Fans of “Star Trek” shows may have been accustomed to highly confident and capable captains leading the charge against threats, but Scott Bakula’s Jonathan Archer introduced an entirely different brand of leader in “Star Trek: Enterprise.”
Following in the footsteps of the iconic Captain James Kirk (William Shatner), Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), and others on previous “Star Trek” TV series (while preceding them in the timeline), Archer arrived as the new captain headlining “Star Trek: Enterprise,” which aired four seasons from 2001 to 2005. Throughout the series, Archer evolves from an inexperienced captain to a proven lead officer.
In an interview with Den of Geek, series co-creator Rick Berman described how his approach to Archer’s character in the prequel differed from previous approaches. “It was very important for us to have a captain who was not necessarily that sure of himself, because we wanted him to be different from all the other captains,” Berman explained. “The other captains got on a spaceship at warp five or warp seven, they never thought twice about it. They ran into aliens every week and they never thought twice about it. We wanted a captain who was taking those first steps out into the galaxy; we wanted him to be a little green, a leader of men and at the same time, somebody who was in awe of everything he saw.”
How Scott Bakula prepared to play Jonathan Archer
Although it may seem an unconventional task, portraying a novice captain on “Star Trek: Enterprise” was fairly straightforward for Scott Bakula. Archer’s deviation from past captains in the franchise meant that Bakula didn’t have to follow an established character blueprint. Thus, the actor got to play Archer exactly how he wanted without constraints.
Speaking to Forbes in 2013, Bakula detailed his uncomplicated approach to portraying Archer. “Because I could have inundated myself watching other captains doing their thing, I just made the decision that I was going to do the opposite and kind of shut the door on all of that, and try and be as creatively fresh with this character of Jonathan Archer and this new franchise as I possibly could,” he said. “So, I unprepared in a way. I just said, ‘I’m not even gonna think about it,’ even though it’s hard to do what Shatner would be doing here and how he would approach it.”
Similarly, Archer’s tenure near the beginning of the “Star Trek” timeline made it so that he didn’t operate under the lofty standards set by Kirk and the captains who followed him. Now, over 20 years since “Star Trek: Enterprise” completed its four-season run, Captain Archer is widely remembered for occasionally making mistakes and leaning in to his reckless side yet never hesitating to learn and improve as a leader.
