Visit to Enterprise, Oct 11, 2002

-Jonathan Krieger

I recently visited the set of the UPN program Enterprise. This was a huge treat for me, as a long-time fan of the series. I was escorted by the show’s publicist, Caroline Nutall. She made the visit very enjoyable. Caroline went straight from college at Virginia Tech to her current job. She told me she’d moved out to L.A., got three job offers, and took this one. They seem to like her here; as we walked onto Paramount stage 18, Lt. Trip (Connor Trinneer) walked up and gave her a big hug.

On entering Stage 18, I found myself standing outside of the bridge of the Enterprise. The wall holding the main viewer had been pulled out for the shot they were working on. They were shooting a scene for the episode “Precious Cargo” (director David Livingston). This scene, called “Captain Trip”, has Lt. Trip pretending to be Captain Archer (played by Scott Bakula). He begins the scene by asking Hoshi ( Linda Park) whether there are any pictures of Archer in the Vulcan database, then, declaring “we might’s well get it over with”, moves over to the main viewer and speaks with a Vulcan captain (who was voiced by the script supervisor while we were there). There were miscellaneous bridge crew also in this scene.

We watched two takes of Trip talking to the main viewer. Then, Caroline took me on a tour of the set. On stage 18, there was a maze of hallways. First, we went into the cargo bay, which held two shuttles. It took a bit of self control not to start climbing up the ladders or hopping into either shuttle. From there, we went through a corridor to the transporter pad. Caroline said that she’d put her mom on the pad, but didn’t tell me what happened then. I assume she didn’t beam her into space.

We then went to the decon room, where the “shower” scenes occur on the show. Unfortunately, T’Pol wasn’t there. Caroline explained that an upcoming episode would have Hoshi rubbing gel onto T’Pol, who would be rubbing it on Captain Archer, who would be rubbing it on Porthos (Captain Archer’s dog, played by Breezy, who won this year’s Viewers Voice award for Favorite Animal Actor). We then went to the locker room, part of the decon set, just outside of the shower area. Behind the locker room was the cargo hold where, in the first season, a white entity tries to take over the ship. Caroline said it was amazing when they were shooting this scene. They had actors hanging from the ceiling for hours at a time, dripping with white glue. She said the floors were pretty gross.

Then we went into engineering. Unfortunately, the lights were not turned on for the warp drive, but it was still striking. Many times, the sets seem much smaller in real life. Engineering actually seemed bigger than on the show! It was easy to see how the actors could get into the mood. The walls were covered in functioning buttons and switches, which Caroline gleefully demonstrated. From there we went outside, across the street to stage 9, where most of the temporary sets and other parts of the ship are housed. We entered a room that reminded me of the vulcan temple they visited in season one. Caroline explained that these sets are built in less than a week, and that made them all the more impressive. After seeing “The Communicator” (season two), I think we were actually in the interrogation room seen near the end of that episode. As we walked in, we noticed a cave on our right. Caroline suggested we check it out. I thought this was especially neat: you can’t have Star Trek without a cave set, and here I was walking in one. The floor of the cave was real gravel, and there were cobwebs everywhere. After walking a bit, we came upon a temple room with hieroglyphics. Then we went up a steeper section of the cave, which took us out behind the set. We walked around the outside of the cave set and came back into the Enterprise, by the crew quarters. We first entered a room Caroline didn’t recognize. Outside of the window we saw the greenscreen they use to show space outside the windows (more on this room later).

Next we went to see Sick Bay. I recognized an inverted microscope, which I use back at the University of Colorado. The attention to detail on the set was amazing. I noticed tracks on the floor, which lead to an examination bed. That particular bed slides into a big scanner, like a CAT scan machine. I asked Caroline whether she had ever slid in there, and she said it was too scary for her. She hopped up on one of the stationary examination beds. I sat on another one. It sure was neat to be sitting on a bed in Sick Bay; just a few days earlier I’d watched the third show of the season, where Hoshi was inside the sick bay with injured crew members on beds behind her exactly where I was now!

From there we went to the mess hall. Caroline said that they serve real food there and that she’d been there when they were serving filet mignon. Every time they did another take, they would refill everyone’s plates. She demonstrated that the chairs, while very nice looking, tip over very easily. Outside the windows of the mess hall was the same green screen, but on one end it was pulled back to reveal a black fabric with holes in it. It looked a lot like the starry blackness of space. Next we went to the captain’s mess, which I’d also seen in the last week’s episode. So many really good scenes happen in this room.

We then entered a crew member’s quarters. The set dresser explained that this room was normally Archer’s, but that it was being dressed to be Lt. Trip’s quarters for that episode. There were some interesting civil war (I think) photos on the wall over his desk. Caroline pointed out where Breezy’s bed is normally located, when the room is dressed for Archer. We went out the back of the room and, surprisingly, found ourselves in T’Pol’s quarters (an interesting feature not yet used in the show!). This was the room we’d been in earlier; Caroline didn’t recognize it because it had all of Archer’s furniture piled inside. Sadly, T’Pol wasn’t there, either.

We then returned to Stage 18. We had to jump out of the way a few times, as they were replacing the front wall of the bridge so they could get a shot over the shoulder of Lt. Trip as he was talking to the vulcan on the viewscreen. I spoke briefly with Jan Rudolph, the script supervisor. She had previously worked on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, a show that Viewers Voice had supported. I asked her whether she’d ever seen a bunch of weird-looking people on the set of Dr. Quinn, as Viewers Voice members had visited the set a few times. However, she said that lots of weirdos used to visit that set, and she wasn’t sure which ones were us.

Caroline took me around to the back section of the bridge to watch the scene being shot. We sat around the table in the back part of the bridge, on chairs which rotated out on metal swivels. Caroline had a great time swinging back and forth on her chair. I spent the time looking at all the buttons and other set decorations, as Lt. Trip’s scene went on just a few feet away. The bridge is an amazing set.

At the end of my tour, Caroline kindly took my photo outside of Stage 18. The guard was a little concerned by this. The reason I don’t have any other photos is that Paramount is very protective of Star Trek. I would’ve loved to take photos on the bridge, transporter… well, pretty much everywhere, so my students at the University could’ve seen my whole adventure on the Enterprise NX-01. I’m very grateful to Caroline, Paramount, and Viewers Voice for this incredible experience!