March 2003

Cult Times

Issue No. 90

Mal Content

As armoury office, Malcolm Reed is all that stands between the Human race and war! Well, kind of. Dominic Keating explains why he's so pleased with the lieutenant's progress on board Enterprise so far. HEADING INTO Enterprise nearly two years ago, Dominic Keating sat down with executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga and expressed to them his concerns about playing Lt Malcolm Reed.

His greatest fear was that the ship's weapons and tactical expert would come across as "just this talking English head above the console on the bridge." If that were the extent of the part, however, Keating would learn to deal with it. "For the money, I'd do it," Keating says with a laugh. "But I did say, 'If you feel like writing something for me, I reckon that I can do it'. And you know what? They went away and did it. I've had some really fantastic episodes that I didn't expect to get, quite frankly. That's been terrific. I think I'm in a very luxurious position here. I'm not the main thrust of the show, so I get a lot of time off. But they know that they can wheel me out and give me some really good stuff to do whenever they feel they want that flavour in the show. 'And they're doing it enough for my liking. Speaking personally, I'm very thankful that I'm not Scott [Bakula, Archer], Jolene [Blalock, T'Pol] and Connor [Trinneer, Trip] because they're just in it every week. When we're shooting the show that's what they do; they're at work. They're there when I'm there and they're there when I'm not there. We're doing an episode now that's a big Archer episode. I'm going to do my day today and I think I've got one other scene that we'll shoot sometime at the end of next week, and that's it.

Right now, I'm in my backyard watering my plants and talking to you on my phone. It's beautiful outside. The sky is blue and the surf's up. It's a good life. What can I say?" Reed is steadily emerging as the show's enigma. He's got the most potential to be at odds with himself, much less the other characters on the ship. "I was talking with Brannon about that the other day, and he's quite happy that Reed is not a two-dimensional figure," the actor says. "Reed can be the charming guy, the really nice guy, and the dark guy, and he's been all those things already. They've engineered him in such a way that he still has a long way to go. I'm really pleased about that, I have to say.

The two episodes I've liked best so far are 'Shuttlepod One' and 'Minefield.' Those are the ones that come to mind. I thought 'Minefield' was a particularly good show for him. Wrapped up in his official capacity, I think you really saw a living and breathing human being and a man that has a sense of honour and duty and is fine with death. He's not just an automaton and a stiff upper lip Brit. I've said this in the past and it's still true, but they're also using him as a man of action, which was something else that I hadn't anticipated.

This season we had 'Marauders,' and we have some other stuff coming up this season in which I'm the 'drop-to-one-knee' guy. I did a huge stunt sequence recently, on a big action day, and I really like all of that. We've also seen Malcolm be fallible. I'm the guy who lost the communicator in 'The Communicator.' Nice episode for me, that. That scene in the jail with Archer, sharing a last private moment, was really telling to me. I wasn't particularly happy with the way it actually got shot, but that moment when he turns to the captain and says that he's not afraid, meaning that he's not afraid to die, was a really tender moment between the guys. "I also liked being so pissed off in 'Singularity.' That was a very interesting episode, wasn't it? Malcolm sort of invented the red alert system in that one. I'll never live that down. The red lights are on all the time now people are calling it 'Reed alert'. That has a nice ring to it. But everybody got a little annoying in 'Singularity,' and I quite liked that. I've heard from some of the fans that that episode pushed the envelope a little more than they're used to seeing on Star Trek. I'd quite like to see some more of that, getting a little risky.

I think that [the producers'] issue is they have a hardcore audience that knows what they like and they're used to seeing what they know they like. As much as you want to push forward and stretch the fabric of the show a little, you also don't want to piss these people off. But I think there's room, for instance, for one of the crewmates to become a bit of a wanker and not be completely likeable. And I think Malcolm would be a prime candidate for that. "Actually, the episode we're shooting right now is called 'The Crossing.' It's going to be rather fun, I have to say. I believe it's been revamped from prior Star Trek lore [dating back to 'The Cloud Minders' from the original series].

