"Shuttlepod One" | Ep. 49

Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are in the studio today with us to celebrate our two-hander, Shuttlepod One, from Enterprise's season 1. As two of the creative architects of Star Trek: Enterprise, they shared candid reflections and untold stories from their time shaping the series -- and the other shows of legacy Trek.

Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe has forever changed. From former and future cast and crew members to celebrities, scientists, and astronauts whose personal and professional journeys have been affected by the franchise, we sit down and dive deep with a new friend, laughing and learning from their stories. Sit back, grab a drink, and join our hosts, Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, as we get geeky in The D-Con Chamber.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Dominic here, Connor here. Well, we're all a
little flutter. Yeah, I'm excited for this. Yeah, we got
the two the main the mainbas Yeah, coming in to
talk about Shuttle Pod one and Enterprise, mister Rick Berman
and Brandon Bragger. And this is a special for our

(00:21):
watch Party episodes about the shows themselves, but ostensibly Shuttle
Pod one frankly, to my mind, one of the best
things I've ever done on film, agreed, And it was
just an extraordinary script. And I'm really excited to hear
you know, it's derivation, it's initiation, how they came about

(00:43):
writing it, and uh, and to.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hear these two fellas just talk about enterprise, yes, and
maybe some other stary trek, but mostly I want to
hear them talk about enterprises.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I'm sure there's some questions.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
We would like to have, you know, from the yeah,
from the horse mouth, as it were, to clear maybe
some things up that you guys think that rumors that
were just urban legends.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Probably, Yeah, I know, because we're still you know, and
the sands are shifting, but there was such a long
time when we were you know, somewhat the ginger headed
stepchild of Star Trek other legacy shows, and I think
that that is really that's moved away now. And you know,

(01:29):
when our conventions that we go to, more and more
people are finally coming up and going, we watched your show,
and frankly it's the best one.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
I sometimes joke with them first off, and I say, well,
that's how we were canceled because you didn't watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, there is that.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
But nonetheless, I do appreciate people seeing that to us
about the show.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And it'll be nice to see them. It's been I
bumped into them both at the Voyager premieer documentary, but
I don't think they saw each other in person there,
So it'll be nice to have in the room together.
And you know, they were together for fifteen years, and
Rick ran the show for eighteen and Brannon wrote with

(02:10):
him for fifteen and collectively, if you you know, take
into a consideration that Avery Brooks' show was Deep Space Night.
Collectively that Deep Space nine rank concurrently with Voyager, there's
a collective twenty five years of Star Trek there, which

(02:33):
is an unparallel feat and they cemented the foundation for
an ever for a forever thing. Now. Yeah, and without
further ado, I hope you guys enjoy it. Yeah, no, no,
no no, the show has been gun since your phasers,

(02:56):
the fun you.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Tript We've come.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
It's the.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Come, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Trekky's and trekkers,
Welcome back to the Dcon Chamber. I'm your fellow co
host dominic Keating, joined us always by my fellow chamber
potter mister Connor Straniers in the house. I see what
you did there. Hey, Yo, Today we've got a very

(03:30):
special watch party episode for you all. We're going to
be talking about Shuttle Pod one. Frankly, one of the
most unforgettable episodes of Enterprise. I think for us this
episode means a lot. Ostensibly it was a bottle episode.
It was one of the rare times that Connor and
I got to carry an entire story together, and it
pushed us as actors, and it gave Malcolm and Tripp

(03:53):
a depth and a resonation with fans that we're still
hearing about decades later. And in that respect, we are
absolutely delighted and honored to have the writers and producers
mister Rick Berman and Brandon Bragger today to look back
on Shuttle Pod one between them. They shaped the course
of Star Trek for nearly twenty years, from the Next Generation,

(04:16):
through Voyager and into Enterprise. Their years on the legacy
shows built the creative foundation of Star Trek, and for us,
it's a chance to revisit not just this pivotal episode,
but the people who helped shape the world that we
are now so lucky and fortunate to be a part of.
So thank you. Enjoy well, guys, thanks so much for

(04:40):
being here. We're honest, we're honored and delighted to see you.
It brings back such fond memories, it really does. How
long is it since you guys have been in the
same room together?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
We went to the Voyager screening?

Speaker 4 (04:54):
Yeah you did recently?

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, yeah, I was there.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
That was was that July?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
That was probably a year, few months back, now, a
few months ago. It was a great It was a
great evening. It was nice to see you know, so
many assembled from the from the shows. I mean, ostensibly
we're here to talk about Shuttle Pod one and what
a great episode that was, but let's let's let's talk
a little bit about Enterprise in general and the formulation

(05:20):
of it. At what point did you know that you
wanted to make this show and how what was the
inception of it?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, like all the other shows, it was not us.
They wanted to make it. The studio came to us.
We have the weird thing of not having to sell
shows that they just come come to us. That happened
to Deep Say S nine. It happened with The Voyager,
and it happened with Enterprise, all right. The studio wanted
a show after Basically it was going to be the end,
the end of Voyager, right, and there was going to

(05:48):
be nothing and we hadn't had nothing for a long
a long time.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Were you ready for nothing or were you? Were you
waiting for the calls?

Speaker 3 (05:56):
I'm always ready for nothing? But we Uh, no, we were.
We were ready to develop something and Enterprise. It was
the whole process. I The only person I wanted to
work with at that point was this guy here, mister Braga, right,

(06:16):
and uh the only direction we wanted to go to
was back to an earlier time to see the.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Was that a popular idea with the network at that
time to go back and do this. I think the
prequel was a great idea, But I have heard stories
that they weren't so enamored with the with the prospective,
you know, not going further into space.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
I remember the day you called me Rick and you
pitched the idea for Enterprise, including the title.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Without the without such the star Trek.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Monitor because it was the only word that says star
trek without saying star Trek.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
And the minute of the ratings started to fall and
came studio came and said you got to put star
Trek back on it.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
I always thought that you took star Trek out of
the title because you didn't want to pay the royalties
to to rot.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
That was ridiculous, It doesn't work. It was a cool
I thought it was a very postmodern idea going back
to do a prequel, and prequels weren't a thing back then.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
They weren't.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
And I because the idea of doing another show at
that time set in the same time period as Voyager,
or going further in the future, whatever that means. The
idea of doing a prequel was a very novel one,
and as I recall, I think it made that it

(07:43):
made the studio a little nervous initially, and it's one
of the reasons we feathered in a sequel element, which
was the temporal Cold War ne of so it's kind
of a it's a prequel with a little whiff of
sequel and uh, but Rick, your original vision for the
show was to do another Star Trek show with the

(08:04):
type of storytelling that we were doing very successfully at
the time, but we needed some fresh angle on it
and doing what we called kind of the right stuff.
But with Star Trek was a no brainer in my mind.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Just you know, how did it all begin? Where? Where
did it all start?

Speaker 1 (08:25):
So I vos you know ending a Voyager? Did they
say right, time to think of another show?

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Guys?

