Billingsley Wants To Visit Denobula

"If we do get picked up for a fifth year...fingers Crossed! My feeling is that Manny [Coto] would probably want to do a little bit more with both me and all likelihood with my back story," John Billingsley said in a recent chat. However, he added, "I am suspecting that the show is going away...obviously with only four episodes left to shoot, they are going to need to wrap up the over arc in the story. So there would be no storylines devoted to me."

Speaking to fans at Save Enterprise - which last week announced a joint campaign with The Enterprise Project to raise nearly $15,000 for an ad to promote the show - the Dr. Phlox actor said that he had no plans in place should Star Trek: Enterprise be cancelled, though he will make a repeat appearance on Cold Case and said he would put himself on the market for pilot season should he find himself out of regular work. In the remaining episodes, Billingsley wished to see a visit to Phlox's home planet of Denobula, and "to meet my other two wives."

"I am probably closer to Dr. Phlox that I have been with any other character I have ever played," said the actor, who described himself as "very happy with the way the season has gone" despite the lack of focus on Phlox. He said he thought the choice to pursue three-episode arcs was a wise one. He did complain that he did not have any scenes with the Orion Slave Girl, "which I thought was unfair." Billingsley refused to reply to a question about which actor he wished he had worked more with because "I cannot answer that without pissing off five other actors." He called the byplay with his fellow castmembers and crew his favourite part of the job, saying, "It's such a great group of people and the crew has been around one another for about ten years, so it really feels more like a family."

The only thing Billingsley said that he would have done differently was to play a more subtle Phlox in the first few episodes, "to try and tone down his chipper quality and his hyper-ness that he has in fear that it might come unpalatably over the long haul." For more, see the transcript at Save Enterprise.

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