Bakula 'Surprised' By Media Negativity

Enterprise star Scott Bakula said today he was taken aback by the negative media coverage of the show's ratings troubles.

"I wasn't quite ready, this season, for us to be singled out the way we were in such a negative fashion," he told Daniel R. Coleridge at TV Guide. "I was surprised by that. Any TV show has a second season slump where viewership is down from the initial tune-in. The reality is, we're one show on a network that's struggling and doesn't have 100 percent coverage [in TV markets] across the country. All we can do is keep trying to make great episodes. The fans that are watching us really seem to enjoy it, and at the end of the day, that's who we work for."

According to the Futon Critic, Enterprise last year scored an average of 5.73 million viewers per episode, but that has slipped to an average of 3.94 million for the season to date. Bakula said declining interest is all part of being involved with a long-lived entertainment franchise.

"The idea of Star Trek has been around for 37 years now. It's always a challenge to keep pumping life into it. It's like, are people as excited to see Terminator 3 as the last Terminator?"

In response to a question asking whether Enterprise is "carrying" UPN now that Buffy The Vampire Slayer has finished, Bakula replied, "I think we have been for the past two years". He explained, "I'm just going by the [Nielsen] numbers. Because Buffy started at the WB, there was a different energy about that show, with all the turmoil surrounding it. The Star Trek franchise has always been a big part of UPN. We've held our own on Wednesdays, though we've got work to do, obviously. There's even more pressure on us now."

The complete interview, in which Bakula also talked about the possibility of romance for Archer, can be found here at TV Guide.

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