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (08:33):
I think a good probably close to a year.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, because I remember coming into audition for you guys
for Voyager. I mean, I don't know if you remember that.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
I didn't work on it.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
And not only do I remember it, but I remember
coming to you afterward and saying, you did a great job.
You're not going to get the part. Well, I never
got because I've got We've got something in store that.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Came later after I'd gotten the job. You're misremembering a
little bit. I have actually heard you tell a story
that you told Julie Lara Johnson to say, tell him
he's not getting this. We won him for Matt for
this Malcolm part. I never got that message, so a
year and change and I was like, you know, have
you any idea what that year and a half is? Like?

(09:18):
It was when we were shooting Shuttle Pod one and
you were so proud of this episode and we barely
saw you at set after the pilot was set, but
you were marching Sir Patrick around the set of Shuttle one.
He was next door doing Nemesis, and you were so
chuffed about this two handy you'd written with Brannon. And
it was then that you took me aside and said,

(09:39):
I don't know if you know, but I remembered you
from that Voyager episode audition, as I remember bringing my
manager and we're doing Star Trek next week for sure,
and then never heard from you. And he said, yeah,
I had your photograph on my desk for a year, and.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
I was like, you did, so, yeah, we had we
had created this character of Malcolm, and it was like
when you came in, I saw Malcolm Reid and so
I said to Junie, let's hold them off.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
What was the role you read for?

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Well, I wish it was. I think it was some
sort of nomadic prints of some you know, Star Star
Galaxy Nomadic tribe or something like that. But I remember
nailing yeah, And it was probably in the last season,
I would imagine, or that at the beginning of the
last season or the end of the penultimate I remember.
And it was when the days when you go in

(10:32):
the room and there were like seven of you, and
you know, you either stood up and did it, and
I nailed it. And I remember ringing. It was back
in the days when the first next Dell phones were,
you know, flicking up my phone and ringing JP and
my manager going yep, we're doing Star Trek next week,
and they never heard from you.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
I was sure that I had told Juny to tell
you we've got something else.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, well I'm sure you know you're not cast things like,
you know, they're like, yeah, well we'll believe that when
we see it. And you know, Holly was there off
Town six tries.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yes, it did six tries.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
It was the auditioned six times.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
For for Enterprise.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
It was down to you and another actor. Who was
the actor, Well, I.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Think it was somebody that that either Paramount or upn
had on one of those whole contracts.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yes, it was.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
It was he installed them black hair. I don't remember
the actor, but he was somebody they had already had
a relationship with. Right, But we wanted you.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, we did want you.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
So let's get to shelter. Paul won a bit. So
this was meant to be a money saver. I'm not
correctly saying that. I mean this was not really not.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Especially clip shows and simple shows historically were always there
for budgetary reasons, but I don't think we did this
sort of budget.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
This was season one episode it was sixteen, Yeah, episode sixteen.
This was we were not at am.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
You hadn't spent all the money.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
We weren't in a money and we did twenty six. Yeah,
we weren't in a You know, we were looking to
deliver an amazing first season of the show, so we
weren't looking to pinch pennies at that point. However, it
certainly didn't hurt. But I will say as far as
a show with a more narrow scope, there were a

(12:17):
lot of things done and we didn't normally do that
cost money. For instance, making the stage cold enough to
see industrial coolers with six industrial coolers. If you're trying
to save money. You're not doing that right.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
It was the first time I ever saw Jerry Fleck
got his cell and all the other crew members in
long pants.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
Jerry Fleck was our first a d and he were
He wore shorts to work every.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Day, every day. He didn't matter whether it was cold range.
I think Billy in shorts. He was just not going
to Billy.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Today. The visual effects are so good that they can
make yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Half our show. The money went on Sage United, did it?

Speaker 4 (12:54):
Did it help you as actors?

Speaker 1 (12:57):
It did. The only thing that was difficult was that.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
As an exacting director as he is David Livingstone, we'd
get through two or three lines of something in a
he'dl cut, you can't see any breath and it was
hard to get sort of momentum going sometimes. But ultimately
we did because I think it was a bit of
a giving up on the idea that we were going
to really really be able to see our breath consistently.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
It was sort enough. I mean, I watched the show
last night and you know, when you see it it
works when we're cold, it looks bloody cold, right, And
I watched it too, and you do see the You
sure do, Yeah, you really do main spots where you
see it now, we'll say, you know, as actors, we
were drinking hot tea between each take. We were peeing

(13:43):
every twenty minutes and has kind of as a two
hand play really, and we'd get into a really meaty
scene and literally twenty seconds in they go cut. Can't
see the breath Now. As difficult as that was, I
found the duress of it and the that angst actually
lent itself to the playing of the parts in the

(14:06):
scenario that we were in. I found it quite. It
was taxing, but in a good way.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
And it was so bizarre to come out of that
freezing sound stage to go out into the.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
What is happening to me?

Speaker 2 (14:20):
You'd feel your body start that sort of weird. It's
not really painful, but as your body warm. I stopped
going outside because I didn't want to warm up. I
was settled my body temperature to the point where going
outside was almost painful.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
This was a high concept episode in our mind. You
know the concept of two characters who believe their mothership's
been destroyed and are trying to destroy keep themselves from
being destroyed, and how it would distill bring out the
essence of both characters, which thematically was really nihilism versus optimism,

(15:00):
you know, and it was what we were going after,
and it wasn't to save money. It was good.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
It's good to hear because I've always thought it was
lightning in a bottle by mistake.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
We liked I mean, forgive me if I'm talking too much, Rick,
but we loved your characters and we wanted to see you.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
And there was a sense of camaraderie between you, these
two characters. I remember the same thing existed on Deep
Space nine with col Maeni and Dig and there was
something about the camaraderie between you two guys. But at
the same time, the characters would react to this dire

(15:42):
circumstances in a totally different way. Yeah, one very nihilistically
as you say, as you say, and and, and the
other one very pragmatics. As the plot continued, it was
it was great. It was great having having Malcolm writing

(16:04):
farewell letters.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yes, I mean so out of character really that he
would even know all these women, not only.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
That, but actually sleep with one of Tripp's loves.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
The love of his life, Ruby. I'm actually I mean,
could you get away with I mean, is it I
mean slightly sexist stuff. I mean, I mean, but did
you think of it?

Speaker 4 (16:24):
Its no, well, I don't know. I mean I don't
remember men do talk like this, remembering the loves of
your life as your parish. I don't think sexist at all.
I think it's human. You know, we're not thinking about
the world at large. We're thinking about what that character
would think and do in that circumstance.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
But then when you start talking about to Paul's bum, Yeah,
that's something you would not have done had you not
or no, had you not been drunk, and had you
not felt you were in the last twenty four hours
of your life.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
I agree. We were talking about this earlier this morning,
about whether we were too drunk, because I remember fighting
David Livingson. He wanted to tame down the drunkenness, and
I was like, you know what, We've just were in
space and we've just drunk the best part of a
leader of whiskey with no food. We're trashed.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
We wanted to take this moment to shout out a
good friend of the Yukon Chamber.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yes, our Patreon executive producer mister Chris Garris. He also
hosts the Transporter Room a new Star Trek interview series.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
It's a space for deep dives, behind the scenes stories
and conversations with Trek veterans such as ourselves.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Oh speak for yourself. I'm a veteran, you are, so
do yourself a favor and beam over to the Transporter
Room on YouTube.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
And don't forget to check out are Awesome Mergh, because
who doesn't want to rep their favorite podcast in style?

