{"id":22757,"date":"2013-01-24T10:57:42","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T18:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/?p=22757"},"modified":"2013-01-24T10:57:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T18:57:42","slug":"billingsley-enterprise-gray-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/2013\/01\/billingsley-enterprise-gray-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Billingsley: Enterprise Gray Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22760\" title=\"Billingsley012413\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Billingsley012413.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"580\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p>For <em>Star Trek: Enterprise<\/em>&#8216;s <strong>John Billingsley<\/strong>, <em>Star Trek: Enterprise<\/em> episodes that dealt with serious issues were the better ones.<\/p>\n<p>So when <em>Dear Doctor<\/em> came along, Billingsley was happy, and for more than one reason. &#8220;I figured it probably would be controversial,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I had, to be honest with you, two reactions to it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->One of the reactions to <em>Dear Doctor<\/em> was a &#8220;selfish&#8221; one, said Billingsley. &#8220;&#8230;It was the first episode that actually featured me to any great extent and it was the first opportunity I had to, I felt, put a bit of a stamp on the guy. So I was primarily concerned as an actor about what I was going to do and less concerned with what the issues presented by the script were. But I had a feeling that probably there&#8217;d be some upset.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Billingsley found the &#8220;issues episodes&#8221; the most compelling. &#8220;I definitely agree that, just for me personally, aesthetically speaking, the episodes over the arc of four years that I thought had the most impact and held the most interest for me were the ones that actually did deal with issues. The cloning episode (<em>Similitude<\/em>) in the third season was particularly good. There was an episode (<em>Cogenitor<\/em>) in which Trip interferes with a couple&#8217;s decision to use their quasi-servant as a person to breed for them. That was one that got people&#8217;s panties in a twist a little bit, and those are the kinds that are interesting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[<em>Dear Doctor<\/em>] was dark,&#8221; said Billingsley. &#8220;It creeped people out: an entire race of people are going to be doomed to extinction. I rather liked the darkness of Enterprise when it chose to be dark. I always wondered, &#8216;Gee, what would <em>Enterprise<\/em> have been like if were a cable show?&#8217; The fans might have rebelled. It might not have been what they wanted, but to me it would have been interesting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Billingsley is still acting, although the jobs are fewer. &#8220;Things were running pretty well for four or five years after <em>Enterprise<\/em>,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But as is doubtless the case with many character actors right now, I&#8217;m in my 50&#8217;s and there are fewer roles, and it&#8217;s a very, very tricky marketplace for a ton of reasons.&#8221; But Billingsley has just finished a <em>Nikita<\/em> episode and &#8220;I&#8217;m doing <em>Southland<\/em> this week,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>When Billingsley is not acting, he enjoys reading and traveling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Star Trek: Enterprise&#8216;s John Billingsley, Star Trek: Enterprise episodes that dealt with serious issues&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2413,2437],"tags":[2623],"class_list":["post-22757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cast-crew","category-star-trek-ent","tag-billingsley"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","newsphere-slider-full":"","newsphere-featured":"","newsphere-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"T&#39;Bonz","author_link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/author\/tbonz\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/categories\/cast-crew\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Cast &amp; Crew<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/categories\/star-trek-ent\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Star Trek: ENT<\/a>","tag_info":"Star Trek: ENT","comment_count":"4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22763,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22757\/revisions\/22763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}