When I was approached by the guys who run television here at Paramount,
they said, "Oh, we're gonna do another Star Trek franchise."
And I was like, "Well, okay. Whatever." And they said,
"But we'd like you to be the first captain on the first starship."
And I think they knew before they asked me
that that was gonna get my interest.
And I tried not to act too excited. They pretty much had me
from that point on.
Take her out, Mr Mayweather.
Straight and steady.
And they said, "We wanna bring back that chemistry from the original series
of Kirk and Spock and Bones
and bring those kind of relationships back into the show
and humanize the show more."
So all those things sounded really good to me, and then I got a great pilot script.
While you may not share our enthusiasm about this mission,
I expect you to follow our rules.
What's said in this room and out on that bridge
is privileged information.
I didn't request this assignment, captain.
And you can be certain that when this mission's over,
I'll be as pleased to leave this ship as you'll be to have me go.
If there's nothing else...
That will be all.
When we first started,
the characters T'Pol and Captain Archer obviously were at odds.
Because I was set on there as a supervisor or babysitter,
or somebody just to oversee or look constantly over their shoulders.
Captain.
There's no way you could have anticipated this.
I'm sure Ambassador Soval will understand.
You're the science officer.
Why don't you help Trip with that analysis.
The first year was a little touch and go.
As far as liberties as an actor,
Rick and Brannon gave us a lot of liberty
to portray our characters as we saw fit.
T'Pol was...
...a fine line to walk, because she's an alien.
Because she's already been preceded by Spock.
And because it's such a well-developed character
and you're stepping into it as a new rendition or a new version.
Or maybe not. Maybe just an evolution of Spock.
I was thinking...
...a Vulcan science officer could come in handy.
But if I asked you to stay,
it might look like I wasn't ready to do this on my own.
It might be best if I were to contact my superiors
and make the request myself.
With your permission.
Permission granted.
It seems that everybody has commented
on that scene in the pilot...
...the decontamination scene.
Correct me if I'm wrong,
but aren't you just kind of an observer on this mission?
I don't remember anyone telling me you were a member of Starfleet.
My Vulcan rank supersedes yours.
Apples and oranges.
This is an Earth vessel. You're in no position to take command.
As soon as we're through here, I'll contact Ambassador Soval.
He'll speak to your superiors,
and I'm certain they will support my authority in this situation.
Yeah, she's beautiful, and she's not wearing much,
and I'm not wearing much either...
Just as you're sitting right there, right behind you
and right behind this lens, when we were shooting that scene,
it was 40 people. So it's about as sexy as dental surgery.
There's something about the Everyman in him, I think. In Trip, you know.
I think that the accent might have a little bit to do with that.
But I think that I might bring that sensibility to it, you know?
I'm just a...
I'm as much a regular guy as he is, I suppose, and...
I love being the guy who gets his foot caught in his mouth, you know.
Who seems to be-- If there is anybody who's sort of...
...inappropriate on a human level, it tends to be Trip.
Tell me, did your visit to the Xyrillian ship involve any...
...romance?
- What? - Were you intimate with anyone?
Doc, I was over there to repair a warp reactor.
I'm not quite sure if congratulations are in order, commander,
but you're pregnant.
Phlox is indeterminate age,
but old enough to have multiple grown children,
presumably from a very long-lived species
from an extremely crowded planet called Denobula with billions of people.
If you're going to embrace new worlds, you must try to embrace new ideas.
There's a lot to be learned.
It wasn't described to me at all.
All I really had to go on was the very small bit of script.
So the only clue I had was Dr. Phlox has a slight alien accent.
I practiced with my wife until I found an alien accent
that she didn't laugh out loud at, which is basically the accent I have,
although it's been refined a little bit over the first season.
The only thing I added was a bird call.
I thought perhaps on my home planet, again, not having anything to go on,
that Dr. Phlox might be some kind of an avian creature.
So when I auditioned, I sort of punctuated my lines
with an occasional squawk:
Like that.
And they hired me, but no one told me whether it was because of the squawk
or in spite of the squawk.
So I was never sure whether or not I should keep the squawk or not
until the very first day of shooting, when the director said,
"What the hell are you doing with that squawk?"
That was how I knew I wasn't supposed to squawk anymore.
