprise, the fifth instalment of the Star Trek television franchise. This is the successor to Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and, most recently, Star Trek: The Boring One Nobody Actually Liked. What's unusual about this new Star Trek series is that it doesn't feature in its title the words "Star Trek." The show is simply called Enterprise, a decision that reflects the network's determination to pitch the program to a broader audience, to convey the notion that the program will be substantially dissimilar to -- and, alas, far less reliant on curve-hugging spandex than -- its Star Trek predecessors.
"Our feeling was, in trying to make this show dramatically different, which we are trying to do, that it might be fun not to have a divided main title," said Rick Berman, the show's co-creator and executive producer. "I think we've found a refreshing new direction to take Star Trek."
Precisely how different Enterprise will be shall remain a mystery until its two-hour premiere in September (TV critics on the Summer Press Tour were shown only a short promo clip rather than the completed pilot episode). On one hand, there's still the familiar business of boldly going and all that, and the familiar complement of seven ethnically diverse characters, and the familiar fact that the Star Trek universe remains as relentlessly sunny as ever: no poverty, crime, disease, hunger or surly retail sales clerks to be found on planet Earth.
But this series is set a century before the hammy exploits of James T. Kirk and company, in the days when a space captain's first thought upon encountering a new alien species was "Eww! Icky!" or "Run!" instead of "Hmm, pretty foxy -- I wonder where her genitals are." Berman and his colleague, executive producer Brannon Braga, contend that taking this step back in time will reinvigorate the series: It's an era when crew members sometimes wear jeans and sneakers and ballcaps, when scientists are still working out the bugs on such Star Trek conventions as transporters and tractor beams -- an era when ships were sent out into space with measly little missiles instead of photon torpedoes and flimsy hull plating instead of high-tech shields and a horny, maverick captain played by Scott Bakula instead of a horny, maverick captain played by William Shatner. Happily, this era is not so backward that the ship is dispatched into the great black unknown without a requisite space fox, in this case a shapely Romulan who'll be played by the shapely Jolene Blalock.
Bakula wryly described his character, Jonathan Archer, as "healthy and available." Berman cheekily described the tone of the new series as "a little bit more sexually adventurous ... There's some pretty sexy stuff that's coming up." Male critics pantingly described the brief glimpse of busty alien hardbodies with tongues as long as a garden hose as "a damn fine reason to break away from the tour and, after buying some flowers and chocolates, scout around the set for busty alien hardbodies."
Lamentably, the UPN folk would not let us stray, and we had to make do with extracting nominal trivia from the peppy guide ("The captain's chair is actually a seat from a Porsche!") and relishing the fact that Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was an enthusiastic participant in the tour, thus slightly denerdifying the whole experience for the rest of us. Until we got to Engineering, that is.
The Engineering section is the part of the ship that contains the components that power the engines, and no small number of critics immediately commenced unsolicited impressions of Scotty, the resilient chief engineer on the original series, uttering his familiar grievance, "She can't take much more, Captain!"
If that were not enough reason for despair, a woman -- clearly, no fan of the series -- made a casual inquiry about the meaning of "Warp 4," which in Star Trek is a measure of a craft's velocity. Most TV writers within earshot attempted to answer, and did so in unison. Eventually, one of the show's associate producers was called in to help clear things up. "It means," he said, "that the ship is travelling at the speed of 'four times four times four times the speed of light.' "
There was a brief moment of silence at that point, a fleeting wink of tranquility as all concerned contemplated the cosmos, and their place in the cosmos, and whether the cosmos was hinting they should order a whiskey sour or an apple martini upon completing the tour and rejoining the UPN party.
Then someone yelled from the munitions room: "Hey, check out this so-called missile. It weighs less than a bag of chips!" And the tour moved on. Come September, we'll find out if the show has, too.
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Channel surfing at the Summer Press Tour
Some of the best lines are overheard at the bar
Scott Feschuk - National Post - July 20, 2001
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PASADENA, Calif. - Vignettes from the first week of the network portion of the Summer Press Tour:
It was looking as though Tuesday would be a damn fine day for Mike White. The young executive producer was on a stage in front of 200 television writers, sitting alongside Dana Delany and other members of the cast for Pasadena, White's prime-time drama that will debut this fall. Fox honchos had earlier pronounced themselves "quite excited" about the executive producer's freshman series, which chronicles the lives of some of the wealthiest residents of the Los Angeles suburb.
