Blalock: Femininity An Advantage For T'Pol

Jolene Blalock (Sub-Commander T'Pol) is not intimidated by her status as the female lead of the Enterprise cast. Instead, she intends to use this to enhance her character.

"There's a great advantage in it because, in contrast to Scott's presence — his manly strength, his presence as a captain, his leadership, and it being a testosterone-driven team — the femininity is actually [...] to my advantage," she told the Television Critics Association's Summer Press Tour, via Star Trek.com.

"And it's nothing that you have to push. It just is. And so it's easy to embody that, and it's a great contrast. There's power in femininity that I am still discovering. And it's slight, but it's beautiful. T'Pol is feline in her movements. She's diplomatic with her words. And she's dry. So in contrast to all the emotion [...] it works well."

Both Blalock and John Billingsley (Doctor Phlox) have to undergo hours in makeup to become their characters. "It takes just shy of two hours to get in full wardrobe and makeup," Blalock said. "But you don't feel the ears. You don't feel the wig. They're very well made. And once I'm in full costume, I am T'Pol. It's empowering, if anything."

"I dig it," Billingsley smiled. "My wife started making me up about two weeks before the series started just so I could get a little practice. I echo Jolene. The makeup artists are terrific."

Series lead Scott Bakula (Jonathan Archer) cleared up a lingering mystery about Later Boomers, a pilot episode which he shot just before joining Enterprise. "I played a guest star — it was called Late Boomers, and it became Boomers, and I don't know where it lies now," he said. "But we were in negotiations on this for a while, and I wasn't sure whether this was going to happen or not for a while. And they agreed to have me on that series. It was the actual lead in the pilot, but as a guest — strictly as a guest star. So do it and walk away. And it worked out happily that this came through and we were able to make a deal, and I'm here."

Series creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga talked about the decision not to feature the words 'Star Trek' in the title. "Well, you know, if you think about it, since the Next Generation, we've had so many Star Trek entities that were called "Star Trek"-colon-something," said Braga. "It's just been one after another. Our feeling was, in trying to make this show dramatically different, which we are trying to do, that it might be fun not to have a divided main title like that. And I think that if there's any one word that says Star Trek without actually saying Star Trek, it's the word Enterprise."

Berman also stated that the producers never developed an idea for a Starfleet Academy based series. "It's something that we've never really discussed and never really developed in any way," he said.

When asked about the possibility of the future U.S.S Enterprise crashing onto the series in time for May sweeps, Berman hinted at a possible future plot line for the show. "Well, I think you're going to be surprised to find that there are elements of time travel and elements of the future that are going to exist from the pilot continuing throughout this series," he said. "But I doubt even in sweeps you'll see Jean-Luc Picard making a visit. Probably couldn't afford it anyway."

You can find much more from the stars and producers of Enterprise, including Braga and Berman on continuity, Bakula on Archer and Captain Kirk, and a discussion of Klingon foreheads, in the original report at the Official Star Trek site.

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