JohnBillingsley.Net
June 2005
Magazine: TV Zone
Issue: #190
FINAL DIAGNOSIS
As Star Trek: Enterprise warps towards its conclusion, John Billingsley
talks with Steven Eramo about the show's remaining missions, and his
early experiences playing the ship's Denobulan medical officer.
With most people, there's a level of anticipation as well as trepidation
when starting a new job. John Billingsley knows that only too well. The
actor still vividly remembers his first day playing Dr. Phlox on Star Trek: Enterprise. "It was all about the prosthetics and the contact
lens," he laughs. "That was a big learning experience. That first day they had me come in early. We were filming the pilot episode Broken Bow,
and, of course, when you're doing a pilot it usually takes a hell of a lot more time because you want to put your best foot forward.
"This one scene we were filming took all day, and they didn't get to my
coverage until the very end. After being in prosthetics and having the
contacts in for 14 hours I didn't know what was worse. I left work that
night thinking, 'Oh boy, this is going to be hard!.'" So, how accurate was that initial prediction? " You learn all sorts of things along the
way that help you adapt to the situation," Billingsley explains." For example, how many times during the day do you want to take your contacts
out, or when to speak up and suggest that perhaps shooting time could be
better managed. Those early days, though, were a real eye-opener for me as to what it would be like working in prosthetics for what I thought
would be seven seasons."
Now turn the clock ahead four years. At the time of this interview in early March, the Enterprise cast had just completed filming These Are The Voyages...the show's swan song. Like its modern day Trek predecessors, the series had finally begun to hit its stride this fourth season. Billingsley, however, feels the writing was already on the wall insofar as Enterprise's demise.
"Unless I'm totally nuts, I doubt that it came as a surprise to any of us," says the actor. "I think there was a sense of resignation on all our parts right from the get-go this season, but that certainly didn't affect the quality of anyone's work. In fact, ironically, this was our best season yet. We were picked up for a fourth year primarily because it would allow Paramount to syndicate the show. Once that target was reached, it seemed highly unlikely to me that we were coming back. Still, the general mood on set remained pretty upbeat right up to the end of shooting. I must say that I enjoyed the people I worked with and will miss hanging out with them on a regular basis."
Among the final episodes Billingsley and his fellow castmembers shot is
the two-part In a Mirror, Darkly, which revisits the alternate universe first seen in the original Star Trek series episode Mirror, Mirror.
"Recently at lunch I spoke with some of the effects guys and many of them think this story is going to be the highlight of the season," notes
Billingsley. "Yes, it was fun to play villains, which is what we all are
in the mirror universe, and all the scheming and back-stabbing in the plot allowed for a certain kind of antic quality in the acting. But in
my mind, at the end of the day I'm not sure it amounted to much of anything. The question of any sort of evolution of morals on the dark
side of the mirror is totally begged. You have a two-part episode that essentially turns a microscope on a bunch of
vermin, and I don't quite know what the point of it was, other than to give us actors a bit of a
romp. Having said that, Billingsley is also quick to praise the writers and producers for their creativity and pacing for the episodes. "I think
the story is well-plotted, and that's been a strength of Enterprise, both last year, and, especially, this season. Manny Coto [executive
producer/head writer] and his staff have been able to create more intricate storylines by doing multi-episode arcs. A problem with
being a network TV show is that because so much time is given over to commercials, you're not really able to tell a decent four-act story in a
single hour. You only have about 38 minutes. A two, three or four-part story arc actually gives you the chance to write more elaborate fiction
with twists, turns and surprises."
In the programme's penultimate adventure, Demons and Terra Prime, a xenophobic faction threatens to undermine talks to form the United Federation of Planets. "I rather like these two episodes, in part because I feel as if they smack the template around a little bit," says Billingsley. "One thing that's always bugged me about Trek is this conceit that one day we're going to become better than human. I remember the line from the pilot episode, 'Here we are 150 years since the beginning of the space programme, and we've managed to conquer disease and poverty and are better than other species.' I've found that kind of exceptionalism to be a slightly invidious theme in Trek, and one that's either too Pollyanna-ish or arrogant.
This two-story arc actually has people on Earth behaving atrociously,
foolishly and with prejudice. Oddly enough, that to me was a breath of
fresh air. It really gets at the fact that you're not ever going to be able to completely eradicate the impulse of hatred in some people. You
can, however, try to find specific political mechanisms to put barriers around and harness such behaviour. That's the best we can hope for."
Having turned in his medical scanner, what's next for the 45 year old career-wise? "Going into a show like Enterprise I knew that the potential downside of doing it would be that it might limit my [job] opportunities when it ended," says the actor. "Whatever the fans' response might be, the industry tends to not treat actors from TV genre series with as much enthusiasm as one might like.
"It's also a very tough market now with all the reality programming. A recent study by SAG [Screen Actors Guild] reported there are 25% fewer roles since the very beginning of the reality craze. Fortunately, my wife Bonnie and I have saved our money and are in good shape. Nonetheless, I go into the next stage of my career with question marks. So we'll see what happens."
When it comes to the Enterprise finale, Billingsley has mixed feelings.
"I think what Rick Berman," series co-creator/executive producer wanted
to do in a way was say a hail and farewell to the entire franchise," muses the actor. "To do so, they brought in a couple of characters from
The Next Generation and created a framing device that allows them to look back at a single episode in Enterprise's history. That to some
extent serves to tie the different generations together.
"Candidly, I'd have wished for the final episode to be a two-parter. That would have allowed for a little more scope to the storytelling. So it might not be, in my estimation, as arresting an episode as the fans might have hoped for. Still, it was a pleasure to have Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis with us on set.
"For me, personally, there's not a great deal for Dr. Phlox to do in this story. I'd have preferred to see some of the Enterprise characters have more of an opportunity to have their own stories told a bit more. What can you do, though?" Billingsley concludes.
Submitted by Jo Healy