Bakula Promotes 'The Expanse' On 'Kilborn'

See Also: 'The Expanse' Episode Guide

Scott Bakula (Jonathan Archer) appeared on The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn last Thursday night to talk up Enterprise's season finale.

Prior to Bakula's entrance, host Craig Kilborn presented a clip (available online courtesy of Bakula Games) from the May 21 finale, "The Expanse", to give viewers a taste of what lies ahead:

[Scene filmed as one continuous steadicam shot.]

[The senior staff are assembled in a briefing room. The camera starts behind Mayweather's shoulder, with Archer in direct sight.]

Archer: "There's been an attack on Earth."

[Camera swings around to focus on Trip and Hoshi.]

Trip: "What do you mean, attack?"

[Camera moves backwards, passing Mayweather, Phlox, T'Pol and Reed, in turn, before returning to Archer.]

Archer: "A probe, they don't know where it came from. It fired a weapon, that cut a swarthe, 4,000 kilometres long...."

[Camera turns, capturing Archer in profile.]

Archer: "...from Florida to Venezuela. There may have been a million casualties."

[Camera moves around from Archer towards Reed.]

Reed: "A million?"

[Camera now slowly moves backwards to behind Archer, capturing all the senior staff in the shot.]

Archer: "We've been recalled."

After the introductions, Bakula gave his own interpretation of Enterprise's new mission for season three. "The notion with the show now is that we're going into this new area to save the world," he said. "No one's been there, the people that have been there have all been killed or turned inside out — alive — and all kinds of gruesome things, and we're going to go and figure it out. So we have a mission, I'm in charge, you know, it's one of those great save the world kind of things."

The actor was so enthusiastic in relating these details that Kilborn asked if he genuinely paid attention to the scripts for each episode. Bakula assured the host he did. "I love it, I'm a sci-fi kind of nut. I try to invest as much reality into it as I possibly can. There's a great parallel the Star Trek world has been able to pull off between what's happening on our planet today, and what might be happening in the future, but has similarities with the world today."

Initially, Bakula denied knowing about Enterprise's renewal for a third season. "Nobody wanted to call me," he joked, but later admitted he had been contacted by his publicist. However, Bakula said he had not automatically assumed the series would be be picked up. "I was the only guy saying, 'Well, let's just wait, let's just wait'."

Kilborn couldn't resist bringing up Captain Kirk's reputation as a womaniser, and asked Bakula how much romance Jonathan Archer was getting. "Bupkis," he replied. "We have trouble getting women to do the show," he added. "They're all like, 'The Shatner thing going to happen to me?' 'No'." This led the host to ask whether Archer could go in a different direction and start "hanging out with guys". "There's always that question," Bakula replied, laughing.

Many thanks to Layla at Bakula Games for the clip! Thanks also to Pam from Bakula News and Miri for sending this in.

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