Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Zephram Cochrane

8. One Day Enterprise

Cochrane First Contact
Paramount Pictures

James Cromwell's appearance in Broken Bow was more than a welcome delight for Trek fans.

Suited up and a lot soberer than viewers had seen him before, Cochrane's recorded address is used as part of the launch of the NX-01 Enterprise.

Behind the scenes, James Cromwell was only part of the production for a single day and even more precisely just a few hours. Requiring little makeup and performing just one piece of dialogue, the actor was done, dusted, and home for lunch. Fun fact hunter fans, he arrived at 7.30am on June 22, 2001, and was gone by 11.30am. He would also be uncredited for the appearance in the episode.

In-universe, the opening of the Warp Five facility in 2119 is supposed to take place just a single year before Cochrane's disappearance. This mystery would take 150 years to resolve with his discovery by the USS Enterprise.

Cochrane's impact on Enterprise also extended further in that his address to Princeton University alluded to the true events of first contact with the Vulcans, which was nearly derailed by a race of cybernetic beings from the future who were defeated thanks to a group of humans from that same future.

Contributor
Contributor

A Star Trek fan from birth, I love to dive into every aspect of the franchise in front and behind the screen. There's something here that's kept me interested for the best part of four decades! Now I'm getting back into writing and using Star Trek as my first line of literary attack. If I'm not here on WhatCulture then you're more than welcome to come and take a look at my blog, Some Kind of Star Trek at http://SKoST.co.uk or maybe follow me on Twitter as @TheWarpCore. Sometimes I force myself not to talk about Star Trek.