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Baby?

Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think the scene. What I loved about watching it
last night was the meet and measure of the whole side.
It's got a great te tip.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
It does, and it's still it holds. I think it
holds so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
It does, it really does.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I also think that I don't recall there being much,
if any rewriting of it because we've been given the
script like two there was a rarity, wasn't it, And
we got to rehearse it a lot. So we came in,
you know, with all of our you know around loaded.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
We're also a good thing with the writing a script
with Rick is that you're not getting Rick notes.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
They're coming out of they've happened, notes have happened.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I think that the greatest culmination of all these story
points is the fact that at the end, both of
these characters are willing to sacrifice their lives for the
other one.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yes, yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Which is it turns out into a love story in
a way it does right, And it's been told many
times people being marooned, but this was something that Brandon
and I thought, with you two guys would be unique,
and the story had never been told in a shuttle
pot before.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah, not a lot of space.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I had so bad on these metal rafts endlessly.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, that was part of the point of the whole
design of the show was. You know, if you look
at Archer's ready room, you know the low beams that
he had to duck under. We wanted to have a
little bit of a We toured at Nuclear Submarine with
Herman Zimmerman, the production designer, to try to get us
just a sense of how things might be a little more.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
I could not believe how confined those submarines.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
You think it's more claustrophobic than you think it is, right.
I actually I don't know if I ever told you.
I took a X Annex before we got him before
because I was poised for a.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
But like I remember the captains. We figured, well, at
least the captain is going to have a nice and
we went to the captain's quarters and it was like
eight feet by eight feet wow, and with a bed
and a tiny desk metal desk in a bed, and
then he had like a little ready room outside which
was even smaller than that with a with a laptop computer.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, it was. It was probably something so bumping your
head that was. Yeah, that was kind of intense degree intentional.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Right, I did not know that scientifically you can use
mashed potatoes too to damn a micro singularity. Did you
guys ever have to talk to like Andre and go
like is that even possible?

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Is that a thing?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, we had we had consultants and they said that
mashed potatoes would do fine.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
I mean from the cafeteria.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
We were thinking about all grotten potatoes, but they said work. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
That was I remember seating that bit that with that bit,
with the flinging. It was one of the toughest for
us to do, was to the dance. Getting the mashed potato,
meat and potato was it you meat life, thank you?

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Pushed over to him. Was one of the half his
shots we did to have it slide over exactly the
right spot. And David Livingston, as you know, was just
an absolute maniac for shots like that.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
You know, in watching the show, which I just did, Uh,
I'm really impressed with David's work.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Great, well, definitely, Yeah, we couldn't have been luckier to
have him actually be the guy.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
To David, without question, one of our best directors. I
mean with I would along with David Carson and Rick Colby,
but David was always one of my favorites just in
terms of his inventiveness. I know that he would drive

(21:42):
people a little crazy interrupting a take because something isn't
right technically, Yeah, probably not, it was exacting, yeah, but
he was really imaginative and and and to and to
shoot an episode with two guys in a really I
mean that is a tight space by any standard, Yeah,

(22:02):
and giving it and giving it pace and having not
be boring, yes.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Dynamic, and he still gave it depth. I mean, I
was really surprised by the fact that when He's at
one end of the shuttle pot and I'm at the
helm end, there was depth there. It was almost this
sort of hitchcocky and in those shots, and there was
separation between us, which at times lifeboat Yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
How do you how many episodes do you have see
at the beginning of a year in the writer's room,
at least an idea or an outline for it.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
I was always the issue was always time. You know,
when you're doing twenty six episodes a season, you get
two weeks, You really get two weeks. Two weeks, you
get your vacation and you come back and you write
as many as you can. How many did we have
at the beginning? Not a lot?

Speaker 3 (22:52):
No, certainly not a lot.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
And you didn't have a lot of maybe maybe three.
You didn't have a lot of.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Rights from the old shows involved in that first seat.
Neither did they just they since have gone on to
other things.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Am I right and saying well, we had we had
some voyager holdovers Mike sesssman for instance, Right, But we
had a man he had not joined, Chris Black was there.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Sadly Manny was done with us well rest in peace. No,
I don't mean that, I mean he was when Manny
came on. I mean I mean talk about the many
effects when he came on in season four? Will you
relieve that you were the pressure was off you now
and that well.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
He came in in season season three.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
I remember the episode he wrote. He came in in
season three and I remember thinking this is bloody good.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
I remember I ran the answer when you're always you know,
back to your initial question. We started with a writing
stuff of ten writers, which is a very large writing
stuff for us, because we wanted to try out new voices.
So we had, for instance, David Goodman who was coming
off of Family Guy, and he was a comedy.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Writer but a terrific writer, terrific writer, and he was
with us for a while.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
We would not have met Seth MacFarland without David Gooman
being on because Seth was a huge fan Ensign rivers.
I think he ended up.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
Can arise on like that just turned their hand to
something as unique as Star Trek and science fiction, and
because it is a.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Particular voice Trek, well, in Seth's case, he's one of
the best Star Trek writers I've ever worked with. I mean,
that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
He has a passion for it.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Because he has a passion for it. But writing Star
Trek and Rick you can probably attest this more than anybody.
It's just a particular thing you know, the tone is
kind of a timeless one. It's a bit more formal.
But at the same time, you don't want it to
be too stiff. It can't. You want it to not

(24:56):
be kind of tainted by contemporary idioms, but at the
same time, it can't be free of them. And that's,
by the way, one of the reasons we wanted to
do Enterprise was to loosen that up a little bit
right and have characters that talked a little more like
you and me. But Star Treks just it's not an
easy show to get everything right.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Now in an elevation, there's a there's a certain like
line for for where the kind of dialogue and the
writing occurs in Star Trek in general that I really
appreciate it. It's you know, you make a connection with
it in a personal level, but you're also watching this
is a theatrical event. We're not We're not trying to
make this. You know, this isn't a detective show. You know,

(25:36):
this is this is new things all the time every week,
and and the characters have to be able to find
the size of that or or just the level to
find a consistency.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
And what's that.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
It's a show about ideas and and hopefully the alchemy
is hopefully you have a big concept that brings out
some character arc and maybe, if you're lucky, there's some
thematic component to it as well. And you don't always
hit all three. In the case of Shuttle Pod one,
we did. You know, it was a great character piece,

(26:11):
it was a high concept, and it was really about something. Yeah,
you know, and as writers on Star Trek, we're we're
always looking for something that's going to be fun to write,
but unique.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
I mean, there's I know, I watched an episode of
one of the newer Star Treks where people are saying
things like gimme five and it just doesn't sit right
to me. Right, there's a certain classical element to Star Trek.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
That's a good word for it, classical.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
They've certainly modernized it in inverted commas. I'm not to
say The Strange New World is not a great looking show.
I mean, I mean, God, if we had we had
had that money, if we'd had that money and technology,
and we could have done bits too. None of us
could sing darling from Scott Did juny have a note

(27:08):
from you all?

