In retrospect, I think maybe that's why the show never gelled for me, either.
Scott Bakula... worst acting job ever in Trek?
- Thread starter CaptainHawk1
- Start date
In retrospect, I think maybe that's why the show never gelled for me, either.
See I like Enterprise I just have a problem with Archer; its kinda like we get two diff Archers at times. And not sure which one to follow.
That was my problem with Archer. The writers didn't seem to know who they wanted him to be, which was particularly jarring in the early episodes when we were just getting to know the characters:
Archer the jerk:
-- Telling T'Pol he was restraining his urge to "knock her on her ass." OMG, what a line to give a character we saw for the first time 5 minutes ago!
-- T'Pol tells him the "coordinates are off by point 2 degrees" as the ship is leaving spacedock in Broken Bow. He responds with a frosty "thank you" and then ignores her. Anyone with half a brain cell would realize that being off by point 2 degrees is going to mean quite a bit by the time you get to Mars' orbit, nevermind Kronos.
-- The crabbiness when he doesn't like what he's hearing from his officers.
Then there was Archer the great guy:
-- Gently urging Hoshi in Fight or Flight to try to get through to the Axanar captain.
-- Talking Trip into calming down and lowering his weapon in Strange New World (so T'Pol can shoot him
). -- Looking after Trip when they arrive at the shelter in Desert Crossing. As McCoy might say, "he has a great bedside manner."
Archer literally drove me crazy. Thank God for season 3. He got a major dose of focus and intensity that was finally -- finally! -- comprehendable. And the soul-crushing things he did gave us an incredible, complex and matured character that I loved watching throughout the arc and again in S4.
That was my problem with Archer. The writers didn't seem to know who they wanted him to be, which was particularly jarring in the early episodes when we were just getting to know the characters:
Archer the jerk:
-- Telling T'Pol he was restraining his urge to "knock her on her ass." OMG, what a line to give a character we saw for the first time 5 minutes ago!
-- T'Pol tells him the "coordinates are off by point 2 degrees" as the ship is leaving spacedock in Broken Bow. He responds with a frosty "thank you" and then ignores her. Anyone with half a brain cell would realize that being off by point 2 degrees is going to mean quite a bit by the time you get to Mars' orbit, nevermind Kronos.
-- The crabbiness when he doesn't like what he's hearing from his officers.
Then there was Archer the great guy:
-- Gently urging Hoshi in Fight or Flight to try to get through to the Axanar captain.
-- Talking Trip into calming down and lowering his weapon in Strange New World (so T'Pol can shoot him
-- Looking after Trip when they arrive at the shelter in Desert Crossing. As McCoy might say, "he has a great bedside manner."
Archer literally drove me crazy. Thank God for season 3. He got a major dose of focus and intensity that was finally -- finally! -- comprehendable. And the soul-crushing things he did gave us an incredible, complex and matured character that I loved watching throughout the arc and again in S4.
See thats how I am with Archer in eps its like for me in Forgotten I know he is trying to create an allience with Degra and such but its like you have the weapons builder there and someone who lost his sister to the weapon also there and he should xpect Trip to be upset and instead he apologizes and Degra to me handled the situation well cause in my opinion he needed to meet someone affected or effected from what his weapon did but its like Tpol and Archer both apologize for Trip and for me Degra would have listened. Thats what I like about Council when Trip and Degra are tossed together and got an undestanding of each other. But Archer drove me crazy at times where he treated Trip like a child like don't do this or don't do that and then its like they are buddy buddy the next week or in same eps. So its kinda like at times it was a tailspin with me at times with how different Archer was written. I mean to me Trip came a long way for him to be able to go to Columbia and get that ship running when no one could but Archer always treated Trip so differently even when his third in command would say you are letting emotions take over your thinking. I mean those are scenes I enjoyed between Trip and Archer so yes the writers had good eps writing Archer and then there were doozies you would say what were they thinking and sorry using Trip as an example came easy cause of some of the marathon eps on Friday.
I don't have a problem with Archer snapping at T'Pol in the first eps. Vulcans had been looking over their shoulders for years, and being assigned one when humanity is getting ready to strike out on their own? RAWR! I sympathized with Archer--"can't we do stuff on our own for once? Geez!" T'Pol pissed me off early on because of how high strung she was and how often she looked down on the crew. I'm glad she and Archer loosened up and got over their preconceptions. 
