Star Trek Communicator | #138 ::.::.:..

On the Road

Toy Fair Boasts Captain Archer

By Jim Brumbaugh

 

Scott Bakula has spent nearly two decades A bona fide star on stage and screen, but he was a hit as well during an all-too-rare public appearance recently at the annual Toy Fair trade show. Along with checking out his soon-to-be-released Art Asylum action figure as Enterprise's Captain Archer, the actor was happy to talk a lot more than toys.

On the shows staying fresh:
"I'm very happy that we've had a little bit of information about almost everybody....but we're not ompelled to lay it all out there - we don't know about my ex-girlfriend or what happened to my mother [for example]. We're so involved in what's around the next corner, we're not bored - so we're not saying, 'Well, what did you do back on Earth?' "

On being unique in Trek:
"The Ferengi showed up on our ship a couple of weeks ago, and we didn't have a clue who they were. So, somebody says, 'Who are they?', and I said, 'I don't know - I've never seen them before except that they're stealing all of our stuff!' That element is still going on, and it doesn't feel forced. It doesn't feel like 'When are we going to get over it and start acting like the other Star Trek crews?' It feels very real still, and very new."

On not moving too fast:
"I'm so thrilled that we haven't ditched the shuttlepods, and just gone straight to transporting. We know what the 'transporting' thing is, but the shuttlepod has given us a different element to the show, which has been a lot of fun."

On his script input:
"I don't see the script until they get them into a shape that they feel that they want me to see, so at this point, I only have input from that point forward. But, happily, one of the reasons why I took the job is that Brannon (Braga) and Rick (Berman, exec producers) are very collaborative and very open to talking about story and character. Down the line, I don't know how that will play out. I've produced and acted in my own series stuff before. It's a lot of work, and certainly, something I didn't want to get into for a while."

On tech-speak and old friends:
"Dean [Stockwell, his co-star in Quantum Leap] did an episode last week ["Detained"], and we had a ball. He got stuck with having to recap a lot of history from the first season, in particular about the Suliban, and he was like: 'You have the Suliban, and he's a Tandaran.' It was so great, but he looked at me like, 'What am I talking about? So you have Suliban, Tandaran, Barathan, Pilgrims?' and he didn't know which end was up!"

On an Archer catchphrase:
"The closest thing we got to it was 'Let's go' in the pilot, and I haven't said 'Lets go' since. Obviously, there's certain things you say over and over again - 'Let's take a closer look,' or whatever but I don't have any of that yet. Maybe, someday, that will develop, but they haven't like given me a list: 'Do you like this?', 'Do you like this?', 'Do you like that?' I think it fits in with the nature of the show - it's more improvisational. We're trying not to lock into any patterns, and it's a great question to keep people wondering about: when is he ever going to say something thay everybody goes, 'That's it! That's the one!  I like that!'"

On working and family:
"Because I shot a movie [What Girls Learn for Showtime] before we started the pilot, I will have worked over a year straight by the time this season ends. When you start taking your weekends away, and you get on a plane flying somewhere, and you're not seeing your family and you have a big week the next week..... it's something I'm very protective of right now.

On keeping family close:
"My daughter is 17, [and] I have three boys - 11, 6 and 2 and a half..... They love coming to the set, and my six year old doesn't like to come when the 'blue faced guys' are going to be there. He doesn't want to be there for them, but he did fine with the Suliban who were there on set the other day, and he did okay with the Ferengi.

On conventions:
"I know that the other guys have all been out and showing up at places, and they've been having a great time and are really thrilled with the reception. I'm sure there will be opportunity for me to do it; it just hasn't presented itself yet."

On his priorities:
"The biggest problem is finding time to make the show, [and] to have a kind of life with your family. This show has so much extra stuff that comes with it, it's a challenge to figure out what you can do and how you can do it, and my goal, as always, is to make the show the priority. that's the old "if you build it, they will come.' If we get distracted and don't pay attention to the scripts and what we're doing at work, then [the rest of it] doesn't matter."