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Ever?

Speaker 2 (27:09):
That was like we need people who have you know,
theater training or a theater background, or did any of
that matter.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
I don't remember having.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
There's no question that people with classical, more good training
and diction were welcome, you know, And certainly I always
marveled at the people who had to be under heavy
makeup right, had to be really good actors because it served.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
The makeup right, Yeah, and to get the words out
without you know, gobbling them through that I mean, right,
but Michael dorn arm and Shimmerman, Yeah, yeah, kidding a
lot of work.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
And and not do too much because the makeup is
doing a lot, yes.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Really, isn't it?

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (27:56):
And I mean that must you must recognize that when
they come in, because back in the day when we
would all go into audition live, you that must you know,
you can tell straight away whether someone was.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
You did a lot of casting on the show.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah, I did casting for virtually every episode of all
the of all four series.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
How hard was it to find? That must be? I
think the time the day she walked in literally, yeah,
she she nailed it. I think I heard her say
or read somewhere that she initially turned you down and
wasn't interested. Is that? Is that?

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Is that something you I don't remember, but I wouldn't
be surprised. But most of the casting then was all
it was all done live, we had. The only time
we ever would look at tape on people would be
when we were casting the original core characters. Uh, and
for you and for the leads like Avery Brooks, the

(29:00):
asking for Captain Janeway on Voyager. We looked at tape
on a lot of people.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Offter.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
Miss b was was not up for the for the
for the whole Is that when you she was, Yeah,
she was not up for a lot of things. Yeah,
but no, even before before Jean Villev became the choice,
we looked at tape on a lot of a lot
of people.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Was Miss Mulgray one of the tapes you looked at and.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
She was one of the top runners.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
But then you've got Miss Genevieve bujol. I mean, you know,
it's hard to turn that down.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
If Rick was the one person saying I don't think
this is a good idea, because the rest of us
were star struck. But Rick, No, Rick's caution was, she's
never done television. It's a different animal than making films. Yeah,
she's going to be in a virtually every scene. Yeah,

(30:00):
this you know, And he ended up being right, Am
I correct?

Speaker 3 (30:04):
And yeah, I mean she was. I explained her that
we did seven pages a day and she's used to
doing one page day, kidding and she I remember her
saying to me, I like to get to know my
director before I worked with. I walked up dinner and
spend a little time talking. I said, you're gonna have

(30:26):
a different director every week, and you're not.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Gonna you're going to get these dinners right?

Speaker 3 (30:32):
And she said, I don't feel comfortable having somebody touching
my hair or makeup unless I know them and have discussed.
So I knew that it was not going to work,
but everybody else was thinking, my god, we've got an
Academy Award actress here wanting.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
To play the role, right who I mean? So, how
did she come to that? Was that? Was that network
bringing her to you?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Or how did that? A lot of a lot of
major actresses, I remember Isabella Russellini came in and was
she for.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
The board queen?

Speaker 3 (31:02):
You're right, she was for the board, queen for first contact,
all right? And the casting department always managed to find
interesting people, and in the case of Voyager, we read

(31:23):
a lot of a lot of women, and Jerry Taylor
was in the mix at that time in the selection
of characters. The same thing happened when the character of
seven of nine came up and we had to cast
that a lot of There were a lot of people

(31:43):
in the running.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
How did you determine the Zindi arc? How much time
did you put into thought into that before you began?
I mean, you know it's nine to eleven today. Not
to put any political bent on this, but you know,
the arc itself, to my mind, is our reaction to
what that was and what followed, and we put a lot.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
Of thought into it.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
I mean, do you remember the Jonathan Dolgen meeting? So
Jonathan Dolgen was the Chairman of All, Chairman the boss
of Everyone was a TV film He ran the studio,
ran the studio with Cherry Lancing, and.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Cherry Lancing worked for him right she was movies.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
He called us into his office. He was a huge
Star Trek fan. He would sometimes comment on an episode
and say do more like that? I was back in
Voyager but Enterprise between seasons two and three. He kind
of encouraged us to shake things up a little bit essentially,
and we were interested in doing a seasonal arc, a

(32:54):
more serialized.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Season twenty four had been so successful with that, hadn't
it right?

Speaker 4 (32:59):
Twenty time twenty four was a real breakthrough, and I
think maybe Ricky, you can remember we were already thinking
about doing, for really the first time on the TV
show that I can recall a story that was going
to put earth It in peril as a cliffhanger for
season two. We were already thinking about this whole Zindi thing,

(33:20):
and so we kind of had an idea.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
The whole concept of a continuing storyline did not exist
for us because when the show Next Generation was on
the air, it was syndicated, and the studio would basically
say to us, tough shit, you can't do this.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
You've got practically impossible.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
The stations can air these things in any order they want, right,
And so they said no, no continuing episodes, and we
had to fight for them, and we occasionally we would
have a cliffhanger or two parter cliffhangers to end the season, and.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
By the way, they were so rare they had to
say to be continued because the audience might be confused.
The episode just ended. What what the hell?

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Right?

Speaker 4 (34:09):
So very Rare, I'm sorry, but then no.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Then when we got to UPN, the feeling was, oh,
we're on a network now and we can we can
do more continual storylines. And I know Ira Beer was
obsessed with us for Deep Space nine, and the studio
kept saying no, And it was always perceived that I
was the person saying no, but I was just telling
them no from the studio right right.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
The network, the relationship between you and the network. I mean,
by the time we got it came along, it was
was it was it in good shape, but initially and
then new new people came in and I'm trying.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
To think of what network we were dealing with at
that point.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
Well, we were dealing with Dean Valentine initially with Voyager
who was it was Carrie and Gary Hart.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Loved Star Trek, didn't he love it? He did?

Speaker 4 (35:04):
Like we we were dealing with people we'd been working
with for many, many years, right, and then in what
season was it that's the CBS bought Yeah?

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Season two? I think was it too?

Speaker 1 (35:17):
I think was that when and you know, your man
Lesmimbers had become the golden bullet Viacom and I mean,
I think that's what it was. He put his lady
in at UPN, didn't he and a younger crowd started
running that network, and they were and they kind of
appealed to a younger audience, and they knew.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Nothing about Star Trek. There was one woman there who
was I forget exactly what her position was. She was
one of the higher ranking people. Was it was it
up at that point or was.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
It Yeah, well it was UPN, but it would become seated.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Did you know that that was going on behind the scenes,
that they were.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
We knew maybe a couple of days before the public,
but not a lot. But I remember once I was
asked by I got a call from this woman. I
can't I don't remember I remember her name. And she
said to me, I've got a great idea that's going
to help the ratings. And I said, what's that? And
she said, let's get a boy band. I thought that

(36:19):
was literally the phrase she used, the boy band to
play in.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
In the cafeteria. Yeah, and then and then we can
we can market it. They wanted a different boy band
each week, didn't they. I mean, an actual real they
had some kind of music.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
Oh yeah, No, they wanted a boy band that they
would be able to be able to promote today.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, they kidding.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Do you have any regrets about being involved in a
network having had the other shows be syndicated a little bit?