The session went well. White was charming and funny. Delany killed with her impression of the hands-off approach to directing favoured by Diane Keaton, who helmed the pilot episode ("My imitation of Diane directing is, 'OK, we're all rich! [giddy squeal] Action!' ")
Afterward, a smiling White was surrounded by curious reporters. If the title hadn't already been spoken for, it's likely White would have proclaimed himself King of the World.
A short time later, in a nearby conference room, White -- his countenance having taken a turn for the glum -- was spotted in the company of a Fox executive. They were flipping through a script for an episode of Pasadena. With each turn of a page, the rather abrupt executive made a remark along the lines of "More tension! We need more tension!" or "Mystery! There's not enough mystery here!" And on. And on. For the better part of half an hour, it went on: "Tension!" "Mystery!" "Make it more extreme!" One minute, he's King of the World. The next, he's not even King of His Own Show.
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Fox held its annual party for television critics on Wednesday night: sushi and sake at Yamashiro in Hollywood. Many of the network's prime-time celebrities made an appearance, though some had a better time than others.
Calista Flockhart arrived, was immediately surrounded by a panting pack of fawning writers (sample question: "How did you achieve such an incredibly high quality of acting ability?"), sat for a couple of brief one-on-one conversations and was out of there before even the least creative of critics had exhausted his reserve of one-liners about her frail corporeal essence.
On the other hand, Jessalyn Gilsig, who plays Lauren on Boston Public, was heard to shout to a Fox publicist: "This sucks! No one even recognizes me!" At which point I immediately recognized her and wrote down that she was bellyaching about not being recognized.
The affair also validated my long-held belief that the most edifying aspect of any such gathering of entertainment industry players is The Stuff You Overhear While Waiting at the Bar for Beer and Pretending You're Not Listening. Among the highlights:
- Brian Hargrove, executive producer of the sitcom Titus, chatting with Stacy Keach (who plays Titus's father) about the show's new timeslot: Wednesdays at 9 p.m.
"I'm not worried about going up against The West Wing, not worried at all," he told Keach. "But I am worried about [The] Amazing Race (a new reality show set to air on CBS). It's basically Survivor with wheels. I feel everyone will sample it on that first night. If it's any good we're in huge trouble."
- John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, enthusiastically drinking white wine and relentlessly offering his profanity-laced take on the Chandra Levy case to all who had the misfortune to slow their pace while passing by, including Megyn Price, one of the stars of Grounded for Life.
"Did she f---ing go to f---ing Ecuador to have the baby?" he asked, rhetorically and gratingly, at one juncture. "No, she f---ing did not!"
Later, he loudly posed a query to someone who'd challenged his theory on the disappearance of the former Washington intern: "Hey, buddy, you ever killed someone, someone you f---ed?" Er, no, the luckless chap responded, prompting a look of "Well, I think I've made my point" to spread across Walsh's face.
- Gary Fredo, the Los Angeles cop who helps 10 ordinary folks gather and assess evidence on Fox's upcoming reality series Murder in Small Town X, conversing rather frankly with one of the show's executive producers, George Verschoor.
"I was working my ass off out there," Fredo asserted, "and you guys were as cheap as hell. You were pinching pennies everywhere, and it really started to p--- everyone off. I'm telling you, it did."
Nevertheless, the irked cop moments later expressed hope that "we can do another Murder in Small Town Whatever together ... You better come back and do another one. You better not go off and do a movie instead, or I'll lock you up like Robert Downey Jr."
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The highlight for many guests at the UPN party: walking slowly past the table of Jolene Blalock, who will play a Vulcan on the new Star Trek series, Enterprise. Unlike the other members of the ensemble, Jolene -- who, judging from the promo clip that was screened for critics, was cast less for her thespian prowess than for her interstellar rack -- declined to mingle with TV writers or anyone else for that matter. Instead, she sat and smoked and drank with some equally sullen acquaintances.
At first, this distressed the bevy of young writers for sci-fi mags and Web sites who'd come to the party to meet the new cast. Distressed, that is, until they noticed Jolene was wearing a pair of hip-hugging pants that, as she sat down, slid low enough to reveal a rather generous portion of her beige thong.
I'll spare you the ensuing plethora of remarks that invoked the expression "to boldly go ..."