Yes, in retrospect it's easy to see why Archer, et.al. are so thin-skinned when it comes to the Vulcans. But save the very low-key remark young Jon makes to his father re: some classmate saying the Vulcans are "holding us back," we have no reason to sympathize. And because most fans have seen TOS/and the movies, we have a pretty strong fondness for Vulcans (yes, the ENT Vulcans aren't quite the same in this era, but we don't really know that in the earliest episodes ... and so Archer -- who is the most flagrantly rude and dismissive -- simply comes off as an ***hole).I don't have a problem with Archer snapping at T'Pol in the first eps. Vulcans had been looking over their shoulders for years, and being assigned one when humanity is getting ready to strike out on their own? RAWR! I sympathized with Archer--"can't we do stuff on our own for once? Geez!" T'Pol pissed me off early on because of how high strung she was and how often she looked down on the crew. I'm glad she and Archer loosened up and got over their preconceptions.
As for T'Pol "looking down" on the crew... she's Vulcan. She's not supposed to be all warm and fuzzy -- and she was ordered to join the mission, so it's not like she wanted to there (to help someone who wanted to "knock her on her ass..." to succeed).
Audiences are a lot smarter than some would think--I remember Spock fondly (but not all Vulcans, we should be careful not to give the race credit for a half-breed's nobility) and quickly detected that these were cantankerous Vulcans who were trying to chaperone us. So when Archer made his remark I was totally cheering for him.
Yet again two different things are getting mixed somehow: Bakula's acting and
Archer's character
. I do agree that some lines Archer gets are poorly written and even good acting cannot save them: Archer trying to act as "corrupt captain" in Acquisition, for example, is just unconvincing, because the script is bad.
Still, the controversies about Archer's portrayal make me rather think Bakula's performance was excellent: I could not imagine a really bad perfomance would be able to stir so many emotions (do we want to talk about Brosnan's singing in Mamma mia?).
About Montgomery: I think he did the best job he could, IMO, considering they usually didn't give him a chance to do anything
Archer's character
. I do agree that some lines Archer gets are poorly written and even good acting cannot save them: Archer trying to act as "corrupt captain" in Acquisition, for example, is just unconvincing, because the script is bad.Still, the controversies about Archer's portrayal make me rather think Bakula's performance was excellent: I could not imagine a really bad perfomance would be able to stir so many emotions (do we want to talk about Brosnan's singing in Mamma mia?).
About Montgomery: I think he did the best job he could, IMO, considering they usually didn't give him a chance to do anything
Captain X
Rear Admiral
It was incredibly unprofessional and frankly would've been inappropriate for a cadet to say that too her, let alone a senior officer who should've known a lot better. This guy is supposed to be the best Earth has to offer?I don't have a problem with Archer snapping at T'Pol in the first eps. Vulcans had been looking over their shoulders for years, and being assigned one when humanity is getting ready to strike out on their own? RAWR! I sympathized with Archer--"can't we do stuff on our own for once? Geez!" T'Pol pissed me off early on because of how high strung she was and how often she looked down on the crew. I'm glad she and Archer loosened up and got over their preconceptions.
No wonder the Vulcans look down their nose at humanity...Yet again two different things are getting mixed somehow: Bakula's acting and
Archer's character
Still, the controversies about Archer's portrayal make me rather think Bakula's performance was excellent: I could not imagine a really bad perfomance would be able to stir so many emotions (do we want to talk about Brosnan's singing in Mamma mia?).
About Montgomery: I think he did the best job he could, IMO, considering they usually didn't give him a chance to do anything
Bakula played an ass well, I guess! Worst Captain, but my favorite Trek show. Go figure...
Here is something I've thought for some time now but never mentioned because it sounds a bit shallow, after all there have been plenty of good to great actors with less than great voices. I won't say that Scott's voice hurt him in ENT, lets just say that I don't think it helped much.
To me, his voice sounds a bit high and slightly nasally. When you compare it to the powerful and booming baritones of Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks (disagree about Brooks, he was generally good, though Tony Todd would have made a better "Sisko"), you might get a sense of why one of the oft heard knocks against Scott as Archer was the character's lack of presence. Truth be told, Shatner didn't have a great voice either, his was average, but of course Shat as Kirk served up badass to a badass starved world for ALL 60 minutes, so who cared about his voice.
I always hated Mulgrew's voice but after watching VOY's run again on Sci-Fi, I have to admit that she did get better use out of it than Scott did. The screaming sure didn't help Scott either since it seemed to increase his vocal shrillness, thereby undercutting the presumed menace behind the words.
IMO, Archer should have been written with much less dialogue, like "Bill Adama" was written in BSG. That way every word he did speak would seem to carry that much more weight. Scott should have used the "hard stare" way more often.
