SFX | October 2001 ::.::.:..

Bakula Future

SFX October 2001

 

Not many actors get the chance to headline two big SF series.
Ed Gross talks to one who has .....Scott Bakula

It would be too difficult to find someone didn't agree that in recent years Star Trek lost a bit of its lustre. Audience apathy greeted both the last feature film, Insurrection, and the later seasons of Voyager. Let's face it: the magic was gone.

Which is why news of a fifth Trek series was greeted with a collective groan and a roll of eyes. Why, many wondered, couldn't Paramount give 24th Century a rest?

Well, much to their credit, that's exactly what they are doing with Enterprise, a prequel to the original series that debuts in the UK in January on SKY. While this in itself was enough to get the fans and the media buzzing, the buzz only intensified when it was announced that actor Scott Bakula had been signed to play Jonathan Archer, Starfleet's first captain of Earth's first starship Enterprise. Although Bakula has also appeared in Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions, Tom Clancy's Netforce and played the gay neighbour in the critically acclaimed American Beauty, to most people he's still best known as Quantum Leap's Sam Beckett. More than anything, Bakula brought a human element to Beckett, and it's the same thing that fans are hopeful he will bring to Star Trek. It would seem to be an awesome responsibility.

"Not really," he counters. "I've got to be honest, I like it. The character is great and it's really a return, in many ways, to what the original Star Trek was all about. There's just a lot of emotion in this show, this version of it, and there's a lot of relationship among the crew, which is great. It very much has an 'anything goes' feeling to it, which I think is going to be a lot of fun for the audience."

In assessing what he brings to Enterprise Bakula notes "What I try to do is to bring reality to a situation. As much as reality as I can, because I see that as my job as an actor. Believability, reality, whatever you want to call it. As I said to [producers] Rick and Brannon early on, I don't know why I've done as much sci-fi as I have. Part of it, I think, is that I want to believe.  If the job calls for me to stand in front of a 60-foot dragon and battle it to the death then I want to believe the dragon is out there. If I believe I can travel in time, then the audience believes it also." Which is the reason why he and Quantum Leap producer Don Bellisario stuck to their guns during that show's early days when the network asked them to jazz up Sam Beckett." They wanted us to be a little more Bill Murrayish, which is the best way I can put it. I said, 'You know what?  If you want that you got the wrong guy. I don't believe that the heart of the show is going to live on me being a snappy, wise-cracking , wise ass time traveller. He created this machine and he's done it, he has the technology and the power and knowledge.' So I'm bringing that element to this show. The producers have given the characters some nice backstory. I'm grounded here on Earth. I have a home, I grew up in San Francisco, I'm a Starfleet brat.... I have all these nice tangible things to land the character and, and hopefully, that will all come out and play nicely."

The appeal of the show, Bakula reckons, is the fact that it's based around mankind's first venture into space further than the moon. This, he believes, brings a different kind of "energy" to the show compared to its predecessors.

"It's all about, 'What's around the next corner? What are we going to find?'" Bakula explains. "It's not dial in a new planet every week and we'll show up. We're getting the kinks out, the ship is not working perfectly so there's humour and fun with that. The initial mission to the Klingon homeworld is a kind of off-the-cuff, last minute deal and all of a sudden we're out there and we don't have to turn around and come home. It's got more of an improvisational feel to it in that, for these people, there are no rules. There's only Starfleet, not a Federation, so we're out there like the Wild West. We're finding out how to behave as we go, which is a blast. Also, 150 years from now today is not very far at all. I can imagine, and I think we all can, what life is going to be like 150 years from now. The trick for us, and so far I think we're doing a pretty good job of it, is creating this excitement about, 'Wouldn't it be great to be the first pioneers?' It's The Right Stuff - that kind of energy of being the first ones out there, and being a little scared sometimes."

It's his feeling that Enterprise, like the original, can take the opportunity to present genuine morality tales within a SF setting. "That's because we're the least experienced people out there and we're the only humans out there." he says. "We have a Vulcan on board who is constantly reminding us what their version of the rules are and what's proper behaviour and what kind of message do we want to give to the universe?
We're representing a planet. Being human, we're going to make mistakes, we're going make some enemies, obviously, but hopefully we'll make more friends. I just think that overall feeling permeates the series so even in small encounters that may seem innocent, there is this great sense of wonder and awe that we're carrying out into space with us. We're not out there trying to gain territory."

