Two Enterprise Pilots Discuss Personal Highlights

George Takei cited Ricardo Montalban's Khan as Star Trek's most memorable guest star and Anthony Montgomery explained why Nichelle Nichols was his favourite original series performer in a new interview on the legacy of Star Trek.

As it has been doing all week, CNN's Showbiz Tonight interviewed the Sulu and Mayweather actors as part of a retrospective leading up to the final broadcast of Star Trek: Enterprise this Friday night. Takei, who played navigator Sulu on the original series, explained that Gene Roddenberry had told the cast that the starship Enterprise was a metaphor for Earth star ship earth and that the strength of both were in diversity. "However daunting the challenges may have been, we were with the team that was able to look at that challenge from this perspective, that cultural angle, this historical experience," he recalled, discussing his own experiences trying to make people aware of his experiences in a World War II internment camp:

I think it`s important for Americans to know the full history of our country. There are a lot of glorious chapters. But unless we recognize the dark chapters, the points when we stumbled, then we`re likely to repeat that again.

Takei said he chose Khan Noonian Singh as his favourite character because he couldn't choose among the series regulars, played by colleagues who "are all characters that I've come to love and they've become friends as well. Montgomery, who pilots Enterprise, said that Takei's co-star Nichols was by far the most memorable for him because having grown up in Indiana in the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan, he was impressed with how Uhura was treated and how she behaved.

"I grew up during a time where blacks were supposed to be seen and not heard," explained Montgomery, who met Nichols last summer and found that she was as impressive as her character. "This was the first woman that I had ever seen on television where nobody was demeaning to, nobody belittled her and she was a strength that I felt like I would be able to draw on in my own life." He added that he was very proud to be cast in the same franchise.

Asked whether he believed in intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, Montgomery said, "I think that it would be sad if this entire universe is just for us. So I don't know, but I`d like to believe that yes, there has to be something else out there."

Showbiz Tonight will interview Levar Burton (LaForge) and Robert Picardo (The Doctor) this evening. The transcript of Takei and Montgomery's interview is at CNN.

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