CaptainHawk1
Commodore
No, it's about the performance. The dialogue he was given wasn't exceptionally poor. He just didn't bring anything to the table with it.I'm not going to quote every line of dialogue up to the episode Acquisition however I will point out that Bakula is constantly giving a speech or a lecture as opposed to engaging in dialogue. Dear Doctor immediately comes to mind especially when gives the speech to Phlox about "the directive" that they don't have yet. I don't think there's a scene in Broken Bow that he doesn't sound like he's reading an instruction manual on how to hook up stereo equipment.
To be quite honest, I don't have a negative opinion about the character except that he didn't seem to have common sense a lot and kind of jumped into dangerous situations a lot without deferring to a position of caution to unknown sitauations and I don't have a negative opinion of Scott Bakula, I have a negative opinion of his performance.
-Shawn
Hmmm. Everything mentioned above is about the character though?
I've done enough acting to say that a good actor makes the material work for them unless it's just complete an utter dogshit and although the writing in general may have been questionable there was nothing particularly wrong with the dialogue written on the page. Bakula just didn't do anything with it.
I couldn't have said it better.
-Shawn
CaptainHawk1
Commodore
I was going to mention this after all of the bashing. He along with Linda Park were invisible and would go complete episodes without lines during seasons 3 and 4.About Montgomery: I think he did the best job he could, IMO, considering they usually didn't give him a chance to do anything
I really didn't see enough of him to make an kind of informed assessment.
Also, he's a really nice guy at conventions so I have a hard time knocking him down.
-Shawn
It was incredibly unprofessional and frankly would've been inappropriate for a cadet to say that too her, let alone a senior officer who should've known a lot better. This guy is supposed to be the best Earth has to offer?
Well, the behviour of all Vulcans toward the humans (including Forrester) in that scene is incredible arrogant and insulting, especially considering that they are "diplomats". And coming back to the main topic, you could say Bakula's performance here is "over the top" but it could hardly be qualified as "wooden"
Yes Bakula was a let down in Enterprise. He was the only "Big name" actor I knew and I expected good things from him.
I think he was miscast as Archer. Bakula had decades of acting experience in TV, films and theatre and yet couldn't turn Archer into a likeable or interesting character for me.
He seemed to be either sneering at Vulcans, ignoring the crew's advice or ranting at them for the first two seasons. Hardly endearing.
I think he was miscast as Archer. Bakula had decades of acting experience in TV, films and theatre and yet couldn't turn Archer into a likeable or interesting character for me.
He seemed to be either sneering at Vulcans, ignoring the crew's advice or ranting at them for the first two seasons. Hardly endearing.
But, the dialog that you claim "wasn't exceptionally poor" you also argued had him make bad decisions. In fact, that's been the majority of responses - as per muriel's indication - on this thread. Bakula isn't in charge of writing Archer's decisions or what happens to Archer (or the dialog). He's given a script he follows. His job is to make the character (via the script) come to life.
Now, your argument might be: well, he didn't make the character come to life -- that you thought he was wooden. Fair enough. But, arguing the actors didn't make good decisions in scripts wasn't their problem. Star Trek gave little to no flexibility to actors; Bakula had to call the executive producer/head writer any time he thought a script change might help and from the sound of things he did so rarely; Billingsley apparently called once; Montgomery visited a writer once to change a script. Enterprise, unlike other shows, never had directors and writers interact or writers and actors interact. I think that was one of the show's biggest issues. It created an unnecessary barrier in a craft that should be collaborative: writers, directors and actors all have a say in characters and help created them in a fashion.
Me personally? I thought Archer as a character was very enjoyable, so I thought the writing and decisions Archer made was actually pretty good. And more over, I think Bakula brought some good stuff to the role. I can't imagine anyone playing Archer other than Bakula or doing a better job.
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CaptainHawk1
Commodore
Please don't misunderstand, the comment I made about the Archer character was as an aside and completely separate from my main thrust that you obviously get.
You'll also notice that I pointed out that the writing of the show was questionable but there wasn't anything particularly bad with the dialogue. What I mean by the "writing of the show" is the plot/storylines/character development and I apologize for not making that clear. I can certainly see where the confusion lies.
You're absolutely correct that many of these posts have been more about the Archer character and less about Bakula's performance and that's exactly what I was trying to avoid with this thread. That's why I made the comment about my (slight) problems with the Archer character to try to address them and take them off the table and to really try to distinguish between the two arguments. The quality of the Archer character in general (love him or hate him) is irrelavent to this conversation in my opinion, however I wanted to point out that I didn't particularly dislike the character so it would be obvious that I don't dislike Bakula's performance based on my overall opinion of the character.
...And that is my argument in a nutshell and I agree with you that script decisions aren't the actors' fault.
-Shawn
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