Trinneer: Don’t Blame “Enterprise”

It might be easy to blame the demise of Trek on television on the perceived failure of Enterprise.  When the show debuted many assumed it would run seven seasons like the other three modern Treks that came before it.  But then UPN pulled the plug on the show after four seasons, ending the franchise’s 18 year run of new episodes.

Actor Connor Trinneer, who played Charles “Tripp” Tucker on the show says the series itself isn’t to blame for the end of Trek on TV.

“Look, as far as I know, if our ratings weren’t equal to Voyager or to DS9, they weren’t very far off. We were doing the same thing as far as fans, people watching our show, that everybody else was doing in regards to the business side of it. It didn’t seem that different to me,” he tells StarTrek.com. “If you look back at that network and what was airing on that network, we were just the elephant walking through the room. We were not the thing that that network was looking to do by the time we showed up. Voyager was the cornerstone for it. So was our show, for the network, in certain sense, probably in a matter of making money.”

“But in terms of the audience they were trying to get, it certainly wasn’t a science-fiction audience. You know what I mean? And that didn’t help. When you have shows on networks, you want people to stay there because they watch advertising, show after show. You had to go watch our show. That’s not to say that other shows don’t have to have that happen as well, but at the time, on the network we were on, that was the deal. If you were looking for young teenagers doing whatever and then we showed up, you were going to change the channel. But if you were looking for us, you’d watch it,” he added.

“Responsible for any demise? I think that was nonsense. When you look back on it, all of the shows took a couple of years to find their sea legs. And I think, absolutely, we got our sea legs. Is there an argument that you can only go to the well so many times? Absolutely. It’s also an argument I’d agree with. How many years in a row can you keep it going? We happened to be the show that, for whatever reason, they said, “Stop.” They were expensive. They were all expensive. But in terms of what we did and what we accomplished, I think everyone involved with it, myself included, has nothing but pride for what we did and we hang our hat on that,” he continued.