We get possessed, if you will, by these ethereal non-corporeal beings that have now found it necessary to find some hosts in which to house their spirits because, in their present form, they're dying out. They happen across the crew of the Enterprise and decide that we would make good genetic hosts, as it were. So we all get somewhat possessed by these of ethereal beings, and not all of us are thoroughly likeable. And the one that gets hold of me is quite the dandy, I have to say. It's been really fun playing Reed as this alien being for the first time, housed in a Human body. I had a lovely scene with Jolene the other night in which this being, dressed in clothes and housed as Malcolm, goes to her quarters. It was my second attempt to get the Vulcan into bed. "I came out of that scene the other night with Jolene thinking, 'God, I love acting'," Keating continues. "When there's a real juicy scene and it's got an attitude and it's not just perfunctory exposition about where we're at and how our hull plating is, I really like it. I like being stretched in that way. I would never complain if they just wrote a lot more of that for me.

In the meantime, as I say, I'm very happy with what they are doing for me and I enjoy the fact that I don't have to be there 16 hours a day, five days a week like Scott and Jolene and sometimes Connor. On and off set we're all really good friends, and I have to say this is a dream job with a dream cast and a dream crew. It's just a thoroughly well-oiled production. The people behind it are very accommodating. They'll always try to fit scheduling around some doctor's appointment you've got to make. So, what a fantastic family, I have to say. I will miss it sorely in five years' time. I know I will." Enterprise might very well be around five years down the road. It's performing respectably in the ratings. It's neither a huge hit at this point, nor a drag on UPN's Wednesday night schedule.

But its modest success, coupled with the utterly disappointing critical and box office reactions to Star Trek: Nemesis, the latest and presumably last Star Trek: The Next Generation feature, seem to suggest that the Trek flame is dimming a bit. "Unfortunately, Nemesis didn't do well," Keating acknowledges. "I haven't seen it yet. It's a shame I talked to Rick about it the other night, actually. I can tell he's crestfallen a little. And there was some worry around the [Enterprise] set recently, when all these articles started coming out on the coat-tails of Nemesis, about our plummeting ratings and blah, blah, blah, blah. I just had a long talk with Brannon about it, and he explained it very succinctly to me. He said that things have changed in the 15 years since The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager started airing. There are just a lot more choices out there now for people. TV is not the same animal that it was 15 years ago. You've got satellite dishes and 200 cable channels that very specifically cater to people's tastes. You're not going to pick up a passing audience like you might have 10 years ago, just because there was nothing else on. It doesn't happen anymore.

Given that, I think we're doing pretty well. We hold a steady five or so [each week in the ratings]. "We're in our second year, and by all accounts Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager had the same kinds of dips in the second year. So I'm not too fussed about it. From what I gather, from what I get at the conventions I go to, the fans who watch the show regularly love it. It's very popular with them. They like the characters. And, dare I say it, they certainly like me, unless they're all faking it massively. They paid to get into these conventions, so I sure hope they like me. And friends of mine who've followed my career, as it were, back in England and here in America, who necessarily wouldn't be Trek fans or even bother to watch this kind of show all that much, they adore it.

So there were a couple of weeks where I thought, 'God, are we going to get picked up? Is UPN going to exist?' But I'm over all of that now. I think we're safe." Production on Enterprise's second season will conclude in a matter of weeks, thus Keating is already thinking about plans for his off-season. "I am going to Australia to do a big, five-city convention tour," he reports. "I'm greatly looking forward to it, I must say. And that's about it, unless Steven Spielberg rings me up and says he has to have me in his new movie. Otherwise, that's it. I'm going to take five weeks off and go to Australia." Keating laughs when asked if there's anything else going on that fans should know about before he hangs up the phone. "No," he says in conclusion. "I think I've done my spiel! You've been a good sport about listening to me while I multitask. I'm just doing so many things. I've got to go to work in an hour, so I've been doing all these chores around the house. So you've helped me do my bit and I hope I've given you what you need.

By Ian Spelling