Star Trek: Enterprise‘s John Billingsley cites “too many issues” standing in the way of his prequel’s cast making a comeback. Billingsley played Dr. Phlox, the Denobulan Chief Medical Officer of the NX-01 Enterprise, for 4 seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. Long considered “the show that killed the franchise,” Enterprise‘s cast members like Billingsley, Dominic Keating, who played Lt. Malcolm Reed, and Connor Trinneer, who played Commander Trip Tucker, have been gratified to see that streaming services like Netflix and Paramount+ have garnered Enterprise a new and more appreciative audience that wants to see the cast reunite on Star Trek on Paramount+. Speaking exclusively to Screen Rant to promote the TrekTalks 3 telethon to benefit the Hollywood Food Coalition, John Billingsley was asked if 2024 could be the year fans see some kind of Star Trek: Enterprise comeback. Billingsley pointed out that there “are just too many issues” with Enterprise‘s actors coming back for a reunion before he pivoted to one of his hilarious pitches for a Dr. Phlox show. Read his quote below:
I doubt very much that Enterprise itself could or would ever come back. I mean, there are just too many issues with it. Scott [Bakula] has moved on. He’s always got a jillion projects in the works. Jolene [Blalock] married, had three kids, and has, I think, more or less retired from the business. I don’t think anybody’s in touch with her. I suppose you can solve the problem that Trip is dead. Maybe you could just bring me back. And it could just be Old Fat Phlox, which is the show I’ve also pitched for many years, where I’m just sitting on a rocking chair on the porch going, ‘Back in the day when I was having intergalactic adventures…’
And then, in flashback, you’d see all those adventures unwinding and come back to me at the end. Stay tuned for another episode of Old Fat Phlox. I’d be number one on the call sheet, I’d make a lot of money, I wouldn’t have to work that hard. I’d sign up for that. This, too, was an idea that doesn’t seem to be getting much traction, I’m finding, in the Star Trek community, but you know, one can try.
Star Trek: Enterprise Cast & Character Guide
Star Trek: Enterprise introduced new faces to the prequel series set a century before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Animation May Be The Key To A Star Trek: Enterprise Comeback
Could Enterprise’s cast reunite on Star Trek: Lower Decks or Star Trek: Prodigy?
As John Billingsley points out, many of Star Trek: Enterprise‘s principal actors have long since moved on to new endeavors, making a full-fledged live-action comeback extremely difficult (although not impossible). Enterprise‘s position as a prequel set 100 years before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and 200 years before Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s era also makes bringing back the Enterprise crew challenging (but also not impossible). However, the success of the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy, as well as employing tried-and-true gimmicks like flashbacks, holograms, or even time travel, could allow Enterprise‘s actors to reprise their roles.Connor Trinneer is the first Star Trek: Enterprise actor to return and voice Commander Trip Tucker in an episode of the non-canonical Star Trek: very Short Treks, thereby circumventing Trip’s death in Star Trek: Enterprise‘s controversial series finale. If a proper story and rationale could be conjured, there’s no reason why Enterprise’s actors, possibly even including Scott Bakula and Jolene Blalock, couldn’t reprise their roles via voice-over on Star Trek: Lower Decks or Star Trek: Prodigy. Or, failing that, Paramount+ could greenlight John Billingsley’s Star Trek: Fat Old Phlox idea, but fans would enjoy a Star Trek: Enterprise comeback a lot more.
- Cast
- Jolene Blalock , Dominic Keating
- Seasons
- 4
- Franchise(s)
- Star Trek
