|
May 2003 TV Guide |
 |
| A WHOLE NEW ENTERPRISE | |
|
The execs at Enterprise want our attention – and to get it, they will kill more than seven million Earthlings in the opening moments of the show’s second-season finale. The two-year-old UPN series, the fifth in the Star Trek oeuvre, has floundered in the ratings and been roundly criticized by both fans and media for being cautious, predictable and dramatically limp. But it’s about to get a shot of intergalactic Viagra.
In the season ender, airing May 21, a mysterious probe from space will blast a swath of destruction across North and Central America, causing epic explosions and annihilating everything between Florida and Venezuela. As viewers will learn, this is a preemptive strike by an alien race known as the Xindi (that’s Zin-dee), who have obtained knowledge that Earth will destroy their home world 400 years in the future. The hour ends on a chilling threat of more devastation to come, but this is no mere summer cliff-hanger, In fact, it marks a whole new direction for the series.
“What We Are About To Do is a first for Star Trek.” Says Enterprise writer and executive producer Rick Berman. “In the past, our captains have had the general mission to explore outer space and, in the case of Voyager, a mission to find a way back home. But there has never been a Trek series built around a specific mission and specific stakes-in this case, the very future of mankind.”
The once-shaky Enterprise NX-01 will be retrofitted for war (we’ll see the use of photon torpedoes for the for the first time in Starfleet history) and sent to a creepy corner of the Alpha Quadrant known as the Delphic Expanse, where even Klingons fear to tread. And with good reason: Those who enter this Bermuda Triangle-like zone meet a shocking and grisly fate. Their bodies become anatomically inverted (skin on the inside, organs on the outside) yet they somehow remain alive. “We find out that the Xindi space probe was merely a test and that they are creating an even more powerful weapon,” Berman says. “It’s up to Captain Archer to go their and stop them from destroying us altogether.”
Of course, this will require Archer-played by Scott Bakula-to finally buck up. “Archer is going to become tougher and more focused,” says Berman’s writing and producing partner, Brannon Braga. “He will be forced to be a more decisive captain.” That’s already in play over on Paramount’s Soundstage 18, where Bakula is filming the final moments of the finale-a scene in which Enterprise is about to enter the dreaded expanse, After delivering a command with a quiet but steely determination-“Straight but steady, Mr. Mayweather. Let’s see what’s in there”-Bakula sits down for a chat and admits that he, too, is ready to get serious.
“For two seasons, we’ve been this naïve, open-eyed, awestruck crew, and while I don’t think we’ve been bumbling, we have been unprepared and ill-equipped at times,” Bakula notes, “Now there is urgency and purpose and desperation-all things that make for really good storytelling-and we have to rise to the occasion. In a way, this feels like a second chance.”
While Berman does not yet know if the Xindi plot will last 10 episodes or become the basis of the entire third seasons, he wants it known that “we are not turning Enterprise in 24. It’ll be more along the lines of The Fugitive, where the overriding story arc was Dr. Kimble finding the one-armed man, but each episode was a stand-alone story.”
The producers hope the Xindi, like the Borg, have endless plot potential. “They are very complex,” Braga says. “Next season we will not only see the Xindi humanoids but maybe Xindi insectoids, and who knows what other Xindi species. Each will be intelligent and have its own form of technology. It’s as if the evolution of Earth had been different and dinosaurs and amphibians and insects had developed in sentient beings right along with humans.” Says Berman: “Some elements of the Xindi will be computer-generated. They will be a very high-concept for.”
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
T’Pol (Jolene Blalock), the ship’s science officer, will be forced to resign her post with the Vulcan High Command when her superiors refuse to let her enter the Delphic Expanse. (Also, the Vulcan sexpot will sport a new catsuit and hairdo next season.)
Trip (Connor Trinneer), the chief engineer will face personal tragedy when his sister dies during the attack on Earth (his Florida hometown is also destroyed). He will become in the words of an Enterprise publicist. “a vengeance-seeking s—t kicker.”