Speaker 3 (36:51):
I think when we were but we were very spoiled.
I mean when we were doing The Next Generation and
Deep Space nine, we had total, basically total freedom. All
they cared about was if we were on time and
if we weren't over budget, right, and they basically left
us for us.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
So the many you get executives in a network and
they think that you've got can't blanche to do whatever
you want, there's there's they're always going to hit fight back,
you know, push back against the.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Show was successful. I mean, successful shows typically will be
given more a little more freedom. But as a from
my perspective, any studio involvement that was happening Rick was
dealing with so I really had no idea what was
you know?

Speaker 3 (37:38):
So it was there were times where Kerrie would come
into my office and he and Brannan and I would
order lunch and he would talk story with us.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
They're kidding, yeah, I mean, I mean that's a big
deal for chairman. Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Shuttle Pod one
I mean, how easy did that? Just that just can't
heard you say. It just came out of you. You
said that to me on set very first the writing
said this.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Just well, that's thanks to this guy, I think a lot.
But we had a lot of fun with us. I
started writing more and getting involved with working with Brandon
on the show, which was a delight for me. And
this week. I don't remember how we came up with

(38:26):
the idea for the episode, but once we did it.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
It was I remember writing the episode with Rick more
than any more than I do the actual episode.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Would you sit in the same room together doing it
or you?

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah? You would? Yeah, you just said with a laptop
that was going up onto a television kid.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
Yeah, we were.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
That's those are exciting times, aren't they when you and
you see it there and you go wow, that's it's
it was.

Speaker 4 (38:54):
I always say fun to write, fun to watch, you know,
it was.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
It was.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
We had a lot of fun, probably more fun writing
that one than any of them that we did together.
But you have to keep in mind though, we also
had tons of other stuff to do during our days.
You know, Rick was cutting episodes and we had other
episodes being written and what's the next story going to be?

(39:21):
Because we had we were on a seven eight days
shooting schedule, so you had to have an episode every
ten days.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Right when you're writing episode sixteen in this case, you're
shooting episode fourteen, you're polishing episode fifteen, you're cutting episode thirty,
and you're.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Trying to figure out what's episode seventeen and eighteen. So
it's it was great because when we would set aside
that three or four hours of writing each day, that
was just total decompression and not having to hopefully not
bricks phone ringing every ten minutes and interrupting. Wow, it

(40:07):
was really uh, it was a joyful experience, almost part
part of work that wasn't work.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Yeah, you know, I really admire I mean because the
idea of sitting down in front of a black screen
for me and thinking who says what first? It's just
it makes me. It takes my breath away.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
That's it's the same acting as a mystery.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
The ability to do what you do is is yeah,
and for us, I mean yeah, when I read something,
I'm like, yeah, I know how to do that. Yeah, bones,
there isn't it's it's a strange different skill sets.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
That we all have, and yet they're probably more similar
than you think. And that when you're writing characters, you
are it's just about being writing from the inside out
versus outside In other words, really what would that character
say now and do? And being truthful about that and

(41:03):
and and if you know the character and you're being
honest about what you're doing, you're not trying to force
something to happen. It will, It will reveal itself. And
it's I think acting might be similar, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, yeah, we get the luxury of you know, I mean,
you know, Gary Oldman and we said it starts on
the bed with the script and that's where I tend to,
you know, dream up. My My performance is, yeah, lying
on the bed, reading the script and reading the script again,
and reading the script again and trying it out loud

(41:41):
in the bedroom and seeing what wants up, seeing what works,
and it literally opens up. And if it's well written, lord,
it's it's a joy and it's easy.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
But when we're writing it, it's not just the two
characters that we're writing for. It's it's for Dominic and Connor.
We're writing as well, because you guys bring something to
these characters that we get to know and once we
get to know it, in a sense, we're writing for
both the character and for the actor.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Who's do you think we surprised you in our performance
of Shuttle pot One from what you've written on the
page where the moments you'll be like, I didn't see that.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
But.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
I think I think we're always surprised. I mean, you
guys are always giving something. It's you're not reciting lines,
You're you're you're That's that's why you were cast.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
The moments towards the end that are.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Very moving, there are actually so that's what you know.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
Watching it and being moved by it, even though you
suddenly you're kind of divorced from the writing for you
kind of forget that you've written those lines, you know
that that's a testament.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
I found it on settling. I hadn't seen it in
a long time, and watching it last night was as
much joy to see it again and be proud of
what we did. But I found it actually emotionally quite unsettling.
It was it was, it was, it was sad. There's
a lot of sadness.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Well okay, well now you're you are Malcolm right now?
Because I see it as very uplifting, life affirming, totally.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
Life as do I. It's a story of camaraderie, and
it's a story of two of two guys who were
willing to sacrifice their lives for each other.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
And it has a happy ending dominic.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yes it does. I mean, look, I mean there are
just there are some beautiful moments. The lighting of the
candle and the blowing out of the candle is just
it's it's it's divine, you know, all of a sudden
five or six minutes seems like a nice idea.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
Now, when we were writing these characters before they were cast,
because you you're writing a pilot and you start writing
episodes before we get as you're being cast, and it's
really not until we see what you're doing with the characters.
As Rick was saying that the voices, we know what

(44:01):
voice we're writing to. So it's a real it is
a symbiotic relationship up version.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
Absolutely, And though we it's not like Reck and I
were directing. We rarely went to the set.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
No, you didn't off the pot.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
It was set because we just didn't have time. But
there was this there was this relationship always in play,
you know, between us in terms of.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
What was on the page, the speaking of what's on
the page. I've I've spoken with many actors about at
least the experience that we had on Enterprise, where the
idea that you need to be word perfect or ninety
nine percent word perfect, they would just the other jaws
would drop and they'd be like, what, like, yeah, we
had to get it all right, which day talking about

(44:47):
the craft, it's a muscle, you know, you know, that's
the deal. You're gonna you get better at it. And
but that's sort of like free wheeling. And think it
goes back to sort of like the kind of language
in the world in which it was used and spoken
that there couldn't be the colloquialisms.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
That you know, the high fives and and well and
on television it's not like there's a lot of time
for improvisation. But you know, but really this might sound pretentious,
but a lot of a lot of meticulous work went
into the writing of the script. Rick was especially talented

(45:24):
at manicuring every line of dialogue.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
And there was there was there was nitpicking.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
I know, but I I that's I think what I
learned more than anything from you is the economy the
refinement of So it's like down to every adverb I
mean it. So what what was on the page was
very carefully gritten. It wasn't just dashed off. And so

(45:51):
we we expected you to do the dialogue. If there
was an issue, obviously you could call correct.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
I'd learned a lot of that from working with Patrick Stewart.
When we started, most of these scripts had been written
by Gene or Jean certainly had his hand in them
in the beginning. But I was the one who would
get a call every night from Patrick. I remember my
kids would say, my son Tommy would come to me

(46:22):
and we'd be having dinner and the phone would ring
and he'd come. He'd answer, and he'd come back and
with a sad look on his face, and he'd say, Dad,
it's the Captain. And he knew that what that meant was,
I'd be on the phone for forty five minutes, right.
And but with Patrick you discussed every line, and he

(46:43):
had he had things that he wanted to change, and
sometimes it was an adverb, right, And maybe that's what
got it ingrained in me.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Now.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
I love that about that an actor takes such interest
and you know, is he to to what he's going
to say. And no one knows their character better than
the actor playing them. And yeah, said the actor, the
English guy would say, what would he say? I'll get

(47:13):
back to you.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
We are our choice of an english guy to play
Picard was I think in a sense was responsible for
a great deal of everything that followed.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
A right and such a trained actor too.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
I mean Patrick and Jane was. Jean absolutely wouldn't have it.
He had no interest in having a bald Englishman playing Kirk.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
He was completely again, it wasn't he.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yeah, And if I was one of the two people
who just did he come around?