What's wrong?
The translator, it's not locking on to his dialect.
The syntax won't align.
Tell him we're taking him home.
He wants to know who we are.
This character, I think, has really grown.
We were very different, my character and myself.
But when I started the show, we were in similar situations,
so that was interesting.
You know, she was going on her first mission ever,
being in space for the first time.
She had been pretty much an academic up until that point.
And I had just graduated from college, and I had been academic.
And I had never been--
It was my third day being on a set when I started Enterprise.
So I was scared out of my mind
the way that she was scared out of her mind.
Our personalities were different
and we approached these challenges differently,
but they were similar challenges.
- Hoshi, where are you going? - I don't think you need a translator.
Stay here.
Their bodies are being flushed out with some kind of fluid.
- Are they all--? - All dead, sir.
I'm afraid so.
I'd met Rick and Brannon about two years before
I actually got this audition call during that pilot season for Enterprise.
I'd gone in for a guest-star part on Voyager.
And it was one of those ones I thought I'd done rather well.
And I remember ringing my manager, going, "Yeah, I got that.
They'll be calling." And then I never heard from them again.
And I might have even said to him, "lf those...ever ring again,
tell them to sling a hook."
So anyway, when they rang
and said they had an audition for me on the Tuesday,
I'm like, "Okay, what time?"
So it transpired that Rick had, you know,
thought of me at the Voyager audition
for Malcolm Reed. They were formulating the idea of the show
and they thought they were gonna have this English character,
and I guess he didn't wanna waste me on a guest-star part on Voyager.
And he had my photograph on his desk for 18 months, he told me.
You could have rung me, Rick. Just a little call.
That was a tough 18 months.
Three, two, one.
Wonderful.
- We're only off by three metres. - Only three metres.
That could be the difference between hitting a weapons port and a warp core.
Instead of disabling a vessel, we'd end up destroying it.
He's British. He's the gunman.
I'm having a lot of fun playing him.
He's turned out to be quite enigmatic and contradictory, which I like.
He's not quite as pigeonhole-able as other characters I've played
within that sort of TV genre.
And I know that Brannon, particularly, feels that he can write for me
in sort of, you know, contrasting ways, and that's very exciting.
So I'm having a lot of fun playing him.
I've never seen lightning in a snowstorm before.
The storm's kicking up too much interference.
I can't isolate human bio-signs.
They could be anywhere in the complex.
Try Vulcan bio-signs.
I found her.
I love the fact that Travis is excited about exploring everything.
Everything that we come across.
I walked in, the moment I sat down at my helm,
there was this electricity that I could feel.
I got a chill from my head to my toes, and I went,
"Okay, I'm a part of something...
...much larger than my life has ever been.
So let's see what happens next."
And then I started putting the burden on myself
to make sure that every single time,
because of what I'm a part of...
You know, there are just times in life where you can,
you know, if you don't really feel like doing it,
you can go through the motions to do it.
As soon as I sat at my helm,
I knew that I was never going to allow that to happen
while being a part of this show.
I can never just go through the motions
because of what this is that I am a part of now.
It's a great treat to drive through those gates every day.
You know, when you leave in the evening
and the sun's glancing on the water tower
with the Paramount logo...
...that's a long way away from Leicester and England,
Iet me tell you, mate.
And that's the great thing about Star Trek,
is there's such a current of humanity.
The compassion of mankind, the hope for the future
and all that is good and magical and wondrous about the world.
It's a wonderful vision that Roddenberry had.
And in light of the world today and what we're all reading about
every day in the papers and what's facing us on this planet,
again, it's a wonderful ideal to hold up and say, "Can humanity survive?
Can humanity survive in a positive way and work together
and create the "Roddenberry vision" that allows us to then leave this planet
and, with great goodwill and wonderful intentions,
go out into space?"
And I think that's what makes this franchise so special,
makes it enduring, is that people like that.
That it's hopeful, and it's possible.
On this site, a powerful engine will be built.
An engine that will someday help us to travel
100 times faster than we can today.
Imagine it. Thousands of inhabited planets at our fingertips.
And we'll be able to explore those strange new worlds.
And seek out new life and new civilisations.
This engine will let us go boldly
where no man has gone before.