A squad of young, arrogant commandos-think West Pointers crossed with Navy SEALS-will join the crew next season to provide real muscle. These recurring, non-Starfleet characters will be cast with star quality in mind. “The cream will come to the top,” Berman says, “and we’ll see who’s worthy of getting more attention.”
Despite all these high-octane changes, the Enterprise chiefs swear they’re not acting out of panic or desperation. “This is just a little course correction.” Berman says.
by Michael Logan |
|
|
May 2003 Star Trek Monthly (UK) |
 |
| REED ALERT | |
|
Some people are born to greatness, and it seems that Malcolm Reed is one of them. He's already created two pieces of Star Trek history -'shields' and 'ship's phasers' (albeit in their infant stages) - now, in Enterprise Season Two, it's the turn on the Red Alert siren! Abbie Bernstein catches up with Reed's alter ego, Dominic Keating, to discover what it's like playing a potential legend...
If you've played a man facing death by suffocation with an equally imperiled companion on a set so highly refrigerated that your breath mists while your character voices what are his last thoughts, what do you do for an encore the following year? Well, if you're Dominic Keating playing Enterprise's armory officer Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, you confront mortality yet again-this time encased in an EV suit, with one leg impaled against the hull of the ship!
'Oh, God,' Keating laughs when asked about filming the second season's Minefield episode. 'I can't tell you what that week was like-it was really quite gargantuan. Those (EV) suits are very heavy. They are the mother of costumes. And I was in that ungainly position with my leg strapped up and that whole backpack pulling you back. My abs got strong that week-they were fierce at the end of it.
'The props department had fashioned this metal brace that I wore under the suit that wrapped itself round my leg. It had two spikes pulling out of each side of this metal brace that I could strap on with Velcro straps, and then they had feminine ends on each side, which could then be screwed into the leg of that mine (impaling his leg on-camera). We got a certain rhythm down by the end of that first day, but for the first few takes, just getting me in place to do the shot took 10-15 minutes and it was taxing.'
However,
Keating feels that the physical stress worked in favour of the overall
effect. 'It lent itself to the whole piece, the fact that Scott (Bakula) and I both struggled. It was written in
our faces as we were saying the lines, so i was a
good thing.' Playing opposite Bakula in
Although the rank-conscious Reed normally defers to Captain Archer, Minefield shows a change in their dynamic. 'When Malcolm's out there, he's in his element,' Keating points out. 'This is what he knows how to do. The captain comes out and he doesn't really know this stuff.'
On the flip side, Keating's relative newness at working with Bakula also helped. 'In those emotional scenes, I guess that relationship between Scott and I, just as actors in Hollywood, was useful, because it allowed me to be vulnerable. He's such a great actor, he's also giving. As the star of the show, he really wants to do whatever he can to make you shine. We had a wonderful week. I've got images of us after those final takes on that last day coming out of those suits drenched in sweat, sitting down on these apple boxes, just battle-worn. I quite like acting when it's like that. Especially for the men-I think it makes you feel like you're doing a proper job,' he laughs.
While Reed is seriously wounded in the story, Bakula got hurt for real, Keating relates. 'There was a fight scene when I go to pull the tubes from my backpack to asphyxiate myself, he comes over and in the original stuff that we shot, we have a fight, because he tries (to rescue) me and then I push him back. We were on wires, to give us a sense of weightlessness. The wires were going to pull him up. He landed, and his back went out big-time. He came to work the next two days with this electronic device strapped to his back, giving him impulses sent to this one part of his vertebrae. It's a shame the fight was cut-I thought it was rather good.'
Minefield left Keating relatively unscathed, but he fell prey to an accident at home. 'I did it doing yoga,' he sighs. 'I couldn't believe it. I was just doing a stretch, where you've got one leg on the floor stuck out and then the other one's bent in to your crotch and you're bending over the stretched-out leg and you push your knee to the ground on the one that's bent. I'm now educated-it's just not a safe stretch, because the knee's twisted, and you can easily turn the meniscus, which is what I did. I just thought I'd strained the knee, and I left it alone a bit, and then I went running one day and it blew up. I've torn my cartilage-I'm actually having knee surgery.'