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And he did? I mean, when you see the.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Well, the great, the great tale that I tell is
that we went to bring We brought Patrick in to
uh Paramount with another actor to the studio, and Jeanne
insisted that Patrick were a wig, and he he flew
the wig in from London.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
He had one, didn't he He had one in London.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah, he flew it in and I in my office,
I was we were in a trailer at that point,
and he did the first the weak the wig came
over Federal Express and he put the wig on and
we went in and he read uh. And after he
left the room, John Pike, who was the president of

(48:34):
Paramount Television at the time, said go with the English guy,
but lose the wig.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Thank god. Yeah, and uh.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
That was That was probably the single best bit of
casting that we did because it gave us certain nobility
to the show. Gravit Gravitas.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah, we only did four years. What do we say
about that? I mean, was it just we'd been to
the well too many times?

Speaker 6 (49:07):
This is what I would say to that. We did
ninety nine episodes. That's ninety eight okay, well just to
correct ninety eight episodes, yeah, by in the standard, Yeah,
we were. I think it was the changing of the
guard that was largely responsible for the show.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
And I think so and TV was the landscape. I
know it's changing.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
I just don't think Rick mentioned earlier. I think that
the new people in charge didn't really have understand star
Trek and they didn't have they didn't have an interest,
and the.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Network was turning more toward like teenager young women type
of shows.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
They created the c W.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
I mean, you know, you know, right, and this was
a group that wanted boy bands, right.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yeah, I mean, I mean the one of the other
stories I know I've heard is you having a discussion
about doing an episode with a fire on the hull.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Of the ship, And yes, there was going to be
a fire on the hull, and I was I described
the whole sequence to one of these people at CBS,
and after I got done with a whole mapping out
of what was going on, she looked at me and
she said, that's great, That's what a wonderful idea. Just

(50:31):
tell me one thing. What's a hull?

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Jesus? I think that it was. It's not like you
can even really blame anybody. It was just it was
just if you don't you have to have a pet,
you know, carry McCluggage. The person who was left the
studio loved Star Trek and wanted more Star Trek. I

(50:58):
think I suspect if if I could change the timeline
and that had that changingly hard not happened, I suspect
the enterprise would have run it seven years and there
might have even been more Star Trek. Who knows, but
it you know, it'd probably but it probably did need
a break. Anyway, do you.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Think, I mean, would you happily have gone on and
done another Star Trek show? Do you think in hindsight,
probably probably not. I mean you would reflectively, You've done
twenty you would have wanted.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
In an ideal world, though you didn't flinch about creating enterprise.
Do you think it would have been good if after
Voyager there'd been a year or two I.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Fought for Deep Space nine. I basically Brandon Tartakoff, who
was running the studio at that point, came to me
and said, we want to do another another Star Trek show.
And I said, we got this one on the air.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, well really, and.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
I said, and then when years later, when uh next
generation was coming to a end, they came and said,
let's let's do something else. What turned out to be Voyager,
and that was going to air simultaneous, uh, simultaneously with
the last three seasons of Deep Space nine. And I

(52:14):
kept saying, let's give it some air, let's let's let's wait,
and they went, no, No, we got a We've got
a time slot, and the time slot's sitting there, and
we've got this. We got all these stations that were
selling the show too, and they were making a.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Lot of money for sure, striking while the iron's hot, right,
But I.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Always believed in breathing room. But you know, look a
look at what it is today. Yeah, I do shows
on the air.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
It's the sixtieth anniversary. Next year's twenty fifth. For us,
of course we're going to get overshadowed yet again. And
I was listening to CASERW just the other day and
they were talking about the sixtieth anniversary and then they
just said something after that a TV phenomenon that will
never be rivaled, And I just asked, it made me

(53:00):
so proud that I'm part of that.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
In a legacy, and you're part of the legacy that
unfairly got chopped too early. Yes, And from a lot
of the people I know who are peripheral fans of
the series, people talk more and more about enterprise.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Oh we get it, Well, guys are conventions. We honestly,
it's it's it's happened. I mean, it really helped that.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
It went to Netflix for a hot minute, and then
Paramount Plus came about because you know, to be honest,
this we would hear that. Oh say, in Saint Louis,
we were preempted on a day that we were meant
to be because the Cardinals were playing and they were
shown on that channel, and so you'd have to bounce
back and forth to find the show, and to be
able to watch it chronologically was almost a near impossibility.

Speaker 4 (53:48):
I mean, you've mentioned that we were on the network
for the first time, but the network that we were on,
which was a new network, didn't have one hundred percent
coverage now in the country, and where did air. Sometimes
you needed your tinfoil and rabbit ears to get a
clear signal.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
It was it.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
So, you know, I was in Texas and I was
reading about Shuttle Powder this morning. I was just looking
at some statistics and when it first aired, it got
five point three million viewers, which by today's standards.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Of course, is you know, it's a month.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
And this was with you know, I don't know what
seventy eighty five percent coverage of the country. I don't
know what UPN had.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
I think it was less than eighty.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
So the show was, you know, by today's standards, just
a big hit, was doing very well, and I forgot
it had gone to Netflix. I forgot about that.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
It's kind of a yeah, But the accessibility, I think
is the important part for an audience, you know, to
gain an audience and to get a larger audience.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
You have to know it exists.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah, you have to know what exists, and you have
to you have to give it some time and watch
the arc of the narrative continue on. And if you
can't find the damn thing, we are lazy people. We're
not going to really search that hard to go find something,
or a lot of people aren't going to do that,
and that definitely happened. But yeah, I do think that

(55:16):
the paramount plus situation has been very very good for
our show, in particular, kidding.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Our show also still looks amazing, amazing.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
That's another thing that Rick and I were adamant about
with was although HD television high def television was not
accessible to most people when this show came out, we
wanted it. We want to post production done in high depth.
We wanted the show. It's kind of like shows shot

(55:48):
in color when everyone still had black and white that
we knew eventually everyone would have high def and that
our show would have a better chance of getting syndication
if we were so's yeah, it's it looks very good.
And it was shot sixteen by nine, which not everyone
had at that time.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
And compared to Next Generation or De Space Man or Voyager.
It's got a much more elegant look.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
To it, and it was a fine line to walk
in so much that you know, we're a prequel, so
the technology has got to be stated. But for a
modern audience that's looking. I mean, you know, I think
I heard you say, Rick, you know the computer that
Steve Jobs brought out look funkier than the one that
you were using your next generation and how are you

(56:37):
going to weigh that up? And I think Herman did
a fantastic job of making this prequel look.

