How Each Star Trek Captain Got Cast
6. Oh Boy! Al, What Do You Mean I'm The Captain Of A Starship?
Scott Bakula was the first and only choice when it came to playing the captain of the first Enterprise. He was, at the time, most well known for his role of Dr. Sam Beckett on Quantum Leap, which ran from 1989 - 1993.
As he was no stranger to science fiction, he settled into the role of Archer quickly, leading the crew on some of Starfleet's earliest missions. The issues with the show arose when it turned out that contemporary audiences didn't react as the producers had hoped, with viewer numbers staying low for the run of the series.
Enterprise became the first live action Star Trek series to be cancelled since the Original Series back in 1969, however recently it has been discovering something of a second life thanks to its arrival on Netflix. The show attempted to combine the optimism of Roddenberry's idea of the future, summed up in the early seasons' portrayal of Archer, with some of the darker shows that were beginning to appear in the post 9/11 world.
Archer went through something of a stark change as the show moved into its third season, with Bakula's performance taking on a much more serious tone. By the show's end, Bakula had cemented himself in the history of Star Trek as one of the captains who combined the action of Kirk's era with the diplomacy of Picard's.