This hasn't kept Reed out of the onscreen fray. 'We did a whole bunch of stunt scenes the other day,' Keating adds, 'that's what prompted me to go and get an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan), because the knee blew up again the size of a melon. They give me loads-Malcolm's definitely an action man. I like that.'
Keating also likes doing the stunts that are permissible for principal actors, though he defers to his stunt double on the trickier moves. 'I've got a great guy, Marty-if I've got to fall on my back on the floor, "Marty, you've got to do that, mate, I'm not doing that." He's amazing-he just flicks himself over, bam! You look at it and you go, "I don't know how these guys do this." They're absolutely fearless.'
Is there something about the character of Malcolm Reed that makes the producers want to see him in life and death situations? 'Tortured,' the cheerful-sounding Keating jokes about himself. 'They can tell.' More seriously, he muses, 'I don't know. I guess it suits Malcolm and it suits me playing Malcolm being that way. It's been a revelation. I didn't expect to get the storylines that I've gotten and to have the range presented to me to really go act. I live it.'
The evolution of Malcolm's character, Keating believes, is not so much that he's changing over the seasons as, 'You're just finding out more about him. Unless the storyline suddenly changes, that Malcolm becomes something for story purposes, I've found a good rhythm with him. He's a good mixture of me and someone I once knew in the army. I don't have to think too hard about how he's going to behave. I like coming up with less obvious choices, though. It's the first time ever I've felt really confident about making a character somewhat contradictory sometimes, that you don't particularly know exactly how he would react.'
Case in point: last season's Two Days and Two Nights episode, which saw Malcolm and Trip on the 'prowl' on a strange planet, only to be mugged and stripped down to their blue pants by alien robbers. 'That Risa stuff was great fun. I actually look at that episode now, and I let too much of myself through in that performance,' Keating laughs. 'I mean, people who know me could see that, but I think for an audience, it was fun for them to see a totally different side of Malcolm Reed. But then Malcolm the lieutenant comes back when they're strapped up in the cellar. I think it's hysterical that all he can think about is how he's going to look the captain in the eye.'
Since Minefield, Keating has teamed again with Bakula in The Communicator and says he's also enjoyed doing the episode The Crossing. 'It's directed by David Livingston. We all get possessed by these non-corporeal beings. Alien Reed is quite the ladies' man. It was fun playing it.' Keating's not worried about what's next for Reed: 'I'm more intrigued to see each week what comes by in the scripts than sitting around thinking about what side of Malcolm could they use next.'
Season Two of Enterprise finds Keating more at home in his role and his work environment, he says. 'Before I got this gig, I'd worked many times in front of a camera, but only for very short periods of time at one time, and there were great gulfs of time in between working. So I never really got a sense of the rhythm of the crew or a film set. With all this time under my belt with enterprise, one has just an innate feeling of the rhythm of the crew and filming.
'I'm still learning, but I have a comfortability with the camera that I didn't have before, I was always a bit frightened of it, to be honest. I have a much keener understanding now of lenses and exactly here we are in the drama of how this is being shot. The episode (Judgment) we started yesterday is directed by Jim Conway, who did our pilot, so there's a sense of benchmark there. Having him back on the set and remembering how I felt around him doing those first weeks of the pilot, there's a confidence there about what I'm doing on the set and fleshing out Malcolm. It's a good feeling. It was nice to be working with him again, and knowing what he was talking about in terms of the actual technique of filming this thing. So, it's good-second season's good.'
Keating is happy for Enterprise to continue on its current course. 'Everyone's very personable and charming and very professional and it's a really cool place to work. This job is a hell of a blessing. It's changed my life. It's everything I've wanted. I wanted to act. And I wanted to do it a lot. And I wanted people to see it. I (had done) a bit and some people saw it, but now I've got a regular gig that people watch.
'I was in London at the Christmas break,' Dominic Keating concludes. 'Two people came up to me, and one ran over the road with a pad of paper and he just loved the show and he thought I was great and he was just so ecstatic that he'd seen me. And that's really a good feeling. I do what I love to do and I get a reaction from someone I don't know for doing that. that's great.' by Abbie Bernstein Submitted by: Kasia |
|