Speaker 4 (56:45):
You know, thank God for Herman Zimerman production designer, because
that's one of the reasons that Herman and Rick and
people like Bob Black Ben our costume designer and all
the cut there was a consistency, a continuity between the shows.
And that's why Enterprise feels right because he Herman had

(57:09):
done all the other shows.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Right exactly, Yeah, exactly. And Michael Westmore and the fact
that that we were in business for nineteen years and
the number of people who were there on year nineteen,
who were there on year one, it's incredible.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
There were at least sixteen or seventeen crew members that
were It was a well oiled machine. And it was
a joy to set foot on that set and we
were so lucky to have Scott as the number one
on the top of the food chain.

Speaker 4 (57:40):
There are episodes of Enterprise that, like Shuttle Pod one
I was reading according to some The Guardian or some poll,
you know, that it's regarded as one of the top
one hundred episodes. It's considered one of the best Star
Trek episodes, which I'd never read before. I don't know
how true that is, but in retrospect, I mean, I

(58:04):
think a lot of people are maybe just now discovering Enterprise.
And I tell people who are fans of Voyager or
do you Space nine or TG, You've got a ninety
eight episodes of Star Trek that you haven't seen that
were made by the same people, you know, and there
are episodes of Enterprise. I think our classics are really

(58:27):
great start.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Janet similar Similitude. I mean, there are some really fantastic
Star Trek.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
I thought Broken Bowl was a great episode.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
That pilot was frankly the best is the best Star
Trek pilot I think I've ever I mean, I've watched
them all now.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
It's a it's a really good pilot and a lot
of stuff that Manny brought to the show in the
fourth year. Yeah, just wonderful.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's the to me. The
one of the tragedies that didn't go on was because
Manny had some great playing.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
Brilliant and that the show was a precursor to the
United Federation of Planets, the fact that that was our
ultimate goal of where we were going, and that basically
we were told that the show was done two episodes
before the end.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Right, Yeah, that was rough. I mean, you know, there
are a couple of things that we haven't talked about yet.
Is the final episode and the theme song the.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
Final episode is Rick and I. Here's the thing, it wasn't.
I think the Enterprise fans would see it as a
disappointing finale of Enterprise, but Rick and I, for right
or wrong or otherwise, Rick had been with this franchise

(59:46):
for eight eighteen years, yeah, and I'd been there for fifteen,
and we wanted to send a valentine to the franchise.
And I still stand by the concept of the episode,
which is it's actually an episode of Next Gen where
they're looking at they're looking back at Enterprise on the holidack,
which I think is a cool idea.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
I agree. I mean, I think the idea of we
can't get ourselves from the ninety seventh episode to the
ninety eighth episode. Story wise, there was no way we
could do.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Yeah, so what are you going to do?

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
So we would do the idea of doing a flashback
from the future, looking back with the help of a
holid deck to see what happened, what the culmination was
with Jonathan Archer and the United Federations.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
What impacts and enterprise had on those characters.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
And there was no way of doing that other than
seeing it through as a flashback, and we had the
ability of doing We had holidecks that could make realistic
flashbacks unlike other kinds of television series, and somebody had
to be looking at it. So the fact that we

(01:01:08):
picked Marina and Jonathan's characters from the next from the
next generation was just a convenience for us.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Was there a second Was there was there a plan
B for our last episode that might not have been
that or No?

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
No, absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
That episode was written with precise intention. Whether or not
you liked, you liked how it turned out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
But I didn't realize it ticked Scott off until we
did that ten year reunion at CBS and he actually
said it out loud. Do you remember he wasn't happy
with them.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
I mean, I can understand why. I mean, by the way,
I've never seen Scott angry ever, Like, no, I don't
even know him to have gotten upset about anything. But
I think he was being probably feeling protective about about
his his show, his crew. Yeah, you know, and I

(01:02:00):
can understand that, but I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Mean, when I've watched it, there is some sort of
when when he's been stopped and started like a puppet
on the hologram deck, it's there is a certain either
is it disrespectful or is it that he's I don't
know it. I can understand why it were rough, you know, well,

(01:02:22):
we weren't certainly roughly with him.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Our intentions were not to be in any way dismissive
or disrespect disrespectful. We were is quite the opposite.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
And loo no, I mean, I have to say the
scenes that we shot with Jonathan Frakes on the Galley
were to some of the best scenes that the funnest
days that we ever had. The one thing that I
know he is such a fun guy to work with.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Why did we This is the thing that I can't
figure out. Tripp is killed in the episode. To me,
that's the thing, that's the thing that I feel. I
feel like, I feel like that's the real problem. You know,
one of the most beloved characters. Certainly, What were we thinking?

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Why did we do that? Why did we think because
you could really couldn't you know?

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
No, no, no, no, We're not to kill off a character,
is why did we do it? What happens in the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Pull out, Actually it's not an electrocution.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
I pull out one of these hoses because there's these
diamond pirates in and I and I blow them up
because I know that that the captain has to get
back to Earth the Federation for all this to occur,
and it looks like he's gonna We're going to get killed.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
So I sacrificed my sacrifices.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Now I'll say this, I'm very satisfied with the final episode,
and I'm really satisfied with the fact that Tripped dies
because as an actor, I got to tell the entire
arc of a story. You don't have to wonder about him.
I don't have to wonder about him. I have to
ask answer questions about him. What you saw was the
totality of this person's career in life. And I get

(01:03:57):
great satisfaction out of that. And I surprise you people
when I tell them that. They don't they never think
of it that way. And I said, yeah, this is
I did when we when we got this script for
the final episode, there was a message from you. I
think to call you after i'd read it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
And I read the.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Episode and I was like okay, and I called you
up and I said we are canceled, right, and you
were like, yeah, we're done.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
And I was like, oh well then all right, kill me, great,
kill me stream out.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
We were to go, you know, no doubt. We were
after what emotional impact it would have, and we felt
that the flashback needed some power, some emotional potency. But
I can see why that it might have been upsetting
to people to find out indirectly the trip died.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Are we still spoiling some people twenty five years later?

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Well, if you watch, if you're just discovering the show,
these people aren't real.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
So the theme song, I mean, I know, maybe we
didn't want to end on this note, but whose idea
was it to take it away from an orchestral piece
and and find a song and I love it. I mean,
I got to say, I find the montage brilliant.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
I think I think it was mine?

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Was it?

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
I think so?

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
I think it was mine. I think we were trying
to do something different and something new. I think the
montage that they put together brilliant that Peter Laurenson I know,
is involved with. It's just my love shots showing the
whole history of avionics all.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
The way to space and enterprises general, you know. And
I met the sales ships, and I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Met this woman Diane Warren who's a big songwriter and
the voice.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
The English singer I'm blanking on his name, Russell Watson.
What a great voice, I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Mean, you know, and the song for me fit the
whole tenor of what the show is going to be about.
And I think it was a gigantic mistake because people
were so angered by it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
And what who cares honestly, But by this time people say, like,
you know, oh the theme song.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
I'm like, did you watch the show?