"Americans have explored our planet in a variety of different ways," he explains. "Some successfully, some not. We have a wide history of exploration in this country. Certainly different experiences in Vietnam and places like that where we tried to impose our ideas and philosophies on different cultures. As we mentioned in the pilot, Earth has in the next 150 years solved famine, disease and the main problems that are plaguing us environmentally, so that going on this journey now, with that under our belts so to speak, hopefully we can do an exploration series based on a kind of broad-mindedness that hasn't existed on this planet in the past; making it more about the experience and less about planting the flag. In other words, enjoying the experience and learning from it, rather than saying, 'Now we're here and we can do things better than you.'

"Obviously," he continues, "when you're out there, there aren't rules or officials looking over our shoulders, so you get into the true choices of conscience, of good and evil. And those things become very pure because there is no governing factor. You're not necessarily going to be held accountable. So if you're someone out there looking to do good, and looking to explore in a healthy way, there's a great responsibility to that. As well as a great temptation to change and alter and fix and do things we like to do here. We have and opportunity in this series to make mistakes and to plunge ahead and ahead and realise, 'Oh my gosh, that was a terrible idea.' And the only people who are, in a sense, going to be judging that are ourselves. Which becomes this very wonderful kind of play within the show, which is, 'How are we going to deal with not only being out there, but the choices we make?'"

With Enterprise, Bakula is in a position that few television actors are in: not only does it seem a guarantee that he'll be employed steadily for the next seven years, but by becoming part of Star Trek, he seems to be ensuring a bit of immortality himself.

"At this point in my career," he says, "one thing I've learned that is you never count on anything, so if we get through the first 13 and we're still rolling, I'll be happy. And everybody walks around saying five, seven, six, throwing all these numbers out, but I'm not pessimistic at all. I've been doing this for a long time. So I'm approaching it as, you know, hopefully at least a two-year job. And I have approached it as I approach everything. At the end of the day, they have put a two-hour script in front of me that I just thought fantastic, and a character that I really wanted to play, and that I thought, should it go for a while, there would be room to do a lot of different things with. There would also be a lot of opportunity for this character to interact with other characters on the ship. So, to me, it's like a gift that this kind of job exists in this town.  There are few opportunities like this, it it turns out to be a show that lasts for a long time, and it's a franchise that I love. It seems a good thing.

"For me," Bakula continues, "being around for so long allows me to focus on the big picture. You go in knowing that your every move is going to be analysed to death and picked apart. I saw this with Quantum, so in a sense it makes you work harder and prepare more, and really think about choices you're making. I've certainly prepared myself for the fact that not everybody is going to care for my captain, and there's nothing you can do about that. It's like replacing Olivier in Hamlet."

It's his hope that Enterprise will be able to appeal to more of a general audience who may not have followed Star Trek religiously in the past.

"This is just a great adventure in space.  there are certainly in-jokes, in the sense that if you've seen Star Trek before, you'll get them, but it's not going to prohibit anyone from jumping on for the first time. I'm really encouraging people to sample the show. I can't imagine what it would be like to sample this series for the first time, and then have 35 years to catch up on. It could certainly take over your life...."

"You know," he adds with a laugh, "one of the many ways I've been judging how well we're doing is by the reaction of the people who have been here for a long time. The people in the crew who have shot every episode of Voyager - and some were on The Next Generation - are just jazzed; they're having a ball. To be honest, I was somewhat nervous coming in in that everyone has been doing it for a long time. You want to jump into something and have everybody to have the same excitement level. I knew the cast was so excited about it and were trilled to be a part of it. You want everybody to match that and to be doing their best work. You don't want anybody phoning it in. But it's just been fantastic. All the designers are just outdoing themselves and everybody is having a great time."

So what kind of Captain is Archer? An old style, pull-up-the-shirt-sleeves-and wade-in Kirk, or a by-the-book Starfleet paragon like Picard? It's obviously something Bakula has been mulling over already.

"There's a lot on the line for this guy," he emphasises. "We all know from our life here how delicate the space program is, how funding can disappear. And you ride the wave of public sentiment often. On the show, we've been desperately trying to get access to this engine and get out into space to prove that we're as capable as the Vulcans, that there's the opportunity and, finally, my character, with a little help, has succeeded in getting this chance. He feels a certain pressure, a certain obligation, a certain debt to his father and all these things that are going on. At the same time , he wants to be the first into battle, the first one out the door, and we have times where I have to be reminded, 'You're the captain and you don't have to do certain things.' There's a kind of energy, an awe, a wonderment, a great sense of discovery that, certainly, Picard didn't have to the same degree. Kirk had it, but, again, we're much more involved in the reality of what this travel in the terms of we're not going to find a planet every week. What happens during those times? What I'm hoping to bring forth is a guy whose emotions are on his sleeves, but at the core of it all he's just a kid in a candy store, getting to live the dream of a lifetime."