The intent was within the Star Trek franchise. Sorry it was not made clear enough.
The One Thing You Could Change, ENTERPRISE Edition...
- Thread starter Farscape One
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The intent was within the Star Trek franchise. Sorry it was not made clear enough.
More if you count supporting characters.
Every time I have seen an interview with an ENT cast member, they have spoken in glowing admiration of Scott Bakula, not only his talent but his unfailing and generous care for the rest of the cast and crew. He was clearly a role model for them all. If TPTB had taken Bakula away from the show as some sort of ratings stunt, on top of the ratings struggles and meddling by the network, the cast and crew morale would likely have cratered. And UPN wouldn't have given the show another 3 years to get its sea legs, either.
Not all "the fans." There are those, like me, who enjoyed Bakula's acting, as always. (The inconsistent writing, not so much.) The best written episodes for Bakula - "Twilight," "Similitude," "Damage," "Observer Effect" come immediately to mind for me - were great showcases for Bakula's acting skills. For fans of Bakula, at any rate.
Seems all those people with clear and numerous complaints might more appropriately be called "anti-fans"...?
Now the "he" you're objecting to is the character, not the actor. No matter who played Archer, those character problems would likely remain a problem for those who didn't like the show.
This is the one. I have had constant issues with the way Archer is written in my rewatch, but no objection to Bakula.
AFAIK as well, the words on the script where verbatim the words that the performers were stuck with. They couldn’t so much change a ‘had not’ to a ‘hadn’t’. I think this was another bizarre mandate from up above, because I’m pretty sure performers on previous shows had some leeway with this. The performers on Enterprise seem to have had no such freedom.
But I digress, sometimes Archer is written well, sometimes not, but Bakula never tries anything less than making the best out of the material.
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I believe this was a common issue for actors throughout all of Berman-era Trek. Certainly I've heard actors from both Deep Space 9 and Voyager talk about it in interviews and podcasts as well.
That would explain why Janeway’s character came off in a similarly chaotic way to Archer’s I guess.
Your point is well taken. Given that bumping a first officer probably would have had a similar effect (and that the guy was trying to get canned anyway), Chakotay on Voyager was probably a better candidate.
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In my opinion the perceived weakest players in Enterprise are underserved by writing rather than actually being bad actors. Even Travis is good when they give him something to do.
The Star Trek INtakes series on Youtube, while meant to be comedy, also shows a more natural presentation of Archer and the rest of the ENT cast, even though its just a line being flubbed or someone breaks character.
Bakula isn’t a bad actor. He was just limited by what he had to work with, as was the rest of the cast. The Archer character would have benefited from Bakula playing as himself.
Bakula isn’t a bad actor. He was just limited by what he had to work with, as was the rest of the cast. The Archer character would have benefited from Bakula playing as himself.
"The fans" was poor verbiage on my part. (will edit) I meant that faction of the fan base that were doing the complaining on how Archer was being portrayed. We remember them, don't we? I do.
Others reading my statement seemed to understand my meaning though, and I didn't name you or anyone specifically as one of the haters so I don't understand your apparent hostility towards me.
So keep hearing, I sadly don't have anything to compare to his performance in ENT with.
But, even lacking any comparison, I very much admit the possibility that the problem with Archer was the writing rather than the acting, because (in my eyes) Archer was horrendously written. I still think they wanted to get away from the (supposedly) "perfect" humans of the 24th century and corrected too much into the other direction.
Oh, Archer is written dreadfully. He’s all over the place as a character.
Bakula has been working for 40 years and has been a lead in three (relatively popular) shows though. You don’t do that if you’re awful.
Thanks for going back and clarifying your earlier post.
Clarification does not equal hostility. I'm a big fan of clear communication -- it helps avoid confusion and misunderstandings.
It's possible others understood what you meant because they hate Bakula's work as Archer too.
The hitch with saying something like "The fans think this..." is that there are likely individuals who...don't think that way, and they might not care to be lumped in with the others.I've been pretty vocal in this forum about the wildly inconsistent writing for Archer, and that the writing staff did Bakula and the show no favors by failing to nurture their lead character-- a Star Trek Captain, for crying out loud-- and make him a more consistently effective character that fans could get behind. There are episodes that are real standouts for Archer, and for Bakula; I wish a lot more episodes had been like that. The character had potential, from a storytelling standpoint, and Bakula is a fine actor. I thought he was amazing in Quantum Leap.
Bakula could also direct too, having directed three episodes for Quantum Leap. For whatever reason he never got the chance to direct an episode of Enterprise. None of the other cast did either since the studio just did not want anyone from the main cast to direct, but its significant with Bakula since he actually had experience.
And it wasn’t like it was unheard of for the lead to direct Trek episodes in their own series at the time either, since Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks did so on multiple occasions. Shatner was supposed to for TOS in S3, but after it was cancelled, he eventually made up for it with TFF.
Whatever started with Garrety Wang on VOY - who also wanted to direct, but was denied - just continued on into Enterprise. Bakula did not get to direct, and neither did Trinneer or Keating despite interest in doing so. Even Peter Weller was supposed to direct ENT in S5, as its why he took on the role of JFP in the Terra Prime arc. Of course, we know S5 never happened.
Whatever started with Garrety Wang on VOY - who also wanted to direct, but was denied - just continued on into Enterprise. Bakula did not get to direct, and neither did Trinneer or Keating despite interest in doing so. Even Peter Weller was supposed to direct ENT in S5, as its why he took on the role of JFP in the Terra Prime arc. Of course, we know S5 never happened.
Perhaps with Bakula not directing, it has something to do with a clause in his contract stating a set time being done each day. (At least, I think I heard this, as his QUANTUM LEAP days were very grueling, with 18 hours or more in any given day.)
Directors stay long after the actors are done filming... meetings with production staff, setting up the next day's shots, editing, etc. I would have loved to see him direct a few, but given how lengthy a day is when you are the director, I can imagine him not wanting to do that.
Doesn't explain why the others never did, if there was interest.
Directors stay long after the actors are done filming... meetings with production staff, setting up the next day's shots, editing, etc. I would have loved to see him direct a few, but given how lengthy a day is when you are the director, I can imagine him not wanting to do that.
Doesn't explain why the others never did, if there was interest.
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