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Yeah, there's another forty five minutes that were really interesting
and it didn't happen to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Like it was it was.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
It was. There was a lot going on that was different.
The word star star Trek had been removed. It was
a prequel.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Then Starcheck came back, and it was just.

Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
Kind of a I don't know. I mean I've heard
some people say that, hey, that's the song from Robin
Williams movie.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
Yeah, like we did it Patch Adams, Patch.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Adams, which was how do I know that? Yeah, that's
sometimes they just get a movie that was not a
pair of all that great and maybe it was just
too much for people. I think it's grown on people,
you know. And I think Rick's right, it's a by

(01:07:12):
the way, you remember what song we had in there
as a temp song when we were developing the visuals
was a You two Beautiful Day.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Yeah that was by way.

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
There was no reality where we're getting that, but we
needed something in there, mind you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I mean when when when the new iPhone came out
with a free U two song on it, everyone went
bananas because they didn't want you putting you too. I
didn't want that. I mean, fans, you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Can be tricky, yeah, and but I think most I
have to believe that these days, most people would either
say they have a fondness for the song or just
don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
It's sung every night. Every time we do karaoke at
any convention and we host the karaoke show, it's the
last show we go. Everyone comes up to saying that
they all know the lyrics, and they know the lyrics, even.

Speaker 4 (01:08:03):
The long form long song, which is a lot longer.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
It goes along time a lot of it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
It's really a long version.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Oh it's this American pie.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
But I mean, you guys, look your actors that you're
in the you go to conventions and all this stuff.
You must have a sense of enterprises popular and.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
There's there's there's one when people walk up and they say,
and this really annoys me as they go, I watched
your show, and you know, I heard a lot about it,
but it's really good. And I'm like, you heard all
these naysayers talking about this and decided not to watch
it for twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Yeah, I didn't watch it because I heard the theme
song was yeah exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
And and otherwise that people it's happening more and more
and more as they're walking up and they're saying, I
got to tell you, this is the best of them all.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
And the way that I had a lot yeah, yeah,
the really inspiring thing is when somebody walks up and says,
I'm an engineer because of your.

Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
Character, There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
And the night I came out, we get a lot
of service people who were you know, literally you know,
dodging I eds all day and the hour they would
get off, they come home and our show would be
televised teleported to wherever they were in Iraq or wherever.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
It was heartbreaking it so that really is humbling.

Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
At the time it was out, I think it was
the recipient of a lot of criticism, just of the French.
You know, what they would call these days is a
franchise fatigue and and a very much a crossing of
the arms. Okay, so prove why you should exist. Whereas

(01:09:42):
the show is such a it's a culmination of so
many people's talents, the people behind the scenes, people writing
it had been working on this show for a long
time and had really refined their abilities, and it was
on full display. And I think some of the scripts
that Rick and I wrote are good examples like we'd

(01:10:04):
figured it out. We knew how to write this show,
we knew how to bring our very best to the table.
And I think Enterprise. In some ways, it's the best
of the shows in that regard, and it was the.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
Most fun to make because everything was shorthanded. Everybody knew
if you needed to talk to Bob Blackman about costume,
or Herman Zimmermann or Michael Westmore, everybody knew what everybody
else did and how they did it, and how they
worked and how you would talk to people. And the

(01:10:38):
camaraderie within yus. Some of these people who had been
with us for that was popable.

Speaker 4 (01:10:45):
Almost twenty years, and this is a play. Star Trek
for us had become real for fifteen to eighteen years.
All of us had been living this every single day
of our lives. Had become real, and now we were
making this prequel and we were the right people to
do it because it was now in our DNA. And

(01:11:07):
I think it's one of the reasons that Star Trek
is feels real to a lot of fans.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Yeah, okay, I said, the foundation for it's a forever
thing now, I think pretty much. And you guys set
the foundation for that along with mister rodenbrink Up Lesson.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
But it was the honor of my career, my professional life, having.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Worked with and for the two of you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Yeah, no kidding, and I mean that now I'll always
feel that way.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
Yeah, I think the feeling is quite mutual.

Speaker 4 (01:11:39):
Thank you for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Absolutely, Well, it's been lovely chatting to you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
Hope for coming by. What have you done more episodes
of this show than Enterprise did?

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
Yeah, we're at all.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Right, all right. I think you'll find that ninety eight
is a big it's a tough one. We love it
because we're osensibly moving in to really reviewing our show
now and occasionally we'll come into the studio if and
when we have the cash to do so.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Yeah, if you want to get your checkbook out, it'll
be a nice companion piece, I think for the show,
because I mean that's our goal is to is to
do all of our episodes and have them, you know,
for the world to see if they so.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
Yeah, we're very we want to leave our own commentary
on our show rather than have someone else do that.
And because we'll kick there and then and then having
chaps let you come in and join the party has
been just fantastic.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
You changed our lives guys, and I really can't thank
you enough. Well, that doesn't disappoint, not at all. I
lovely to see them in the same room together and
and to you know, chew the fat about frankly four
of the best years of my life.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
I agreed, And also thinking about how you know, when
I do think about the four years, I think of
them very fondly. But you know, it's so much I
was reminded of so much in this chat that that
that made me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
Again so proud of being a.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Part of all of this, yeah kidding, not just Enterprise,
but a part of Star Trek.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
And you know, twenty five years ago it was just
another Star Trek show and now it's it's the whole
characterization has changed about the franchise and what it means
in televisual history. And we were a part of something

(01:13:38):
you know that's frankly phenomenal. And I mean I pinched
myself at that that, you know, the thought of becoming
an actor and actually getting onto a franchise that has
become this just just just is you know, monolith.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Yeah, However, when we were done, we thought we killed it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
We did, mean we did. We thought that we literally
killed this thing. Well, I thought you killed it, Well
they killed well, they killed me then though. Yeah, so
maybe that's but it's I mean, I was listening to
the radio and I've said it a couple of times
and it's the sixtieth anniversary next year and our twenty fifth,
and we're just part of something that's just huge, and

(01:14:22):
I never knew it at the time. Yeah, no, I
had a sense that we were part of something, you know, big,
that certainly had you know, notoriety, but nothing to the
extent that it's become.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
It had not yet got and it's going to sound
maybe controversial, it had not yet got the bona fides
of being a trekkie. Being a trecky still at that
point in time wasn't cool. Now you see girls walking
around an original series skirts.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
Hollywood Boulevard, Yeah you do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Well, I'm not sure what they're doing there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
But.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
But you know, it's it's it's it's come out of
the closet in a way that that I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
I didn't. Yeah, I didn't feel at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
You know, we were part of a large, cloistered group.

Speaker 4 (01:15:12):
That that doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
It's a worldwide universal and.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
It is and much loved the loved. Please think about
joining some Patreon we can always use The help.

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):
Was respect

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
One