Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Jonathan Archer

Behind-the-scenes on Star Trek: Enterprise was a tale of two halves. On the one hand, cast and crew got on swimmingly, became pals (see Trinneer and Keating), and clearly loved working with Scott Bakula. On the other, the ship was barely out of drydock when a sword of Damocles appeared, waiting to fall. For a myriad of reasons still debated to this day, Enterprise lived under threat of cancellation from pretty much the second season onwards.

John Billingsley once pranked Bakula on set with a surprise pregnancy, shouting "J'accuse! J'accuse!" in hilarious fashion. In reality, by the end of season three, network UPN was pointing fingers at Bakula and his portrayal of Captain Archer, blaming him (at least in part) for the low ratings. As revealed in the Blu-ray special feature Before Her Time: Decommissioning Enterprise, UPN even made renewal for a fourth season conditional on Bakula's removal from the show, which Rick Berman refused to allow.

In The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, season four showrunner Manny Coto also claimed that whilst "we were always going to stick with Scott," he did recall that a debate was had about killing off Archer and bringing on a brand-new character to add some fresh drama to the fourth season. Thankfully, that was vetoed too.