[Jolene Blalock]

Back to the future
Source: Calgary Sun (Author: Kevin Williamson)

Talk about illogical. Jolene Blalock at first didn't want to beam up for the new Star Trek series, Enterprise.

"It was a completely uneducated decision. I had been asked to try out for it, but I turned it down without having read the script," recalls Blalock, who plays the icy second-in-command, T'Pol.

"Then my agent said, 'I think you need to read this.' It was such beautiful writing and it was a prequel and I'd be playing a Vulcan, which I didn't know."

Turning it down, she admits now with a laugh, "would have been the worst decision I could have possibly ever made."

Her hesitation at signing aboard yet another Trek series is understandable. Enterprise, which airs tonight at 6 p.m. on |, as well as Tuesdays on A-Channel and Sundays on Space, is the fifth one, after all -- following in the warp trail of Voyager and Deep Space Nine, the franchise's last two entries, which fell short of the commercial success of The Next Generation and the 1960s original.

"This has been the most challenging show, but also the most fun," says Enterprise co-creator and co-executive producer Brannon Braga, who joined Trek 11 years ago as a writer on The Next Generation.

"We're trying to do something without falling into familiar patterns. We're being vigilant about that."

'A CERTAIN CACHE'

Star Trek, of course, isn't just a TV show, but a $1-billion franchise and jewel in the financial crown of Viacom, which owns Paramount Pictures and UPN, the network the show airs on.

"I try not to think about what's at stake, because I'd probably have a nervous breakdown," Braga admits.

"But look, Rick (Berman, Trek head honcho) and I know what's at stake. If the show flopped then the public would be saying, 'We've had enough Star Trek.'

"But the ratings for the pilot and the first episode have been good, exceptionally good, and so far, what we're hearing is that this show is exactly what people wanted. What's great is that a lot of fans love it, but also we're having people who have never watched Star Trek say they're watching it too, which is just what we wanted."

Enterprise distinguishes itself from its predecessors by 1) taking place at the birth of the Federation, about 150 years before Kirk was sharing zero-Gs with green-skinned babes; 2) jettisoning the techno-babble and high-tech sets in favour of a darker, submarine-like atmosphere; and 3) unlike Voyager and Deep Space Nine, actually being, well, fun.

"It was not enough to throw seven characters on a ship, re-name it the Intrepid and send it off with Capt. Jones," Braga says.

Instead there's Capt. Jonathan Archer, played by Scott Bakula, probably best-known for the time-travelling series, Quantum Leap.

"It's the first time a known actor has played a captain, so he brings a certain cache to the show. But he also has a charm and an ease, where you feel you already know him."

"It's the youngest cast of any Star Trek and it has a very contemporary feel. Everything is done differently. They're going all out," says Blalock, whose T'Pol, like Spock, has a chilly disdain for humans.

"They're big shoes to fill." Or in her case, pointed ears.

"I grew up with the original series. I'm a Trekkie."

Of course, it's doubtful Leonard Nimoy would've ever been caught dead in a catsuit (or gracing the cover of the current Maxim, where you'll find Blalock).

But, she argues, "Spock was the sex symbol. A lot of people think it was Kirk. But, no, it was really Spock."

T'Pol, Braga makes no qualms about, is Spock-meets-Seven-of-Nine, (who was the babe on Voyager, played by Braga's girlfriend, Jeri Ryan, who's now on Boston Public. "She loves it," Braga says of Ryan's new gig. "She actually loves it to a point that's a little disturbing. It's like, 'OK, I know David E. Kelly's a great writer, but you never raved about my scripts like this.' But she gets to wear normal clothes and play a human.")

For her part, Blalock shrugs at the sex symbol label.

"The physicality of it, I have no control over. It doesn't play into my acting."

PAST AND FUTURE TREKS

In addition to Blalock, the cast, led by Bakula as the Kirk-esque Archer, features Connor Trinneer as the ship's good ol' boy engineer; Linda Park as the exo-linguist who's afraid of flying; John Billingsley as an eerily optimistic alien doctor; Dominic Keating as the weapons officer who introduces pre-phaser "phase-pistols" and Anthony Montgomery as the navigator.

"Everyone gets along so well," says Blalock.

"Scott Bakula is a wonderful leader. He's there for you as an individual and personally."

Addressing Internet rumours, Braga says fans shouldn't expect William Shatner to pop up playing an ancestor of Kirk. "No, we're not going to. Because it is a prequel, there is that temptation.

"We're trying to be judicious. We have to get Enterprise going as its own show."

Which includes, to the chagrin of many of its fans, its theme song. The song -- Faith Of My Heart, written by Dianne Warren -- is so unpopular with some Trekkies that they've set phasers to kill it.

"We can't please everybody," Braga says. "There are some people who love the song and there are people who think it's cheesy."

Already picketers have shown up at Paramount, waving placards that say 'Love Enterprise. Hate the song.'

"They came with a petition with 1,000 signatures. But plenty of people find the song very uplifting," Braga says, advising fans to give it a chance to grow on them.

And if it never does?

"Turn the volume down."